Monday, December 23, 2013

On the Jones



The end is near...
The sixth season of FX's The Shield can be considered the penultimate season of the gritty crime drama. Beginning with the aftermath of Lem's (Kenny Johnson) death, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) swears vengeance, unbeknownst to him that his partner Shane (Walton Goggins) is responsible. In the meantime, Vic faces a forced retirement, more so when younger, possibly brasher detective Kevin Hiatt (Moonlight's Alex O'Loughlin) is brought onto the Strike Team as Vic's successor. With Kavanaugh (Forest Whitaker) still lurking in the shadows and still trying to bring Vic down once and for all, things reach a boiling point as Vic comes closer and closer to learning the truth, and the reprecussions that come and are going to come in the upcoming final season. Other plot developments of this season include Claudette (CCH Pounder) adjusting to an illness, Dutch (Jay Karnes) in developments that you won't see coming, Aceveda (Benito Martinez) once again forming an uneasy alliance with Vic, and...

The Shield doesn't step aside, it steps up
For all its hard-edges and testosterone-fuelled machismo, The Shield never fails to paint its principal characters as touchingly human, even if the moments are few and far between that we get to glimpse these more tender parts, and this is one of the elements of its success at being the most emotionally cathartic, intense, adrenaline-rush on the telly.

The Shield, in my albeit humble opinion, is the single best product ever recorded to celluloid with the intention of playing it back for entertainment purposes: bar nothing. It's the best thing that's ever graced my TV screen, and makes other top-drawer productions look pedestrian and even lame by comparison.

Season six is full-throttle, pedal to the metal in the style we've become accustomed to, but due to events leading up to the start of the season, the protagonists seem to be in the full throes of a ravaging tornado this season, even more than others.

Walt Goggins serves up the convincing...

Great set up for the last season
In Season 6, this fantastic show does a great job setting the viewers up for what will surely be a truly shocking end to a truly great gritty cop drama.

First, the plotlines. Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) is going to be forcibly retired. But before he goes, he is determined to find out who killed fellow Strike Team Member, Lem (Kenneth Johnson). Menawhile Shane (Walton Goggins) is falling into a downward spirl, from which he may never climb out. His guilt over his actions, plus trying to keep his family safe and Vic in the dark, has him acting irrational (joining up with Franka Potente and the Armenian mob) and even suicidal (watch the scene when he locks himself in a room with an armed hostage taker). Meanwhile, Claudette (CCH Pounder) finds herself under fire from her superiors. And when the "big crime of the season" happens (the San Marcos murders, a slughter of 12 Hispanic people in a hotel), the case takes all sorts of twists and turns. Once again, Aceveda and...

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