Not surprisngly perhaps, Vic's behavior has changed nearly 180 degrees from the "Back to One" episode last week. When last we saw Vic, he was torturing and finally flatly executed a banger. You might be sympathetic to the reasoning behind it and the anguish that drove it, but Vic was pretty evil. You'd have to expect him to want to go the other way right after, save a kitten or something.
Beyond that desire to get his yin and yang back in balance though, Vic ran straight into a situation giving him great identification and motivation to save some specific lives. A young banger named Vante and a half dozen of his 1-9er buddies in the hood decided to jump ship on the thug life and go straight. This is obviously admirable, but there's no "out" clause when you join the gang. Thus, head 1-9er Moses has a hit out on all of them.
Vic wears the psychic burden of all his malfeasance, and the death of his partner Lem that was connected to all that, plus of course his brutal torture and murder of his supposed killer. Lemonhead's gone though, and there's nothing to do for it. But Vic gets immediately and heavily invested in saving Vante as some kind of unstated act of redemption. "Let's save who we can save today," as he explains it to Shane. If he can help these kids go straight and not get killed, then that's some kind of hope for him.
At the height of this, Vic lays out to a banger some of the bad things he knows he's done. Astute viewers might note that Mackey could have been reading this list of wrongs back to himself. But the banger and by extension Vic gets a chance to make up for some of that. "You do this one last good thing for your friends."
The Shield has a good history of coming up with interesting and memorable creatively gruesome images. They had a particularly striking image of one of Vante's partners that Moses had killed. This unfortunate Daniel Bellow was dead and bloody, stretched out across the hood of a car that was rolling unmanned down the street. Julien had to chase the car down and climb in to stop it. The image of that car rolling down the block was striking, but I'm still not sure exactly what was supposed to have happened.
Meantime, this new Detective Hyatt is training with the team, brought in to be Vic's replacement. Billings for one - and many viewers, no doubt - expect sparks to fly between them, maybe absolutely fisticuffs or something. Maybe it's partly because he's in good-Vic mode at this point, but that's not at all how Vic actually reacts to him. Shane is a half dozen kinds of hateful to Hyatt, but Vic is not. You might take that as some sign of mature judgment on Vic's part.
His beef is not with this guy, but with the idea that he's going to be forcibly retired. Why take it out on the new guy? Besides which, Vic's hope for escaping this retirement hinges on this supposed review hearing. He hopes to get an exception and a reprieve based on an argument that the department really, really need him. Being difficult to work with right now would not help such a case.
Claudette seems to have at least a convenient modicum of moral flexibility regarding the story of Vic's supposed review hearing that she told him about. There isn't going to be one, and he's gone - but fabricating a story that there will be is helpful in keeping Vic corrigible in the meantime. That's not that big a lie from Claudette, but she's supposed to be THE moral compass in this crew. There's not even the slightest twinge of regret about lying to Vic, and she indeed seems right pleased with her little tactic as she explains it to Hyatt.
Councilman Aceveda was in a routine politician mode this evening, which is interesting. In the limited hours of the show, Aceveda's generally been in the middle of crisis, so it's interesting to watch him work normally, if you will. He's making the rounds of constituents, and a contractor is passing on his guys' concerns about a bad murder scene with a dozen dead illegal Mexicans. Seeing the import of this among his constituents, he pulls strings to bring those cases back to his old barn and dumped into Claudette's lap. Now she's either got to solve them and be a hero, or her already dismal crime stats are going to be so bad that it could just get their station closed down entirely.
This setup is a nice, re-assuring image of democracy in action amidst the constant corruption and backroom nitty gritty that the show deals with routinely. Here's a particular bunch of unsolved murders which are particularly unsettling in the community, and the politician looking to win their favor and support applies his skills to leverage the bureaucracy and push for some attention to their concerns. That's pretty much a civics textbook example of good democratic governance at work.
Democracy was also at work in the career of young Officer Tina Hanlin. The department wants a face that looks more like the community (ie not white). Hanlin is perfect, a fine young Hispanic woman, just like much of the community - only way extra cute. From some routine department publicity photos, Officer Hanlin was plucked out for a departmental poster representing "The New Faces of Your Police." She's been plucked from the local pool, and put on promotional duties.
That of course leaves poor Dutchman just about beside himself. He as much as left her a nice voicemail congratulating her for her step up. Seeing her life size image on posters everywhere is obviously working on his mind.
Then there's Billings, striking further out again into the more assholish range of his personality. Particularly, Billings was thinking every evil thought he could creatively conjure to stick Dutch's interest in Officer Hanlin up his ass. He went on eloquently and at some length explaining to Dutch that he viewed him as a wicked sexual predator, much like the daddy rapist who slipped a girl a date-rape drug and carved "go home" into her stomach that day. That's supposedly about like what Dutch was doing to poor Officer Hanlin, only (rough quote) "Your drug of choice is power, and the false promise of promotion."
