Ziggy says this to Johnny “Fifty” Spamanto after the two union members successfully boost cars from the dock together. It’s intended to be ironic, since the point of this season was to demonstrate the dwindling power of unions.

This episode takes its name from the edits made to a newspaper throughout the day after it has been printed.. As the penultimate episode of the series, it refers to the attempts of characters in the show to change themselves before it is too late.

These include:

• Namond, who gives his speech in this episode and was able to successfully reform himself with Colvin’s support, setting his path onto a brighter future
• The BPD’s last-minute attempt to cover up the “Red Ribbon Killer” hoax before word gets out
• Templeton, who is trying to free himself from the lie he is trapped in
• Bubbles, who finally forgives himself and opens up about Sherrod’s death
• And Marlo’s gang, who is trying to get its story straight and minimize each member’s jail sentence after getting picked up by the police

This refers to the ultimatum Rawls gives to Santangelo – he must either clear one murder by the end of the day or become an informant who alerts Rawls whenever McNulty pulls something insubordinate. Santangelo is able to make his one arrest when Omar gives a tip to McNulty, which McNulty passes on to Santangelo.

It also refers to Major Crimes' first legit arrest. They are able to take in Bird for the Gant murder based off the information that Omar gave them and interrogate him.

Note that neither of these are convictions – just arrests. That’s because in the stats-obsessed BPD, arrests take names off the board and help the clearance rate, even if they don’t accomplish much good without a conviction.

“Not for attribution” is journalist speak for “off the record”. A lot of shit is going on behind the scenes lately, such as…

• Templeton making up quotes that shouldn’t be attributed to anyone
• Cheese secretly giving up Butchie to Chris in exchange for $50K
• Norman Wilson uses his old connects with The Baltimore Sun to sneakily leak the possibility Carcetti will replace Burrell with Daniels, hoping to gauge public opinion before the move becomes official
• And McNulty, who is trying his hardest to go on the record and convince The Sun to give heavy coverage to his “serial killer”

Omar’s human side comes out in this episode as he begins to feel guilt over his role in Tosha’s death. In the previous episode, Bunk ripped Omar a new one over the fact that his reputation in the hood is contributing to the destruction of communities and the formation of a new breed of criminal that pays no respect to the dead.

In this episode, Omar talks to Butchie about the situation, revealing he feels Bunk might be right and he owes something to him. Butch insists that a stick-up man developing a conscience will be dangerous, and tells a story about an uncle who cut his fingers off when he felt guilty over the way he treated a girl, but later went on to regret the decision.

Butchie is right – conscience does cost, proven by the fact that the most cold-hearted character on the show (Marlo) is one of the show’s few “success stories”.

Zenobia says this in one of Colvin’s “corner boy” classes after Namond brings up that politicians lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead just like drug dealers. Her point is that while young kids moving weight gets a lot of attention on the news and in the papers, the corners are just microcosms for all of America and its nationwide greed.

Because of this, Namond and Zenobia feel it is hypocritical to admire the ambition of, say, Carcetti, who will do anything to win an election and gain political power, but condemn an equally ambitious Marlo who will do anything to rise in the streets.

Norman says this to Carcetti after Royce’s smear campaign begins to get inside his head. Carcetti freaks out, waking up in the middle of the night to plan out a new strategy involving recruitment of black voters instead of going on radio shows. Norman calms him down, telling him that he should listen to his campaign staff instead of acting on his own. The full quote is

The people running your campaign are professionals, Tommy. Don’t try this shit at home.

This also refers to Herc’s attempts to monitor Marlo using a stolen camera he didn’t get cleared with his Lieutenant. Herc tries to solve the case on his own and ends up getting burnt badly.

Charles Darwin put forth his belief in evolution when he wrote On the Origin of Species. Webby is proof of this, as he has evolved as an MC with every new project.

This excerpt of Oliver Reed as Proximo and Russell Crowe as Maximus is sampled from Ridley Scott’s 2000 film, Gladiator.