Brother Mouzone returns to Baltimore (along with Lamar), looking for Omar. After Vinson tells Brother Mouzone Omar "goes around with a young boy or two", Brother Mouzone has an extremely reluctant Lamar cruise gay bars to look for him. Lamar doesn't find Omar, but Dante happens to overhear, and when he goes to confront Lamar, Brother Mouzone captures him.
After a reporter visits Hamsterdam (thanks to Herc), and Colvin is barely able to put him off, Colvin decides it's time to break the news to Comstat about Hamsterdam. Predictably, Burrell and Rawls are both angry and stunned. Colvin tries to mitigate the news by giving Burrell the letters of praise he's received from people and community leaders in his district, and adds while he's perfectly willing to fall on his sword if necessary, he'll go public with how he and the other commanders were ordered to bring the numbers down; he also brings up the reporter. Burrell brings the news of Hamsterdam to an equally incredulous and angry Royce, though Royce starts to re-think his initial impulse when he sees not only the letters, but the evidence of a 14% drop in crime in Colvin's district.
The co-op, fed up with how the police have been arresting people on their corners, goes to Stringer with an ultimatum; either he stops the war between Avon and Marlo, or he and Avon will be drummed out of the co-op, and they'll no longer get the good product Proposition Joe is providing them all with. However, Stringer is unable to talk down Avon from the war, and so Stringer reaches out discreetly to Colvin.
The Major Case squad gets on Bodie's phone after Phelan gives them a boilerplate affidavit, but they lose the phones when Bodie and the others toss them, so they feel discouraged. That's when Lester and McNulty both get the idea to sell the phones directly to Bernard. Using Bubbles (who doesn't know Bernard, but used to know Squeak), and with Lester pretending to be a black market cellphone salesman, they convince Bernard to buy the phones.
Elsewhere, Dennis goes to Hamsterdam to recruit kids for his gym, and Carver recommends kids who were too rambunctious to join in the basketball games there. The other kids are skeptical of Dennis - though he impresses them when he shows the one who gets in a brief tussle with Justin what he's doing wrong - and he loses his temper with them at first, but after a pep talk from another gym owner, he goes back, and they come back to the gym as well.
This episode contains examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Though he's still extraordinarily pissed at Colvin, Rawls does chuckle when they're in Burrell's office after Colvin has dropped the bombshell about Hamsterdam.Bill Rawls: Bunny, you cocksucker, I got give it to you, a brilliant idea. Insane and illegal, but stone fuckin' brilliant nonetheless! After all my puttin' my foot up people's asses to decrease the numbers, he comes in and in one stroke, gets a fuckin' 14% decrease. Fuckin' shame it's gonna end our careers, but still.
- The Bait: Lamar, and he's not happy about it.Lamar: You right when you say I need to learn more discipline. But this...you could do this better.Brother Mouzone: You're the perfect bait, Lamar. They'll see you as conflicted. Your homophobia is so visceral.
- Blatant Lies: Colvin telling the reporter not only that Hamsterdam is a tactical move, but that command is well aware of the situation.
- Blunt "Yes": After Colvin tells Burrell what will happen if he hears his men are being punished for what he himself did:Burrell: Are you threatening me?Colvin: I believe I am, sir. My apologies.
- Calling Me a Logarithm: Lamar doesn't quite understand what Brother Mouzone meant with "visceral homophobia"
- Call-Back: Before giving Carver a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Colvin does thank Carver for the loyalty he showed. Also, Holley had told Kima how Marlo had shot a witness against him one time in each breast and once in the mouth; Marlo does the same thing to Devonne. Also, without revealing his source, Colvin tells McNulty (whom he calls "Bushy Top" again) about Avon getting shot. Also, McNulty thinks he sees Beadie, but it turns out to be someone who just looks like her.
- Continuity Nod: McNulty still hasn't forgiven Judge Phelan. Also, Daniels updates Caroline and Lester about Prez. Also, Omar tells Butchie how the Barksdale crew left his grandmother a new church hat.
- Country Matters: When Stringer tells the co-op people he's meeting with he can't stay long, as he has another meeting to go to, Fatface Rick retorts, "Oh, fuck the meet! You harder to get at than my fat wife's cunt." Even Stringer is shocked.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: After Justin and another member of Marlo's crew flee a store when they hear gunshots, and they pass a dead member of Marlo's crew, they see an SUV approach with Snoop in it, and she yells at them to get in, telling them, "Don't you all know there's a fucking war going on, man?"
- Epigraph: "Call it a crisis of leadership", said by Proposition Joe when he and the other co-op members tell Stringer the bad news.
- Foreshadowing: Brother Mouzone's search for Omar, Stringer's frustration with Avon and Clay, Royce starting to consider Hamsterdam, and the gamble the Major Case squad takes with the phones all come into play in the following episode.
