The Wire “The Hunt”

One of the best parts of The Wire is how there is a complete lack of individuals who could be considered just straight good or evil.  We’ve seen Major Rawls seem to have a bug up his ass about McNulty from the first episode, and mostly that reduces Rawls to a guy who either shouts a lot or tries to up his own stats in Homicide at the expense of the detail’s work trying to bring Avon Barksdale’s organization down.

“The Hunt” opens with Rawls coming to the scene of Greggs’ shooting.  She’s been taken out to a hospital by now, and Rawls shows some real leadership and professionalism.  He’s even nice to McNulty, who’s really hurting with guilt over the whole thing.  True, Rawls tells McNulty what an asshole McNulty is when he tries to tell the tired detective that Greggs’ shooting wasn’t McNulty’s fault.  As Rawls is quick to point out, if McNulty were in any way to blame, Rawls would be telling him.

Point is, Rawls came off looking OK this time around.  And let’s be fair, McNulty is an asshole.

But you know what happens when a cop gets shot?  Other cops rally to bring the killer in.  We saw a bit of that when the detail raided the low rises and one of the more worthless guys hanging around got knocked over, and Greggs, Herc, and Carver all went nuts on Bodie.  But Greggs was not only good at her job, she was a popular person around the department, and as she clings to life, there’s a ripple effect going out.

Not all of the police reaction is completely positive, either.  The commissioner clearly doesn’t know how to deal with Kima’s girlfriend coming to the hospital.  And considering this episode aired back in 2002, that woman had no visitation rights to see Kima either.

And while real police work is going on to try and track the shooters (two different kinds of guns were used according to ballistics reports), Bubbles is trying to get ahold of Kima for the help she promised.  He ends up getting mistaken for a suspect and beaten.  And yeah, Bubs agrees to scout the low rises to see who’s missing, and McNulty–not knowing Bubs is trying to get clean–gives him a 20 to buy with.  Bubs doesn’t use the money either.  So far, so good.

And Lester continues to impress when he alone realizes the need to monitor the wire taps for more information.  Those homicide guys looked impressed when he gave them some names.  Prez does good too by figuring out another beeper number goes to Wee-Bey, who seems to be number three in the Barksdale organization.

But as for Wee-Bey, Avon told him to get out of town.  Avon and Stringer are looking to figure out their next moves, knowing their organization is shrinking a bit between the guy who has to take the fall for Kima’s shooting, Wee-Bey and Little Man skipping town, and the growing suspicion that the cops know more than Avon had hoped.  That does lead to a mildly comical scene of D’Angelo being taken off by Wee-Bey to a dark alley and small house.  It turns out the place is Wee-Bey’s, and as much as D is assuming Wee-Bey is going to kill him, it turns out Wee-Bey just needs someone to feed his fish after driving him to Philly.

Then comes the moment that would probably end all the detail’s good work.  Daniels is told the commissioner wants a show of force by bringing in everything they can on a single day of raiding.  And though Daniels tries to hide one of the better stash houses from the higher ups, they know about it anyway, which means someone in the detail is a spy for the department.  Much of what’s been going on with the detail shows they need time to build a case, but impatient superiors keep demanding more immediate results.  And this time it may have ended things for good.  Yeah, the raids may have netted a lot of drugs, guns, and cash (Herc and Carver take some for themselves this time), but Avon, Stringer, D’Angelo, Wee-Bey, and a host of others are still on the streets.

Though Wallace keeps calling in to his old friends.  He isn’t digging country living.