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Post by -|E|- on Sept 24, 2005 18:59:11 GMT -5
I've discussed this with my The Shield watching friends, and seen it bantered about online. That has inspired me to create a poll here -- I'm curious what you guys think!!
Cast your vote and share your reason/s!
E
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Post by lemonhead on Sept 25, 2005 8:58:38 GMT -5
Armadillo was the best villain of course! He was icecold and so cool. And his themesong also kicked ass! And season 2 was the best, anyway.
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Post by chemikalman on Sept 25, 2005 9:52:29 GMT -5
My favorite villians are Armadillo and Antwon (I just can't pick between them, heh). But when it comes to voting for the baddest ass, there's no contest ... it's Margos. Case in point 1: look at E's avatar--enough said. Case in point 2: whacking feet?!
I wonder if he kept them in some kind of bizarre tropy case ... maybe he had them preserved by a taxidermist? Then he could dangle his favorite pair from the rear view mirror of his car.
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Post by -|E|- on Sept 25, 2005 11:05:58 GMT -5
Then he could dangle his favorite pair from the rear view mirror of his car. LOL!!! Dang, chem - that's an hilarious visual!! I always assumed he ate them! I mean - they were delicious, after all. Filet of Foot, anyone? Stuffed Phalanges perhaps..... My favorite scene in Blowback (my 2nd fav ep; right behind Pilot) is Margos in the cage, just as he utters his only words with his arms outstretched, holding onto the fencing. The stained glass church windows behind him really play up the fact that he looks like a twisted Jesus, and when he tilts his head down, he assumes the classic posture of Jesus on the cross. That Balkin FREAK! Yeah, Margos gets my vote, too.
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Post by qb on Sept 25, 2005 13:32:09 GMT -5
Anderson did such a good job as Antwon that I was totally into that villian. He was funny, cool and repulsive. He also got a lot more air-time over all, so that might give him an advantage (or so I thought til I saw the votes!) And, E, thanks for sharing those creepy pics of Amardillo as Desi Arnez. That is gonna give me worse nightmares than his blood mouth face did! Agggh!
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Post by -|E|- on Sept 25, 2005 13:45:02 GMT -5
And, E, thanks for sharing those creepy pics of Amardillo as Desi Arnez. That is gonna give me worse nightmares than his blood mouth face did! Agggh! No doubt!! lol I love posting info and pictures like that, btw. You might call it an obsession in fact.... The bloody mouth scene you mention; is that the one where Armadillo says, "I don't have to leave," after Vic beats the teeth out of him with that law book?? Dang; that totally creeped me out!
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Post by qb on Sept 25, 2005 16:54:13 GMT -5
He had his favorite pair bronzed and uses them as bookends for his text books on podiatry.
Oh, and I am voting for Antwon even though Kurt Sutter as Margos was BY FAR the sexiest!
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Post by NancyGilroy on Oct 7, 2005 17:27:02 GMT -5
I didn't get a chance to see Marcos, but I know Kurt is awesome.
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Post by Peach on Oct 10, 2005 1:23:31 GMT -5
For me Antwon was the baddest, although not the sickest. What made him the worst, to me, was that he really knew how to play the system. So there was no way to chalk up his antics as "psychosis" - because each act was so well thought out, it could only come from someone truly cold and calculating. And after what he did to that little girl...damn....hurting adults is one thing, hurting kids is something *completely* different!
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Post by leadinvestigator on Oct 11, 2005 13:44:03 GMT -5
I am going to go out on a limb and admit I wasn't terribly surprised or shocked that Antwon killed Angie. Life is cheap to these people. I guess that moment didn't hit me like it did everyone else. ____POSSIBLE SPOILERS TO NEW FANS________ What I found a lot more shocking was the scene of the little Hispanic girl having been branded by Armadillo. Just a little more realism would have made it all the more shocking... like show her cheek bruised and swollen from a fresh tattoo, as it would be in real life. For me over all, the most shocking moment was seeing Tavon's crumpled body on the pavement after his accident. It took my breath away...and I was thinking, Yeah! That's the kind of out of no where shocker I want to see in The Shield! I will admit I was disappointed he survived. There have been some great moments in the series, like the toasted kid in the trunk suddenly opening his eyes. That one got me good! And the girl with the amputated arm sitting in her neighbor's bathroom... some other eps have fallen flat when it came to a gory moment. How is it that we can watch Assinvader butt rape his whore but they hold back on the rest? God, I might actually be more twisted than the villians themselves.
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Post by mrbrownstone on Oct 12, 2005 11:19:24 GMT -5
You know, there was a similar poll on imdb, and I was wondering why Gilroy is always left out of these. Sure, Armadillo or Margos might be cooler, but none of them hit quite as hard for Vic as Gilroy did. In addition to being one of Vic's oldest friends, he more or less predicted Vic's future in the first season finale.
