Derek Bodner’s Blog

Outside of sports, there are only 2-3 shows I watch with any regularity, one of which being The Shield, which I have watched from Episode 1 of Season 1. It’s a shame to see the series go, as it was one of the more entertaining for me in recent times. I do have a few thoughts and criticisms on the way it ended. It’ll probably sound like I didn’t like the ending, when in reality I think it was one of the better ones of recent dramas. I’m just overly critical of things like this.

First, I thought there were a few loopholes.

The fact that ICE gave Vic immunity without having talked to his commanding officer at the Barn is a glaring omission. I realize it was rushed, but that was just one phone call away. I just can’t believe the federal government would not do their due diligence in that situation.

They went through painstaking trouble to get Corrine to safety, but what about Vic’s kid with Danny? With how much effort Vic went through to fight for rights with him earlier this season, and having just lost his family, you can’t imagine he’s not going to try to get into that kids life. Since he’s not a convicted criminal, his past isn’t a matter of public record. And even if he can’t do so legally, I’d have to imagine Vic’s not going to just give up.

By Vic originally turning down the deal without Ronnie’s inclusion, the picture was painted that Vic accepted the deal because of Corrine’s arrest. I can’t imagine them putting that timeline in (Vic turning down the deal without Ronnie, Corrine getting arrested, Vic going back and doing the deal if Corrine gets immunity) if you weren’t led to believe that Corrine’s freedom was the tipping point for Vic. But did Vic have to confess his sins and throw Ronnie to the wolves in order to do so? Couldn’t he have left his immunity at the table, and simply traded the arrest of Beltran for Corrine’s immunity? The only threat to Vic and Ronnie at that point was Shane, and if Shane’s arrest became imminent, they still had time to flee.

Doesn’t an investigation of a cop (Ronnie) have to go through IAD? Does Claudette have the authority to arrest Ronnie? Don’t they need more proof against Ronnie, who’s a longtime copy with no criminal history, than the testimony of an admitted cop killer who’s testimony was used to secure his and his kids mother’s freedom? Doesn’t seem like that would hold up in court.

I’m shocked Vic and Ronnie didn’t pursue Shane harder. Shocked. Once they found him and got close, they bailed that front. Vic wouldn’t have needed immunity had they caught Shane.

I thought what they did with Shane was a good way to end it. Throughout this season Shane was being painted as a very sympathetic figure. This was a guy who was racist, who beat a teammate into a comma, and who killed a teammate to protest his own behind. After the murder/suicide, and him once again taking the life of an innocent (Jackson), and making the decision for Mora by himself, he lost any sympathy he had gained.

(I can’t imagine how hard the murder/suicide scene was for Walton Goggins, considering his real-life wife committed suicide in 2004).

Vic, after outsmarting everyone for 7 seasons, became absolutely stupid in the last 2 episodes. He should have known, from the time Ronnie dropped off the money and Shane never showed up, that Corrine was working for the cops in an effort to capture Vic. There’s NO WAY Vic doesn’t pick up on that. Then, after Shane tells him that Corrine was working for the police, he still attempts to get Olivia to tell him where his kids went, thinking he can win them back. That was the time he should have warned Ronnie and fled to Mexico. My only guess is he held out hope he could find his family and get them back in his life, or at the very least he was unwilling to close the book on that.

He won over Beltran’s trust too fast for me. That seemed implausible. I also find it difficult to believe the gangs he ripped $100k off of didn’t figure him out.

I didn’t like the Lloyd arc. I think it would have been better had Lloyd gotten the better of Dutch. We’ve seen Dutch lose his edge before when things got personal, and that would have been a shocking end for the show.

In the end, I wasn’t all that shocked by the ending. The murder/suicide was certainly profound, but everything else you could see coming (and even that, you could see it coming, although I thought the possibility of a double suicide was greater).

My biggest problem with the end was it went out of character. For 6 seasons they’ve done a great job of character development. Say what you want about Vic, and he definitely had a lot of negative you could say, but he’s always been loyal to his team and his family. The last two episodes seemed to try to paint Vic as just the villain and a sociopath, when that’s not consistent with his character the previous 6 seasons. He’s had his opportunities to sell out his team to try to save his own face. He could have tried to convince Shane to get rid of Terry so Vic didn’t need to put himself in danger. Lem posed a serious threat to Vic, yet when Lem was killed, there was no sigh of relief in Vic. No happiness. Despite Vic being more safe now, he was pissed off at the suffering his teammate went through. Even after killing Lem, Vic couldn’t bring himself to harm Shane when he had the chance (until Shane directly tried to take out Vic). Given the opportunity to make his life easier for his team, Vic’s never done that in the past. Now, we’re expected to think the past 6 seasons have been a lie and Vic has gone completely self-centered.

I think what they were trying to get at was after Corrine was arrested, Vic didn’t have any options left, and he had to chose either the mother of his kids or his friend. To me, the last two episodes weren’t showing Vic’s true colors, but showing that he had run out of options, and that his past actions had caught up to him. And that I could see as a plausible ending, as Vic almost has to chose Corrine and his kids. I could also dig Corrine betraying him, as I think Corrine betraying him and him turning on Ronnie shows just how he’s lost everything. He lost his friends, his family, his power and his respect. I just don’t think this was executed all that well. He did have other options, and he should have seen that Corrine was selling him out to the cops. He seemed to become conveniently dumb for the last two episodes, certainly not the Vic Mackey we’ve seen in the past. I guess the argument is he panicked when his family was in jeopardy, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen either the team or his family in serious jeopardy (Kav investigation in Season 5).

Also, if they did try to straight villain’ize Vic, that’s a shame, and a complete over-simplification of some of the more complex characters on TV. It’s also not fair to completely victimize Ronnie, or feel pity for Shane. They all committed these acts, and did so under their own decisions. Shane was the one who killed Lem, which set this whole chain of events into motion. Then, Ronnie was the one who kept pushing to make Shane pay for Lem when Vic didn’t want to. Had he not attempted to take Shane out, Shane would probably be in another precinct, and they’d all be free. It’s a weird twist that Vic was almost killed because of Ronnie’s vendetta, yet we’re supposed to feel that Ronnie was the one betrayed. Had the hit on Vic been successful, we’d probably feel drastically different about the 3 than we do now.

So, to me, it’s either they completely altered the Vic character they’ve been taking years to build, or they poorly executed the ending. There were definitely some great scenes in the final two episodes, and I think the ending itself was right (Vic ending up alone as the result of his actions, Ronnie taking the fall for the strike team, Shane not able to work his way out of the jam, Vic being betrayed by the one he was trying to protect and losing his family. In the end, they were all culpable, to varying degrees, and they were all punished, to varying degrees. Some who deserved less got punished more, and some who deserved more got punished less, but that’s the way life works sometimes), I just don’t think how they got there worked.

Overall though, a superb 7 seasons, and one of my favorite shows of all time. The great thing about the show was that everyone was a shade of gray. The ‘good’ cops had their character flaws, defects, and made their mistakes. The ‘bad’ cops had their honorable attributes and you could often times see a ‘why’ they did their crimes. You could see genuine concern on Vic, to his team, to his family, to citizens of Farmington and even to hookers. Some of the more complex characters on TV. Sad to see it go.