The Wire: Cleaning Up First Watch

July 23, 2014 11:10 AM - Season 1, Episode 12

Tactics shift on both sides after the raid. Pay-boxes and pagers are out, different wires go in. Baltimore PD continues to provide excellent health care for its C.I.s. Barksdale's crew is short on soldiers, which puts pawns in more important positions and sends back-row players out into battle.

"This is me, yo, right here." - Wallace

posted by carsonb (4 comments total)

Where's Wallace?

I love that scene so much, it is just really great every time I watch it. In a way, it is quite ironic that the murder that turns D here is one that is in some sense justified (from the point of view of the gangsters): Avon and Stringer have a list of murders to their name of people who just acted the wrong way, but they actually happen to be right here! This is another failing of the system, with the Detail not being able to protect a key witness: a witness who could possibly have got Stringer.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:28 AM on July 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

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posted by Homeboy Trouble at 6:21 AM on July 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

The cops don't arrest Bell at the end because they don't have anything to charge him with...but does Avon know that? Seems to me that Avon might think Bell is a police informant when he's not arrested.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:53 PM on August 10, 2014

They got Avon on some ticky-tack charge which is why he only went in for 7 on the sentence and expects to get out much quicker than that. If Stringer is snitchin' Avon goes away for a lot longer. Plus, with Avon behind bars Stringer runs the show. He's got way more to gain taking over operations than he does going along with police. Finally, the stigma associated with snitching is an incredibly strong deterrent. Like, it never even occurred to me that Stringer would turn on Avon since they're both honorable men within the context of their personal and business relationships.
posted by carsonb at 6:19 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]