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Post by icy on Oct 28, 2005 18:08:02 GMT -5
Margos was the most villainous because he had a way of doing things that showed very little of himself, but what you did see was pure evil. Just because we had a chance to see how "BAD" the other choices were doesn't mean we ever had a chance to know exactly how evil he really was and what deeds were done by Margos. That is how the mob is. They hide in the shadows, cut your throat when you least expect and are never heard from again. Margos just got unlucky.
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Post by electroshockblues on Oct 29, 2005 6:04:38 GMT -5
I find it really difficult to decide.
Armadillo has the advantage of being a part of one of the most memorable scenes from the show - the scene at where he gets his face burned by Vic - and he's also been the only one to cause significant physical damage against a member of the Strike Team (burning Ronnie).
I also find it quite interesting that he echos Vic in many ways. Firstly, he desires to control the streets by uniting the Los Mags and the Torro's under his leadership, much like Vic tries to control the streets by Rondell/Tio, or by forcing a ceasefire between Kern and T-Bones, or by rearranging the leadership of the Biz-Lats. Secondly, Armadillo finds out that an innocent (the little girl, Maida) has tried to testify against him, so he rapes her in revenge, kind of like how Vic murders Terry for betraying him. Thirdly, Armadillo threatens the lives of his enemies loved ones by raping a rival gang leader's girlfriend, burning Ronnie, and having someone smash the window of Corrine's house, much like how Vic threatens to have Armadillo's brother murdered in prison. Fourthly, Armadillo's also very intelligent and Machiavellian like Vic in how he twists situations to his benefit, such as when he has Vic backed into a corner in 2x08, Scar Tissue. The similarities between the two characters makes for an interesting face-off that defines the entire first half of Season 2. He's also the only villain to have his own, rather cool sounding theme tune.
Margos benefits from the fact that he has a lengthy build up. After a small but brutally violent appearance in 1x05 'Blowback', Margos escapes from the police van and is not mentioned again until 3x01. In between these two episodes tons of fans called for his return, regarding him something of a loose end, and, as the Armenians began to play a big part in the money train story of the second half of Season 2 many people's hopes were raised. Then, after confirmation that he was still in the minds of the writers in 3x01, he is not mentioned again until about episode 3x13. Though he is not mentioned during this time, with the Strike Team worring about the Armenians he seems like a sinister, lurking threat whose eventual bloody appearance is only a matter of time. Indeed, when he does eventually appear, he doesn't dissapoint, fulfilling the villain's obligatory "murder/rape of an innocent" in one of the show's most gruesome scenes.
Margos is also the show's most visually distinctive villains, with his long hair, white clothes and pale skin. I never noticed it until E mentioned it in this thread, but the scene of Margos infront of the stained glass window, looking like a twisted jesus, is genius.
Furthermore, he's the show's most enigmatic and disturbing villain. Armadillo, Antwon and Gilroy's motives are all easy to understand, but Margos, while being a gang member/drug dealer like Armadillo and Antwon, has a penchant for cutting off people's feet, which, along with his decidedly odd habits, as detailed by Claudette and Dutch after they investigate his house, make him seem much more complex and unhinged than a straight-up gangbanger/corrupt cop. He's also only ever seen to speak Armenian, which makes him yet more mysterious.
Unlike Armadillo and Margos, Antwon has a lot of screen time and plenty of lines. This removes the enigmatic appeal of a Armadillo/Margos type villain, but it suits the character perfectly as, in masquerading as a community leader, Antwon's greatest power is his way with words. His faux-Malcolm X way of preaching and his use of civil rights spiel, which he uses even in one-on-one conversations, is an interesting facet to the character which is made even more interesting in his pairing with racist redneck Shane. The power struggle between the two is fascinating as their business relationship deteriorates into an adversarial one, culminating in the rising to the surface of racial issues (the interrogation scene in 4x10) that have been subtly present since the beginning of their relationship.
Such is the importance of Antwon's way with words, that even his obligatory "murder of an innocent" scene is dominated by a lengthy monologue in which he tells the "story" of why Shane and Army killed Angie. Best of all is how he acts as if the story is true, replying to Army's plea that Angie's "just a kid" by saying "I know, and thats why you two should be ashamed of yourselves", talking as though Army and Shane are the killers instead of himself in order to preserve the facade of moral righteousness thats critical to his twisted, faux-civil rights preacher persona.
Given his amount of screen time, Antwon is probably also a deeper character than Armadillo and Margos. He's the only one shown to have weakness, in the form of his son, who he actually cares about, as opposed to Armadillo, who had his own brother killed.
