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Post by acc on Aug 25, 2008 18:06:40 GMT -5
I'm running a marathon of The Shield, and between running it and thinking a lot about the series recently, I thought of starting up this particular thread.
Which criticisms and complaints have you had about the series that were later disproven and/or corrected?
Season 3: Mara, Mara, Mara. Go away. But, it turns out she became one of the more important "side" characters, as her marriage to Shane, and giving birth to his child, has forever swayed his "loyalty" from Vic to his actual "family" (most pointedly displayed in 5x03 Jailbait in his conversation with Mara).
Another one I had in Season 3: Tavon. During the run of the season, at around episode 3x08, I began to grow tired of waiting for Tavon to reappear. Why were they milking it so? I wondered. Finally, in 3x14, the writers more than redeemed themselves for any stalling, having Vic perform one of his dirtiest deeds in the show's history to my mind, putting Tavon in a heinous spot, totally lying to him, and making Lem just about lose his lunch over the whole thing (advancing Lem's arc that culminated later in the episode with his burning the Money Train cash).
Season 4's conclusion, with its happy-go-lucky conclusion, kind of turned me off and the way the Strike Team was reassembled by the writers struck me the wrong way. I must admit, I kind of lost faith for a while there, as it seemed like the writers had simply put the Strike Team back together and things were going to return to the old days of the whole team enjoying one another's company.
Following that, I found the set-up of Season 5 a little tedious. An IAD lieutenant targets the Strike Team? And he becomes obsessed with Vic? Yawn. Well, never mind. The writers completely devastated my tepid expectations. The last batch of episodes of Season 5 were absolutely stunning. Shane murdering Lem? Suddenly The Shield became, in my opinion, one of the great works of art in modern American history. The entire arc of Angie's death, the heroin-stealing by Lem... all of it leading to the wreckage of Season 5, and finally Lem's death, at Shane's hands... Gut-wrenching, powerful. One of the finest examples of the series being one, long, winding chord. (Not to mention that the disintegration of the Strike Team post-Money Train led to Shane recklessly going out on his own and becoming Antwon's bitch, resulting in the aforementioned scenario!)
So, what criticisms and complaints have you had that were later disproven/corrected by The Shield? You know you've had them, and you know these writers later smacked you upside the head with them.
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Post by n00b on Aug 25, 2008 22:21:08 GMT -5
Hey, great topic and insights. I'll have to think hard about this one - may need to restart my own marathon soon.
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Post by Strike Team 4 Life on Aug 26, 2008 1:38:00 GMT -5
ACC, you seem to always have deep insights.
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Post by acc on Aug 26, 2008 3:53:29 GMT -5
Thank you kindly, n00b and Strike Team 4 Life.
I can't wait for Season 7 to begin... The Final Act!
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Post by electroshockblues on Aug 26, 2008 11:16:37 GMT -5
This is an excellent idea for a thread acc.
Personally my problems with the show came about during Season 4. The writers, I thought, had distanced Vic too much from his corrupt actions, almost to the point of retconning his murder of Terry out of the show. He became more like a Dirty Harry/Andy Sipowicz type than the outright thief and murderer we knew him to be, which I though did a disservice to the show's history.
I cynically thought that this was in order to make him more palatable to the viewer, as if the writers regarded having such an outright anti-hero for their protaganist was a failed experiment and they had to reign him in a bit.
Like acc, I also thought that Season 4's return to the "status quo" of having the Strike Team together was also a bit of a cop-out, as though the writers wanted to undo the dissolution of the Team at the end of Season 3.
Luckily, I was proven wrong on both counts. The writers proved that they hadn't forgotten about Terry's murder with Seasons 5 and 6, and also continually referred to Vic's past misdeeds whilst also having him commit yet more in an effort to escape the consequences of them.
Similarly, Season 4 is still my least favourite Season, but I think it works brilliantly as a story arc in the middle of the series where Vic seemingly has a chance at redemption before being dragged back down by Shane, who he in turn dragged down in the first place. Also, it goes without saying that the Strike Team's reformation was essential to the storyline of Season 5, which was superb.
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Post by acc on Aug 26, 2008 14:44:26 GMT -5
Thank you, electroshockblues.
I love your thoughts, electroshockblues, and I know you've chronicled them in the past. I agree--at the end of Season 4, I was borderline disillusioned, frustrated particularly by what I thought was a letdown of a finale and fearing we would receive a fairly routine arc of "IAD vs. Strike Team," which somehow felt like one massive step back from the heights of Armadillo, the Money Train and the aftermath of the Strike Team's obliteration.
I've come to appreciate Season 4 more and more, in the wake of Season 5 especially--which, as I said in my original post here, I think redeemed Season 4. You can see the "threads" coming together, with Lem being dragged back into the storm of the Strike Team, something that made sense despite all of the problems entailed because of loneliness in the absence of his "only family" as he said in 3x14 All In.
I think Shawn Ryan and co. realized how far they had gotten away from Vic Mackey the Murderer by Season 4. Looking back, though, I appreciate that arc of Vic's in Season 4 because, again, I think I misread the writers' intentions. In a way it represented true redemption for him, but in another way it was just Vic playing by the rules for a little while because he felt he had to in order to keep his anti-gang position under Monica. (Like staring at that cash in the trunk in 4x06 and deciding to call it in.) Season 5, however, brought Terry back to the surface in the biggest way since his murder, and it helped to foreshadow Shane's murdering of Lem. The equation between Shane and Vic--which Shane recognizes and Vic does not--was made most purely clear in 6x06 Chasing Ghosts.
