Do y'all agree that the hospital confrontation in S1E11 is the ultimate turning point for how we view Rawls? 🙂
Every rewatch just hammers home how incredible the dialogue is during this interaction. McNulty is completely paralyzed by trauma, vomiting into a trash can after listening to the audio tape of the wiretap ambush.
Given their bitter history, you expect Rawls to use Kima's critical condition to completely bury Jimmy's career. Instead, he drops an inspired speech that stands as one of the most human moments in the series.
He tells Jimmy straight up: "Shit went bad, she took two for the company". By telling McNulty that everything doesn't revolve around him, Rawls uses tough love to snap his detective out of a dark, narcissistic guilt trip. It beautifully builds on the competency he showed earlier at the tracks when he moved the milk crates and cleared out the extra bodies to protect the forensic evidence.
The show refuses to let its villains be entirely evil, showing that while Rawls will comfortably exile McNulty to a freezing patrol boat a few episodes later, he possesses the fundamental integrity of a true homicide commander when a officer's life is on the line💯
#TheWire #Mcnulty #Rawls #KimaGreggs