''The Wire'': An Irish Wake

I had a moment of panic there, when those long suited legs were spread out on the bar and Landsman was waxing on about an Irishman's inconsistent sobriety and hygiene. Come on, this group was too happy to really have a dead McNulty on a plank of wood in front of them, right? That would have just been too cheesy and manipulative a setup — right? — as Landsman praised a man who was ''natural poh-leese.'' Nah, McNulty opened his eyes wide at us at home, and the party began. And, God, seeing those shot glasses fill up and the song kick in and the hugs going round and McNulty asking Lester to come snuggle with him about made me want to be a cop. Isn't that funny? After all the s--- we saw in all these two-bit, shabbily run institutions, there was still the enviable feeling that these people, or at least the good ones, loved their chosen tribes. Prez is happy at school. Gus and Fletcher love their paper. Ronnie believes in the law, and that it can be bent without breaking. Bunk and Carver and Kima, who shook McNulty's hand after her classy, unapologetic confession, love the poh-leese work. Norman, a black Tim Gunn with the bonus accessory of cynicism, gets off on stanching the blood flow of crooked government. And Marlo, so stiff in that suit, trying to play businessman with a bunch of fatsos, looked like he could finally breathe again when he ditched the cocktail party and hit the street. He smelled the blood on his arm and inhaled some corner air and whispered, ''Yeah,'' like an addict might when the drugs kick in.

What a surprise then, with all these people clinging to their identities, that McNulty seems like he's going to be just fine without his badge. He left his wake early to go home to his woman. The scene of them sitting barefoot on the porch, when she finally let her muscles go and laid her head on his shoulder, was one of great, quiet triumph. He didn't pin the other four murders on the homeless man, he went and found Larry, he didn't barf on the corner after last call at his wake and screw some broad while swinging from a street sign. He found his code again and went home to bed.

Speaking of men with codes, Michael is the new Omar. Leading with his hood and the butt of his shotgun, he burst into a shop thick with drug money and demanded a share. I'll leave it to the message boards to discuss the nature of his accomplice, a fey, quiet, pretty boy who looked not completely unlike Brandon. I know, it's a hammy stretch, but come on, Michael is the new Omar. We're going full circle here.

Finally though, I'd like to remember the scene of Bunk and Kima working a crime scene. Bunk, sounding like Jimmy Stewart three sheets to the wind, razzed Kima about her gumption, and she schooled him on the basics of police work. The two were in the zone. I think out of all the night's other images — Bubbles being invited up to sit at the family table, cops singing, ''I'm a free born man of the U.S.A.,'' a giddy child being pushed in a grocery cart on a hot day — it's this one I'll most savor. Good hunting, you two. Hold down your city.

Just one question for you readers: What did you love?

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