The Wire, Season 5, Episode 6

“The Dickensian Aspect”

It’s all about the homeless this week. Carcetti is hoping to ride the “homelessness issue” right into the statehouse. Whitting abandoned the schools in order to get “Dickensian” with the homeless. And McNulty’s fake homeless murders are ushering him into a whole new level of depravity.

After Scott’s piece about the “murderer” contacting him makes the front page of the Sun, McNulty is sure of two things: 1) Scott is a weasel-y liar, 2) the city will open its arms and wallets to accommodate his “red ball” case. Well, he was right about the first one.

Although Carcetti delivers an impassioned speech about protecting Baltimore’s most vulnerable citizens (“We must do better!”), he’s not willing to put his money where his mouth is. McNulty only gets one more detective to work the case – no surveillance vehicles, no fancy equipment, and no heavy manpower.

This just won’t do for Freamon, who along with Sydnor – also risking his career now– discovered that Marlo & Co. are using picture messages. In order to intercept them, Freamon needs technology and money that McNulty’s fake case can’t provide. McNulty tries to manufacture another murder, but is unable to after police swarm the scene of Oscar’s DOA. McNulty – who is completely losing it at this point – decides to take it up a notch by kidnapping a mentally ill homeless man off the street and faking his kidnapping at the hands of the serial murderer. He snaps a photo of the poor guy on his cell phone, serving up PC for Freamon’s photo intercept on a silver platter. McNutly then carts the homeless man to a shelter in D.C. Jimmy may be getting one step closer to Marlo with these antics, but he’s also getting dangerously close to an eternity in hell.

While McNutly is off faking cases, Bunk is slogging through real police work. He decides to rework the vacant murders from the beginning, which leads him back to poor Randy. Randy – much buffer and tougher than the last time we saw him – dismisses Bunk loudly, making sure everyone knows his snitching days are over. Who can really blame Randy, though? The last time he cooperated with the police, he got beat, burnt, and sent to a boys’ shelter.

Bunk also comes across the murder file of Michaels’ stepfather. He goes to see Michaels’s mother, who tells him that Michael is now running with Chris and Snoop. Another murder to add to Marlo’s impressive collection!

One murder Marlo can’t put to his name, though, is Omar Little. Omar survived his flying leap from the apartment balcony, reset his own bones, and got right back to terrorizing Marlo’s people. He’s giving everyone a message: Omar is on the streets and waiting for Marlo to make his move and join him.

Honorable mentions:
- Scott can actually report! After five episodes of imagining quotes from thin air, we find out that Scott has the chops to report and write… he’s just too lazy to use them.

- The police find a drawer chock-full of sealed indictments and classified court documents in Prop Joe’s store, leading Pearlman to conclude that there’s a leak in the court house.