Another plus is that Anthony Anderson was absolutely brilliant in the role. I'm not saying that Kurt Sutter and Danny Pino weren't great as Margos and Armadillo respectively, but Anthony Anderson had enough screen time and dialogue to really prove himself as an incredible dramatic actor, and he did.
Gilroy has the advantage of being much more than just a villain. Like Margos and Antwon, he is seen to execute an innocent when he shoots Jesus Rosalez, the witness to his hit and run. He also threatens Vic's family. He is made more interesting, however, by virtue of the fact that he's Vic's former friend of twenty years, meaning that, unlike Armadillo, Margos or Antwon, Vic can't find it in himself to outright murder him when it would be convenient to do so. As well as being villainous, he's can also be quite pathetic, as in the scenes in 1x13 where Vic confronts him, and 2x10 when he's drunk and crying in his underwear, begging Vic not to make him go to Mexico.
Most importantly, however, his downfall is a lesson for Vic. For one, you might want to consider the effect that the events of 1x12 and 1x13 had on Vic. Seeing Gilroy murder Rosalez in cold blood, and then hearing Gilroy liken it to how he killed Terry must have been pretty harrowing. The fact that the dealer was very young (looked about 16 or 17 to me), was utterly helpless, and that a peaceful solution was a very real alternative probably made Vic finally reflect on the needless callousness of his own actions. Vic probably saw how monstrous Ben seemed after needlessly murdering an innocent and finally realised the true magnitude of his own crime. The fact that in the next episode Vic is seen to protest to Ben that he's "not like [him]", and is also seen to violently torture a cop killer, perhaps in an attempt to violently exorcise his new-found guilt, only hammers home this point further.
Since the end of season 1, Vic's desire to not end up like Gilroy has been a recurring theme. It made him doubt his desire to rip off the money train in 2x10 when Gilroy warns him that he "got greedy and lost everything". Then, in 4x02 Gilroy's corpse turns up and acts as the catalyst for Vic's decision to finally go straight.
Overall, he's probably my favourite villain, as his similarity to Vic constantly reminds us, and Vic himself, that, despite not being a "villain" of the Margos/Antwon/Armadillo mould, Vic is undoubtedly evil.
Wow, that post was much longer and more detailed than I originally intended. What makes it worse is that I have an English essay to do. If it was on "Villains in 'The Shield'", I'd probably be half way through it by now.
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Post by leadinvestigator on Oct 29, 2005 12:48:18 GMT -5
Outstanding post, Electroshock! Mine won't be anything like it, but I'll say that I would have preferred a lot more Margos and somewhat less Antwon. Not that Anthony Anderson wasn't fantastic in the role, but Antwon wasn't that intriguing.
Margos, the twisted Jesus of Farmington, with his podiatric fixations--at once seen and unseen (didn't the real Jesus pull that stuff too??). The mortal trap Vic set for him never seemed credible to me either. Margos was too smart to get himself caught like that.
I'd rather have Margos alive and still for a while, a silent and deadly menace out there somewhere--resurfacing now and then. The Shane/Antwon thing was too predictable and too contrived, imho, though the resolution scene between Shane and Vic was among the best acted TS has ever given us.
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Post by -|E|- on Oct 29, 2005 21:56:03 GMT -5
Wow, ESB; great post! Wooooo! I thought about including Gilroy in the poll; maybe I shoulda.... Margos is also the show's most visually distinctive villains, with his long hair, white clothes and pale skin. I never noticed it until E mentioned it in this thread, but the scene of Margos infront of the stained glass window, looking like a twisted jesus, is genius. Thank the lovely Mr. Chiklis for that observation; he mentions the resemblance to Jesus on the DVD commentary track for Blowback (ep 2:01). I would give his exact quote if I hadn't lent my S2 DVDs to my best bud... I have a sudden and uncontrolable need to pay him a visit tomorrow.
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Post by badcop187 on Nov 3, 2005 21:54:02 GMT -5
How come it said I was not allowed to vote in this poll??? Well I vote for armadillo. Come on, he rapes little girls. Burns people in tires, a bad bad man
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Post by -|E|- on Nov 4, 2005 14:02:07 GMT -5
How come it said I was not allowed to vote in this poll??? Hmmm... I can see the list of who has voted (but not how they voted) and you're on the list, my friend. Were you given an error message, or was there just not an option to vote? Maybe you didn't realize that you had already voted? That's actually happened to me before.... Just throwing out some ideas. I'm all about the investigation..... heh
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Post by badcop187 on Nov 4, 2005 17:37:08 GMT -5
I voted and got an error message. Maybe I did vote already and forgot. I don't think so, but maybe.
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Post by amishmobster on Nov 11, 2005 20:00:01 GMT -5
Armadillo hands down
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Post by stovetop on Jan 28, 2006 23:41:40 GMT -5
Margoz was by far the most dangerous of the criminals.
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