The Shield - 1x10 - "Dragonchasers" - Crash and Yearn

The search for perfection is perhaps one of the leading causes for depression and anxiety, yet it's an issue that's seldom addressed when trying to treat those symptoms. Instead we try to put labels on things, take a pill, sign up for a program, see a shrink. But rarely do people talk about what's really bothering them: that there's gotta be something better. A better job, relationship, or course of action. There's a voice in our heads (another cause: over-thinking) that tells us if we just improve this or that, everything will be perfect, everything will fall into place and all will be right in the world. Instead of the pledge of allegiance, schools should've taught that in life, you can't get it right, and you can't fuck it up.

“Dragonchasers” is another rip-roaring adventure and a (near) winner for Dutch, as he finally gets a break in the hooker murder case, not by his smarts, but by random chance of Danny and Julien catching the perp smackin' it in an alleyway. Most of the logistical detective work (interviewing the aunt, getting a warrant to search her house and find the bodies) is left off-screen, instead focusing on the tête à tête between two very intelligent yet emotionally deranged men. There's a lot of similarities between Dutch and Sean, mainly in regards to their low self-esteem and success rate with women. Dutch's obsession with catching a serial killer may even be an extension of controlling something that once resided in him, much like Julien's transference of hate from himself to the tranny hooker. But in the end, Dutch gets his man and gets to experience the high of success, receiving commendations from the rank-and-file (usually Vic, who of course mentions that he promised “we'd get this guy”) who routinely treat him like a joke. By the end of the episode, the high wears off and the crash begins as Dutch breaks down crying in his car, on some level realizing that Sean's right. He's just a lowly civil servant who became a cop to get respect.

Our other literal dragon chaser is Connie, who swears she's gonna get clean after her mother dies and realizes she can't raise Brian on crack. The origin of Vic's relationship with Connie has always been somewhat vague and Corrine brings it up by outright asking if Brian is Vic's son. But the story of how Vic found her trying to abort her child with “some Drano and a plunger handle” is downright chilling. The whole idea of Vic helping Connie get clean is kinda absurd, since she's only useful to him if she's on the street and in the thick of drug/hooker culture. Detox scenes are always hard to watch, bringing the character to her lowest depths, verbally flashing back to the time when she killed the john and Vic helped her cover it up and throwing up, but the hardest scene to watch is when she seems to be doing better, calmly admiring herself in the mirror and asking Ronnie to get her some tea, then tacitly letting the addiction take over by grabbing his cash (though to be fair, Ronnie should've known better to have that on him) and heading for the nearest dealer. When she shows up at the Barn, high as a kite on the moon, Vic asks her how she is. “Perfect”, she replies and confirms her inability to raise her child.

Meanwhile, Julien continues to hate himself for being gay and in order to pay back a tranny hooker who bit Danny, transfers his self-loathing by joining his fellow boys in blue in a very disturbing “blanket party”. And the reporter drops a bombshell about Aceveda allegedly raping a girl in college, but he quickly explains it away to his wife with the whole “she was into kinky sex and litigation” excuse. But all in all, “Dragonchasers” is another great episode dealing with morally-flawed characters making decisions. And Shane totally bangs a stripper dancer in an interrogation room! You don't see that shit on CS-fuckin-I!

Canvassing Notes

• Luckily this grim hour of The Shield is broken up by some comic relief through Shane being manipulated by the stripper dancer running a mugging operation, with classic justifications like “She was rubbing her ass all over my hands. They don't just do that for everyone!”. Though the best part of that story has to be Vic watching Shane and Lem argue over who was the ringleader like a couple of kids, warning them that he shouldn't have to get involved in their easiest case all year.
• Sean Taylor is played by Michael Kelly, one of those “Hey It's That Guys!” whot's appeared in the Dawn of the Dead remake and had recurring roles on The Sopranos and the mini-series Generation Kill. And his character shares the same hometown of Rockford, Illinois with showrunner Shawn Ryan. And speaking of Shawn Ryan, this is probably just a coincidence but the name of the paper that the reporter works for is La Unidad, which translates to The Unit, a show he later wrote and produced with David Mamet.
• Some clever editing/writing: cut from Vic (off-camera) mackin' it with the stripper in one alley to Sean getting his own release in another. See what they did there?

• “Like, what kind of stuff you into?”
  “Oh you know, golf. I'm a four handicap.”
• “God moved out, the cops moved in.”
  “God's still here, we just sublet.”
• “We busted a one arm hooker. Fifty bucks, she'll let you hump her in her socket.”
• “I was laying the groundwork!”
• “Come on, she's an epileptic hottie, not Amy Fisher!”
• “Cop get shot in the line of duty and it's all commendations and 21-gun salutes. Some queer in a dress gives you AIDs, you end up unemployed and the city's dirty little secret.”
• “I didn't know we got the Spice Network.”
• “I got a yammy full of Georgia joy juice, darling. Enough DNA to have you writing parking tickets in Pacoima.”
• “Truth is, Sean, I might not have been the most popular guy in high school, but I got laid. More than a few times. And I'm getting laid now, too, and guess what, she's hot.”

Pre-Cog Report

• The blanket party that Julien and the others give to the tranny hooker is repeated in season two, only Julien's on the receiving end (no pun intended) when the same cops find out he's gay.
• Connie Will Return! Clean! Then Gets Shot!

Arrested Development - 1x02 - "Top Banana" - Platano Fuego

 

In television dramas, the second episode tends to retread the themes of the pilot, reintroduce the characters, and hold your hand through a stand-alone episode until you feel safe and have committed your life (and money to the show's advertisers) to the series. But in sitcoms, they throw in a snappy title sequence that explains the series premise and the character relationships and then just worry about making you laugh. Thankfully this seems to be a trend that's dying off as early episodes of new shows are more easily accessible than the pre-DVR days. But Arrested Development has never played by the rules but it's second episode does a fine job of making their own.

“Top Banana” hits the ground running with an in medias res opening of the Bluth banana stand on fire. Fire's a recurring visual and thematic device, with Tobias' hilarious melodramatic fire sale audition (“Amaaazing Grace...!), T-Bone “the flamer” burning down the storage locker, Lucille's banana flambe and GOB's attempt at shooting a fireball from his sleeves (“my least consistent trick...”). Michael's final decision to burn down the stand, after realizing the true destructive nature is his father, leads to one of the funniest jokes and greatest strengths of the series; wordplay. “There was $250,000 lined in the walls of the banana stand!” only works because Jeffrey Tambor played the quips of “money in the banana stand” to the connotation of insurance, only to be outraged when Michael didn't comprehend the true meaning (see also: flamer/arsonist vs flamer/homosexual).

