AIN'T NOBODY GOT NOTHIN' TO SAY ABOUT A FORTY DEGREE DAY: I'm not quite sure how to summarize two episodes of The Wire like "Dead Soldiers" and "Hamsterdam," which do such an amazing job of explaining how difficult it is to try to reform the systems you're in. Bunny Colvin can't seem to get the police or the public on board with his idea for Amsterdam-by-the-Bay, Stringer can't get his crew to not be knuckleheads while he's going legit, and Cutty, poor Cutty, well, we can guess where that may be going.
And then there's Tommy Carcetti, ambitious and narcissistic enough to be grinning at himself at the mirror during a one-night stand, yet caring enough about policy to show up at a West Baltimore community meeting attended by maybe ten people, none of whom are actually his constituents, and only one of whom is a beloved deceased member of the E Street Band. He wants to run for Mayor ... why? Both reasons? Yeah, that might be true to politics.
Meanwhile, Marlo Stanfield is our new Big Bad of the season, even if the police have no idea that he's not part of the Barksdale Organization (which Avon is about to rejoin); McNulty and Cool Lester Smooth are butting heads; and no one in the unit is George Washington Carver. Oh, well, here's The Pogues, "The Body of an American."
