Is Vic Mackey "Moral"?
Denali Nicholson writes:
I
think
you
are
a
little
lenient
towards
Vic.
Of
course,
he
it
the
anti-hero,
and
the
audience
can
not
help
but
care
about
him.
But
one
of
the
fascinating
parts
of
the
show
that
I
can
not
get
over
is
how
much
you
want
to
believe
that
what
he
does
is not
wrong
after
all.
You
want
to
believe
that
he
has
a
sense
of
morality,
twisted
and
warped,
but
a
morality
none
the
less.
But,
I
don't
think
this
is
true.
As much
as
I
want
to
see
Vic
as
something
resembling
human,
he
isn't.
He
is
a
sociopath.
He
does
what
he
wants
when
he
wants
to.
Sometimes
this
results
in benefiting
other
"good"
people.
Sometimes
in
hurting
them,
too.
Look
at
how
he
treated
Danny.
It
was
very
clear
when
he
was
given
the
oppurtunity
to
tell Claudette
about
what
everyone
knew
already
concerning
the
death
of
Armadillo,
and
he
didn't
take
it.
The
only
time
we
see
him
pass
hurting
someone
up
who
is "good"
because
they
are
"good"
is
early
on
in
the
first
season
when
he
tells
a
criminal
that
he
can
not
strong
arm
a
law-abiding
citizen,
in
reference
to
his
son's
schools'
admissions
head.
Instead
he
bribes
her
with
the
finding
of
her
stolen
jewelry.
Aside
from
that,
look
at
what
he
does
for
"bad"
people.
His willingness
to
help
them
is
never
held
back
by
moral
reasons.
But,
why
do
we
love
Vic?
Everything
he
does,
he
does
for
himself
-
or
for
his
children,
his
offspring,
or
for
people
he
has
claimed
-
his
wife,
his
team,
his hooker.
I
don't
think
he
loves
these
people
as
much
as
he
feels
he
ownes
them.
Do
we
love
him
because
he
is
effective?
Is
it
possible
we
want
to
forgive
him
his
sins
because
the
combination
of
complete
lack
of
fear
and
moral
restraint
has
afforded
him
success
in
a
world
where
this
is
rare
and
good
people
are
powerless.
While
watching
this
show,
how
easy
it
is
to
see
power
as
the
real
good,
whether
it
is
use
for
good
or
bad.
Many
people
have
argued
the
case
that
Vic
does
have
a
sense
of
morality,
including
you.
I
disagree.
Miss Denali, you have some exceptionally thoughtful concerns. Vic surely is morally challenged. I think that you are way off base, however to call him a "sociopath". The best definition I could find: "A personality disorder characterised by a continuous and persistent pattern of aggressive behaviour in which the rights of others are violated." That begins to sound more like a political statement than a psychological diagnosis.
This may be more a question of whose definition of exactly what rights those are. Vic does not recognize the written law as some supreme arbiter. Some banger he knows does lots of bad things, he don't got any rights that Vic recognizes.
Vic does not, however, represent an ongoing danger to innocent citizens. He is not out of control, or only rarely so. He does not just go off on binges of unprovoked brutality against innocent people. Note for example late in the first season when he had trouble with the Nation of Islam. Despite them making his life exceptionally unpleasant, he absolutely refused to screw with them. "As long as you stay within the law, you'll have no trouble with me." [I'm paraphrasing from memory.]
Yet he is capable of brutality, starting always with Vic's original sin in the pilot, absolutely murdering a brother officer/snitch in cold blood. He can't take that back, although he has expressed regrets in several different ways.
One of those ways is restraint. After that original sin, Vic has somewhat pulled back. He has not again, not once absolutely murdered someone outright- not the lowest murdering banger. Not even Gilroy, who threatened his family. I, for one, would have considered him TOTALLY justified if he had let Shane absolutely ice Gilroy. Vic's not as brutal as he could be.
Also, for being morally challenged, Vic was ready to go to prison rather than let Armadillo off the hook. That may not make up for everything else he's ever done, but does not follow consistently with saying that he has "no morality" or that he is sociopathic.
The thing with Danny you referred to comes from dealing with Armadillo. Vic's boys -without his knowledge- slipped a knife to another inmate to murder Armadillo with, specifically in order to prevent him from talking about Vic. What Vic would have had to done was to confess to numerous felonies, and implicate his own men in, technically, conspiracy to commit first degree murder- to save Danny from a three day suspension.
In Vic's place, was he really supposed to rat his boys out on this? Armadillo so many kinds of deserved what he got. Vic should have killed him instead of grilling his face. Arguably, the problem was that Vic had too many scruples at the wrong time.
In the last show of season two, the most recent as of this writing, Danny was actually belatedly fired on the basis of having failed to find the knife that the prisoner didn't get until afterwards.
How's Vic going to make this right? That will be a challenge for him going into next season. What will he have to do to fix this? For having no morality, he was willing to go a long way to fix the wrong he and Lemonhead did in the first season by planting a gun on Choco. Of course, in this case putting things right involved armed robbery of an evidence van, and planting evidence on, again, a particularly nasty and deserving banger.
There's no question ultimately that he has a fairly strong idea of morality, and right and wrong. He doesn't have a classic sociopathic narcisstic self-absorption; it's not always all about Vic. For one thing, much of the pressure to generate side income comes from raising money to pay for expensive special education for his autistic son.
Consider the last show of the second season "Dominoes Falling" which has the payoff for the "money train" storyline. Vic was instantly ready to blow off his extremely important part in a multi-million dollar ripoff of mob money without even a look of hesitation because he needed to track down some bangers before they killed more civillians in a gang ritual. This does not fit with harsher labels that you could apply to Vic, such as "sociopath".
On one hand, Vic has one outright murder to account for, and he can be quite self-serving, taking convenient outs. He commits what might reasonably described as major felonies in nearly every show of one kind or other.
On the other hand, he has his own sense of limits. His values are generally fairly predictable and understandable- and reasonably defensible. He does ultimately (mostly) protect and serve. The question he frequently asks of himself (perhaps setting the bar too low) is "Have I done more good than harm?"
Surely the answer is yes. The next question, however, is that good enough?
The
Shield Photo Gallery
1000+ images
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