George Michael and Maebe, Tobias and Lindsay, and GOB (kinda) all play the job market. George Michael's lust for his cousin is put to a test when confronted with her horrible business acumen (“Banana. Buck.”). Add the promotion to Mr. Manager and his belief that adults “can have fun whenever they want, we're kids, we're supposed to be working!” leads him to over-react and grab the gasoline. Tobias loses a job to Lindsay (and proceeds to cry in the shower, introducing us to his never-nude syndrome) and she confirms her incompetency (except when it comes to hair) by oversleeping and missing the commercial. Meanwhile GOB wants more responsibility but doesn't want to be in charge (but he'd like to be asked). His dramatic hurling of the letter into the sea plays off Will Arnett's talent at physical humor, buttoned with the apathetic toss of the dead rabbit into the ocean.

No Buster in this episode and the theme song has this weird electric guitar ditty that they lose henceforth, but “Top Banana” is another very funny outing into the world of the Bluths, strengthening character relationships (Lucille and Lindsay's passive aggressive rivalry, Michael realizing he's putting too much pressure on his son) and memorable moments involving ice cream sandwiches, mis-read magazine titles, and Luz lugging a rack of furs on an Los Angeles city bus.

• “No touching!”
• “I don't know what I expected.”
• “Oh, that's how we joke. She doesn't even have a house!”
• “Furs, or...I don't know, just a heads up.”
• “Don't take that tone. He's my son. I want you to make him stop calling me.”
• “We're like the Lunts!”
• “You might want to let that fire go out before you stick your face in it.”
  “Oh that's funny cause I was gonna say you might want to lean away from that fire since you're soaked in alcohol.”
  “Mine was better.”
• “Michael...having a nice day at the beach, while the rest of us are busting our asses to deliver your mail?”
• “I got a rabbit to buy.”

The Shield - 1x09 - "Throwaway" - Leave the gun, take the churro

 

I was going to start this blog post with a long-winded treatise about the act of discarding people and objects, whether it's justified or based on preconceived notions. Then tie that in to the parallel family strife storylines, both in relation to Claudette and Maynard.

But those get old, convoluted and needlessly personal for a dissection of a Shield episode. Let's talk about the best part of this episode: the Strike Team setting up Hector by impersonating the Los Mags and robbing a police evidence van. That right there is why I love The Shield, the tension created by dirty cops playing cowboys in the wild west of LA. All it took was some bandanas, spray paint, and a fake tattoo. But of course we don't feel bad for Hector, who sealed his fate when he branded Tigre's stomach with his first initial. This is how it works in Vic Mackey's world, bad guys gotta go down by any means necessary.

This is a big episode for Curtis “Lem/Lemonhead” Lemansky, our renegade cop with a conscience. He had a brief spotlight in “Dawg Days”, if you define spotlight as making sarcastic “ain't Vic crazy?” comments. After Lem accidentally shoots Chaco (to be fair, Chaco screamed guilty by running like that), Vic grabs a gun from his trunk o' guns 'n drugs and plants it on Chaco. And the guilt keeps building up once we find out that they shot the wrong guy, who's a former gangbanger with lasered-off tattoos and advises kids on how to escape the hood. So what does Lem do? He first takes a lesson from Vic and beats the fuck outta Hector, burning him with a cigarette and peeling away on his motorcycle all bad-ass. Then he participates in the setup, gets Chaco off, and sleeps with Tigre. Problem solved. And he didn't even need a medicine cabinet full of Maalox.

Meanwhile, Claudette meets the ghost of Christmas future in Maynard, a bastard who treated his family so badly that nobody wants anything to do with him, except a son who ties him up outside. We meet Claudette's father, played by the late Roscoe Lee Browne, who tells Dutch about Peaches' past as a dancer and tries to get her to accept her daughter's new boyfriend. It all pays off when Claudette takes Warner on a tour of the Barn and ends up breaking him down in the interrogation room like a perp. 

 

Canvassing Notes

• Besides wearing the ugliest green shirt ever, Vic's transgressions are getting worse, with his son obviously needing him (note Matthew clinging to Vic's leg when work calls) and Corrine just about reaching her breaking point. It's a shame, but what's Vic going to do? Crime doesn't stop and it's not like Ronnie could impersonate Hector.
• Love the aloof nature of the tattoo artist as his customer's requests get weirder and Vic becomes more exasperated.
• Haven't touched much on the opening credit sequences, which are almost always on point with setting the tone for the episode or having intense sequences introducing a villain, broken up by the shaky credits. The opening truck hijacking with the blaring death metal music and visceral beating of the driver really tells us who the Strike Team is up against.
• “Right. And a man's just as good as a vibrator.”
• “How'd it go with Warner?”
  “I didn't have enough to make an arrest.”
• “Thanks for telling me about Peaches.”
• “I'm only on page 23 and I imagine this is a fascinating place.”
• “Wanting us to be a family doesn't make me a shrew.”
• “I was a bastard.”

Pre-Cog Report

• Vic's increased absence at home and Matthew's condition worsening will lead Corrine to take the kids and leave Vic in the finale of this season and the series.

Arrested Development - 1x01 - "Pilot" - You Can't Handle the Bluth!

 

You can't choose your family.

You're born, you grow up, you learn the way of the world. You look up to your parents and take on their lessons and traits. Then you begin to hate them when their methods and ideologies conflict with what you perceive to be what everyone else is doing and thinking. But there's no such thing as an idyllic childhood. Your parents are just two people who banged and had a kid, mixing and matching the best parental guidance they can gather from books, common sense, and attempts at rectifying their own parent's mistakes. Your extended family is just as full of damaged personalities, hang-ups, annoying quirks, repeated jokes, addictions to drugs, alcohol, and being right all the time. All products of an imperfect environment. But when it comes time for celebrations and heartbreaks, who else are you going to turn to? The perfect family doesn't exist and despite what the media tells us, it's not normal to always get along with people you have frequent contact with. Human beings are hard-wired with a defense mechanism that literally prevents us from being happy. Our brain tells us “this isn't enough” and “what else?” in order to keep us moving and surviving. But what're you going to do? Blood is thicker than water, it's a family affair, you gotta be loyal to somebody! Everyone's got their shit to deal with and it's always something. There'll be fights in public, fun times in private, screaming and crying, laughter and bonding. But if you're lucky, they'll never give up on you.

Arrested Development was a show that thrived on the importance of family. Despite the broad self-interested yet lovable cartoonish characters, it's clear that these people would do anything for each other while engaging in jokes about greedy corporations, actors & magicians, and whacky socialite hijinx. Hell, incest between two cousins is one of the sources of comedy and you can't get any more familial than that. And like any family, it's impossible to choose a favorite member of the Bluth clan.

