Templeton makes headlines, Bunk follows up on old leads, McNulty takes an interest in the homeless.
"If you have a problem with this, I understand completely." Freamon
First, GO GIANTS!! I hate the cheating Patriots and am glad they did not have a perfect season. The only thing that would have made today better was if it was the Dallas Cowboys that would have won the Super Bowl.
Now for the good stuff...this episode was GREAT!! Here are my observations and thoughts:
1) The episode opened up with Monk and Snoop looking for Omar. Monk was dressed up like police questioning neighbors and Snoop was looking in a hospital for her "brother" Omar. I think this shows to what great extent Marlo is looking for Omar,
2) I was wrong about the encrypted/scrambled phone. It turns out that they use the phone for day-to-day, non-drug related talk. But for any drug-related business Marlo sends pictures. Freamon has not figured out what pictures are being sent because he does not have the equipment capable of capturing pictures - yet (more on this later),
3) Marlo went to the condo where they tried to kill Omar to inspect the scene himself. I thought it was funny how his face looked when he looked how high Omar jumped off that balcony and when he said Omar was doing some "Spiderman shit" by jumping off the balcony,
4) The "Omar Mystery" has been solved. It shows him bandaging up his badly injured leg in a janitor-type closet of the condo building. So my take on the whole situation is that he jumped off the balcony and injured his leg and hid in the janitor's closet. Omar is a very smart person so it is entirely possible that he had an escape plan - that is if worse comes to worse he would jump out the window and hide in the janitor closet on the ground level,
5) I was also wrong on my earlier thought that McNulty didn't know that Templeton was lying about getting that call from the serial killer. It turns out he told Freamon that Templeton was "making up his own shit" about the case,
6) Freamon tells Sid about the illegal wiretap and offers him to get away from the situation as far as possible. Sid goes along with the illegal wiretap because he also wants to get Marlo at all costs,
7) Carcetti held a press conference about developing more water-front property (remember he had to build something with his name on it to advance his political career?) and there was hardly any media coverage. He did get cussed out from one of the characters from ports for closing down the port development. Then he had another press conference to talk about the serial killer and there was a lot more press coverage. Carcetti opened the second press conference with a comment on how the media hardly covered the positive news (the newly developed waterfront development) and how much more media coverage was there for the negative news (serial killer). I completely agree with Carcetti with this point,
8) During the second press conference Rawls was fielding questions from the reporters. Then one of the reporters asked a difficult question (where is the FBI?) and he tried to throw Daniels under the bus by having Daniels answer the question. It was clear that Daniels was surprised Rawls wanted him to answer the question. Instead Daniels answered it well and shined like the next Police Chief,
9) Bunk interviewed Randy and Randy didn't tell him anything. Randy grew a lot since last season - taller, leaner and meaner too. He also said something about Bunk lying to "dumb niggas" and I wonder if he somehow knows about the "lie detector" from this season's first episode,
10) Carcetti promised to do anything required to catch the serial killer in the second press conference but when McNulty asked for more manpower there was nothing to give him except one more detective (Kima),
11) Bunk went to check up on the lab work from the bodies from the vacants and the lab technician told him that a temp employee mixed up all the samples from most of the houses. Bunk was PISSED because now most of the lab samples are ruined. (Notice I say 'most' - see below for more on this issue). The lab technician didn't know what "et al" means and just mixed all samples together instead of keeping them separate,
12) Marlo blamed Omar for killing Hungry Man and Prop Joe. Slim knows Marlo is lying, though. But Rick (the guy who is making $1M on the property deal from last episode) doesn't believe him. He says whoever has the package killed Prop Joe. Later in the episode Omar confronts Rick and tells him to let it be known Omar is looking for Marlo. Rick asks him if he killed Prop Joe and he says he did not,
13) Marlo ran the Co-Op meeting and offered Eastside to Slim but Slim declines. So he gives Eastside distribution to Cheese and Westside distribution to Monk. He also announces there will be no more meetings and the price of the drugs are increasing. Nobody said anything to Marlo about these changes because they are scared of him and his crew,
14) Templeton was interviewed by Nancy Grace because of the serial killer story. One comment: I hate Nancy Grace!!
15) Omar calls Marlo a bitch for hiding from him and not meeting him in the streets,
16) Carcetti's team is trying to spin the homeless serial killer case to make Carcetti and the Democrats look good. They want to blame the rise in homelessness on the Republicans because they took away programs last year that caused some people to become homeless,
17) Bunk interviews Michael's mom and she tells Bunk that Michael runs with those responsible for Bug's dad's murder. When she mentions Snoop and Chris Bunk looks very interested,
18) Even the crime lab is in bad shape. The cutbacks affected it by them losing employees and even equipment,
19) It was kinda funny to show McNulty talking to a statue while he was drinking after he found out he would not be getting any more aid from the Carcetti,
20) It seems like Chris is getting frustrated with Marlo because now Chris can't go near his family because Marlo brought Omar out of retirement by killing Butchie,
21) Omar robbed one of Marlo's crews and burned the money in a car bomb to show that he didn't rob out of greed but rather he robbed to get back at Marlo,
22) One negative side effect of all the media attention on the serial killer is that McNulty can't get another body because dead bodies are getting a lot of attention from all levels of police,
23) When Templeton spent the night with the homeless there was a scene where a bread shop owner delivered day-old bread for free to the homeless. It struck me as cold the way he put the bread on a platter and left it on the sidewalk for the the homeless to eat it. It kinda reminded me of how some people feed street cats/dogs by leaving food out for the animals. I do think it is a very nice thing for the guy to leave the food but it just struck me as a very cold way of doing it,
24) Bunk asks the lab for DNA samples from known suspects (Snoop, Chris, Michael) to compare against the DNA from Michael?s dad?s killing. This is the only time Chris/Snoop beat someone up before killing them and this may come back on them. I think the DNA will come back and match up on Chris once the lab runs the tests,
25) Police found sealed indictments in Prop Joe?s house. This means there is a leak in the courthouse somewhere,
26) Once Freemon figured out they are sending pictures to conduct "business" he tells McNulty that he needs more equipment to capture the pictures that are being sent. It is funny how McNulty gets mad and calls Freemon a "supervisor's nightmare" for always asking for more resources,
27) Templeton interviews a veteran and writes an article on him while he spends the night on the streets. The article is apparently very well written, even by Gus' standards. This shows that Templeton has the potential to be a great journalist but is just too lazy to put in the work,
28) It also looks like Gus is trying to set up Templeton by asking him to revisit an old article he wrote. Templeton responds to Gus that he reinterviewed neighbors and everything is ok. I think Gus now knows that Templeton is making stuff up and will catch him in a lie sooner than later,
29) To get the equipment that Freemon needs McNulty "kidnaps" a homeless guy to take pictures of him and blame it on the serial killer. This will allow him to request a device that captures pictures sent from phones. So McNulty finds a homeless guy and takes pictures of him then takes him to a homeless shelter in VA to get rid of him,
30) Next episode looks great!! It shows Michael arrested in the police room and the Omar talking to Michael probably while robbing him. Can't wait for next Sunday!!!
-mrod
i am zipping my flame-retardant suit up now
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*Nationwide*
