Homicide. A bunch of detectives have gathered to listen as Carcetti busts out his murdered witness. Bunk: "Ohhhhhhh shit." Jay smirks. Norris accepts this latest scrutiny with his usual equanimity.

Odell Watkins watches in his office as Carcetti gets to the (as yet-unrecapped) letter he wrote the mayor, begging that more money be spent on witness protection, and says he even got the state to approve matching finds that Royce's administration never claimed. On this basis, Carcetti advises the voters to consider a change, and as the studio audience applauds (and gets bitched out by the moderator), Carcetti turns a baleful look at Royce, who manages not to lunge for Carcetti's throat as long as the cameras are on.

In Burrell's office, Rawls grunts, "No more surprises, huh?" Burrell pooches out his lips and ponders his suddenly iffy future.

Back at Carcetti's office, his staffers are all barely containing their joy as Royce stammers through a non-answer to Carcetti's charges, and claims to value witnesses...

...as, even at his office, Royce's own staffers shift uncomfortably. Royce finally says that Carcetti very well may have written a letter, but pleads the challenge of running a city on limited resources, and that writing letters won't get the job done. The camera pans to Carcetti, who manages not to look too smug, but possibly only because he's already checked out of the campaign anyway.

Brice residence. Namond comes home to find De'londa on the phone, smoking. He snags one of her cigarettes, lights it in front of her, and non-inhales, and De'londa doesn't bother stopping him, because she's not just a very bad mother but actually a cartoonishly villainous one.

Upstairs, Namond goes into his beautifully appointed bedroom to find stacks of new school clothes -- and plenty of shiny necklaces, naturally -- spread out on his bed. He grins and runs back downstairs, waiting on the stairs for De'londa to notice him and tell him she won't have her son going back to school not looking like himself. By way of thanks, he does a smooch face/shit-eating grin combo, because he never learned the word "thank you" because of his aforementioned cartoonishly villainous mother.

Back in his room, Namond turns on his TV watching about twelve seconds of the debate before turning on Halo 2 instead. Tony Gray is really no competition.