But we all know the story: the show was killed in it's prime. Despite aggressive fan campaigns, timely DVD releases, and winning an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series after it's freshman year, it was canceled after three increasingly-shorter seasons and fifty-three episodes. Can we blame the FOX network? Sure, the show could've benefited from a few more billboards, TV spots and a post-Superbowl airing. To their credit, it was premiered after The Simpsons in it's first season. We also have to remember that 2003 was a time before DVR was a household name and little-to-no online viewing capabilities existed (unlike now, where most networks post episodes the next morning on Hulu). This was a show that practically begged for multiple viewings to absorb every joke in both the fore and background. You couldn't watch this while doing laundry, unlike shows with this-is-the-punchline-music or a three-camera sitcom that says “See? It's funny because this warmed-up-by-a-comedian-audience-being-told-to-laugh is laughing! Why aren't you, America?” It was a show before it's time.

So let's take a look at the extended pilot, first made available on the DVD set, which mainly adds funny characters moments and doesn't bleep out the word “fuck”. The plot is surprisingly simple compared to future episodes: It's George Sr.'s retirement party, we meet all the members of the Bluth family, he passes over Michael, promotes his wife, and gets arrested. Instead of moving to Arizona, Michael decides that instead of just saying that family is important to his son, he needs to act as an example and stick around during his family's time of need. It's a quick half-hour, mainly due to the cinema verite style that employs hand-held cameras and cut-aways to flashbacks, stock footage, newspaper articles and clips. The faux-documentary style, where it's acknowledged that some film crew has been capturing moments of this family since it's beginnings, is a useful narrative device for half-hour comedies, if it's done well, mainly due to the way it handles exposition. In the UK and US versions of The Office and Modern Family, they take it a step backward with frequent talking-head interviews with our characters, who expose their inner thoughts before and after moments we're currently seeing. And it's what sets Arrested Development apart from those shows, there's too much energy and too much going on to stop and have Michael explain his feelings during the retirement party. A mark of a good show is one that trusts it's audience to pay attention. And the Bluths don't do interviews.

Overall, this is one of the better comedy pilots in recent history. The characters are all clearly defined before the first act break, there's real-world conflict that they react to in a comic way, and very solid jokes in the dialogue and visuals. Jason Bateman plays a great straight man, who is perhaps the funniest character on the show with his dead-pan observations on the ridiculous nature of his family. The world of Orange County and the Bluth company's history is immediately expanded upon, from the frozen banana stand to rival housing company Sitwell. The only complaints I have is that some of the jokes' reverse engineering is a bit more blatant the umpteenth time around, such as Maeby's name. Was she named that simply for her response to George Michael's question about them being cousins? But Mitch Hurwitz seems to have an affinity for name puns (see also: George Michael, G.O.B., Tobias Funke and his latest show Running Wilde). The show was reportedly developed as a response to all the corporate accounting scandals like Enron and Worldcom, and while one can only ride the “look how crazy rich people are?” boat for so long, the show deserves credit for expanding on that premise and transcending into comedy brilliance.

This is the first sitcom I've dissected, after diving into the television criticism arena with just my wit and ability to identify variations on a theme. I'll continue to blog about the first season of The Shield, tackle about three Arrested Development episodes a week (in one post), and then possibly move onto Oz. Thanks for reading!

The Shield - 1x08 - "Cupid & Psycho" - Love and Other Drugs

 

In our everyday interactions, we have the choice to act out of fear or love. You get pulled over by a cop, you can curse the officer, the bullshit speed limit, and the other drivers with lead feet. Or you can accept the situation for what it is, realize that the officer is just doing a job to protect others and feed his family, and be thankful you weren't in a life-and-death situation where you needed to speed. Unfortunately, acting out of fear tends to be the default because it's easiest. We're always looking for someone to blame. On each of our shoulders, we have a dueling angel and demon. A cupid and a psycho.

“Cupid & Psycho” shakes things up for our characters in the Barn, and it results in one of the season's most compelling episodes yet. We have a literal shake-up from the leaked IAD Strike Team investigation, resulting in a Vic/Claudette and Shane/Dutch match-up. Aceveda reaps the rewards and gains backing for his run at City Council, even after Vic blackmails Julien into recanting, because “perception is reality.” And after watching Vic's back throughout Terry's murder and the whacky Armenian cocaine theft adventure, Gilroy's had enough and is done watching Vic's back.

But the main themes of this episode deal with love and drugs, namely a poisoned batch of meth called “Cupid” hitting the LA colleges because a bunch of incompetents skipped Walter White's science class. After a car chase mostly edited from the B-roll of America's Most Wanted ends with the driver dead and a conscious burn victim in the trunk, Vic and Claudette track down the manufacturers by alternating investigation methods (Vic's is always more fun). Meanwhile, Dutch and Shane help a grieving widow after her husband's murder case file was lost. We expect Shane to step in and pick the fruit, but Dutch ends up scoring (and canceling his date with Danny with the same excuse she used on him in “Blowback”). Julien and Tomas hit yet another rough patch, as Julien is blackmailed into backing up on his statement for fear of people finding out he's gay. I may have problems with the storyline (mostly because I just saw it as a device designed to raise the stakes against Vic) but Michael Jace delivers a fantastic monologue in the bathroom: “It's this thing inside of me. I push it down, it goes away, but then it comes back stronger. I shove it back again but it just keeps coming back until I don't have the strength to push anymore.” And finally, the Battle for the White Ghetto Woman returns, with all the flip-flopping-restraining-order goodness and juicy Von's supermarket hookups, until it ends with Lamar shooting both Fran and the grammatically-challenged Hooper. RIP (S)HOE.

Canvassing Notes

• The episode-ending music montage (this show does a lot of them, and it does them well.) is scored by The Magnetic Fields with their song “All My Little Words”, a beautiful tune about the limits of relationships and eventual heartbreak. It even matches up nicely to the images (“you tell me you're unboyfriendable” over Julien looking forlorn in the Barn).
• Written by Glen Mazzara (“The Spread”) and directed by Guy Ferland, who would later be one of the show's go-to directors.
• I hate pointing out production gaffes, and this might just be revealing my ignorance when it comes to cars, but are there any models where the lever to open the trunk is on the passenger side?
• “The chief dumped my balls like a coupla doughnuts in his morning coffee.”
• “I thought screwing sheep went out with New Wave.”
• “We hooked up at the Vons, yo!”
• “Shane wants to hit the monster truck rally on Friday.”
• “You can't go through life hating who you are.”

Pre-Cog Report

• We find out that Vic's father was a bricklayer, which is pretty much all we ever get regarding Vic's backstory. We don't even find out his middle name until the second-to-last episode of the series. According to Shawn Ryan, who's taking a page from David Mamet, “backstory is bullshit.” Which can be true, but when you're dealing with such a high-octane character like Vic Mackey, don't we want to know what fuels him?

