Good episode with some great flashbacks to Homicide.  The neutron lie detector that made an appearance in the first season of Homicide and in David Simon’s book made an appearance in the show this week (it’s on On-Demand before it airs).  Also, Clark Johnson A.K.A. Meldrick Lewis in Homicide is back as a Baltimore Sun Editor–he also directed the final episode.  He’s direct a few of The Wire episodes and has done other directing including The Shield.

Johnson is fantastic in the episode providing the sort of gruff humor that he was excellent with when playing Meldrick.

Much of the episode was set-up so the performances were slightly uneven with McNulty’s character having to talk a bit too much to get his point across, but overall, incredibly promising.  And McNulty is back in traditional form with drinking and carousing going on already.  Season 4 ended a little to neatly and Season 5 is bringing us back to the notion that nothing ever really changes.

Again, it’s a bit uneven of a first episode, but it foreshadows a fascinating season.