Having heard that season 3 would be better than season 2, I had high hopes when I started watching. The third season puts focus back on the Barksdale gang and their operations, and the end of this season will more or less see the conclusion to this major plot in the show. With this season, we get to see a lot more of a political part of what's going on in Baltimore. We follow Councilman Carcetti who is not happy with the current mayor and how the city is run, and starts to plan to run for mayor.

Another key character in this season is Major Howard Colvin, who does some drastic moves to deal with crime downtown, which certainly raises more than one eyebrow. What he does is very interesting both from a socialogical point of view as well as criminal as he basically legalizes drugs. One could argue that it actually works, since they have no way of getting rid of all the drug dealing going on, and with his way, they get a lot more control over it, and violent crimes become a much smaller problem.

Another character of interest that shows up in this season is Marlo Stanfield, a young drug dealer who is more than ambitious. He has streetsmarts and the muscle to back him up, and Freeman and the gang start to look into this character by the end of this season.

Another sub-plot that gets a lot more attention in the fourth season is the focus on the kids living downtown dealing drugs and what not. We follow Dennis "Cutty" Wise as he is released from a 10 year prison sentence, as he tries to get a fresh start on life. Eventually he opens a boxing gym for kids to try and shift their focus and anger onto other things than dealing drugs.

All in all I would say season 3 was a lot more interesting than the previous season. Probably not as good as the first season, but still very very solid. The focus on a few characters from previous seasons have shifted a bit, and it's not so much focus on McNulty for instance. The writing done on this show is some of the best you'll see in television today and I can see why it's getting so great reviews all over. The character development is great, and the mix of humour, action and drama is top notch. It's been claimed that the show are getting so few viewers because of it's complexity and slow progression, but I think there are far too few shows who have this much substance these days. It's a show with a lot of enttertainment value, but it's much more than that. It raises a lot of questions and deals with topics that are very important, and it makes you think. I take my hat off to David Simon for creating this awesome show. I can't wait to see season 5, which supposedly is the last season. I'll have a review of season 4 up shortly.