The Shield - 1x07 - "Pay in Pain" - Psychics & Psychopaths

How do you define justice? A charge, conviction and jail sentence through an impartial legal system? An eye for an eye? Or do you have faith that forces in the universe will deliver karmic payback? We're at the half-way point of The Shield''s first season and the question of what defines the right way of punishing our fellow man for indiscretions is fast becoming the theme store's top seller. The cops are placed with the burden of sorting out citizen conflict, from the incredibly violent killers to the harmless grifters, having the power to make life-changing decisions on who's guilty and innocent. And when you have a legal system clogged with red tape and political-correctness that impedes real progress, can you really blame people for resorting to tooth-for-tooth time?

Written by series creator Shawn Ryan, “Pay in Pain” features parallel forms of justice. We have the cases of George the Random Latino Killer being handed over to the Toros for retribution and Dutch/Claudette simply warning a psychic to “find new marks”. George went nuts, as explained by his sister, due to the expanding Hispanic population in Los Angeles, but the Toros going after the man's family was going over the line. The story examines the increasing tension between the police and those they protect, with the addition of Jimenez, a vocal politician/straw man who makes some speeches about hate crimes and racial tensions, whose real importance is revealed when Aceveda leaks the IAD case. The psychic storyline seems to exist solely to show the limitations the police have against the mystical who offer a service people are willing to pay for. But of course, the medium is spot on about Dutch's case, though it could just be a very good cold reading. And she looks like Oprah Winfrey, who Vic name drops as the wrong methodology to go about when dealing with the Toros.

Vic is paired up with Carlos, a former Toros member, and both men learn different ways to handle problems on the street. Carlos believes in working with the gang and thinks he can trust Train, whose pregnant girlfriend was killed by George (off topic, but is a loud gun range really safe for a growing fetus?). He nearly loses it when he discovers that the shopowners turned George over to the Toros without telling him, almost putting a fatal bullet in Train's head before being stopped by Vic. In turn, Vic learns a few things from Carlos, namely forgiving Shane for his jokes about autism and more importantly, protecting him, not willing to give Shane up to IAD over the events in “Blowback”. Even if Shane's urine-fueled interrogation antics are immature, Vic needs to protect Shane, the only other Strike Team member who knows the truth about Terry's death.

But while I'd rank this lower on The Shield's scale of intense episodes, there's developments on the sidelines that move along, namely Julien's testimony against Vic for stealing drugs. Gilroy casually mentions that another officer saw the transgression, and Vic puts the dots together, culminating in an awkward scene where Vic arrests Tomas in front of Julien. This isn't a spoiler, but was that the point of the Julien character? To make a closeted religious cop the only witness of a major Strike Team crime, upping the tension and making the audience believe that Vic could go down until Julien's true sexual history is revealed? Judging by his diminished importance over the years (and Michael Jace never feeling comfortable as either a man of God or a cop), I'd say so.

Canvassing Notes

• The opening speech by the scorned citizen, asking what the cops are doing to make people feel safe, was a bit too grand-standing for my taste. If the event of a rapist being released due to a computer malfunction and then raping her niece was a part of the episode, or a result of the flooding of the Barn in “Cherrypoppers”, it could've worked as an ending, but as a “JUST ANOTHER DAY” moment, not so much. But at least they didn't end it with everyone applauding.
• “When you trade in your megaphone for a badge, that's when I'll seek out your opinion.”
• “We're dinosaurs, Vic. And make no mistake, the meteor's coming...”
• “What's fair for them out there has to be fair for us in here.”
• “Just think of the things I could get away with if I was banging a police captain.”

Pre-Cog Report

• Beyond the Julien and Vic development, not too much really comes back in later episodes, not even Carlos or Jimenez, though random members of the Toros will pop up here and there.

Just on a personal note for this episode, back when I was in school, I was trying to come up with a title for a film I made for a production class. I perused the episode titles of my favorite TV shows and felt that "Pay in Pain" summed up the theme of my slip-'n-fall-scheme dark comedy, later renaming it to "Paid in Pain". Enjoy:

The Shield - 1x06 - "Cherrypoppers" - Bogie Nights

Childhood is supposed to be an age of innocence, where you're expected to have fun and make mistakes, a grace period before you inevitably learn the cold hard truths of the world and are suddenly expected to grow up. Some children coming from harsh environments have this moment very early on, some learn around the right time, and some have never left. I started watching dark, disturbing television dramas like The Sopranos and Oz when I was fourteen years old, in between sneaking glimpses of naked women on HBO's weird sex shows. Later on, I got into The Wire and The Shield, and because I identified with and highly respected the characters and writing, I too wanted to be a morally flawed protagonist in my own on-going narrative. I saw my generation filled with idiot youths who didn't know or have respect for anything real. I resented being pandered to due to my age. I spent my teens and early twenties just waiting to bypass the required bullshit training of public school and expensive bubble of college, doing the bare minimum so I could finally get my life started and start laying real foundations through a real world schedule that didn't have summers off. I kind of had this weird fantasy of becoming a forty-year old bachelor with a substance abuse problem and a couple of ex-wives while making pithy remarks to my nemeses about how great things were before cell phones and the Internet. While friends looked up to athletes, politicians, and philanthropists, I wanted to be a combination of Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, and Jimmy McNulty. And as a result, I went through those years angry, engaged in self-destructive acts, shied away from any kind of personal growth, and alienated friends and family, but at least I was right, dammit. About what, I don't even know. So Dutch's realization at the end of “Cherrypoppers”, where he starts to blame his childhood on his rant towards Danny and then back-tracks, after witnessing the horrors of pre-pubescent sex shops and underage prostitute murders, really rung true for me. At least we had a childhood free of impending doom and exploitation. We both had families that wanted nothing but the best for us and did what they could, but due to some faulty programming in our fucked-up heads, we convinced ourselves that it wasn't good enough.

“Cherrypoppers”, another solid yet disturbing Shield episode with plenty of “this ain't your mama's cop show” moments, examines our characters having their first experiences ruined by random forces. Dutch spends hours grilling his first viable suspect in the hooker murders, only to have the rug pulled out from under him when it's revealed he's been pranked. Vic does a good deed by busting a kiddie sex shop and sending a pre-teen girl back to Korea, but she'll probably be on the first boat back to America. Both characters have their moment of catharsis, with Dutch unloading a sarcastic rant on Danny when she asks his help to study, and Vic having to beat up his surrogate daughter Connie so she's not convicted of murder. And then the pipes in the Barn pop, fluid gets everywhere, and the plumber only takes cash.

