Slapstick

The Wire 3×9

Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: On a Sunday? What the fuck, Lester?
Det. Lester Freamon: Could say the same of you.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Elena's taken the kids to her mother's, what the fuck else am I gonna do? No life, no marriage, no kids... No problem.

Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: I do believe there aren't five swinging dicks in this entire department can do what we do. I'm not saying all chest-out and shit. It's just... I mean, you think about it, there's maybe, what, 3,000 sworn, right? Hundred or so are bosses, so there's not a fucking clue there. Few more hundred is sergeants and lieutenants, most of them wanna be bosses. Then there's 600 or 700 fucking housecats, you know, deskmen. The patrol division? There's probably a little bit of talent there but the way the city is right now, that's 1,500 guys chasing calls and clearing corners. I mean, nobody's knowing his post, nobody's building nothing, right? CID's the same, catching calls, chasing quick clearances, keeping everything in the shallow end. I mean, who is there out there can do what we can do with a case? How many are there really? Don Worden, Ed Burns, Gary Childs out in the county, John O'Neil and Steve Cleary over at Woodlawn. Oh, they bring it in, but there's not many. There's not many... We're good at this, Lester. In this town, we're as good as it gets.
Det. Lester Freamon: Natural police.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Fuck, yes, natural police.

Det. Lester Freamon: Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: What do you mean?
Det. Lester Freamon: A parade? A golden watch? A shining Jimmy-McNulty-Day moment when you bring in a case so sweet everybody says, "Aw, shit, he was right all along. We should have listened to the man." The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your ass up.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: I don't know. A good case...
Det. Lester Freamon: Ends. They all end. The handcuffs go click and it's over. And the next morning it's just you in your room with yourself.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Until the next case.
Det. Lester Freamon: Boy, you need something outside of this here.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Like what? Dollhouse miniatures?

Avon Barksdale: On a Sunday morning?
Russell 'Stringer' Bell: Yo, I don't give a fuck, man. I hear that name, I ain't thinking about a church day.
Avon Barksdale: The Sunday truce has been around as long as the game itself, man... You can do some shit and be, like, "What the fuck?" But just never on no Sunday.

Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: You do the cookie first?
Det. Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski: What's the difference?... "A new friend makes himself known."
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: "Himself?" If it was "herself," then you'd have a fortune.

Lt. Cedric Daniels: Everyone knows you had no intention of... But administratively, you need to be careful because of the racial thing. You see that, right? There's gonna be people in the department who see this that way. You see that, right?
Det. Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski: I wasn't scared, I wasn't angry. I didn't give a shit he was black or whatever... Or maybe I did. How the fuck do you know if that's in your head or not?

Brianna Barksdale: The cop said it was someone who didn't want you to know and so they made it look like it did?
Avon Barksdale: Nobody did nothing.
Brianna Barksdale: But the cop said...
Avon Barksdale: He's lying. He paid to lie.

Theresa D'Agostino: I went to UM Law so I still have connections there. I grew up in Homeland.
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Yeah? Lauraville for me.
Theresa D'Agostino: Where did you go to college?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Loyola. Only one year. My girlfriend got pregnant, so...
Theresa D'Agostino: So?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: So, uh...
Theresa D'Agostino: So you became a cop in Baltimore. How's that working for you?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: It's pretty good. You know. I do a lot of high-end drug stuff. Wiretaps. Prolonged investigations of violent offenders, that kind of stuff... There's not a lot of guys in the department can do that kind of thing. It takes a certain... I don't know, you gotta love it. Thrill of the chase and all that.

Theresa D'Agostino: Who did you vote for this time?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: What, you mean Bush and whatshisname?
Theresa D'Agostino: Kerry. You didn't vote for president?
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: I thought about it and you know... Bush seemed way over his head, I know, but he wasn't gonna win in Maryland anyhow. Besides, these guys, it doesn't matter who you got. None of them has a clue what's really going on. Where I'm working every day, the only way any of them will even find West Baltimore is if, I don't know, Air Force One crash-lands into Monroe Street on its way back to Andrews. It just never connects... Not to what I see, anyway... Hey, that's just me, though.

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