The Wire Season 5, Episode #3

Grade: A-

After an ever so slight speed-bump, The Wire is as strong as ever this week. McNulty continues his headfirst descent into oblivion. Still obsessed with forcing the department’s, city’s, and state’s hands into, you know, fighting crime, he continues to fabricate a serial killer that preys on the homeless. But it proves difficult to get the department and anyone in general to give a damn. His mission is like an alcohol-fueled version of what Colvin tried to pull off during the third season; he’s got the right motives, but his actions are a recipe for disaster. Things will end just about as well for him too. But while Colvin took the fall on his own, McNulty seems intent on taking his closest friends and family with him. Suffice to say he’s even worse than he was at the very beginning of the series, dwelling at the bottom of a bottle and having sex with random skanks in public places.

Meanwhile, Prop. Joe continues to try to “civilize” Marlo, as he shows him the finer points of money laundering (both in the metaphorical and physical sense). Yet Marlo continues to make his power grab, going behind Joe’s back to buy dope directly from the Greeks. And he sets things in motion designed to bring Omar back in town, though his motives are questionable: it will cause just as much trouble for Joe as it does for him, and Marlo gets chance to knock off the one that got away. Playing a game this dangerous can’t end well. Screwing around with the Greeks and Omar is a lot different than muscling 16-year-olds off of West Baltimore street corners.

All the other plot-lines continue to develop: The executive editor of the Sun announces that the paper’s owners have ordered another series of cutbacks, and besides cutting down their foreign coverage, they’re offering another round of buy outs, which means “take our severance package or be banished to the copy desk.” It leads to a rather poignant scene where one of the bought-out reporter commits a final act of good journalism before riding off into the sunset. At the same time, Scott continues to act like he’s piping stories and quotes to curry favor of the editors. It’s never clear whether he is, in fact, making everything up, but if nothing else he’s guilty of being a weasel supreme.

Michael, Duquan and Bug take an afternoon to actually be kids, but no good deed goes unpunished. Things look even grimmer for Chief Burrell and Clay Davis. Both of their number’s are finally up, and for both it’s been a long time coming. It’s almost pathetic watch Clay struggle with the other shoe finally dropping. He still tries to maneuver as he always does, but can’t come to grips with the fact that no one lives forever in Baltimore, even a political hack.

There are no substantial flaws with this episode, but a few noticeable omissions. Despite the fact I was disparaging the execution of the Bubbles storyline during the last week, I missed Bubbles this time around. Meanwhile, Carver, Herc, et al. have been MIA since the first episode. I’m interested in seeing what exactly Herc is up to with the crooked lawyer and Carver’s trials and tribulations as the Sergeant In Charge. But somehow I think Simon and company will make it all work out.