Vic's descent into the horrible world of kiddie prostitution is almost too sick to watch. The group of Koreans joking about pimping out Sally and her ecstasy dealer exuding confidence in his right to a reward for information is truly deplorable, mainly because it seems to be an accepted part of life. While it can be funny to watch Vic force a friendship on Ted outside the sex club, what happens inside is quite the opposite. From the music box lullaby to the man in the cowboy boots on stage, we see everything through Vic's eyes, which get so angry that they look ready to pop out of his head. Props to FX and the producers for having the balls to depict this world seldom seen on television.

Dutch is one of those sad characters who never gets the respect he think he deserves, so he studies up on FBI criminal psychology in order to prove he's smarter than everyone else. We saw glimpses of this in “The Spread” and it comes to fruition in “Cherrypoppers”. He gets to lead the investigation, shouting out “I'm gonna get this guy!” to his fellow officers, brings in the FBI (who he probably stole the phrase “unsub” from, another callback to the pilot), and proves that he's great at interrogations, especially ones that he evokes a personal stake in. He nearly loses it when he wasted all those hours and resources on a couple of jokers, and with damn good reason. But in a way, he wins in the end, having a “mean grilled cheese” with Danny. But the green car with the broken tail light is still out there...

Canvassing Notes

• Despite the dark subject matter, there's still a few hilarious moments, such as the clueless gas station clerk who thinks the cops can dust for fingerprints because “it's his three dollars!” and Sally taking on Struthers as her surname. And I never fail to laugh at Kurt Schmidt, the kiddie porn filmmaker, and his justification that “I'm an editor, man!”
• Julien continues to press Aceveda to move forward in testifying against Vic for stealing the bricks of cocaine, mainly because he can't live with himself and has to answer to God. I'm not familiar with Christianity, but are drugs that big of an issue? Didn't God make the plants that cocaine is made out of, and the drug war is nothing more than a man-made catastrophe?
• The episode was written by Scott Rosenbaum, who later went on to write for Chuck and V, and was directed by DJ Caruso, who started out directing TV movies and recently did Disturbia, Eagle Eye, and I Am Number Four.
• Some great guest stars: FBI Agent Jim Wright was played by Richard Portnow, best known as Hal Melvoin, Uncle Junior's lawyer on The Sopranos. Also from that show was Will McCormack, who played Dr. Melfi's son. And we had Jay Harrington who later went on to play the titular character in the under-rated Better Off Ted.
• “What're you boys chewing? A little grilled Snoopy, side of Woodstock?”
• “Suspicious how?”
  “Well, he was white.”
• “She's a kid. She was.”
• “Serial cases are marathons, not sprints.”

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)

• The real hooker killer will be caught in “Dragonchasers”, one of the best Dutch episodes ever, also written by Scott Rosenbaum.
• Funny how Dutch accuses Steve of “killing cats”, since Dutch will kill himself a cat in a later season, just to see the light in its eyes go out.

The Shield - 1x05 - "Blowback" - White Lines

 

 

In the recent surge of 13-episode serialized television seasons, the fifth episode holds a lot of weight, both structurally and creatively. After the pilot is shot, months go by before the show is picked up for a season. Then more writers are brought in, sets are built, new roles are cast, everything slowly but surely starts to jive. The fifth episode is the 1/3 mile marker of the season and is where the true thematic entities come to fruition. For The Sopranos it was “College”, where Tony's mob and family life become intertwined when he runs into a rat while taking his daughter to visit colleges. And for The Shield, it's seeing how deep a hole the Strike Team can fall into before managing to dig themselves out, while racking up the tension to almost unbearable levels.

“Blowback” is about, well, the Strike Team trying to get their blow back. Vic and the gang manufacture a bust with an illegal wire tap and a fake tip to score a couple of bricks of cocaine off some Armenians in order to keep Aceveda off their backs and score a nice chunk of change off Rondell from the sale. Those drugs were going on the street anyway, so why shouldn't they profit off it? All cops put their lives on the line every day, knocking down doors without knowing who's behind them, receiving shit pay and then locking up rich scumbags whose drugs and money are sent to an evidence room, waiting to be destroyed. I could go on and on about the insanity of the drug war, but The Shield was never really about soap box issues. If The Wire is the epic byzantine tome of cop shows, then The Shield is the explosive Machiavellian graphic novel. And we're only on the first trade paperback.

But beyond the hunt for the black/blue Navigator (strictly a production design mishap), there's other instances of past events coming back to haunt our characters. When Julien witnesses the Strike Team stealing two bricks of coke, he's willing to jeopardize his career by ratting them out to Aceveda, a self-destructive move to punish himself for being continuing to hook up with Tomas. Vic's son Matthew is diagnosed with autism. Could this be cosmic payback from the universe for Vic's heinous actions?

Compared to other episodes, there's not many variations on that theme beyond Shane warning Lem of the dangers of fat in cookies. It's just a rock-solid adventure where at any second the Strike Team could go down. There's a great moment towards the end of the episode, after Vic flushes the open brick of coke down the toilet, knowing that Aceveda and other cops have arrived, and looks at himself in the mirror. Whatever he's thinking, about almost getting caught, his son, his team, whatever emotions are washing over him as the adrenaline keeps pumping, he just sets aside and puts the remaining brick in his jacket. Then he dares Aceveda to search him. That's why Vic does what he does. He thrives on chaos. And somewhere deep inside, he wants to get caught. But not yet.

Canvassing Notes

• We're introduced to an all-time great Shield villain in Margos Dezerian (played by Kurt Sutter, writer of this episode and future Sons of Anarchy creator) who murders a man because he was impatient with Margo's coke line cutting skills, and snaps the neck of a redneck in the cage because of an off-hand comment. Then he disappears into the night after escaping a police van, only speaking to compliment Danny's feet.
• Clark Johnson's back for his final episode of season 1, shooting this one back-to-back with “The Spread”.
• The episode's bookended with both Shane and Dutch exasperating “You gotta be shittin' me,” both in regards to something important being stolen from them.
• The silencer that Margos uses sounds just like the PP7 in Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64.
• “Is there anything you're not allergic to?”
  “Sheet metal.”
• “Huh. The Armenians speak Armenian.”
• “What if I stuck big blue bananas in your ears and set them on fire?”
• “We're all gonna crash and burn because of you! I mean, Christ, dude, Amy's not even that hot!”
• “We'll check the muff rippers in Little Tokyo.”

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)

• Margos and the Armenians become the big bad for the Strike Team, after robbing the Armenian's money train in season 2, Margos comes back to hunt them down, chopping off feet in the process.
• Deena the Car Thief makes a return later this season in “Pay in Pain”, as well as a cameo in season 3 and 7.

