Tag: The Shield final season (Page 2 of 3)

It might sound silly to admit, but the only thing currently working against “The Shield” is that it’s almost too proficient at progressing the main story. We’re only at the halfway point and it feels like we should be gearing up for the season finale instead. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either (one could even say that the whole season has been nothing but build up to the top secret finale), but it doesn’t make me any less worried that things are going to slow down in the coming weeks.

With Vic’s chance to arrest Pezeula squandered, Aceveda decides it’s time to turn in the blackmail box to the feds. They’re not happy about the way Vic and Aceveda handled the situation, and they make sure to let them know how bad they screwed up. Olivia is just worried that her boss will discover that there’s a file on her in the box, but Aceveda has made sure that won’t happen. No, he didn’t give Olivia the file, but he did remove it from the box for his own safe keeping. Which begs to ask the question: is Aceveda really any better than Pezuela if he’s willing to resort to the same tactics? He’s been playing both sides ever since he left the Barn to become councilman, and one could even argue that it began much earlier than that.

The blowback from the blackmail box probably hits Vic the hardest, however, as someone within the department uses it as a means of bumping up his appeals hearing. Not only is his termination effective in 10 days, but he also loses his entire pension. Claudette offers him a piece of his retirement money if he’ll leave right away, but Vic kindly declines, stating that he still has a few loose ends to tie up. One of those loose ends is Pezuela, and when he warns him about an impending federal raid on his warehouse, Vic is hoping that he’ll be rewarded with a promotion. Instead, Pezuela gives him a severance bonus and shows him the door, claiming that Vic is no longer any help if he’s not a cop.

Vic isn’t down and out just yet, though. After the feds botch up their takedown of Pezuela, Olivia’s boss brings in Vic for help with the investigation. Obviously, Vic wants to exact a little revenge on Pezuela for screwing him over, but he’s probably more interested in exploiting the opportunity as a way of saving his badge. Of course, that’s not going to matter one bit if Shane succeeds in killing him first. Apparently, I was wrong in my original assessment that he might be the bigger man. Shane’s got a contract out on (presumably) both Ronnie and Vic’s heads, and he doesn’t even know all the details. It’s like Lem all over again, only things are going to end much worse than they did the last time around.

Meanwhile, the whole subplot involving Claudette’s illness is back this week as Dutch discovers that she’s having more trouble than she’s letting on. When a breaking-and-entering in Claudette’s neighborhood prompts Dutch to stop by her house to check in on her, he finds the inside a total mess. We’re not talking about a little clutter either, but mounds of garbage piled in the kitchen. She’s also not driving to work any more and it’s got Dutch worried. So, in an attempt to lend a helping hand, he hires a cleaning lady to help out. I’d like to say that’s all we’ll ever hear from this subject again, but the chance of that happening is slim. The writers are clearly struggling to write good material for Dutch and Claudette, and with the end of the series coming so soon, they’ve put all their marbles in this subplot – one that will no doubt see the firing/death of Claudette as captain and perhaps even Dutch stepping up to take her place. It wouldn’t be the worst possible ending, but that doesn’t change the fact that I still miss the days when they just solved cool crimes together.

After last week’s surprisingly boring show, it was nice to get things back on track tonight with what might just be one of the best episodes of the season. Okay, so Corrine is still a major pain in the ass (and apparently on downers now), and Tina, Julian and Danny continue to prove worthless as part of the big picture, but that’s old news. The only thing that really worries me is that Dutch has sort of fallen by the wayside as a character.

His more recent run-in with the teenage serial killer seemed to offer some hope that he might finally be getting a good storyline, but that died off last week when he was, as Billings put it, “burned” by the kid. This week, he caused a suspect to commit suicide when he forced his conspiracy theory on the poor guy during interrogation, and now that he has blood on his hands, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Asking Billings for help was a huge step when you consider their history together, but if he’s just going to keep working unrelated murders through the end of the season, well, the writers are going to have to do a lot better to keep me interested.

