TVSquad

(S04E05) "If you with us, you with us." -- Chris Partlow.

In the opener (and does any other show have such consistently clever opening scenes?) the kids are shown being kids. The four boys, who have been forced by circumstances to grow up fast, are still capable of more than half-believing in zombies like the ones they see in horror movies. Late one night they tell each other scary stories. But they're imaginings aren't that far off the mark, when they credit Marlo's enforcer Chris with making zombies. Another kind of zombie -- an addict created by the likes of Chris and Marlo -- stumbles down the alley and the boys flee in terror. The devil's hard to keep down in the hole ...

Seems anything the brass pulls when attempting to support the mayor gets immediately leaked to candidate Carcetti's camp. Valchek is positively giddy at the possibility of a new (and white) mayor. Carcetti's camp continues to play its limited cards exceedingly well -- this time triangulating by feeding dirt to third-party candidate Tony Gray's camp. I sure didn't expect that rapid turn around.

Freshly shaven Mayor Royce comes down so strongly on Commissioner Burrell that he may well be forcing Burrell over to Carcetti's camp too. Royce evidently thinks that he's now picked the right man to attempt to reverse the scandal -- the coolly devious Rawls -- but never mind; Royce may have put the last nail in his own coffin when he double-talked Delegate Watkins one time to many.

Naturally, Kima Greggs, the actual "rookie" detective assigned to the dead-witness investigation, sees the media exposure as an attack on her. Little does she suspect the politicians are totally indifferent to her.

The word that Prop Joe knew that Marlo's card game was going to "get took" makes its way around. And it appears Prop Joe really used the card game stick-up -- not to set Omar and Marlo against each other, as I thought -- but to demonstrate to Marlo the value of having friends like the co-op. Joe's a few steps ahead as usual.

On The Wire, effects and counter-effects ripple through Baltimore -- self-motivated actions of people who may never even meet -- and alter lives forever. That just one more thing making this show so fascinating to watch -- all these self-interested human beings struggling and working at such tragically (and sometimes comically) cross-purposes. No one helpfully blurts out a confession on the witness stand in the final act, no on finds a perfect DNA match off a tweezered eyelash cross-referenced through the Interpol database.

At Tillman Middle, a light seems to have gone off in Prez's head. He's connecting with the kids, allowing any of them who want to hang out in his classroom at lunchtime do so, and many of the kids genuinely seem like him. Forty or so of the 240 regular attending eight-graders are identified as "corner kids" which means that the vast majorityare good kids, their education being held hostage by disruptive elements. This time, if Bunny's attempt at system reform backfires, it'll be the school's principal that'll pay the price -- not Bunny, though Bunny certainly knows what happens in Baltimore if you put your career on the line. But Principle Withers is willing to take the risk. He tells Bunny: "Just so you hear it: thank you. It'll be the only times anybody in the system thinks to say it."