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.
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