Thankfully, that isn’t the case with the Strike Team. Vic, Shane and Ronnie’s storylines this season have been captivating since Day One, and their relationship was taken to new heights (or should that be new lows?) this week when Vic – desperate to kill three birds with one stone – designs a plan that will ensure his family’s safety from the Armenians, put Pezeula behind bars, and pay back Shane for killing Lem. He’s only got one day to get it done (since Aceveda has decided to turn in the blackmail box before he suffers any blowback), but when Shane begins working an old case with Tavon (welcome back Brian White) on the side, Vic is worried that he’ll miss the meet. It’s not helping that Shane is making it really hard to hate him these days. The guy clearly knows that he’s done something wrong, and he’s made sure Vic and Ronnie know about it every chance he gets.

Vic decides to go through with it anyway, and had it all gone according to plan, the Mexicans would have killed Rezian and Shane and left the $100,000 that the Armenians brought to the meet. Unfortunately, Shane’s luck saves his ass once again, and when the Mexicans stop by to tear up the place with some Uzis, he just happens to be away at the moment. When Vic gets there worried that Shane was killed in the firefight, Shane assures him that he got out just in time. The money is missing, but Vic figures the Mexicans must have taken it with them after the hit.

What he doesn’t realize is that Shane is the one who took the money, and he now knows that Vic and Ronnie set him up. What’s a little unsettling is that he seemed okay it. Does Shane even want to fight back any more or will he just transfer out like he suggested earlier in the episode? I personally can’t see Shane backing down from this fight, but then again, he seems to have changed, so maybe he’ll be the bigger man and walk away.

It doesn’t happen very often, but tonight’s episode was a complete bore. The whole subplot involving Claudette’s run-in with Kleevon Gardner didn’t accomplish a single thing, other than to reemphasize the fact that her duties as captain are being affected by her systemic lupus. It was a clever twist to have Kleevon not only act as his own lawyer, but to be smart enough to secure an empty pill bottle from Claudette’s trash for evidence, but when all was said and done (including a plea bargain that wiped the proposed death penalty off the table for Kleevon’s impending trial), it seemed like an utter waste of time. Sure, Claudette’s bosses now know about her illness, but with Danny double-checking everything she does anyway, I can’t imagine it being a problem further down the road.

As for the Strike Team, they’re part in the Mexican/Armenian gang war took a back seat this week as they helped Agent Murray sort out a federal matter involving a dirty businessman whose case could be blown if they don’t recover his recently kidnapped daughter. It all happened as part of a routine carjacking by a group of Caribbean thugs, and after making the rounds (including getting into a car chase with a suped-up ricer that they never would have caught in real life), the Strike Team tracks down the warehouse where they’re hiding out with the stolen car and girl.

Because it would alert the businessman to his investigation if a bunch of cops just raided the place, Vic comes up with an ingenious plan that, while Claudette approves, she doesn’t particularly like. It involves recruiting a couple of gang members to go in with Julian and pretend like they’re robbing the place – only to let the kidnapped girl escape amidst all the chaos – and it goes off without a hitch. Unfortunately, the whole takedown was about one-fifth as exciting as last week’s preview made it out to be. In fact, the only thing really worth mentioning about the whole encounter is when one of the gang members asked Vic if they could be deputized beforehand. Vic tells them to raise their right hand, and when the thugs all do so in excitement, he has them pat their head and rub their stomach at the same time.

They didn’t seem to think it was very humorous, but I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve seen Vic do in a long time – especially when he’s had to deal with his idiotic daughter for the last few weeks. This time, he discovers that she not only took part in a Pimps and Hos party that included drug use and the girls only wearing lingerie, but that she was the one who planned it. Hopefully, this gives Vic enough reason to punish her properly, because the last time he tried to scold her about her idiotic ways, she made it look like he was attacking her. Vic should just send her to Africa so we never have to see her again. Maybe then she’ll learn some freaking manners.

