I always thought it must be some kind of shout-out that both Oz's McManus and Homicide's Bayliss were both Tim.(Somewhere Barry Levinson's college roommate who was too sweet to live, gets the shoutout.)

I don't know that Bushy Top wears it on his sleeve like McManus, and you'll find he doesn't have much of a political ethic.(That doesn't stop him from getting laid at Parents' Night, but I digress.)

Ok, you're good then. Lots of people are not comfortable with a showrunner that calls the American ExperimentTM a "Ponzi scheme" so I thought I'd prep you some...don't mean to get all lecturey and stuff, and don't get me wrong, I loved when Toby Ziegler saved Social Security in the dead of night and shit, but on "The Wire" he'd have been SO fired. (Not Following The Chain Of Command.)

ETA: It's clear from this that I love Bushy Top, right? So much so that I wrote an essay about it, not that you should read it now if you want to stay unspoiled.ETA2: My feelings about McManus are a bit more complicated as I am a total McManus and totally believe I could save the world with my liberal wisdom even when the world wants me to fuck off.

Which is different from Jimmy...does it piss off the bosses? Cool...Jimmy's into that, even if it's stupid.

He won't even know who Bushy Top is for another two seasons.

Oh, I thought she was calling McNulty Bushy Top for some reason.

yes. Although that's true, somebody gave it to him that you don't know. I suppose I've gotten used to thinking of him that way.

Episode four has no Awesome Pit Scene! Well, not a funny one, at least. D'Angelo's retelling of his old murder was not funny. But good.

Bodie's juvie has the WORST SECURITY EVER. I...I can't even call him Bodie. That feels so wrong. He'll always be Wangler to me.

Omar's a gay badass ? Huh. That's new.

I loved that basketball scene because it was like, "Here are a bunch of black dudes we've never seen before. And this guy appears to be putting a price on Omar's head while he's shooting hoops. Is that...?" And then he mentions his nephew, and that's all we need to confirm it. They don't even need to have anyone address him by name; we know we've finally seen Avon Barksdale. And he looks kind of normal for a drug lord.

Bubbles is great, but I find him so sad. That scene when McNulty drops him off, it's like...I wish they could put him up somewhere or something.

Why is Lester so awesome?? He just goes off and advances the case forty steps and comes back all unassuming-like. AGAIN. Next thing you know, they'll notice Lester's gone and he'll just come back with Avon in handcuffs and go back to painting his tiny furniture.

The scene where they only say "Fuck" and its variations was awesome. I had heard about it, but it was a minute into it before I realized that's what it was. They just kept on going! Who needs another word when "Fuck" does it all?

I wasn't really sure what was going on in that desk scene. Was he not supposed to be bringing it in?

So the woman at the soccer game was McNulty's ex-wife? Then the woman...oh, bollocks, the woman from the last episode must have been the woman he cheated on her with, huh.

I have no idea what the hell the fat masturbating cop was talking about. It seemed like he went in to complain about McNulty, but he was just saying he was a good cop. What the hell was he asking for?

This show reminds me of State of Play.

I have no idea what the hell the fat masturbating cop was talking about. It seemed like he went in to complain about McNulty, but he was just saying he was a good cop. What the hell was he asking for?

He was trying to get Jimmy out of trouble with Rawls. That cop's name is Jay Landsman. There's a story there, but I feel we should hold it for a little while.

Why is Lester so awesome??

That's what we white-fonted a little while back. The slow realization about the awesomeness of Lester is a real pleasure, because he's nothing but a mope for a few episodes.

I wasn't really sure what was going on in that desk scene. Was he not supposed to be bringing it in?

Just a little metaphorical humor, man. Everyone straining at the desk without even bothering to figure out whether they were supposed to be pushing or pulling.

He was trying to get Jimmy out of trouble with Rawls. That cop's name is Jay Landsman. There's a story there, but I feel we should hold it for a little while.

Out of trouble? Huh. And, yes, hold the story, because I don't know what his deal is. I also didn't get his discussion with McNulty at all about how many cases he'd gotten from homicide or whatever. Also, what is a "clearance"? He said McNulty had given him eight clearances, and one was a decomp that had been in the water for three weeks or something. And this was supposed to be impressive.

That's what we white-fonted a little while back. The slow realization about the awesomeness of Lester is a real pleasure, because he's nothing but a mope for a few episodes.

He just sits there messing with his tiny furniture! And you don't even think he's paying attention or caring what's going on until he says, "Golden Gloves?" You were off in your estimate, though; we find out he's natural po-lice in episode four! Pretty early, comparably. (Before that, actually, I suspected there was something fishier about him, like he had a Past in the drug-dealing biz.)

Just a little metaphorical humor, man. Everyone straining at the desk without even bothering to figure out whether they were supposed to be pushing or pulling.

Oooh, point. That makes more sense now. Unbe-fucking-lievable, indeed.

what is a "clearance"?

Solving a case -- McNulty reports to Landsman, and he gets the job done better than anyone else in the squad, so Landsman is going to keep an eye out for him in spite of his tendency to show up in exactly the wrong fantasy.

The floater would be impressive because it's damned hard to even identify the body, let alone hunt down any evidence.

Simon's homicide police are obsessed with their clearance rates, going back to Homicide -- wherever they stand on the job, whether they're idealists or utterly dirty or (almost always) in between, there's a lot of competition between them, and a lot of personal pride, in turning the red names on the board to black.

Real po-lice never "solve murders" they "close cases".Jay's cool, for being so disgusting, isn't he?

Ha, and now it's Pres's turn to be secretly awesome! He cracked the telephone code with his magical word search skillz! I love it.

And I just realized that the woman McNulty paid a visit to a couple episodes ago is the legal lady. Huh. Wonder what their history is.

So Omar knows Bubbles is a snitch, but the people Bubs is actually snitching on don't? That's ripe.

While it's a lower percentage than Deadwood, there are still times I have no idea what's going on. And I don't know whether I'm supposed to or not.