Season 1, Episode 01
The Target
"This America, man."
"...when it's not your turn"
— McNulty
Homicide detective Jimmy McNulty observes the murder trial of a mid-level drug dealer, D'Angelo Barksdale, and sees the prosecution's star witness recant her testimony. McNulty recognises drug king-pin Stringer Bell in the court room and believes he has manipulated the proceedings, so he circumvents the chain-of-command by talking to the judge, Daniel Phelan, who then places pressure on the police department to investigate the Barksdale drug-dealing organization, which, McNulty claims, has gotten away with ten murders in the last year. D'Angelo is welcomed home by his uncle, Barksdale patriarch, Avon, who is frustrated with him for placing himself in a situation where the police could charge him. Nevertheless, Avon allows him to return to work, but in what D'Angelo sees as a demotion, he is moved to a low-rise housing project known as "the pit." Meanwhile, homeless drug addict Bubbles, acts as mentor to another addict, Johnny Weeks, in an ill-conceived scam with severe consequences.
This episode contains examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: McNulty is clearly amused by the insulting drawing Stringer shows him.
- Arc Words: In addition to what's listed above, there's also Stringer telling D'Angelo, "It's all in the game".
- Batman Cold Open: McNulty is introduced while investigating the murder of a guy named Snotboogie. The little episode makes a statement about the America Dream, a major theme of the series, but the Snotboogie murder itself has nothing to do with the plot of the rest of the season.
- Beneath the Mask: It's at the end of the episode do we see that D'Angelo doesn't actually like being gangster, especially when innocent people are killed.
- Black Dude Dies First: Gant, the project maintenance man who had testified against D'Angelo in the Cold Open only to see him acquitted because the other witness recants, is found shot dead, the first character we've seen onscreen alive in the series to be killed.
- Catchphrase: In addition to Carver and Herc's "the Western District way" (also "the Western way"), this is also the first time we hear Bunk's, "You happy now, you bitch?" (also, "You happy now, bitch?") and McNulty's, "What the fuck did I do?"
- Decade Dissonance: While the FBI has the latest in technology, the Narcotics department is using manual typewriters and still waiting for computers.
- Epigraph: "...when it's not your turn...", by McNulty; Bunk says it later after he hears about the shit McNulty stirred up.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- This won't be the last time McNulty goes outside the chain of command just because he's told he can't do something.
- Rawls Flipping the Bird and chewing out McNulty for unsanctioned police work.
- Stringer is first shown studiously writing in a journal during the trial, giving the impression he's serious minded and intelligent. But then it's revealed all he's been doing is doodling, showing that underneath the veneer of intelligence he projects, Stringer is still little more than a street hoodlum.
- Establishing Series Moment: The series starts with Officer McNulty talking with a witness and investigating a murder. The subject of the conversation (not about what happened, but about who the victim was) establishes that the series has a rather different outlook than your usual Police Procedural, and the tone of the conversation demonstrates where the show stands on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism.
- The Evils of Free Will: The guy Jimmy talks to says that they always let Snot play dice with even if he's a thief because "this America, man".
- Flashback: The only time the show ever did one is when D'Angelo, upon seeing Gant's dead body, remembers Gant identifying him in court. Word of God says HBO was concerned viewers wouldn't recognize Gant otherwise, and concedes they might have been right.
- Foreshadowing:
- Gant's murder will become very important over the next season and a half.
- Also, McNulty saying he wouldn't mind walking a beat in the western, but doesn't want to be in the Marine unit.
- There's a ship in a bottle on Rawls' desk, which seems to also foreshadow McNulty's future.
- Grammar Nazi: Rawls insists that McNulty's punishment report be written in a certain format with no spelling mistakes. And be sure to use those little dots. The deputy likes dots. When Jimmy relates his task to his Sergeant, Jay Landsman doesn't give a shit about it.
- Landsman: Fuck you and your dots.
- Hypocrite: D'Angelo chews Wallace out for being dumb enough not to recognize "Money be green!", but also doesn't believe Wallace when he points out U.S. Presidents aren't the only ones whose faces are on bills.
- Mirroring Factions: One of the major points of the series is established here in the pilot, that both the police department and the drug trade are hierarchical organizations that may not have the same ends, but run themselves in similar ways.
- Mixed Metaphor: Herc says piss always rolls downhill; Carver points out it's shit that does that.
- Quip to Black: Played With in an effort to distinguish the series from traditional cop shows. The show opens with McNulty questioning a witness about a dead kid named "Snot Boogie," a knucklehead who always hung around the local craps games and tried to steal the winnings because he "couldn't help himself." So McNulty asks why they kept letting him hang around if they knew he was going to grab the cash, and the kid says "You got to. This is America, man." The somber theme song "Way Down in the Hole" dampens the humor of the moment, but the characters find it hilarious, since McNulty opens the next scene by re-telling the story to Bunk.
- Roman à Clef: The opening exchange between McNulty and Snot Boogie's friend comes from an anecdote in David Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, as does Bunk's story about killing a mouse with his gun. Also, we hear reference to Sergeants Terry McLarney and Roger Nolan, two of the detectives in the Homicide unit whom Simon reported on in that book.
- Shout-Out: Before saying his catch phrase, McNulty compares himself to the Colonel at the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai.
- Welcome Episode: D'Angelo getting assigned to The Pit.