Of course, the big revelation of the night was that Agent Murray is, in fact, in Pezuela’s pocket, but I can’t imagine she won’t accept Vic’s help to get out. As it happens, the reason she became indebted to him in the first place was as a result of “losing” some documents in a racketeering case that her brother happened to be tied up in. Now, she’s looking for help, and she knows Vic is the only man that can give it to her. Unfortunately, he’s still not in possession of the blackmail box, and until that happens, everyone involved (Vic, Murray, Aceveda, Shane and Ronnie) will be sleeping with one eye open. It’s only a matter of time before the backstabbing begins, and I bet it happens sooner than we expect.

The Armenian/Mexican gang war really heated up this week as the Strike Team (perhaps unsurprisingly) found themselves once again stuck in the middle. Vic had to know that his plan was bound to go sideways at some point, and when Rezian demands a sitdown following a Mexican barbeque of two of his lieutenants, Vic tries to convince him otherwise. Unfortunately, Rezian is insistent on explaining to the Mexicans that he has nothing to do with their missing property, and so Vic (as his second favor to him) heads to Cruz Pezuela to set up the meet. Pezuela, in turn, offers up his right-hand man, Armando Rios, as the voice of the Mexican side, but he doesn’t see any point in talking with the Armenians if they don’t plan on returning the blackmail box.

When Vic relays the message to Rezian, he’s both surprised and confused to discover that the Armenian boss is willing to admit he’s in possession of the box. This is all Pezuela needs to hear, and the meeting is goes on as planned. What Vic doesn’t understand, however, is how Rezian is going to explain the missing box, so when Rezian sandbags him at the meeting by explaining to Rios that he never had anything to do with its disappearance, Vic is understandably pissed off. Rezian simply wants to form a true with the Mexicans, and he’s even willing to ignore the recent murders and help them track down the real owners of the box in trade for leaving him and his guys alone. Vic attempts to convince Pezuela that Rezian is only lying, but when that isn’t enough, he heads to Aceveda for help.

For as much as Aceveda has to lose by refusing to work with Vic, he sure treats him like an unwanted mouth sore. Nevertheless, when he’s brought up to speed on the day’s events, he agrees to let Vic dive into the blackmail box for a little help convincing Pezuela that Rezian was lying. What he gets is a tip about a city planner (the same one that screwed Vic out of his favor last season) who has repeatedly refused to sign off on a memorial in Little Armenia. When Vic and Ronnie threaten to release info about his insider trading if he doesn’t greenlight the latest request, however, the Armenians get their memorial, and Pezuela is led to believe that it was Rezian who set it up. Instead of gunning for the Armenians, however, Pezuela has the city planner assassinated, which upsets Aceveda greatly. Vic tries to calm him down by informing him that Agent Murray is using her federal connections to help bring down Pezuela and the drug cartel, but then Aceveda drops a bombshell. Agent Olivia Murray – the woman we know so little about, but Vic seems to trust immensely – is also in the blackmail box. In the words of Scooby-Doo: “Ruh-Roh.”

It’s nice to see Murray getting involved in the story, but the setup was so subtle that I’m really curious to see what kind of dirt Pezuela has on her. Obviously, it has something to do with why she’s trying to regain favor with her boss, but if it was anything really bad, how in the world could she still retain her status within the FBI? It’ll be interesting to see where Shawn Ryan goes with this one, but for the time being, you can hardly criticize the guy for continuing to progress the main story. Every episode has had at least one major revelation so far, and it really feels like this season has been well planned out.

Still, with as much that’s going on, I still found myself gravitating more towards Dutch’s (possibly) standalone story this week. His interactions with the kid (who he believes is a serial killer in the making) were some of the episode’s best moments, and though he got away this time, it would be really fun to watch Dutch continue to chase him down for the rest of the season. His character is clearly never going to get involved with Vic and Aceveda, and between solving cases like this and keeping tabs on Claudette, he should have more than enough to keep him busy in the short term. The whole Cassidy subplot, on the other hand, is dead weight that never should have been introduced, and if she somehow plays a role in Vic’s death/incarceration/whatever before the end of the season, it won’t be so much shocking as it will be a total disappointment.