The Shield - 1x04 - "Dawg Days" - Three Dogs Fight

 

 

“You know why they come here? Five words: free market, rule of law.” - Dutch

“Hey man, it's a free country.” - Rondell

“Nothing's free. I'm your landlord, Rondell. I let you use space that I own!” - Vic

The American dream is perhaps the most iconic driving force behind the country's relative success. Backed up by symbols like the Statue of Liberty, the flag, apple pie, baseball and all that jazz, it sets an optimistic precedent for all citizens and those using the concept to justify anything and everything. We were taught by our teachers and parents that enough hard work and dedication, anything's possible. But like any dream, you eventually wake up realize that the only things that matter are preparation and luck, with the hope that those two someday meet. All of your problems are your responsibility, no matter who you can blame. Life's just a shit sandwich, the more bread you got, the less shit you gotta eat.

Kern Little, T-Bonz, and Rondell Robinson have all reached the American Dream, with more money and power than they know what to do with. But they can't stop from tearing each other apart over past indiscretions and girlfriends. Eduardo and Manuel strive for the American Dream, working hard at construction sites before Manuel has a fatal fall. When the foreman accuses Eduardo to keep his mouth shut, his fear of not working and quasi-respect for America makes him accept the blame for murder.

“Dawg Days” has some underlying absurdities present in all the major storylines. Vic has to play Judge Judy to a couple of feuding gangsta rappers while keeping Rondell out of jail. Remember, he killed Terry to protect his relationship with Rondell, and Vic has to remind him every step of the way obvious rules like no violence, low profile, cops are off-limits, etc. While Rondell may strive to be classy by listening to vinyl and is smart enough to keep his apartment clean of drugs and weapons, he reacts to every situation like a petulant child, whining that his illegal dope business might take a minor hit if he takes his dealers off the street. It's a wonder that Vic only donates his TV and breaks his records after Rondell had Danny threatened at gunpoint.

“Dawg Days” is a somewhat weaker episode than what's to come, mostly because the main sources of conflict stem from misunderstandings and jealousy, with Vic playing the role of "an impartial arbitrator" between a couple of knuckleheads. The Strike Team is cut in half because FX wasn't sure if Walton Goggins was working out as Shane, so we have Vic playing the bad cop and Lem relegated to one liners. Though Catherine Dent does great work as Danny, playing the female cop who has to keep her guard up at all times, she does a marvelous job when she finally lets her guard down in front of Vic, unsure of what to do after being threatened at gun point and coerced by Vic to change her statement. Still, it's the beginning of the season, the characters are still finding their voices and the writers/producers/directors are seeing what works and what doesn't (I don't believe that Lem is ever referred to “Lemonhead” after this episode). It ends with the cathartic act of Kern and T-Bonz locked in a shipping container, fighting to the death like animals. When Vic releases Kern, they reflect over the situation with a gorgeous shot of the sun rising over the Los Angeles railyard. Time to move on, it's a new day.

Canvassing Notes

• The title being what it is, there's lots of dog imagery throughout. From Tyesha's pocket dog being poisoned by T-Bonz to both Manuel and Thurman's bones dug up. Also, Matthew barks like a German Shepherd in the house, further indicating that something's not right.
• Rondell Robinson is played by Walter Jones, best known as the Black Ranger on the first couple seasons of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Then again, this is also a show that cast an Thuy Trang as the Yellow Ranger, and Billy Yost reportedly quit after being harassed for his homosexuality. Man, and that was my favorite show growing up. Why were the 90's so inclusive yet abusive?
• Steven Gyllenhaal directed, who did the solid Homicide episode “Bop Gun” with Robin Williams (and had a cameo by son Jake). This episode was written by Kevin Arkadie, who wrote for Chicago Hope and New York Undercover.
• Hilarious scene of Dutch butchering the Spanish version of the Miranda rights (when he's arresting the wrong man) but gets to be the hero by reading the English version to the real culprit.
• Is Sticky Fingaz (Kern Little) cross-eyed or were there issues with eye-lines on set? Specifically the scene where he and Tyesha bring Vic the dead dog.
• “Are we ever getting DSL around here?” Oh, 2002...
• “If I can't defend you, I can't afford you.”
• “Took one in the ass but it's not the first time.”
• “The biggest chance you could've taken was to piss me off!”

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE SERIES)

• Rondell just gets more reckless as the season goes on, eventually ending up dead after Vic finds a smarter drug dealer to protect.
• Aceveda will win the City Council seat, but doesn't leave the Barn until season four.
• Kern Little returns several more times, opens up a club, but gets involved with the One-Niners and is killed on Antwon Mitchell's orders during the robbery of the police warehouse in season five.
• Vic's family problems are just beginning, with Matthew's prognosis only one episode away.

The Shield - 1x03 - "The Spread" - Cock 'n (Basket) Ball Story

William Greeley wants eternal power through preservation of his lineage, but psychosis holds him back. The police have some semblance of power due to badges that signify authority. But only Derek Tripp has real power, because of his prowess at basketball.

There's many power games and trips going on in “The Spread”. Greeley sees himself as an extreme pro-lifer, with the mission to mass-disperse his seed before a fatal brain tumor catches up to him, and claiming that women need him. His game is disrupted when Connie makes the painful mistake of simply taking out a condom. The Strike Team manages to manipulate the Laker's game in their favor by detaining Tripp after arresting his friends on drugs and weapon charges. But Shane's still reeling from Terry's murder and goes on a power trip against a man who charges $150 for an autograph. And Tomas knows the truth about Julien after seeing him outside a gay bar, using that power to motivate Julien to look into the mistake of his arrest.

While this hour ranks lower on the tension scale of most Shield episodes, “The Spread” moves things along with two solid stand-alone stories as well as laying pipe for future developments with all our characters. Dutch and Shane play parallel proteges to their mentors in Claudette and Vic, both looking for some semblance of fame under the guise of performing duties for the greater good. Dutch wants to discover the next Ted Bundy, but only to serve his ego and perhaps impress Danny. Shane wants to teach Derek a lesson and maybe subconsciously get his name in the paper, but he's really acting out of fear and a new sense of invincibility. Vic and Claudette have to bring their proteges down to earth, with Claudette solving the case by manipulating Greeley into thinking she'd be willing to have his child (and buttoning it with a swift kick in the nuts) and Vic's cold, heartless chat with Shane.

