''The Wire'': Who Killed Cocky Robin Hood?

Share this article

• Tweet

All About

The Wire

Get the latest photos, news, and more

And even Bunk (oh, how I will miss him and his cigar at the end of all this) took a little advantage of the serial-killer biz to rush the DNA results on his cold case. He's been the perfect counterbalance to McNulty's cowboy this season. ''No shucking, no jiving, just good old police work,'' he barked at his old friend. So the lab proved Chris is his man, and it'll be good to see Bunk take the bastard down. And after the way Snoop and Chris dismissed Michael, who warned that an egomaniac like Marlo would want to know if his name was being dogged on the streets, it's easy to think those thugs will try to take the kid with them. Just leave Bug alone, for the love of God!

A final musing about Dukie. It was worrisome seeing him take to the streets last night, bored and kicking cans as he got shot down from job after job. (Poot, who I can never really forgive after he went after my beloved Wallace, was in ref stripes at a sneaker store saying Dukie had to bang a little while longer until he was old enough to get a job there. It's kind of like being told as a teenager that you can go off to fight in a war but you still can't buy yourself a drink.) But then Dukie hooked up with a junk man who at first I thought was Bubbles, and I hallelujahed that the two were finally going to connect. Alas, it was another junk man. Now am I nuts, or wasn't Bubbles once running a similar trade, selling Hanes T-shirts and whatnot out of his cart? So then, here's my question to you: Could The Wire be setting us up to see Dukie as a younger Bubbles, a good, heartful boy who couldn't make it out of the neighborhood, inevitably stumbled into a poisonous life of drugs, but 20 years from now might, if he's crazy lucky, straighten up the way Bubbles seems to be doing himself. Oh, Dukie dear, I think I'd rather you go the dancer route.

Oh, fine, one more line of the night, this exchange between Gus and another newsman: ''Weird shit, talking to a psychopath like that.'' ''I talked to Dick Cheney once.''

But what did you all think? Is McNulty slammer bound? Can you spit like Snoop? Is the newspaper angle as invigorating to you as past seasons' themes, or has it already wrung itself dry? And with Omar gone, is Bunk your new favorite character?