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Post by Lemonhead on Aug 26, 2008 20:23:03 GMT -5
Definitely Season 4 as a whole. Condusive to other seasons that surround it, it's a brilliant point on The Shield's roadmap, but by itself, I was frustrated 80% of the time and only satisfied 20% of the time.
To start, I didn't care for Glenn Close on the show. She didn't fit in. She felt too upper-class in a meat and potatoes kind of world. I was irritated how the central characters took a backseat to her character. On top of which, they didn't really do ANYTHING with her character. No fried bunnies, no Michael Douglas stalking scenes. Okay, I'm joking, but seriously, she's a great actress, but she was a bore to watch HERE. She came in, implemented the seizures, and then left. She didn't change anything. She didn't twist the fabric of the show in any way.
To be fair, nothing was changed. Sure, things were setup for next season, but essentially, The Strike Team disbanded, got back together, fin.
I also grew tired of the Angie storyline and the road it took. Don't get me wrong, I thought Antwon outright murdering her and holding her body for leverage was brilliant plotting, but I would have preferred something more Shield-like to have transpired from it. Her body is discovered, and they use a tape from the garage sting to pin Antwon down. Blah. I would have been thrilled if they would have actually TRIED to steal her body from the morgue.
Don't even get me started on the Carl and Scooby killings. Talk about a convoluted waste of time.
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Post by n00b on Aug 26, 2008 23:41:55 GMT -5
I agree Season 4 is definitely "redeemed" so to speak by Season 5/6. But I also think, as the whole series arc is coming toward its end we may see Season 4 as the one "ray of hope" so to speak in the history of the Barn (and in some ways Vic Mackey).
The Monica Rawlings character and Glenn Close get a bad rap as "boring" or "tame", but think of Rawlings in comparison to the other captains and the way The Barn (and Vic) were running like a relatively well-oiled machine during her tenure. A few points:
* Regardless of what you personally think of police seizures, they were starting to work. This was the best and most effective idea any captain of The Barn has had (including better than the Decoy Squad idea that Aceveda stole from Claudette in Season 3).
* Other than having to deal with Shane's BS, Vic was the tamest (as far as not acting like a common criminal), and in many ways most effective, he's been in the entire series. Yes he's closer to Dirty Harry/Andy Sipowicz, which is not as "cutting edge" or stylistically pleasing a drama (been there, done that), but as a comparison of effective police work, Vic in S4 is at his best. Rawlings own "good cop/bad cop" routine with Vic as his boss (sometimes a friendly boss, on his side; other times just enough or a hard-ass to keep him in line) kept Vic where Vic needs to be to be the best cop he can be.
* Rawlings was the best of the Captains at rallying the troops to her side and creating a sense of teamwork. Look how she welcomed and incorporated the "lost" Strike Team elements (Shane and Lem), slowly at first, and then more as her confidence in them and the need for them increased. And the way she dealt the the Carl & Scooby killings is a fitting testament to what cops want from a real leader. She was PISSED when they were killed and did everything in her power (and then some) to bring the killers to justice. In fact, her insistence that Mitchell answer for these two police murders (and subsequent screwing of the federal case) is what cost her job. Compare her reaction to the death of two of her cops to Aceveda's reaction to the multiple 911 cop killings at end of Season 1 (in eerily similar fashion - "hey officer, we need help - bang your dead"). Aceveda, as is his politician's style, worried more about politics/neighborhood relations. Rawlings wanted to beat the living shit out of whoever killed her cops, damn the torpedos!
My rambling point to all this is that Season 4 is a glimpse at how The Barn COULD have functioned properly under the right leadership. Just think how different everything would be if Rawlings had been the first captain instead of Aceveda? Right from the start, she would not have put up with Vic's attitude and bullshit (she would have found a way to go above Gilroy's head to get control of her precinct).
Rawlings, who was passionate, dedicated to those under her, knew how to earn respect and keep discipline, and rose through the ranks is easily the best captiain the Barn has ever seen. Much better than Aceveda's lack of street-cred and compromised political leadership style (hate's Vic one minute; needs him the next; won't fix the restroom because it would make his budget look bad; worried more about neighborhood reactions than the murders of his own cops). Many, including CCH Pounder, have mentioned that Claudette is/would be the best Captain, but by the time she inherited the job it was too late to save the Barn. On the contrary, I think Claudette's holier-than-thou by-the-books style was just as ineffective as Aceveda's political postuering.
One of the many tragedies of The Shield is how tantilizing close the "experiment" of The Barn is to actually succeeding only to be sunk by circumstance (the San Marcos murders ruining the crime stats) and politics (the political decision to remove Rawlings, despite her effectiveness).
If the show ends with The Barn shut down for good and/or Mackey dead or incarcerated, I would LOVE to see a brief cameo by Close that would scream "I told you so" or "I tried to warn you" without actually saying it (just the nuanced facial expressions of a great actor would suffice).
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Post by acc on Aug 27, 2008 14:43:33 GMT -5
Lemonhead and n00b, your respective takes on The Shield and Season 4 specifically are highly interesting to me. As I said in another thread just a moment ago, I'm running a Shield marathon and I just finished Season 3 last night. I'm expecting Season 4 to improve dramatically this time around, because of the extra added context of Sesaon 5 and Season 6 behind it.
Season 4 *was* frustrating at the time--I remember thinking after each episode from around 4x08 to 4x13, what the heck was going on. And I must admit, the Carl and Scooby killings, and the whole conspiracy involving Nigerians, Russians, 1-9ers, Antwon... It kind of became confusing for the sake of being confusing, or something. But it was set-up fairly well with the AGC car sting leading to the Russian mob in early Season 4, and the discovery that Antwon had set up a relationship with the Russians for drug distribution... It was interesting... I'm looking forward to seeing how Season 4 has "aged."
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