I ended last week’s blog entry with a remark about how I hoped the Baltimore Sun scenes would begin fitting in to the main story arc sooner rather than later, and wouldn’t you know it, my wish came true, courtesy of Jimmy McNulty. Acting as a one-man revival of “Dexter” and “The Shield,” McNulty is currently breaking more laws than Bunk can count in his quest to create a serial killer that both the mayor’s office and the police department will actually pay attention to. Planning his killer around two details – homeless victims and red ribbons – McNulty goes back into the vault to find unsolved murders to would bend to his specifications. He discovers two, and makes it three when he plants evidence on the homeless man that he (re)killed last week.

Hoping to grab someone’s attention other than Bunk (Landsman just shoves it aside in a hilarious ten-second scene), McNulty takes the info to Alma at The Sun, who graciously accepts the lead after her last article (about murders, no less) got bumped from the front page in place of a skydiving article. No joke. Unfortunately, her latest story is buried in the back of the Metro section, and just when it looks like McNulty is about to give up, Lester Freamon surfaces to convince McNulty otherwise – suggesting he sensationalize his murder (i.e. give him a menacing nickname, etc.) in order to garner more press.

Of course, that’s just one way The Sun has suddenly become integral to season five. Though the ongoing cutbacks will undoubtedly fuel the fire for the remaining journalists in the coming weeks, City Editor Gus has secured his place at the paper, and you can certainly see why. With friends like Norman (Carcetti’s right-hand man, in case you forgot), Gus is virtually indispensable, and he proves his worth when he squeezes some info out of Norman about Carcetti’s plans to axe Burrell and prep Daniels for the job. Whether or not Carcetti decides to give the temporary position to Rawls or Valchek remains to be seen, but what you can expect is that Burrell is going to put up a fight, and after butting heads with Carcetti later in the episode, his biggest ally could very well be Clay Davis. Shiiiiit, indeed.

And finally, there’s Marlo. After visiting Vondas about a direct relationship with the Greek (and consequently getting turned down because his money was “dirty”), the Baltimore kingpin heads to Prop Joe for help cleaning his cash. Half of his investment is turned into clean bank money (for the Greek, of course), while the other half is transferred to an account in the Cayman Islands. Marlo doesn’t exactly understand the concept of a wire transfer, however, so he hops on a plane and heads south to check out his account in person. Meanwhile, Snoop and Chris hit a roadblock in their search for Omar, so instead, they just torture and kill his blind friend Butchie, therefore ensuring his return. As it turns out, Omar is currently living the sweet life on some unnamed island (whether or not it was the same island as Marlo’s bank is unclear), but it hardly matters now. Omar is back, and Marlo would be wise to muscle up.