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Post by Bad_Ass_Cop on Jun 7, 2006 6:04:08 GMT -5
I had to work that Tuesday night so I had my wife record it for me. She watched it, then called me at work. She started to tell me about what happened so I hung up on her. I told her not to tell me. I was shocked when I got home and watched it.
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Post by murt1987 on Aug 17, 2006 9:40:26 GMT -5
Hay I got to see the whole season finally in the last three days(dont ask) so I can finally give you all my views on what happened.
Unfortunately I already knew what happened to lem before I saw it but it still really shuck me up. Lem was one of my fave characters to em on the show, way ahead of Vic anyday. I think Lem knew Shane was up to something when there was a long pause between them, then Shane telling him that Mara was pregnant agian and that nobody was supposed to know untill next week. I think up until that moment Lem thought Shane might have done something to him but as soon as Shane shared that secret with him and then offered him some food:), he thought he was fine again.
Amazing way to end the season, the writers certainly earned their money this season.
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Post by acc on Mar 26, 2007 15:51:03 GMT -5
5x11 Postpartum is The Shield's true masterpiece. It is an A+. And then some.
Lem is now a broken-down, burnt-out fugitive, on the run, and he's trying to stay one step ahead of Kavanaugh.
Speaking of Kavanaugh, he's a mess himself. The war between he and Vic has worn all participants down, and has even impacted people who were trying to stay neutral in it.
Kavanaugh's dialogue with Corrine at the beginning of the episode illuminates the viewer on where his mind is. He asks, "You liked me, right?" He sort of halfway apologizes to Corrine for being such a pain for her for so long, to the point where he froze her assets two episodes before. He seems to believe that they could have been a good match in some sort of way in a different life. He asks her if she would be okay if Vic were taken down. She answers negatively. Yet he continues anyway and he seems to interpret her words in a fresh way. When Cassidy comes into view, he tells Cassidy that her mother is a very good person--he actually feels rewarded when Corrine slips away from his grip, realizing in his own way that a good wife should do this, not screw some guy she doesn't even know like Sadie did with Vic.
The installation of Billings' vending machine is the most surprisingly satisfying arc of the season. In 5x09 Smoked it meets up with the Dutch-Tina arc in an unexpected way. In this episode we learn, after Dutch has his hand burned, that Billings owns the vending machine. Perhaps it's just my own reading of it, but it seems as though the writers are making a political statement about the character. Already incompetent, Billings also happens to be somewhat corrupt. To push the issue further, they have an American flag standing on his desk as he ineptly tries to lead the people below him. It seems as though he is somewhat of an allegorical representation of the current administration. And his vending machine is his own monopoly--a no-bid contract!
The Dutch arc goes in a terribly dark place, as he actually gains insight from a pimp on how to "break" a woman. He uses it immediately on Tina, telling her that people can't look beyond her looks to see that she's actually got something in her head. Of course, she's all too receptive to this comment. After that, Dutch tries to break her some, telling her that while she's on a good start (how he can say that with a straight face is remarkable unto itself) she is not nearly as smart as she needs to be and that if she's going to get pointers from him she needs to sharpen up and not waste his valuable time.
The Danny-Vic scene is magnificently written. Vic and Danny knew the truth from the moment in 5x05 Trophy when Danny tells Vic pointedly, "The father doesn't know." Bingo. Every single time after that scene, Vic, in his considerable looks at Danny, knows the truth while the audience does not. He knows that he's the baby's father. The scene has fascinating implications for Danny, and gives her what could be her best storyline in Season 6. Reconnected to Vic, now beyond their occasional sexual escapades like in the past, with an actual human being they are responsible for, she's tied to his ways as Season 6 begins and one has to think that's not good for her.
In my 5x10 post, I remarked that 5x11 Postpartum is a surreal, dreamlike episode. And I think it is--everything about it unfolds like a truly bad nightmare. All the pieces come together to deliver a horrific conclusion. Lem and his fellow comrades are separated--not a good thing. Becca is told by Lem that he pulled off the Money Train, hoping he can get new charges against himself and sent back east where the 1-Niners can't get him in prison. Kavanaugh tells Aceveda a detective thinks Vic had a hand in ripping off the Armenians, to which Aceveda replies "Wagenbach." But Kavanaugh says the truth--Vic doesn't know it's Dutch. Kavanaugh convinces Aceveda to tell Vic, who thinks he can get reliable information from Aceveda, that Lem gave it up in exchange for protection. Ironically, this happens to be the case, but only to the extent that Lem wants to escape the fate of death at the hands of Antwon's goons (and he wants to keep Vic, Shane and Ronnie out of it--highly unlikely of course but Lem at this point isn't thinking as sharply as he usually would with all of the pressure that is mounting). Becca has completely turned on Vic since he's lied to her so many times it's just grotesque, and pleads with Lem to use his head for once and rat out his friends.
Aceveda tells Vic, and then Vic tells Shane and Ronnie, that Lem has given up his friends. Shane takes the information. And he takes a grenade from the Salvadorans for later use.
