Recap / The Wire S 01 E 11 The Hunt

Season 1, Episode 11

The Hunt

"Dope on the damn table.

—  Daniels

With Greggs in the hospital on life support, the police pull out all of the stops in searching for the shooters. They start by bringing in the go-between who led Orlando and Greggs into the trap but find they actually have little to charge him with. McNulty is blaming himself for all that's happened and Major Rawls is surprisingly supportive of him. Greggs' fellow officers are all keen to find her killers but the Commissioner wants to stage huge raids, including one on the recently discovered stash house. Daniels and McNulty realize that someone in the squad is feeding information to the Deputy Chief. D'Angelo thinks he's had it when Stringer sends him off on an errand with Wee-Bay. Wallace meanwhile is living at his grandmother's but is staying in contact with his friends the pit.

---

This episode contains examples of:

• Bait-and-Switch: D'Angelo thinks Wee-Bey is taking him into a darkened, abandoned, apartment to kill him. It turns out he's just showing Dee how to feed his fish while he's hiding out in Philadelphia.
• Call-Back:
  • The marker print Kima left on her sofa is still there, and seeing it makes Cheryl cry even more.
  • McNulty's "nicely done" to Levy after Savino gets only three years thanks to some legal magic echoes Jimmy's congratulations to Stringer after D'Angelo beats the charges in the pilot.
• Catchphrase: Once again, McNulty says, "What the fuck did I do?", though this time, it's Played for Drama; he says it to Rawls when telling him about Kima.
• Epigraph: "Dope on the damn table", which Daniels says after Burrell orders raids. Of course, while Burrell meant it, Daniels no longer sees the point.
• Foreshadowing: Wallace coming home, and the detail not picking up on it right away, become *very* important later. Also, Wee-Bey going to Philadelphia.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Rawls gives McNulty more of a psychological ego-slap when he BSOD's over Greggs being shot. Given the chief's sheer level of Jerkassitude.
  You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. I know it, and I'll be fucked if everybody in CID doesn't know it. But, I'll also be fucked if I let you sit here and think you did a single fucking thing to get a fucking police shot. Believe it or not, not everything is about you. Get it into your head, McNulty — it's not on you... and the motherfucker telling you this, he fucking hates your guts. So you know that if it was your fault, I'd be the first son of a bitch to tell you.
• Heroic BSoD: McNulty had a pretty huge one after Kima Greggs is shot and blames himself.
• Idiot Ball: A minor one on Stringer, as Avon chides him for not smelling a trap and noticing that Orlando shouldn't have had so much money to buy dope on his own. Stringer concedes he made a mistake.
  • Doubles as Foreshadowing that he "bleeds green", and has a blind spot when it comes to money, thus missing obvious details of a supposed deal.
• Ironic Echo: After Phelan had saved the detail from being shut down, he had crowed to McNulty, "Who's your daddy now?" When Phelan won't help this time, McNulty retorts, "Who's my daddy now?"
• It's All My Fault: Burrell remembers he's the one who wanted the buy/bust, which ultimately got Kima shot.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Burrell is right in that the police should respond in force after one of their own gets shot.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This is the episode where Rawls uses his powers for good, making sure Jay has everything he needs to run the investigation right, and helping McNulty when he sees he's in shock.
• Oh, Crap!: Wee-Bey when Stringer tells him the girl who got shot (Kima) is a cop.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dominic West's accent does slip a bit when McNulty and Pearlman first approach Levy.
• Pet the Dog: Rawls' speech to McNulty at the hospital, though abusive and rather colorful, qualifies as this.
  • There's also Wee-Bey and his fish:
    Wee-Bey: These are my Tetras. Got Kimmy, Alex, Aubrey, and Jezebel in here somewhere. I don't know, she think she cute.
• Police Brutality: Hotheaded Det. Holley beats Bubbles up in the interrogation room, not knowing that Bubbles is an informant.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: McNulty gives one of these to Levy.
  McNulty: I wouldn't wipe my ass with a Baltimore lawyer. No offense.
  Levy: (coldly) None taken.
  McNulty: I mean, I'm willing to let you ratfuckers suborn perjury, blow smoke up a judge's ass, and jury tamper your balls off without losing the slightest bit of my sunny disposition. Fuck me if I don't let you structure your cash into briefcase fees, either. That's between you and the IRS, and neither one of you is anyone's friend, right?
  • He does the same thing to Rhonda after she calls him on this:
    Rhonda: The point is that Maury Levy is a past officer of the Monumental Bar Association, and unless I want to spend my whole life as a fucking ASA, I can't spend my afternoons pissing on people who matter.
    McNulty: Another career in the balance.
    Rhonda: Fuck you.
    McNulty: No, fuck you! If only half of you in the state's attorney's office didn't want to be judges, didn't want to be partners in a downtown law firm, if you had the balls to follow through, you know what would happen? A guy like that would be indicted, tried and convicted. The rest of them would back up so we could push a clean case through your courthouse. But no, everybody stays friends! Everybody gets paid. And everybody's got a fucking future.
    Rhonda: You'll just use anyone, won't you?
• Shout-Out: Detective Holley is named after a detective featured in Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets.
• Stepford Smiler: Rhonda during McNulty's tirade against Levy.
• Tactful Translation: Subverted; Rhonda wants to do this, and starts to say, "I think what Jimmy means to say is...", but McNulty cuts her off.

---