Collateral Damage

Guest stars

Seth Gilliam as Detective Ellis Carver

Domenick Lombardozzi as Detective Thomas "Herc" Hauk

Jim True-Frost as Detective Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski

James Ransone as Ziggy Sobotka

Pablo Schreiber as Nick Sobotka

Michael Hyatt as Brianna Barksdale

Bill Raymond as The Greek

Al Brown as Major Stan Valchek

Hassan Johnson as Roland "Wee-Bey" Brice

Delaney Williams as Sergeant Jay Landsman

Maria Broom as Marla Daniels

Luray Cooper as Nat Coxson

Erik Todd Dellums as Randall Frazier

Charley Scalies as Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa

Chris Ashworth as Sergei Malatov

Gerard Ender as Sam

Jeffrey Fugitt as Claude Diggins

Brook Yeaton as "White" Mike McArdle

Plot summary

Beadie deals with various agencies trying to decide which will investigate the bodies she found in the shipping container. The coroner determines the women suffocated because of a crushed air pipe on the top of the container. Meanwhile, Bunk learns that McNulty spent three hours working out where his floater was dumped in order to establish that it fell under Rawls' jurisdiction. McNulty and Beadie establish that the floater that he found in the harbor is related, as there is an extra bedroll in the container. Beadie and McNulty meet with the coroner, who agrees that this is grounds to consider the deaths as homicides.

Rawls meets with Ronnie, the commander of the Port Authority, and resists an attempt to hand off the Jane Doe cases. Rawls meets with the commanders of the other jurisdictions involved with the Jane Does, who all insist that the murders occurred in Rawls' jurisdiction. The cases are subsequently assigned to Homicide, initially to Ray Cole, but subsequently reassigned to Bunk and Freamon. The pair travel to the Port Authority and meet with Beadie. In Philadelphia, where the ship that carried the container is now docked, they interrogate the crew. McNulty awakens naked and hungover in Rhonda Pearlman's bed after celebrating getting the cases assigned to Rawls, while Daniels talks with his wife Marla about his career. Daniels says he will hand in his resignation papers.

Frank meets with his smuggling contact, Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos, insisting on being informed when human cargo moves through the docks. Afterward, Vondas speaks to another man in the cafe, who is revealed to be The Greek. Back at the union house, Horseface and Ott complain about harassment by the police, who Frank learns are acting under orders from Valchek. The next day, Valchek accuses Frank of illegally funding the stained glass window he donated to their church. After Frank threatens him, Valchek visits a property developer, Andy Krawczyk, and learns that Frank's financially troubled labor union has given large political contributions. Valchek meets with Ervin Burrell, in line to be appointed commissioner, and promises to rally support for him on the City Council in return for a detail investigating Frank; Burrell gives him a squad of six men for six weeks.

At the bar, Ziggy asks his cousin Nick to partner with him in selling drugs through a connection named "White Mike." Nick refuses his offer. On the way to a job, the stevedores are stopped at a police DUI checkpoint led by Sergeant Ellis Carver. Ziggy meets White Mike and asks to give him the package with payment to follow, but Mike refuses since Ziggy has messed up his last two attempts. After the stevedores are released, Horseface infiltrates Valchek's district station and steals a surveillance van filled with equipment. He drives it to the docks and La La, Frank and Nick help him load it into a container. Valchek assembles and briefs his new detail, including his son-in-law Prez, at their port side offices.

First appearances

"White" Mike McArdle: East side drug dealer who has supplied Ziggy Sobotka with packages in the past.

CO Dwight Tilghman: Embittered correctional officer whose cousin was killed by Wee-Bey Brice.

Andy Krawczyk: Property developer and political fundraiser.

This is the first episode that deals with Ervin Burrell being promoted to Acting Commissioner.

Reception

The episode had nearly 3.5 million viewers when it was first broadcast on HBO on June 8, 2003, a 21 percent decline from the previous week's season premiere.

For the Baltimore City Paper, Bret McCabe found the "behind-the-scenes in-fighting" shown in this episode among the Baltimore Police to be "rarely" dramatized on television. New York Daily News critic David Hinckley observed more plot and character development in this episode than the season premiere. For The Guardian, Paul Owen praised the "lovingly shot images of industrial decline [and] long roads curving away from factories fallen silent".

In a 2009 retrospective about The Wire season 2, Alan Sepinwall observed about this episode that Sobotka is one of the few characters "who isn't in any way motivated by self-interest" and Ziggy to be "one of the more polarizing characters...so pitiful, so obnoxious".