Poor Ronnie. I mean, the guy just can’t catch a break, can he? First, his face gets a little oven burner action courtesy of Armadillo, and then, his arm becomes a giant chew toy for a fierce pit bull. If anyone deserves to walk away from this current situation involving the Armenians, it’s definitely him. In the meantime, however, he’s busy leading the Strike Team while Vic and Shane take care of their other problem. Axl, the porn shop owner from last season (you know, the “Dick in Grannies” guy), has come to Ronnie with information on a producer who pays his actresses in drugs. They bust the guy for offering blow to an undercover Julian and Tina, and convince him to give up his dealer, Demetris Harms, but when the Strike Team heads to Harms’ house to arrest him, they find it completely empty – that is, except for his guard dog. Ronnie suspects that it was Axl who warned Harms of their impending takedown, and, well, he’s right. Apparently, Axl is deathly afraid of Harms, and though this little excursion certainly gave Ronnie something to do on tonight’s episode, I’m still not sure how it fits into the big picture.
If I know Shawn Ryan as well as I think I do, we won’t hear anything about it for weeks, only to have him revisit the subplot later down the road. Whether or not we get any sort of conclusion from that case doesn’t really matter, though, because Ryan and Co. are really grooving with their main story. With Rezian out of jail, the Armenian mob boss is beginning to cash in his favors from Shane, and his first request is to recover a shipment of processed guns from the police station. Vic doesn’t like the idea of putting untraceable weapons in the hands of killers, but when he discovers that Aceveda has destroyed any leverage he might have access to by moving the blackmail box, he agrees under one condition – that Rezian only get three favors, and when they’re all cashed in, Vic, Shane and both of their families are left alone for good.
With all that sorted out, Vic and Shane plot a way to sneak into the police compound where the guns are being held. They mentioned that there was only one guard on watch, so I figured they would just sneak in without him noticing, but Vic’s eventual plan is much smarter. He pulls over a former CI named Burnout and takes him back to the Barn, leaving his brand new Escalade to be temporarily seized and taken to the very same police compound holding the guns… only Shane is hiding in the back. With the lone security guard left to fend for himself, Shane loads up the SUV with the guns and hightails it out of there. When he meets up with Rezian and Vic at the drop-off point, he’s unaware that Vic has an ace up his sleeve. In order to prevent the guns from landing in the hands of the Armenians, he’s informed Agent Murray about the takedown, allowing just enough time for him, Shane and Rezian to get away before the feds come in to break up the brouhaha. In doing so, Vic also comes off looking like he just saved Rezian’s ass, and to solidify that feeling, the trio heads back to Rezian’s office where Vic plants a bug to make it look like it was the Armenian’s number two who sold him out.
Meanwhile, in what may just be his most interesting case in quite some time, Dutch teams up with Danny to work a missing persons case involving an Asian girl whose mother refuses to admit she’s actually missing. When he goes back to check in on her a day later, he discovers that the girl is indeed at home, but she looks the worse for wear. When he takes her back to the Barn to investigate, Danny suggests she should talk to her instead, and after opening up about her recent encounter, the girl tells Danny that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted. As it happens, that’s not exactly the case. When the family discovered that the girl was engaged in a lesbian relationship, her brother hired a man who got some boys to literally “rape the homosexual” out of her. Um, yeah. This is the kind of stuff you can only find on “The Shield,” and while it sucks that Dutch is still in the background, at least they’re finding more interesting things for him to do.
Nevertheless, the real revelation of the night was when Ronnie told Vic that he was sick of ignoring the fact that Shane had killed Lem. Not only that, but he admitted to Vic that he’s not going to drown for either them. I’m not sure what this actually means for Ronnie (would he really turn them in to save his own skin?), but Vic and Shane do seem like they’re on the road to forgiveness. Shane even gives Vic his only copy of his back-up plan, while Vic tells Shane that he’s beginning to understand why he had to do what he did. Are either of them telling the truth? Probably not, but with more than half of the season left, can you really expect any less?
Given the number of times that Michael and Sara used the phrase, the name of this episode should have been “One Day,” but obviously the writers are trying to make a point about how the series should eventually end – the carrot on the proverbial stick, if you will. And in this scenario, the audience is the mule/horse. Sometimes being a fan of this show feels like being a beast of burden, but this episode was relatively headscratcher-free, aside from Sara’s ponderous decision to have her credit cards exposed for the skeezy barfly to conveniently swipe, which (apparently) is the only way that Morpheus would be able to find the gang. Sara gets a pass since she wasn’t thinking straight, mourning the death of her friend and all. Heck, I give her credit for not downing that double bourbon, though the bartender gets an assist. (That bar scene was a nice piece of acting by Sarah Wayne Callies, by the way. It’s good to have her back in the fold.)
