Old Cases

After making a bunch of low-level busts at Franklin Terrace, the task force find themselves unable to get anyone to testify against Barksdale's crew. Bodie (J.D. Williams) is taken to a juvenile facility, where, unnerved by the presence of many D.C. bangers, he quickly escapes. Sergeant Landsman (Delaney Williams) asks McNulty (Dominic West) and Moreland (Wendell Pierce) to look into an old shooting that he thinks may be connected to D'Angelo Barksdale (Larry Gilliard Jr.). Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris) wants the thugs that robbed his crew to be "put on display" when they're caught. Bubbles (Andre Royo) gets a glimpse of McNulty's complicated life when, on a rare trip to the suburbs, he sees the addled cop arguing with his ex-wife. "There's a fine line between heaven and hell here," he tells McNulty on his return to the projects. D'Angelo, challenged by Bodie, tells his crew about the girl he murdered across town for Avon. The judge (Peter Gerety) keeps the pressure on Burrell (Frankie R. Faison) for meaningful arrests in the case. McNulty and Moreland investigate the old murder scene, and, communicating only through profanity, quickly determine how the crime was committed, and even find a slug and a shell casing. McNulty works on getting permission to clone a dealer's beeper. Freamon realizes that the phone number he's found is D'Angelo's beeper number, and McNulty begins to realize that Freamon is a very good cop. Wondering why Freamon was moved from homicide to the pawnshop unit years ago, McNulty asks him, "What'd you do to piss 'em off?" "Police work," Freamon responds. A drunken McNulty later visits Greggs (Sonja Sohn) at home, where he interrupts an intimate moment between her and her girlfriend, to thank her for helping him with the beeper cloning situation.