It All Matters

I was surprised that in a show with this much depth - where every scene, character, action and detail does matter - that Carver's insightful verse wasn't this episode's opening quote.

It all mattered to Joe - whose departure ranks near Wallace and Bodie on the emotional scale - who finally got tripped up on one of his own proposition webs. Joe's very cunning, risky power play pitting Omar against the co-op (read: Marlo) last season in order to save himself from Omar turned out to give Marlo the very ammunition to justify to the Greek his accession to become the "wholesaler" of Baltimore drug scene. ("The Greeks? They're cool with it.") Marlo's lifeless eyes while he watched Joe's death coupled with his icy line about his role not being the son was chilling and furthered his reputation as the personification of pure evil.

It appears as though the Co-op may dissolve with Joe, seeing as how Marlo has absorbed anyone useful from the group (Cheese) while eliminating those weaker lions. It will indeed be interesting to see how Slim Charles plays out his next career move. Subtle scenes earlier this season suggest that Chris and Marlo value his skill set, but having been on the wrong side of Omar's gun, I'm not so sure Marlo and Chris are the two Slim wants to saddle up with.

But as always, Joe gets in one last, beautiful line before he passes filling Herc in on the soon to be departing Burrell's membership in the high school glee club, and informing us that he was "stone stupid."

Stupid or not, Burrell played the game for 35 years ("any five of which could get him indicted.") and earned a pretty golden parachute. With Burns at the helm of this episode, we got a full dose of the cop touches including Carver's touching moment with Herc, Freamon's friend in the Southern District who had a dust up with Rawls, and the final chapter - let's hope - in Colichio's destructive career. But his introspective messages regarding the head chair from Burrell were the most poignant. Ascending the departmental ladder just means that your closer to where the bureaucracy begins. You always have to "carry the water" for someone.

You get the feeling, if you've been watching this show from the beginning - not in bunches on DVD, as if Carver and Daniels' promotions carry that empty prize with them. Viewers have grinded out these past six years with these two characters and cheered their success, only to to witness Carver's bleak outlook of how much help police really do for the community and Daniels' inevitable conclusion of not being able to change that even from the highest seat.

In one of the countless interviews, commentaries I soaked in prior to Season 4 with the Burns and Simon, one of their goals was to show the viewer the inception or creation of an Avon Barksdale/Stringer Bell. I always figured it was one of the kids from Season 4, but watching Omar stake out Monk had a sense of familiarity similar to his stalkings of Stinkum in Season 1, giving me the sense that the character they were discussing was Marlo. That brief scene felt like a slow release pay off bringing us full circle, and further slammed home the feeling that Simon and Burns have indeed - after this season - said all that they could about Baltimore and the WIRE world.

Some great small touches were Johnny Fifty - former dock union member - sitting in the homeless village underneath the overpass, the flower vendor from Season 2, Freamon's near bibilical line, "it's the coming out that tells the tale" to Sydnor, or his buddy's ducking out on a shift becoming so regarded that when he finally takes a call on Lester and McNulty,'s behalf he is berated by his fellow night shift colleagues. Nice touch including the voice of the dispatch from the woman who has doubled as the receptionist in the city hall office from season 1, and the school's receptionist in Season 4. (I'm fairly certain she is part of the crew or was someone in Simon/Burns' professional, pre-Wire Baltimore life.)