Sandi McCree

The BAU travels to Houston to investigate a series of murders that have occurred near construction sites and abandoned buildings.

Herc's soft-duty job with the mayor takes an unexpectedly hard turn. Despite the potential damage to her career, Pearlman provides Freamon and Sydnor with subpoena ammunition for their 'grizzly bear' hunt in City Hall. Carcetti concentrates on games he can win; Namond gets some grooming advice from his father, Wee-Bey; Marlo plays Robin Hood with the neighborhood kids, though Michael isn't taking; Bubbles brings an apprentice into his mobile-emporium business; Cutty juggles his landscaping job with a volunteer gig as a boxing mentor, eyeing Michael as a pupil; Prez braces for his first day as a schoolteacher. At the televised mayoral debate, Carcetti drops a bombshell on the mayor.

Valchek leaks details of the Braddock case to Carcetti, who contemplates how to best leak it to the press. The ensuing negative attention turns Royce against Burrell. At school, Prez's reward/punishment program meets with mixed results. Chris tries to enlist Michael into Marlo's ranks, spooking Randy along the way. At the detail, Marimow sets up a series of street-level 'rips' targeted at Marlo, but his subordinates--and Pearlman and Daniels--are skeptical. Later, Herc and Sydnor plant a hidden camera at Marlo's meeting place, with unexpected results. Burned by Omar, Marlo gets Chris and Old Face Andre to frame his nemesis. Bubbles's efforts to keep Sherrod in school only get him humiliated. Angered by Royce's double-dealing, State Delegate Watkins decides to sit out the campaign, sending Carcetti and Wilson rushing to make their pitch. Although Bunk and Freamon come up empty in their body-hunting search, Dukie knows where the 'special dead' might be hiding.

With Election Day approaching, the three mayoral candidates make last-minute appeals. Carcetti wrangles for votes as he responds to a potentially devastating smear. Norris and Greggs get a lead on the Braddock case, but end up being detoured. Following through on a promising video lead, Herc finds out just how elusive Marlo can be. With De'Londa's well running dry, Namond is asked to step into his father's shoes. Omar is fingered for murder, but McNulty and Bunk suspect a frame. At school, Colvin's special class gets its first enlistees; Prez solves Dukie's wardrobe woes; and Randy is called out on a serious transgression, forcing him to confess to another one. Cutty figures out why Spider, and Michael, might have been avoiding him. On Election Day, Carcetti is miffed when he learns that State Senator Clay Davis has been double-dipping; later, he contemplates breaking some old habits for the good of his career.

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. Michael and the boys enact an elaborate revenge plot on a mean cop. Namond makes a leap of faith; Colvin fights for the future of his class experiment; Pearlman and Daniels raise the curtain on 'a new day' in Homicide. Rawls passes the ball to Daniels on the Herc situation. 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. 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.