Vic continues his streak of super cop status, empowered by getting away with murder. He plays around in the Barn with a water gun while Aceveda passes out warrants. He detains Derek and lets the Strike Team profit off the basketball game. He plays the saint by helping Connie find her almost-rapist and feeling so confident that he lets her smoke crack in a police station. He then becomes a recognized hero by saving an infant from a tweaking crankhead simply by being in the right place at the right time. When Corrine brings him a change of clothes for the upcoming teacher meeting, he thanks her for the “fresh cape”. And while Shane almost kills Derek due to insecurity and breaks down crying over Terry's death, Vic's in rock-solid denial mode, barely registering a modicum of emotion or regret while telling Shane to “get over it, don't bring it up again.” But after meeting with his son's teacher, he's suddenly hit with a blast of kryptonite, powerless to act as he discovers his son may have serious neurological issues. The silent car ride home with Corrine is undercut with the radio announcing Derek's bullshit excuse for missing the game that preserves his god-like status. Derek Tripp: 1, Vic: 0.

Canvassing Notes

• Our man Clark Johnson's back in the director's chair and this episode was written by Glen Mazzara, who also cut his teeth in the Nash Bridges writing room with Shawn Ryan.
• The arrest of William Greeley is a visually tight sequence, from the SWAT fastening the line from the tow truck to the barricaded door to the hilarious reveal of Greeley naked on the couch.
• “We all hate sweeps, we all hate sweeps...” - Meta commentary on the TV industry by Shawn Ryan?
• Greeley was played by Kirk Baltz, best known as the cop with an ear deficiency in Reservoir Dogs.
• More funny edits: “What're you gonna do about the rest of our warrants?” Cut to a homeless guy with mustard stains on his shirt, “Vic Mackey called, told me to turn myself in.”
• “You're stretching, son. Try yoga.”
• “It's not mayonnaise...”
• “Between this and my caesarean, I'm a goddamn road map.”

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)

• Dutch's obsession with serial killers will only continue throughout the series, having several successes and failures along the way and finally nailing a budding teenage murderer in the seventh season.
• Really liked the moment of Corrine playing along with Vic on the phone as he pretends to call Aceveda, though as their family strife only increases throughout the series these types of scenes become non-existent.

The Shield - 1x02 - "Our Gang" - Quick, what's the number for 911?

When I was about thirteen, I remember a co-worker at one of my first counter jobs lamenting about having to give up eating chocolate for lent. Not being familiar with the tenets of Christianity, I questioned her reasoning behind this decision. What she hoped to gain from abstaining from something she enjoyed, why she chose it, what had she given up in the past, what other pillars of religion? She looked at me like I was insane, as if there was no questioning the words of a book written two thousand years ago, no room for alternate interpretations, and no choice but to give up Snickers bars until the Easter Bunny made its rounds.

Blind loyalty to rituals is a big part of “Our Gang”, featuring parallel initiations into the Los Magnificos and the Farmington Police force, both on the opposite spectrum of pleasure and pain. The Los Mags beat the holy hell out of Olman to see if he can survive life in the barrio (and after shooting a churro vendor) until accepting him into the gang. Jackson and the other boys in blue take Julien for a “B and B”, making him chug a pitcher of beer and becoming acquainted with Betty “the badge sucker”. Both rituals forge a bond between the enablers and receivers, a memorable experience that neither party will forget, and bridging the gap between stranger and brother. But as to the origins of these rituals beyond confirming durability and/or comradery, who knows? It's always been this way. We have to. And it works.

“Our Gang” is a tense episode up until the end, with Captain “Ass-Invader” giving all he's got into trying to nail Vic for Terry's murder. After making Vic feel safe and going after Mr. Weak Link aka Shane Vendrell, Aceveda gets THIS CLOSE to nailing the main character for homicide and effectively ending the show. The episode does a great job of racking up the tension by cross-cutting between Olman receiving his initiation beating with Shane being questioned, before Vic comes in and saves the day (in both instances). But what would have happened if Shane confessed? The series does and would continue to getting the Strike Team into the tightest corners possible before yanking them back to safety. Gots to have that status quo, yo.

The second episode does a great job of expanding the world of the Farmington district. We meet another enabler in Assistant Chief Ben Gilroy, who tipped off Vic about Terry's metamorphosis into a rodent. But even Vic doesn't trust him completely, never letting his guard down about what happened at Two-Time's coke-whore/Crazy Taxi party, but Gilroy's content with whatever Vic's up to as long as it gets crime reduced on the streets. And we meet another fish from Vic's tank of endless CI's: Van Bro, a former gang banger with a penchant for painting. There's a great moment where he looks up at Vic from his wheelchair with his one good eye, after breaking a code he no doubt swore blind allegiance to years ago, and yearns “Maybe someday, somebody even win this war.” Vic: “I intend to.”

During Shane's initial questioning by IAD, Frances asks him about Terry's induction into the Strike Team. When reminded of Terry's outsider status, Shane says it doesn't matter because when Vic puts you on the team, “You're on the team.” Shane, Lem, and Ronnie all have blind devotion to Vic Mackey and trust him implicitly. But when your messiah is a cold-blooded murderer, what does that say about your religion? It may even be worse for Lem and Ronnie's case...they don't even know. Like the senior hazing the freshman in high school, we follow these set of practices that have been handed down from generation to generation, never once thinking to break the cycle or to find a better way. Because to question these actions inhibits the very thing we all want out of them: acceptance.

Canvassing Notes

• Directed by Gary Fleder, a regular TV director who most famously did the episode of “Homicide” called “Subway”, where Vincent D'Onofrio plays a man who gets trapped between a subway car and the platform, knowing he'll die when the car pulls away. Fleder does a bang-up job of maintaining the series tone set by Clark Johnson.
• “Our Gang” is most likely a reference to the alternate title of the beloved comedy series “The Little Rascals”, a show that famously defied the racist and sexist attitudes of the early 20^th century by featuring boys and girls of all races together as equals. The show also revolved around a community of disenfranchised children who worked together to overcome their problems, were loyal to each other, and prohibited outsiders unless they subscribed to their rules.
• There's recurring imagery of teeth, from Terry's story about the dental dam to Claudette receiving denture cream for her birthday. Both are designed to protect the mouth and there's lots of scenes in this episode where people are either refraining from speaking (Vic and Shane about Terry's murder) or wanting to speak (Olman's accepting responsibility for the churro vendor shooting to enhance his reputation). There's also the connotations regarding Julien receiving oral sex, Marlon hungry for a cheeseburger, and the image on the Strike Team's business card of a snake eating a rat.
• More rituals: It's Claudette's birthday but she doesn't want to be reminded and sarcastically accepts a gift. But she'll observe the ritual of waiting for a gentlemen suitor's divorce to be final before hitting the dance club where he'll be.
• A couple of slick match cut editing tricks; from the police folding the American flag to a homie of Two-Time unfurling a blue hanker chief on his grave. And from Matthew setting down forks to the flashback of the Strike Team dealing cards on Terry's first day.
• Some notable guest stars: John Diehl playing Gilroy, most famously appearing in Miami Vice and one of the first Spinosaurus victims in Jurassic Park III. And we have April Grace, who's known for playing Gwenovier (Frank TJ Mackey's interviewer in Magnolia) and Miss Klugh (Michael and Walt's interrogator on Lost).
• “Tell 'em this is LA, not the Wild West!” - Yeah Dutch, stick it to 'em! Though I did once see some tumbleweeds in Culver City.
• After seeing his son shout “To infinity and beyond!” and responding “Ok, captain infinity...”, I hung my head, realizing that Vic's not a Pixar fan.
• Love the image of the old frazzled woman handling the camcorder in her bathrobe, lens cap swinging in the wind. It seems to be everybody's dream to capture another Rodney King moment.
• 25 cents for a churro? And he's trying to send his kid to Stanford? Let's hope that business acumen doesn't run in the family...

