YAY KIMA IS AWAKE!! I am very excited about that. Not so excited, though, about how Bunk was pushing her as soon as she woke up. I know she was up for it because that is what she asked about and she really cares about the case. But really? To push her to sign off on someone she couldn’t identify just so that they could make the arrest that they ended up making anyway? Corruption, anyone? And then when Bunk goes back to tell McNulty about what happened they called Kima “real police” because she wouldn’t lie to make the arrest easier.

Interesting how Herc and Carver treat each other now since Herc passed his test. But then later on in the episode Carver gets promoted and Herc doesn’t and we don’t yet know why but we find out shortly after that it is because Carver has been in the Deputy Ops’s pocket the whole time. That didn’t surprise me since it is obvious that Carver really wanted a promotion and everyone else down there–save for Herc–didn’t really care about one. When Daniels called Carver into his office and asked him is there anything you would like to tell me I thought Daniels knew about the money and was going to do a prisoner’s dilemma-type deal on Herc and Carver by separating them. I’m sure Carver thought about that too.

Love how D turned at the beginning of the episode, giving up all kinds of information so that he can live a free life afterwards. I think it was the culmination of D being fed up with the crowd that he got himself in with–or, as he explained, the crowd that he was born into. I hate how later in the show his mom comes in and plays the family card like oh we love you and everything we have done is for you and blah blah blah just to get him to drop his testimony and change his  mind. It did surprise me, though, that D didn’t kill the girl from the tap-tap-tap incident. I also liked the line about how he was freer in jail than he was at home–he didn’t have to worry about the drugs and all of that.

I thought it was interesting how Daniels likened himself to the case. How he said that both of them cause too much stink and too much mess to get rid of. It seems like he thinks that the Deputy Ops gave him the case because he wanted to have a reason to get rid of him if he bombed it.

The whole thing with the Federal agents really bothered me. I guess I understand why post-9/11 they can’t take on anymore narcotics cases unless foreigners, terrorists, or corruption is involved. But it really annoyed me how they tried to make the whole entire case about the corruption when the real problem is the drugs and the killing that the people dealing drugs cause.

Interesting how Kima and Jimmy say being a cop isn’t worth getting shot but there Kima is laying in a hospital bed with a bullet in her. I think they whole thing made both of them realize that it isn’t really worth it. Then when Jimmy went to talk to Bubbs and he called him McNutty it made me laugh.

The hierarchy theme which has kind of been missing recently comes back in this episode when Daniels tells Carver about teaching subordinates. He says that what you teach them through your actions is what they will learn. If you only show them that you are trying to move up the ladder, that is what they will learn from you, corrupting the whole system.

The arrest of Wee Bey just seemed way too easy. And then once they had him he was in there confessing to doing crimes that he didn’t do just to let his friends off the hook since he would be in jail for life anyway. There goes the loyalty again. It was also interesting how they went back and forth between Wee Bey being in prison and all of his buddies being convicted.

Many different changes in this episode. Freamon is taking McNulty’s spot and McNulty gets the same speil that Freamon did when he was put in pawn shop. Rawls asked him where he didn’t want to go which Freamon told McNulty he asked him too. And then Daniels is being offered another job basically by a Major that he presumably used to work with.

Poot running the low rises was an interesting scene. For one thing, the couch is black now, not orange-ish red. And I’m pretty sure he gave that kid the same little speech that D gave someone when he first started running the low rises about not taking money and giving drugs at the same time or someone taking pictures could have the whole transaction. It is just a cycle in the drugs.

It was also interesting how the whole first season revolved around McNulty trying to get D and Avon and all of them but when the judge was sentencing D, McNulty wasn’t even paying attention. Kind of weird. I guess McNulty got what he wanted out of this case, besides wanting Stringer too, and wanting them all for longer.

Great ending to the first season.