The Wire Season 5: "Jimmy The Ripper"

Ripping and running with the best of them, indeed. Beadie can't make this ho into a housewife. I hope she kicks his punk ass to the curb too. Episode 2 of Season 5 finally delivers the long-awaited meeting of Avon Barksdale and Marlo Stanfield. Sure, the West Baltimore torch had long since been passed as of their wink-and-nod encounter at Avon's sentencing toward the end of Season 3, but here we have the two's first exchange. It is a doozy indeed. After flexing his muscle as king of the correctional facility, Avon proceeds to pimp Marlo and Sergei to the tune of $100,000 up front and the prospect of a renewed source of substantial income that could possibly bring the Barksdale organization back to prominence even from behind the walls of Jessop. With the 2008 "I Have A Dream Speech," Avon tucks himself squarely under the covers with his one-time rival to the tune of "Fuck them East Side bitches!" It's funny that Avon and Marlo can be civil past this: Money is a motherfucker. After assessing that nothing neither could nor would be done fiscally from above to mend his broken ship, Jimmy McNulty makes the craziest and riskiest play of his career in drunken assholery. Being the cold case murder capital that Baltimore is, Jimmy Boozetron decides to play around with the canvas a bit. He strangles a John Doe that he an Bunk catch with the idea that he could falsify the emergence of a serial killer. Ironically enough, the media would pay much more attention to a deranged strangler than a Marlo Stanfield. The Baltimore Sun and television news coverage would force the hand of the mayor's office to fund the police department. While most of us agree with the desired end result, we fail to realize that McNutty is just as big a sociopath as the Marlo Stanfields and Avon Barksdales he is devoted to chasing. Much like the gangsters he has been trying to lock up for 4 seasons, Jimmy's imposes his philosophy on life upon everyone within the reach of his Jameson-clutching arms. Enjoy Episode 3 tonight. I seen it. It's incredible. You won't be disappointed.