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR ENTIRE SERIES)

• Shane will eventually take a page from the Vic Mackey playbook by murdering a fellow Strike Team member when it seems they'll turn rat.
• The Terry murder is closed for now, but the investigation will be picked up again in season 5 by the always great Forest Whitaker and his magic stick of gum.
• Gilroy will become more prominent later this season with the land scheme, then popping up briefly in season 2 before turning up dead in Mexico.
• Vic can sense something's up with Matthew, and we'll learn very soon of his autism, which is kinda sorta supposed to excuse and justify Vic's heinous actions. See also: Breaking Bad with Walt Jr. and his cerebral palsy. But now imagine if those characters had kids who were real entitled asshole texting-their-lives-away teenagers?
• Van Bro makes a few more appearances throughout the series run, though if I remember correctly his paintings don't really improve.
• The scene of Julien reluctantly enjoying his B and B plays in an all new light when we learn of his true sexual identity.
• The Los Mags will return and continue to own the streets of Farmington...until the writers get bored and bring in the One-Niners, Byz Lats, Armenians, K-Town Killers, Spookstreet Souljahs, etc, etc, etc.

Join me next Monday for episode 3, “The Spread”!

The Shield - 1x01 - "Pilot" - JUST ANOTHER DAAAAAAAAY!

How much evil are we willing to accept to gain positive results? In ticking-time bomb scenarios, is it justifiable to resort to less-than-moral means? Or by crossing that line, do we set off a string of new problems?

The Shield was FX's foray into the original series game, and they instantly got what makes good TV. Back in the early 2000's, a lot of the networks were trying to replicate the success that HBO was getting by amping up the sex and violence. But what makes a good show isn't profanity and nudity, it's taking thematic risks, talented actors regardless of what's considered attractive or marketable, and not holding the audience's hand through difficult moments. While some may treat the television form as mindless entertainment not designed to make one think (read: all reality TV), I've always been of the school of thought where if you're spending precious time devoted to a screen, might as well make it compelling. Otherwise we're just staring at a 44-minute distraction.

If the show was on a network, you can bet your bottom dollar that Vic Mackey would be a tough cop who dabbles in suspect brutality, but in the end he's just a big ol' teddy bear who only hurts people who deserve it. But at the end of Shawn Ryan's brilliant pilot, we know that Mackey's “a different kind of cop”. What better way to set the tone and define a character than KILLING A FELLOW POLICE OFFICER IN COLD BLOOD?

Directed by Clark Johnson (who also blessed The Wire and the underrated Sleeper Cell pilots, as well as starring in the spiritual predecessor Homicide: Life on the Street), the frantic tone was set from the start. Shot on 16mm, the erratic handheld style never let up and got us up-close and personal with some of the series more disturbing deeds. We get an off-the-map tour of Los Angeles, staying away from the glitz 'n glamour and focusing on the nitty gritty. I don't believe the Hollywood sign was ever shown through the entire series run.

Working off Shawn Ryan's pilot script, the series gets us into the thick of it right away, setting up the balancing act between Mackey's ruthless crime-fighting tactics and Aceveda's by-the-book community policing. Dutch and Claudette's search for a killer brings them into the depths of perversion, all culminating in Mackey and Aceveda joining forces to rescue a child from Dr. Child Rapist by beating him with a phone book. Is protecting our children what makes crossing that line OK? But if Dutch's theory about pedophilia being genetic, something one's born with akin to homosexuality is true, then will violence against a pedophile be an unwarranted hate crime? Even if we know he's guilty of an inexcusable act? That's another mark of a great show, making us question something and never offering up an easy solution. Vic, The Strike Team, and everyone in the Barn is going to make us question a lot of things about humanity over the course of 88 episodes.


Canvassing Notes

• The concept of the show was based on the real life LAPD corrupt cop scandal, where an anti-gang unit was convicted of a long laundry list of dirty deeds including drug dealing, planting evidence, brutality, and perhaps the most offensive, murdering Notorious B.I.G. The original title of the show was Rampart, until it was changed to The Barn, which probably evoked farmer connotations, and then finally to The Shield. 
• See How Powerful Vic Mackey Is Moment #1: Separated by fence pole bars he's still able to convince a drug dealer to hand over his wad of cash. But who really belongs behind them? 
• "Mackey's not a cop. He's Al Capone with a badge." - Promo Department, do you take this line to be your lawfully wedded sound bite?
• "You know, like the kind of trades ball teams make.” - Oh man, this joke KILLS in the child raping comedy community.
• CCH Pounder's Claudette was originally written as a male character, which makes her and Dutch's conversation about the victim's chest a thousand times funnier. Though if Claudette changed to Charles, would we get a female Strike Team member to fulfill the womyn cast member quota?
• After a seemingly never-ending uncomfortable shot of Lonnie confessing to murdering his wife and questioning why he did it, I never grow tired of Jay Karne's reading of “Uh, because you like crack?”
• The show would never really use score, except for opening scenes, montages, etc. But damn, the scene in Dr. Grady's basement apartment is so disturbing, they just needed that extra emotional button and what better way than a singing children's choir?
• Props to the location department for finding the house with the perfect vantage point of Dodger Stadium. It lights the scene AND underscores that Mackey's playing a game with Terry. And that game is deadly.
• I always thought it was kind of hilarious that Two-Time's idea of a party is hookers, cocaine, and playing Crazy Taxi.

Pre-Cog Report (SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES)
-Terry's murder plays into the series until the very end, being the mortal sin that seals Vic's fate during his immunity confession to ICE in the final season. On another note, if Vic just talked up the money train robbery and the occasional evidence planting, would Olivia still condemn him to desk duty?
-The Battle for the White Ghetto Woman Will Return!
-Damn, I wish that we had more Strike Team pool parties.

Join me next Tuesday for the second episode, "Our Gang".