Acting on Clay Davis's advice, Burrell seeks to burnish his reputation by ordering the department to double the number of street arrests. The mandate does not sit well with McNulty, who sets his sights instead on cracking a string of church robberies. Later, Davis shows he can play both sides of the political fence by making Carcetti an offer with long-term benefits for both. As the weather turns cold, school officials turn up the heat in Prez's classroom, and make it clear to Colvin that there are no exceptions to certain rules. After being apprehended, interrogated and released, Kevin is advised by Bodie to come clean about the incident to Marlo. Betrayed again by Herc, Bubbles decides to get even with the unwitting help of a local minister. Busted by Carver, Namond spends the night in the precinct, then is released to Colvin's home, where he proves, surprisingly, an exemplary guest. Donut's latest joyride ends badly; Randy is stigmatized at school; Chris takes care of Michael's problem.

After flexing his muscles around the city, Carcetti faces his first dilemma when a group of ministers protests Herc's mistreatment of one of their own. Later, the mayor reverses Burrell's mass-arrest mandate, but Burrell still has some cards left to play. Michael and the boys enact an elaborate revenge plot on a mean cop, Officer Walker. Namond makes a leap of faith; Randy gets the cold shoulder at school; Dukie gets a bump; Colvin fights for the future of his class experiment. Pearlman and Daniels raise the curtain on "a new day" in Homicide, to the detectives' delight. Rawls passes the ball to Daniels on the Herc situation, urging the new Colonel to "do the right thing." Later, Daniels resurrects the Major Crimes unit, and returns Freamon to the detail room with new authority and freedom. Reunited with Sherrod, the Bubbles depot rides again, but the good times don't last. An irate Prez confronts Carver for putting Randy in danger, but learns that Herc was at fault for not delivering the boy to Bunk. Omar and Reynaldo pay a menacing visit to Proposition Joe, with their own proposition. Freamon has a revelation at a crime scene that promises to blow the lid off an unsolved mystery.