SWEEPING LEAVES ON A WINDY DAY: Well, dog my cats. This week's Wire season three episode, "All Due Respect." turns on the difference between one's dog and one's dawg, as we see the diligent work of Baltimore's Finest undermined by an understandable interpretive error confirmed in a well done, darkly comic interrogation scene, made more brutal by the fact that the audience knows the whole time how badly the police have misread things.
In the meantime, both Stringer Bell and Bunny Colvin have had enough with doing things the usual way; Stringer wants less violence, and Bunny less bullshit. Given that this is the Baltimore of The Wire, I'm not optimistic about reform taking hold, but let's see what Bunny wants to do with his "paper bag" approach exactly. Looking to do things the more usual way, however, we see Commissioner Burrell agreeing to a sitdown with Councilman Littlefinger, which for the moment may work to their mutual advantage, and for a second straight episode both Rawls and Valchek seem like more of a solution than the problems they were in season two.
In other news, McNulty doesn't need Rhonda, and Rhonda clearly doesn't need McNulty, as viewers' desires to see Lance Reddick shirtless have been fanserviced once more. Marlo Stanfield appears to be someone not to mess with and, as with the Sobotkas, Cutty is frustrated by the lack of job opportunities in the modern economy, and one fears what choices he'll now make. We're more on plot than theme at this point, but we've got a lot of story left to tell this season.
