Truck and Dozerman are observing all of this from their vantage point in the field of weeds across the way from the warehouse. Truck radios in that Chris is walking out and Monk is heading in; Dozerman is frantically scratching himself. "Truck," Dozerman whispers once his partner is done relaying Monk's whereabouts to Sydnor. "Ticks got sick legs or eight?" Experience has taught me that by the time you need an urgent response to that question, you've got an appointment with some topical cream in your near future.

Hey, let's take some time out from the riveting denouement of two seasons' worth of investigation into Marlo Stanfield's operation to check in on the newspaper plotline. Seems like a fair trade-off to me. Gus is buying coffee for a guy we quickly figure out is the Sun's former Man in London, who has returned stateside following the corporate-mandated shutdown of the London bureau. ["Some might have recognized him as Cass Winthrop from Another World! Probably just me, the lone occupant of the middle of the Wire audience/Another World audience Venn diagram." -- Wing Chun] "These newspaper chain guys just don't give a fuck, do they?" observes the formerly foreign correspondent. No, they really don't. Sounds like just the sort of theme a television show might want to explore...unless it was too busy following the exploits of a one-dimensional serial fabulist. Hey, speaking of that, Gus wonders if the newly repatriated foreign correspondent -- we'll call him Robert Ruby to save ourselves valuable keystrokes -- might want to do a little fact-checking job for him. Gus would like a veteran reporter -- "quiet, subtle, discreet, good with details, careful to cover his tracks" -- to look into Scott Templeton's recent work: "I just need fresh eyes on the fella. Just a careful look." Why not just ask him to list all the stuff Templeton hasn't made up? The job would probably go a lot quicker.