Billings could get that ass whipped again, like Dutch had to do a couple of seasons ago. Instead, Dutch's response to this continued persecution has been minimal. The best retort was to Billings presumptions to superior sensitive fatherly bedside manner with a rape victim. "I happen to be a wonderful father" said Billings in answer to Dutch's skepticism. "Two weekends a month." Point, Dutchman.
Billings nicely humiliates himself this week with a particularly ill-fated attempt at humor. As they're being called out in the AM to a teenage rape victim, Billings cracked wise in a poorly considered attempt at movie parody, "I love the smell of underage sexual assault in the morning." Even he at least vaguely recognized that it perhaps hadn't come out just right.
The "go home" rapist story (unresolved) was mostly a nice guilt trip for Dutch especially, but also Claudette. Some months ago, a young girl named Princess Gaines had come in with a similar story that didn't make sense. There was no obvious physical evidence. They had blown it off as some kind of hoax.
Meantime, this week a girl shows up with words carved into her stomach - matching the phrase that Princess Gaines said that he had obsessed on: "GO HOME." Also, the carving on the new girl was an escalation in the severity of the attack versus what he'd done to the Gaines girl. This would suggest worse yet to come.
The now troubled runaway these months later is past empathy these months later. Mostly, she's fixated on hating Dutch. "Congratulations on getting another girl ass raped." That you have been a crime victim does not mean that you might not just be a bitch anyway, and Princess clearly wishes to use her victimhood as an emotional weapon against the detectives that didn't believe.
The ghost of the late lamented Lemonhead is fairly literally haunting the show now. They got a good creepy effect working on everybody's nerves with the pre-credits sequence. Corrine shows up in the Strike Team clubhouse first thing in the morning recounting an ambiguous dream she'd just had about Lem. It's ambiguous particularly in the conclusion, where Lem exits over a cliff. He doesn't fall, or rise into heaven, but just disappears out into a haze. Then she's coming up with some cheerful, hopeful and obviously wishful interpretation. Imagine guilty Shane sitting there about to come out of his damned skin listening to this.
On top of which, the Strike Team received a package of books Lem had ordered online the night before he died - including a book on interpreting dreams. They had a big scene unpacking the box, naming each book. The desire to transfer karma made it obvious for Vic to come up with giving Lem's books to Vante and any of his other brothers as he could rescue. Reading material for them while they sit in witness protection.
Thus Vic had himself worked up into a pretty big investment by the last sequence tonight. They found Vante shot and bleeding out. Vic's going to some heroics to carry him out and personally rush him to the hospital. He's frantically pounding on the glass to get nurse Corrine's attention as the guy finally passed. Vic then let off his displaced anguish for not being able to save Lem into a little animal meltdown in the hospital, smashing windows and furniture - and muttering about Corrine's dream. I usually prefer memorable dialogue for a big close, but a good full bore Vic Mackey rage of fury like this is rewarding too.
More Things Video Fan
Pages
The Shield
The
Shield Photo Gallery
Link Soup
morethings master
photo gallery index
MP3
sammy davis
little richard photos
buddy holly pictures
fats domino images
chuck berry pictures 01/
02/
03/
04/
05/
06/
07/
08/
09/
10/
11/
12/
01/
02/
03/
04/
05/
06/
07/
08/
09/
10/
11/
12/
01/02/
03/
04/
05/
06/
07/
08/
09/
10/
11/
12
01/
02/
03/
04/
05/
06/
07/
08/
09/
10/
11/
12/01/
02/
03/
04/
05/
06/
07/
08/
09/
10/
11/
12/08/
09/
10/
11/
12/
manchurian candidate pictures
24
lucille ball images james
blunt photos
clint eastwood pictures lena
horne images team
america pictures
robert mitchum photos
bruce springsteen pictures
mariah carey pictures
ann coulter photos
sissy spacek pictures
tanya tucker images
loretta lynn pictures
beatles pictures
white stripes pictures
andy griffith pictures
kill bill pictures
parliament funkadelic p-funk pictures
beverly hillbillies pictures
al
barger
frank zappa pictures
jerry lee lewis pictures
richard pryor photos
june carter johnny cash pictures
vic mackey shield pictures
macy gray pictures
james cagney images
elvis presley pictures
gwen stefani images
dolly parton pictures
devil whores pictures
tom petty photos
tori amos pictures
joaquin phoenix images
Quills movie images
peter lorre images
reese witherspoon pictures
flaming lips images rolling
stones photos
fiona apple images dr
strangelove pictures elvis
costello images
ray charles photos marx
brothers pictures
prince rogers nelson pictures blazing
saddles images
sinead o'connor images
eddie murphy photos all
in the family pictures
south park pictures homer
simpson images
bob dylan pictures elizabeth
taylor photos drawn
together images
saturday night live pictures hee
haw pictures james
brown images pete
townshend photos
tina turner pictures
dixie chicks photos
robert anton wilson images
guns n roses pictures
paula abdul pictures
jodie foster photos
borat
eminem
frank sinatra photos
van halen images
