McNulty Calls Out Rhonda Pearlman (Season 1, ‘The Hunt’)
As the wiretap operation into the Barksdale organization continues in The Wire Season 1, Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) is shot and nearly killed. In the immediate aftermath, Jimmy McNulty and assistant state’s attorney, Rhonda Pearlman (Deirdre Lovejoy), visit Barksdale's attorney, Maurice Levy (Michael Kostroff), to get him to convince the gunman to turn himself in. McNulty, being the lovable self-righteous prick he is, calls the ASA out after the meeting doesn’t end the way he wanted and unloads on her and all the other career-driven attorneys in the City of Baltimore.
Out on the street, McNulty tells Pearlman that if half of the “fuckers” in the state’s attorney’s office would be less concerned about the next stage of their career and more worried about actually trying cases, the city wouldn’t be in the shape it is in now. Was it the right thing to say? Probably not. But, does Jimmy McNulty care? Definitely not.
