The Wire: Unto Others

(S04E07) "Aw yeah. That golden rule." -- Bunk.

This episode is about making things right for some -- but not all -- of the characters in post-election Baltimore. Or at least trying to. Omar calls in the last of his favors. Even so, Bunk at first appears willing to let Omar go down for the murder he didn't commit, until Omar, who may be a killer but believes "a man got to have a code," appeals to Bunk's sense of justice. He may be bad, but allowing the frame-up to stand means the real killer will go free. That's all it takes to propel Bunk into the investigation, which plays out in one those scenarios The Wire does especially well: showing that internal turf wars and department politics can be as much an obstacle to justice as finding evidence and witnesses. Bunk makes an inevitable enemy of the detective originally assigned to Omar's case.

Finally, it's a good week for another homicide detective. Kima finally gets a victory, when she looks into the dead-witness case with "soft eyes." Unlike Herc who, while "interviewing" Randy later, does all the talking, Kima listens and watches the principle suspect in her case. Ironically the elections turns out to have swung on assumptions about that case which turn out to be absolutely incorrect. I cringed when Kima went through that door without backup -- I thought for sure she was going to get shot again, like a couple seasons ago.

I enjoyed seeing Carcetti and Royce, with their respective campaign managers, back slapping and laughing together about the various dirty plays of the tight election. Royce, is surprisingly graceful and relaxed in defeat. He knows that his political career is far from over, I suspect, and it's all part of the game. I sensed an devilish eagerness in his offer to let Carcetti try out the mayor's chair. Now it's someone else's turn to "eat the silver bowls full of shit" -- as another former mayor explained to Carcetti earlier in the episode.

Prez might be inviting trouble for himself and the school with his unconventional teaching techniques. If the bureaucrats get involved, I doubt the fact that he's being effective will carry much weight if they do. His trip with Dukie to the school's storage room is upsetting. There are new editions of textbooks, and even an unused computer, still in the box, just collecting dust. So far the school's admin has been portrayed as competent and committed, struggling under limited budgets and upper-echelon bureaucracy, but I have to wonder how competent they really are, when they don't even use all the resources they have right there in the building.

That was a disappointment, echoing the disappointment Dennis feels that forces him to quit his unofficial truant-officer job for Ms. Donnelly. It's not really about getting the kids to school, it's about locking them in for there one September day and one October day in order to get their budget moneys. Pretty disheartening, and ethical Dennis can't make himself be part of it, even for twelve bucks an hour.

It's doubly tough for Dennis to stay on the path. He has had time to think about how his behavior, sleeping around with the Moms of some of the kids he trains, has made them uncomfortable. Michael seems less than convinced and still regards Dennis carefully from a distance.

Marlo, now bolstered by an alliance with the co-op and the good counsel of Proposition Joe, continue to run rings around the now incompetently-run Major Crimes Unit. But that's not as painful as watching Namond blunder along trying to "move a package." He's bound to get himself, if not some of his very young lieutenants, killed, I think. Another scary development for one of the kids: Randy gets passed of by Carver to Herc, which can't be good, and certainly not what Prez would have wanted when he tried to protect Randy from the system by going to Daniels last week.

All of those situations pale however, in comparison to seeing Bubble repeatedly robbed and brutalized by the same thug. To add to that, when Bubble flags down a cop, he gets robbed again. If only it had been McNulty's car -- but it's the anti-McNulty, thieving Officer Walker, who's already robbed Randy and Omar. He grabs a couple t-shirts and pirated DVD's from Bubble's cart. It's not about the value of objects, it's about the power. He steals just to humiliate his victims. I haven't written much about Bubble this year; but when he started out he was trying to help his young "intern," Sherrod, onto a good path, now Sherrod seems almost certainly lost, andit's a question whether Bubble himself will be able to survive.