Michael Lee flees from Stanfield enforcers Chris Partlow and Snoop, who are chasing him with guns drawn.
Howard "Bunny" Colvin meets with his friend the Deacon to discuss the soon-to-be-axed special class program.
Prez delivers Randy's schoolwork and tells Miss Anna that he hopes the problem will not continue for much longer.
In the morning, Prez meets with Assistant Principal Marcia Donnelly and tries to convince her that Duquan "Dukie" Weems is not ready for high school.
Dukie returns for his last day at Edward Tilghman Middle School, where he wraps up work on a special assignment.
Lester Freamon continues to search the area where he found the body of Curtis "Lex" Anderson in a vacant house.
Sergeant Jay Landsman arrives and orders Freamon to stop opening vacant houses because finding John Does at this stage in the year will destroy the homicide unit's clearance rate.
Freamon's mood is lifted slightly when he returns to the detail office to watch Lieutenant Charles Marimow's departure.
He asks Herc to begin work on requisitioning back their wiretap equipment while Freamon will be at the missing persons department to search for Stanfield murder targets.
Later, Lieutenant Asher returns to the unit and asks what the brass is thinking after having transferred him out just a few months ago.
Daniels suggests that pulling the bodies before the end of the year makes the poor statistics attributable to Royce's administration.
Rawls offers Daniels's suggestion as his own and Carcetti chastises him for thinking of stats, but still encourages him to uncover the bodies before the new year.
He bets that he can open any row house with matching nails and find a body and Bunk accepts the wager.
He is dismayed to learn that none of Stanfield's people are using phones and comments that if the wiretaps had been left running two months ago they would not be facing these problems now.
Freamon first approaches Kima Greggs, but then decides not to ask her when she tells him she is enjoying the homicide division.
Nerese Campbell and Andy Krawczyk, the school board president, both refuse to take responsibility.
Michael Steintorf, the new chief of staff, suggests that the solution is to scale back their budget in all other areas, but Carcetti refuses to break the promises he had campaigned on and Campbell tells him that the only alternative is to beg the Republican governor for financial support.
Wilson shows Carcetti an article, written by Fletcher, quoting the governor about the school's financial problems, saying that the blame falls on a lack of local oversight.
Carcetti meets with his staff to discuss the governor's offer: more money in exchange for greater state control of the city's schools.
Sergeant Carver visits Randy at home and tries to reassure Miss Jeffreys that the danger will soon pass.
Meanwhile, a false shooting is called in from Randy's street to lure away the police unit guarding his house.
Carver visits the hospital and learns that Miss Anna is in a critical, but stable condition with third degree burns.
They tell him that a metal plating shop is an easy place to buy the chemical and that the only issue will be living with himself as the police will not question the death of an addict.
When Bubbles returns to the garage after a long day at work without incident he finds Sherrod's takings on the table.
Cheese's jocular manner is met with stony silence from Marlo, Chris, Snoop, O-Dog and Monk.
Cheese reports the theft to Proposition Joe who worries that the co-op will think that he is withholding the shipment for himself.
The title is a lyric from a song co-written and made famous by Billie Holiday, "God Bless The Child".
There is an exploration of literal or metaphorical parent-child relationships in this episode and their subsequent break-up: Namond is scared of his mother and cannot return home, Randy virtually loses his foster mother in the arson attack, Bubbles loses Sherrod and Prez is advised to have children of his own to replace the surrogate child that Dukie has become for him.
This also ties in with Michael's successful course training with Chris and Snoop, the firebombing of Randy's home (which subsequently causes him to go back into group home care), as well as the difficulty in Mayor Carcetti's handling of the citywide budget and later reaching out to Annapolis for assistance with the school budget deficit.
[2] The show's creator, David Simon, has commented that the appearance was not meant to imply any favor in the O'Malley vs. Ehrlich electoral campaign.