- Funny Background Event: Rawls' brief background appearance in one shot when Lamar is at the gay bar looking for Omar.
- Gratuitous French: Averted. When Rhonda tells Phelan how the wireless companies have them "by the balls", she immediately backtracks, saying, "Pardon my French", but when she says, "This is totally...", Phelan adds, "Fucked up?"; he then says, in French, he also speaks French, and finds her charming.
- Hello, Attorney!: Once again, Rhonda uses Judge Phelan's feelings for her to her advantage. Lampshaded by Daniels earlier:Daniels: Judge Phelan has you on his mind. How long has that been going on?Rhonda: Started with my first jury trial in his court, I think.Daniels: I bet you won all your motions.
- Insistent Terminology: After Rawls realizes what Colvin's done with Hamsterdam:Rawls: Don't you see what he's done? He's legalized drugs!Colvin: Actually, I elected to ignore them.
- Let Me Get This Straight...:Judge Phelan: Let me understand: You want to sell drug traffickers a series of cell phones that are pre-approved for telephonic intercepts. And you want me to sign off on court-ordered taps on a bunch of phones that at the time I am signing the order have not been used for any illegal activity whatsoever.Rhonda: If you're looking for precedents, your honor? There aren't any. It's circumstantial P.C. at best. (swings her leg up and over)Judge Phelan: What the hell, let's do it. Let the court of appeals sort it out, if it even gets that far.
- Monochrome Casting: One of Carcetti's advisers tells Carcetti that he'll need more black staffers on his campaign.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Colvin describes the establishment of Hamsterdam - during his meeting with the mid-level dealers - as this when briefing Comstat.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: When Lester tells McNulty Stringer's calling the western, and jokes, "Maybe he's surrendering," McNulty says, "After all the work we've done, I'd never forgive the son-of-a-bitch."
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Stringer is so stressed out over all the things in his life going wrong that he's started smoking, a fact not lost on Lester.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Burrell to Colvin after he tells Comstat about Hamsterdam: "You! In my office! Now!"
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Colvin to Carver, albeit in the nicest way possible.Howard "Bunny" Colvin: You're a good man, Sergeant. You got good instincts, and as far as I can tell, you're a decent supervisor. But from where I sit you ain't shit when it come to policin'. Don't take it personal, ain't just you. It's all our young police. A whole generation of y'all. Now, you think about it: You been here over a year now, Carver. You got nobody looking out for you, nobody willing to talk to you. That about sum it up? And that's a problem. And I didn't think there was anyway I was ever gonna get my head around it. But then Dozerman gets shot for some bullshit and that's when I 'bout reach my limit. And that's when the idea of the free zone of Hamsterdam come to me. Because this drug thing, this ain't police work. No, it ain't. I mean, I can send any fool with a badge and a gun up on those corners and jack a crew and grab vials. But policing? You call something a war, and pretty soon everybody gonna running around acting like warriors. They gonna be runnin' around on a damn crusade stormin' corners, slappin' on cuffs, rackin' up body counts. And when you at war, you need a fuckin' enemy. And pretty soon damn near everybody on every corner is your fuckin' enemy and soon the neighborhood that you're supposed to be policing that's just occupied territory. You follow this?Ellis Carver: I think so.Howard "Bunny" Colvin: Look, the point I'm makin', Carver, is this soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing. And before we went and took the wrong turn and started with these war games the cop walked a beat, and he learned that post. And if there were things that happened up on that post whether there be a rape, a robbery, a shooting he had people out there helping him, feeding him information. But every time I come to you, my D.E.U. sergeant, for information to find out what's going on out there on them streets, all that came back was some bullshit. You had your stats, you had your arrests, you had your seizures. But don't none of that amount to shit when you talking about protecting a neighborhood now, do it? [sighs] You know, he worst thing about this, so-called drug war, to my mind...it just, it ruined this job.
- The Reveal: Rawls is gay.
- Shout-Out: Banisky, the reporter who is the first member of the media to get wind of Hamsterdam, is named after Sandy Banisky, a former editor at the Baltimore Sun.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Lester and McNulty think of the same idea - to sell Bernard and Squeak cellphones that the detail can tap them - at the same time.
- This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Marlo personally kills Devonne, rather than having Chris or Snoop take care of it.
- Touché:McNulty: He's (Phelan) a piece of shit.Daniels: We're all pieces of shit when we're in your way. That goes with the territory.McNulty: (grudgingly) Point taken.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: The gay bars Lamar go to are made of this trope. Possibly justified as they're being seen through his eyes, and he's obviously homophobic and therefore inclined to see everyone as Camp Gay.
