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Interesting development with Bunk deciding to get serious about his job and get back in the game. Almost forgot what a damn fine detective he was back in season 1. While Lester and McNulty have gone off the reservation, Bunk is determined to go about his job with good old fashioned detective work. New twist on an a classic fable. Bunk is the nose-to-the-grindstone tortoise and Lester/McNulty are the corner-cutting hares. The bigger question seems to be whether if there is any resort possible left, legal or extralegal, by which some semblance of law and order, or even justice, can be achieved?

Speaking of the fate of the proverbial hare, have to reluctantly agree with Papa that fate does not bode well for McNulty and Freamon. They have succumbed to the anarchy and decay that seems to be gaining momentum everywhere in Baltimore this season. Simon has really set this up well. Cancer central is that most malignant of tumors, the elected official. All sense of order is quickly disintergrating. And for what? While Baltimore burns a Democratic mayor and Republican govenor do a duelling Nero fiddle routine playing politics with badly needed funding. Probably more truth in this scenario throughout America than we'd like to imagine. And what hath this personal pissing match wraught?: an underfunded and incompetent forensics lab; underfunded, ill-equipped and disgruntled police department; soul-crushing/sociopathic-incubating social services; and a corrupt court system. The lack of a competent police prescence and economic hope further exacerbates the dire street-level situation and emboldens the likes of Marlo as he does away with the street's own co-op-induced truce, and unleashes anarchy's poster child, Omar, who is left to his own devices to find some kind of justice in all of this mess. The upshot - Baltimore no longer has the infrastructure, institutions, opportunities, nor means to channel the ambitious. Don't you get the feeling that there but for the grace of God, Marlo could have been the toast of Wall Street? And what of the few gains they seem to have achieved? The schools' situation that was dealt with last season is a tenuous situation at best as all season long it has been hinted at being only another budgetary priority shove away from slipping back into bedlam. Carcetti would de-fund it in a second if there is bigger political bang for the buck elsewhere.

It is not just government economics at play. Simon is making sure to inform us journalism in a free society isn't free either. The only news that matters is news that is sexy and sells. Sexy of course connotes "tabloid sexy." Gus is pissing into the wind trying to counteract the "if it bleeds, it leads" mantra. Again bottom-line economics leaves fewer fact checkers and fewer constraints on the ambitious. Combine journalism economics with those of the modern city and voila! the bastard child: plagiarized/bottom-line-corrupted journalism, plagiarized serial killers. Only Bunk and Augustus the editor seem to be coloring within the lines.

I wonder if perhaps the CoOp will be behind Marlo's undoing

This is turning out to be the big question of the season - "will anyone be able to stop Marlo, and if so, then who?" On the street the threat comes from Omar and the Co-op and maybe even Marlo's own people, and on the side of law and order comes the two-pronged attack of McNulty/Freamon and what I think will be a Bunk/Kima tandem. Everything centers around Marlo. Marlo's power is growing and he is the perfect remorseless predator. Maybe no one will be able to stop him. Then again, this show is all about the cycle of life, such as it is. Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, Prop Joe - heavy is the head that wears the crown. In fact that seems to be the bottom line: no matter how much things change, they stay the same. New mayor, new police chief, new crime lords - and the same inevitable results because everyone is playing from the same Machiavellian playbook.

Damn shame about Randy. A kid with such promise has become one more statistic.

Yep, that homeless man bit was bloody disturbing and incredibly sad.

I think Gus already caught Templeton in a lie, he just doesn't realize how big a lie it truly is.

And I completely concur with Andre Royo being amazing. He has brought such life and humility to the character of Bubs. If an episode happens where I don't see him, I feel bereft! He is the emotional centre of the show this season.

Amen. If there is a possibility of any redemptive storyline this season, I hope it is this one. Then again I find it worrisome that Simon may use Bubs as the final nail in his indictment against the sheer despair and hopelessness that is modern inner city America.