The Wire (HBO) S04E01-E10

The hidden waterfall at the Lakeshore hotel in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Taken on the 13th of January 2007 with a Nikon D200 and a 18-35mm lens. Part of the Lakeshore Series 1.

The new season of The Wire starts out with McNulty still a beat cop. Lester and the rest of the Major Case Squad are trying to follow the Barksdale money trail as high up as it will go. This is during an election year.

Bunk is still in Homicide.

Carver is on the Narcotics squad. Huck is doing a bodyguard detail for the mayor so that he can become a sergeant quicker. Prezbo has become a teacher and gets hired by an inner city school.

Carcetti is running for mayor, but sees that there is no chance in dislodging Royce.

Marlowe Stansfield moved into the territory of the Barksdales without any resistance. He runs a tight ship, watching for wires and making bodies disappear into vacant houses by his soldiers Chris and Snoopy.

When Lester serves warrants for the money trail to a state senator and other interested parties, the mayor clamps down the squad by sending in Maramo who will shut the unit down. Lester and Kima make their way into homicide, thanks in part to Daniels. Maramo is known as the unit killer.

Huck gets promoted to sergeant after he sees the mayor getting fellatio from an intern. When a witness is murdered, and this fact leaked a loyal Carcetti supporter Major Kolcheck, the councilman uses this to boost his standing in certain districts.

After this, the mayor tells the comissioner, who tells the detective-sergeant in charge of homicide to assign a rookie to the case and take off the veteran Norris. Kima gets it. But again, this is leaked by the same loyal Major Kolcheck to Carcetti, who in turn decides to leak this to a rival candidate, Tony Gray.

With this maneuver, Carcetti sweaps into office and starts making major changes in the police force. He can not fire the comissioner for his blunders, but gives all responsibilities to his deputy comissioner Rawles. Daniels gets promoted to Kernel.

Prezbo learns that life as a teacher in Baltimore is challenging. The kids are all alternative school material, and the street hustlers constantly disrupt his lessons, until he finds a balance and tricks the kids into learning while playing dice, poker and other numeric based hobbies.

Randy, one of his students learns that Lex, a worker for Bodie, was killed by what he said because Lex killed Fruit, one of Marlowe’s soldiers for taking his girl. He confesses to this after getting into trouble over an alledged rape case, where he was the lookout for consensual sex.

Randy and his friends go on different paths. Randy, always the businessman, resells convenience store merchandise to his classmates. Namon Bryce is trying to work a corner and gets pushed into it when the money from the Barksdales runs dry. Michael, living with a drug addicted mom and an absent father, turns toward boxing in the new community run gym. Michael has been marked as a potential soldier for Marlowe and offers help to Michael, but until now he has refused. That is until his brother’s abusive dad turns up again and takes away their food allowance. Michael turns to Marlowe.

Duquane takes comfort in Prezbo’s help, since he doesn’t get the essential necessities of life at home; his foster parents resell all of his things and clothes for drug money.

When they start fantasizing and imagining things about Chris and Snoopy, Marlowe’s assassins, Duquane tells them that he knows what they do with the bodies; they cover them in lye and board them up in abandoned homes.

Omar hits a poker game in which Marlowe was winning. He creates a scheme with his lieutenant Chris to get to Omar. They fake a robbery/homicide and have their stooge say it was Omar. Omar gets arrested and is in mortal danger in jail. But thanks to Bunk’s investigative skills, he gets released.

Marlowe accepts Proposition Joe’s approaches and joins the co-op. With it, he has insider information about the cops and finds out who is investigating him. They loose their phones and play with the cops, after receiving tips from Prop Joe.
The old major is now working for a university professor to try a pilot program at Prezbo’s school. The goal is to try and rehabilitate some of the worst offenders in the school system. The professor tries 18-21 year olds, but rapidly learns that they are too far gone into the gangster world for his kind of help. He suggests younger kids, grade 8 students. Namon Bryce is part of the program and starts to integrate into his new group.

Kima solves the witness protection murder by some clever investigations.

New York gangsters try moving into East Baltimore but get stopped by Marlowe’s crew as a favor for Prop Joe.

* * * * *

It took a while for me to watch it, but I am almost finished with this season of The Wire. I really like Chris and Snoop in Marlowe’s crew, even if they drop bodies like flies, their characters are really interesting. Since I am a teacher, I also enjoy seeing the challenges that Prezbo faces at his school.

Of course, this series contains adult language, since it is on HBO, but that just makes it grittier. I was actually surprised to see the series return, since all of the storylines were rapped up in the 3rd season. For now, the wiretaps have all been shutdown by Lieutenant Maramo.

Suffice it to say, I enjoyed it.