All Prologue

"All Prologue" is the sixth episode of the second season of the HBO original series The Wire. The episode was written by Costel Tudor Voica from a story by Costel Voica & Emmanuel Kaparakis and was directed by Simon Oppenheimer. It originally aired on July 6, 2003.

Plot

When

McNulty visits his wife at her real estate office and she agrees to go on a date with him on Friday night. When they go to dinner, McNulty drinks only wine and lies to Elena, claiming that he's not drinking so much anymore. She says she's still angry with him but when McNulty asks for a chance to reunite with her, she invites him to bed instead. Later, over drinks, Bunk laments the pressure he feels from Rawls, while McNulty says he wants to make another go of things with Elena.

Greggs meets with Shardene Innes for help tracking down Eastern European girls working in the vice trade. She discusses her strip club assignment with Cheryl, who is angry that Greggs has returned to detective work and insists on accompanying her. A friend of Shardene's tells the detectives that there is a madam who organizes the girls and keeps them at a motel, where they are under guard when not working. After visiting the club, Greggs takes Cheryl to the port and explains how the Jane Does died. Beadie shows Bunk and Daniels how to track container movements on the computer. Beadie and Freamon are able to tie the missing containers to Horseface.

Stringer delivers an envelope of cash to Leech, a contact from Washington, D.C., concerning a contract killing. Brianna visits D'Angelo and tries to persuade him to use Avon's set-up of Tilghman to shave time from his sentence. D'Angelo refuses, reminding his mother that she taught him to stand up for himself. He tells her to let him deal with things on his own and to take the fall for the Barksdale Organization. He then asks her to tell Stringer, Avon, and Donette to leave him alone. D'Angelo passes Avon in the corridor and refuses to talk to him. While working in the prison library, D'Angelo is followed by an inmate named Mugs. Mugs garrotes D'Angelo with a leather strap, then ties it to a doorknob and places D'Angelo's hands in his pants, making his death appear to be the result of suicide.^[1][2][3][4]

Production

Epigraph

It don't matter that some fool say he different...

— D'Angelo

D'Angelo makes this comment when discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby and the theme of Gatsby's inability to escape his past and who he was no matter how much he tried to cover it, a sentiment that D'Angelo shares as he is unable to escape that he is a Barksdale. It also refers to Jimmy McNulty's attempts at reconciliation with his wife.

Credits

Starring cast

Although credited, John Doman and Deirdre Lovejoy do not appear in this episode.

First appearances

• Eton Ben-Eleazer
  : Israeli lieutenant in charge of The Greek's drug supply operation.

Reception

Omar Little's courtroom scene in this episode has been described as the character's "defining scene" and was among actor Michael K. Williams' favorites.^[5]

The Futon Critic named it the ninth best episode of 2003, saying "There's simply been nobody like Omar (Michael K. Williams) on television before and he absolutely steals the show in this episode as he's called on to testify for the D.A.'s office. After being grilled by the defense for his less than moral activities, Omar responds with an amazing, funny and cheer inducing monologue about the legal system."^[6]

The episode was also praised as a 'seminal moment for the series'. The tragic death of D'Angelo Barksdale was highlighted, with one reviewer stating that the episode drew on the show's 'incredible wealth of character and story background' to 'forge a powerfully emotional and meaningful episode'.^[7]

Ratings

The episode drew an average of 4.11 million viewers and was the second most watched program on cable television (after lead-in