Richard Burton

Bunk and Freamon chase their crime scene, a container ship, to Philly, where none of the crew finds it useful to speak English. Lt. Cedric Daniels--disgusted with his exile to the evidence control unit--lets it be known he's going to leave the department. On orders from Barksdale, Bell finds a way to set up the correctional officer, Tilghman, who's been harassing Wee-Bey. McNulty pursues the identity of the Jane Doe found floating in the harbor. A pair of young longshoremen--Frank Sobotka's son Ziggy and his nephew Nick--heist a container of digital cameras and sell them to men working for The Greek. After an ominous visit from his uncle, Avon Barksdale, D'Angelo agrees to stop getting high in prison, a wise move in more ways than one.

In the Season Three premiere, a wave of urban reform brings down the notorious Franklin Terrace public housing towers, forcing the Barksdale drug crew to find a new home on the streets of West Baltimore. Stringer Bell sets up shop using a new sales strategy for Bodie, Poot, Puddin and the rest of the gang, as he awaits the return of Avon from prison. McNulty, Greggs and the Detail look to make a case against Stringer with a wiretap on a drug ring run by his ally, Proposition Joe. Assigned to the Western District drug unit, Carver and Herc notch up the pressure on street dealers. Burrell is caught in a power play by First District Councilman Tommy Carcetti, an ambitious young man with roots deep in the ethnic politics of Baltimore. Mayor Clarence Royce, facing re-election next year, puts Burrell on notice that crime stats, and murders in particular, must come down, whatever it takes. The order from on high has put police commanders in the hot seat during the new Comstat meetings, where they are held up to aggressive criticism by Rawls and others before their peers. Daniels, too, is confronted by the reach of City Hall, as his promotion to major appears to be derailed because of his estranged wife's political ambitions. A rash of murders cuts short Bunk's day at the ballpark, as Bubbles and Johnny lose big in their latest caper for cash. On the eve of his parole, Cutty Wise is offered a new start on the outside by Avon, but after being released, he finds the drug life has changed.

Sobotka reprimands his nephew Nick for stealing the cameras and orders him to bring the cargo back--too late. McNulty is on a self-assigned moral mission to identify his floater, but his old partner, Bunk, says they have a more pressing matter at hand: to find Omar to testify against a Barksdale trigger man in one of last year's murders. To placate Valcheck, Burrell asks Daniels to lead the detail investigating Sobotka, and Daniels agrees. McNulty--on his second moral mission of the season--begins courting his estranged wife, promising a new day and a new Jimmy McNulty. Still holding onto a shred of hope, McNulty signs a separation agreement.

Omar continues his bold strikes on Barksdale stash houses, now heavily guarded. Under orders from Stringer Bell, Bodie faces a critical test against Marlo, a fierce young dealer with lucrative corners near the now-toppled Franklin Terrace towers. As the wire on East Baltimore's Proposition Joe continues to yield little, a restless McNulty launches his own reinvestigation of last year's prison suicide of D'Angelo Barksdale. Greggs is also restless at work, but on the home front, she's chafing at the domesticity that a partner and infant demand. On the street, bodies continue to drop, prompting Burrell and Rawls to jack up the heat on their district commanders. Burrell himself is feeling heat from Councilman Carcetti and reaches an uneasy peace with the legislator. The street violence also presents Daniels with the difficult decision of whether to help end a drug war in the Eastern--at the cost of giving up a months-long wiretap. Cheese loses more than a little on his bet at a bloody dogfight and later is hauled downtown for questioning as a murder suspect by Bunk and McNulty. A beleaguered Cutty, once a fierce power in the life, attempts to get on track, seeking employment outside the drug world. Carver, Herc and the Western drug unit take to the street undercover, but a hand-to-hand drug buy goes sour, prompting Major 'Bunny' Colvin, the district commander, to question his thirty years on the force and the legacy of his career.

Ziggy loses his prized Camaro to drug dealers who aren't buying his alibis about not paying up. Unable to dump the homicide investigation on other police agencies, Col. Rawls measures Bunk for the blame, if the cases go unsolved. Weak product in the pit has Bodie getting heat from fiends and slingers alike. Homicide detectives hand out grand jury summonses to stevedores involved in the homicide case, and port police officer Beadie Russell works the lingering affections of an old boyfriend--also a stevedore--to find out how cargo disappears from the docks. Inside the detail, there is clamoring to have the ongoing homicide investigation folded into the investigation of Frank Sobotka and his band of union brothers.