Like George and Lennie, Shane and Lem meet. Hence Of Mice and Men. Anyone familiar with the story had to know where this was all going. And that's what's great about this scene. Unlike Vic's murdering of Terry, which was at the time absolutely, positively shocking, we see Shane's actions coming. And it makes the scene almost unbearable to watch. I remember watching this scene on March 21, 2006, holding my heart, feeling it race, knowing that this was almost certainly the end of Lem. When Shane tells Lem that his wife Mara is pregnant again, it was all over. "It's all about family, right?" Lem should have paid more attention to the statement.
More devastating than Michael Corleone having his brother killed in The Godfather: Part II, Shane's murdering of Lem is one of those great fictional moments that really leave the reader/viewer spiritually drained. We always knew The Shield would have some kind of tragic conclusion. Season 5's finale displayed that truth explicitly. Knowing that there are two more seasons coming, Season 6, which will apparently be largely about Vic's misguided, psychotic quest for vengeance (like Othello), and Season 7, which will be about goodness knows what, makes it reasonable to assume that we will get to these heights again, after a requisite period of the characters being pitted against each other.
Simply put, 5x11 Postpartum is to me, the episode where The Shield attained genuine, lasting greatness that goes beyond being disputable. Magnificence. Perfection.
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Post by -|E|- on Mar 26, 2007 17:48:30 GMT -5
Simply put, 5x11 Postpartum is to me, the episode where The Shield attained genuine, lasting greatness that goes beyond being disputable. Magnificence. Perfection. Amen and hallelujah! Reading your comments on all the S5 episodes has me all kinds of amped for S6.... ;D
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Post by electroshockblues on Mar 27, 2007 3:46:28 GMT -5
This was my only problem with the episode. Both Lem and Shane would know that Lem's idea to say that he took down the money train alone would never work.
This is because Troikien (Choreckian?), the Armenian advance man, is still an issue. Not only has he said that four men robbed the train, but also that they were the ones behind the murders that occured before the robbery.
Lem would be confessing to murder as well as robbery.
Secondly, since Troikien is under witness protection he is still reachable by the authorities, who would naturally consult him and use him as a way of corroborating or disproving Lem's story. Once he sees who it is that is confessing to taking the money train down it won't take him long to point the finger at Shane as well, since he coincidentally ran into both Shane and Lem on the day of the robbery. Once all the facts are there (Shane and Lem as part of a four man team) it doesn't take long to drag in Vic and Ronnie as well. All four would be accused of robbery and murder.
Like you say, acc, Lem was probably not thinking straight, but nonetheless, I think it was a mistake for the writers not to address this.
The dramatic impetus behind Lem's murder is supposed to be that unbeknownst to Shane, it was entirely unneccesary - Lem was definitely not going to intentionally rat out the team. However, Lem's attempt to take the hit solo would have got the whole team screwed anyway, so by killing Lem Shane really did save himself, Vic and Ronnie.
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Post by acc on Mar 27, 2007 13:11:47 GMT -5
No, see, electroshockblues, I agree with everything you say. But I completely bought Lem's mental exhaustion, to the point where he's obviously not thinking correctly at all. What I personally love is the poetic nature to it--of all the things the Strike Team did, to Lem the Money Train heist was the most unnecessary, evil, repulsive, unholy item on their "bad" list. As Lem says to Becca, "People got killed"--Diagur, O'Brien, Eramus, several Armenian gangsters, and an Armenian woman at the hands of Margos. I think the great thing is that, while Lem's statement clearly indicts the Strike Team--and, hence, we see that, in his own way, Lem *has* sold out his buddies (though he obviously didn't *think* of it being that way at the time--and Shane's murder of Lem comes across, as a result, as more necessary than any of us want to admit.
I think it's another great example of the dualism of this series. Lem didn't *want* to rat out his friends, and, in his vain effort to say that he alone ripped off the Armenian mob (yeah, right) he was trying to save himself by pleading to serious, heavyweight federal charges and get as far away from the 1-Niners as possible.
I think that *a great deal* of the dramatic impetus behind Lem's murder is that unbeknownst to Shane it's unnecessary, but that's not all of it. If Shane could somehow get a hold of Becca, he could prove to Vic that Lem *was* ratting them out (and would probably get Vic's official sanction then, after the fact).
It's something to mull over. I myself am not entirely sure of how I feel about it. But it's important to establish the broken lines of communication between Vic/Shane/Ronnie and Lem--Vic learns from two different sources about the Money Train suddenly becoming a vital issue again (Becca and Aceveda) and so does Shane as a result. (And, even more pertinent, unbeknownst to everyone else, including Ronnie, is that Vic says to Shane, "Lem must have said something about Terry, too." In my mind, this is where Shane really shows his true colors, defending Vic's action against Terry quite enthusiastically.)
Thanks for that reply, E, that means a lot, haha. :-)
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Post by Strike Team 4 Life on Apr 26, 2009 13:03:32 GMT -5
Did anyone notice the noose that was in the trailer Lem was hiding in??
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Post by armadilloquintero on Jan 6, 2010 16:50:57 GMT -5
I rewatched the episode last night and noticed the noose. Nice touch that is hard to spot on first viewing.
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