The Wire (season 2)

"Ain't never gonna be what it was." – Little Big Roy
Members of the Barksdale detail are sidelined to various departments. Jimmy McNulty, now in the marine unit, discovers the corpse of a woman in the harbor. As payback for his removal from homicide, McNulty goes out of his way to prove that Baltimore City Homicide, the department headed by Colonel William Rawls, bears responsibility for the investigation. Major Stanislaus Valchek feels slighted when Frank Sobotka, the leader of a stevedore union at the local port, donates a more expensive gift to a neighborhood Polish church. Suspicious of the stevedore union's source of money, Valchek assigns a detail, led by Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, to investigate Frank Sobotka.

"They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out." – McNulty
The deaths of the thirteen women are presumed to be accidental and Russell is assigned to close the case on her own. Frank confronts The Greek's associates about not being informed of the container stowaways. Despite having no involvement with the case, McNulty checks out the shipping container and points out to Russell that the air pipe leading into the container was crushed by repeated blows from a blunt object, indicating that the women were killed on purpose. Upon reviewing their belongings and speaking with the medical examiner, McNulty concludes that the women were sex workers from Eastern Europe and that the corpse he found in the harbor was likely one of them.

A crew member from the ship where the Jane Does shipping container originated is captured and tortured by The Greek's associates. He reveals that the crew accidentally killed one of the sex workers and threw her overboard. Worried about the other sex workers as witnesses, they killed them too. Vondas then kills the crew member. McNulty again goes out of his way to prove that the murders fall under the jurisdiction of Rawls. The murders are dubbed the "Jane Doe" homicides and assigned to detectives Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon (recently returned to homicide) along with Russell. They hold the ship to interview other crew members, most of them foreigners–all of them pretend not to speak English to avoid giving up information. Getting nowhere, the detectives are forced to let the ship leave.

"What they need is a union." – Russell
Nick Sobotka is concerned over how he is to provide for his girlfriend and their daughter with so few working days at the docks. He and his errant cousin Ziggy Sobotka procure stolen cameras and negotiate a sale with Glekas, another associate of The Greek. Impressed by his business savvy, Spiros asks Nick to smuggle containers with large quantities of chemicals but does not elaborate on their purpose, rousing Nick's suspicion. Stringer Bell confers with Avon about troubles with their drug supply and doubts about D'Angelo's loyalty, implying D'Angelo might offer up information on the Barksdale organization in exchange for a shorter prison sentence.

"They used to make steel there, no?" – Spiros Vondas
Ziggy falls foul of Eastside dealers when he is unable to pay them for a drug package. The dealers take his Camaro as collateral and tell him he has until the end of the week to find the money before they kill him. Seeing that his cousin is in danger, Nick attempts to parley with the dealers and tells them they can sell the Camaro to pay off Ziggy's debts. They give Ziggy another week to pay but torch the Camaro. Attempts to extract information from union workers are unsuccessful, and the spooked union employees become more covert about their smuggling operations. The Sobotka detail tracks minor street dealers. Moreland, Freamon, and Russell move their operations to the detail's offsite office to share information.

"It don't matter that some fool say he different..." – D'Angelo
In a ploy to convince Frank that the police have moved on, Russell drives around in her Port Authority gear and tells Frank she has been reassigned to a different dock. The detail begins to monitor container movements on a cloned computer. Greggs and Prez visit a strip club to speak to a friend of Shardene, who provides details on frequent sex trafficking of Eastern European women through the club. Later, Greggs and Prez follow the workers and their handlers back to an apartment building but are unable to gain access.

Unknown to others in the Barksdale organization, Bell arranges to have D'Angelo murdered, but it is made to look like suicide by hanging. At the request of Nick, associates of The Greek intercede on Ziggy's behalf with the Eastside dealers, who retract their threat to kill Ziggy. It is revealed that The Greek does business with Proposition Joe, a drug supplier on the Baltimore Eastside and associate of Avon. As Frank outlines his plans for the docks, several of his union colleagues express suspicion at the source of his income.

"Don't worry, kid. You're still on the clock." – Horseface
McNulty courts his ex-wife Elena. The two go on a date and have sex, but the next morning Elena tells him to leave before their young sons wake up and see him. After reaching dead ends at every turn, McNulty gives up on identifying his harbor Jane Doe and sends for her cadaver to be donated for research. The detail closes in on the smuggling operations by wiretapping the phones of Frank and Malatov. Nick meets with a low-level Eastside dealer being surveilled by Thomas "Herc" Hauk and Ellis Carver. After tracking his license plate, Carver makes the connection between Nick and Frank Sobotka and recognizes a potential breakthrough in the case.

Rawls attempts and fails to have Daniels take on the Jane Doe homicides. Daniels relents after Freamon suggests it's the moral thing to do. Nick gives Frank the numbers for containers to be smuggled; an initially reluctant Frank agrees to do the job for triple the usual fee, but warns Nick to "stay close". Freamon and Russell continue to study the movements of individual containers, suspecting that many irregularities occur when Horseface is assigned as a ship checker. These suspicions are confirmed when they observe a container being "deleted" from the system and bypassing a port checkpoint while Horseface is working the ship.

"How come they don't fly away?" – Ziggy
Spurned by his ex-wife and frustrated by his career setbacks, McNulty relapses into heavy drinking and severely damages his car. Moreland and Freamon make an appeal to Daniels to get McNulty assigned to the detail. Despite pushback from Rawls, Daniels succeeds in having McNulty reassigned. The Jane Doe homicides are officially integrated with the Sobotka detail, along with Moreland and Freamon. The detectives close in on the smuggling operations by wiretapping the phones of Frank and Malatov.

Several incidents at the port rouse Frank's suspicion: he pays several overdue bills and is told that his cell phone was flagged as not to be disconnected for non-payment. He discovers that Russell, previously thought to be moved to a different port, is still working on the detail investigating the union. Becoming paranoid, he trades out a container with contraband for a clean container in case of police involvement.

"The world is a smaller place now." – The Greek
The detail is dismayed by the sudden lack of activity around the smuggling operations and work overtime to catch up on the changing operations. Herc and Carver, relegated to 24/7 surveillance of The Greek's warehouse, resent their diminished role in the detail. In a change of tactics, McNulty goes undercover as a British businessman to sting the sex trafficking operation from the club visited by Greggs and Prez. This results in several breakthroughs for the detail: connecting The Greek to sex trafficking and drug supply, securing several more wiretaps, and getting the new phone number of a higher-up within The Greek's organization.

McNulty investigates Glekas and inadvertently tips off a dirty FBI agent, who alerts The Greek of the investigation. The Greek repays the agent in kind by providing intel on an incoming Colombian drug shipment, resulting in a multi-million dollar seizure. Valchek is angered by the detail's change in focus from charging Frank Sobotka to tracking down higher-ups in the smuggling business. Embittered by Nick's success with wholesale drug sales, Ziggy acts increasingly erratic, throwing away Nick's proffered cash and plotting to sell several stolen Mercedes-Benz cars to Glekas. On his new territory, Bodie and his crew are targeted in a shootout with the previous dealers and a nine-year-old boy dies in the crossfire. This invokes the ire of both the Baltimore Police and Stringer Bell, exacerbated when Bodie's attempt to dump the shootout weapons in the harbor is foiled by a passing barge.