"Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc." After therefore because of it.

One of the most abundant fallacies of logic in human thinking.

I smoked a cigarette this morning and this afternoon I'm hit by a car. Did the cigarette cause the hit-and-run?

Marijuana doesn't lead to stronger drugs. People who do stronger drugs will obviously also do marijuana, but not all pot smokers will smoke crack.

Not all GTA players will go out and kill cops or shoot up schools, but kids who would do such things would also play GTA.

Not all rectangles are squares, people.


-Doc

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Great episode, lots to smile about. Lots to be sad about too.

Smiles:

Chris with his girlfriend and his kids
Lester testing Marlo's cell phone number
the look on McNulty's face when he found out the 'killer' called the newspaper
the look on the Sun's writer when McNulty said he got a call earlier that day
Levy smiling in anticipation of a large scale trial against Marlo
Herc doing something useful with Marlo's cell
Seeing Cutty come back
Bubbles is AIDS free!
Omar survived and pulled a Batman!

Frown:

Beadie getting ready to leave McNulty
Dukie attempting to get more street-wise
Clay Davis teaming up with Royce
Omar's plan back-fired

I'm not so sure that Marlo's new communication method is a text message. How hard can those be for the police to get?

If they don't have a method in place, they essentially have to come up with one themselves. I wouldn't expect every police department, even one in a major city, to be up to date on things like that.

Remember, they're not even supposed to be up on Marlo, and I don't think they can get any help from the Feds, who would likely have the know-how and/or equipment to easily decode the texting.

I would think they could just try and get the records from the provider, but again, that's hard for them to do if they're not even supposed to be monitoring that number.

Cheeze is prop Joe's nephew.. The dude that Chris and Snoop had tied up was one of the guys in the co-op that was arguing with Cheeze about some territory that Cheeze was invading..

The reason Marlo had Chris and Snoop get him for Cheeze was because Cheeze did Marlo a favor by telling Chris and Snoop about Butchie (which in turn led to Omar coming back to town). It had nothing to do with Cheeze backing away from Joe.. It least I didn't think so until just now..

He did leave the house right before Marlo and Chris came in..

Either way.. Great freakin episode!!

I'm just thinking that I've seen them decode text messages before. I can't really recall if they actually did, but regardless, Lester seemed totally stumped when he saw/heard the message being sent. Not like Lester to be clueless when it comes to technology.

I see what you mean.

Personally I don't recall them ever dealing with text surveillance before. I'm sure Lester will be a quick study on this either way.

You are on the right track.

It's almost certainly NOT a text, those are basically unencrypted and more or less easy to monitor.

Since he was given an iPhone he could easily have some sort of app that uses an internet based encrypted message. With 512/1024 bit encryption it's virtually impossible to decode - especially by the Baltimore City police.

Whose apartment was that supposed to be anyways? I got confused on that whole situation.

I was figuring it was some sort of e-mail or something similar, but that sounds even cooler for potential Lester Freemon awesomeness. I mean, the dude sold pre-wire-tapped cell phones to the Barksdale crew. The man is nothing if not inventive.


-Doc

Ah, I didn't notice it was an iPhone. Cool stuff.

The guy who was wearing the vest I think.

It was Marlo's apartment.

This. A thousand times this.

I'm somewhat disappointed in Omar. I thought he'd tear down Marlo's business first taking what he values most THEN going after the man directly. He gets a thumb down for not carrying more ammo!

Does anyone else think Scott Templeton is ultimately going to be McNulty's undoing? When McNulty makes something up he's in control and has some shred of evidence to hang it on. Templeton on the other hand is a loose cannon who makes stuff up and McNulty has no idea what he's going to do and that's going to cause a slip up somewhere.

I can definitely see that happening.

I too didn't realize that was an iPhone.

i thought it was monk's (the guy wearing the vest) apartment. i thought marlo's crew was dangling him as bait to get omar to show himself.

Monk was the bait, but the apartment was Marlo's. Very nice plan, but hopefully Omar is still Alive, after all we really didnt see what happened, although it was implied. It does look like he could have rolled into the flower bed that was at the bottom.

As far as the phone goes, It must be an encrypted phone call, if it was a text then the tap wouldn't pick up an outgoing call. The text would just go over without picking up the line. The call that was "tapped" was outgoing I think from Marlo's new phone. All we know the phone has been modified to be "secure" by the Greeks for business purposes. As far as tapping the text pages, They did that with the Greeks didnt they?

Man.. Chris and Snoop are some clever folk eh? Schooling Omar isn't easy and they pulled it off and then some..

Sad to see another one of Omar's boys gettin dead.

I got confused during the end.. So McNulty got them to spring for a wire because Scott said the killer called him.. Right? So they are fake tapping what phone? Scott's or that pay phone?

Also, when McNulty and Freeman were setting up the wire.. They were talking so fast I couldn't figure out what they were doing.. They were running wires and saying stuff but I didn't pick up on any of it.. How are they going to use anything they get off that wire that is really on Marlo's phone for a case against Marlo when the wire is really supposed to be for the serial killer?

They had to go to the actual cell carrier, and even then they had to appeal to the guy's sense of justice. They had no warrant, but the guy let them see print-outs of the texts anyway.


-Doc

If McNulty and Freamon obtain evidence of Marlo's drug dealings and murders through the wire-tap, will any of it even be admissible in court, seeing as how they didn't obtain it through proper channels?

Tis what I just asked!

No, and I'm pretty sure they said this when they were coming up with the scheme. Basically that they'd be able to bring him down for a number of things, even if nothing came from the wire specifically.

I'm thinking they may not be able to use the info they get from the wiretap in court but they can use the intel they get to find other inroads into Marlo's business...like intercepting "packages" before they get to stash houses or finding his stash houses or eavesdropping on meetings like the Co-op.