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.

Post deleted for jacked-up wf. Now, move along, nothing to see here.

DS makes you work for it, doesn't he? He's my fake husband, but he's a total son-of-a-bitch. (What does that make me, besides being fucked up enough to be proud that if he ever saw that, he'd know I placed the hyphens properly.Ink-stained wretch love, it's quite a thing) I could help, but someday you'll be glad I didn't.

MAJOR RAWLS IS A MAJOR PAIN IN MY ASS.

Seriously, it's so irritating that no one else in the goddamn police department is supporting this case! When it's an awesome case with secret codes and pay-phone surveillance and murder-by-pagers.

They killed Omar's boyfriend! And now I'm warming up to him. Omar don't scare!

I groaned and writhed in agony at the fact that AVON FUCKING BARKSDALE WAS WALKING AROUND IN THE PIT AND NO ONE FUCKING SAW HIM. GODDAMN YOU, URINATION.

(Also, it's maddeningly interesting that no one onscreen has ever addressed Avon by name. And, in fact, the only reason I'm positive that he is Avon Barksdale is because he got an epigraph.)

This show just keeps getting better, doesn't it? Because it can't really help it?