THE SHIELD

SEASON THREE NOTES

 

Season 3, Episode 2 “Blood & Water”

Air date:  3-16-04

Only after several viewings did it jump out to me how much of this two episode arms-race gun story was explained in one short statement from the pre-credits scene at the warehouse.  Garza, the head of the Byz-Lats, says to Vic, "I've already lived five years longer than I ever expected.  All the vatos I came up with, they're gone." 

In short, this Garza has a strong death wish, which makes him perfectly willing to engage in extremely high risk behavior, and throws off everyone else's calculations.  He was the driving force behind starting the whole arms race that we're spending the entire first two episodes of season 3 working through.  He's perfectly willing to absolutely start a war with the black gang, including killing the leader's right hand man Slap in the "Playing Tight" episode.  

Moreover, Garza's death wish throws off Vic's calculations, notably in this warehouse scene.  The Strike Team get compromised, and Vic and Shane absolutely take hits to the nuts, and the whole group could have easily come up massacred.  Vic later accepted responsibility for screwing it up, but that screw-up came specifically from the working assumption that Garza wouldn't want to get killed.

Even when his guys got behind Lem and brought him down into the yard, Vic still had Ronnie in a backup position to extract them.  Ronnie stood there with a rifle pointed at Garza's head, which should have stopped them.  

This didn't work because Garza simply didn't care if he got killed, thus the quote above made while Ronnie's standing there with a rifle pointed at his head.  "Go ahead, make me a hero."  A sumbitch who would be perfectly happy to get killed over a lousy $100K and a few dozen guns is likely going to be erratic and highly dangerous.

Note the suicidal macho in the cage talking to Dutch.  After he's nailed for a double murder for hire, Dutch says that the only bit of a deal available is that the prosecutor won't seek the death penalty if he turns over the 35 missing automatic weapons.  Garza lifts his arm and pats the inside of his elbow repeatedly.  "Put the needle right here."

Then to complete the gesture, he tells his lieutenant Diagar where the weapons are, intending them to be put into circulation among their gang.  Vic ends up with them rather than the Byz-Lats, but the point of how this effects Garza is the same; he's not turning them in.  He's willing to face the death penalty over 35 guns. 

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An interesting bit of strategery from Vic ends this gun story between the black and Hispanic gangs.  After all the hassling, Vic got the guns off the street, leaning on Diagar [and giving him a "field promotion" to head of the Byz-Lats gang], quietly disposing of the nasty automatic weapons at sea.  Thus Aceveda doesn't get any credit statistically (he was nearly ZERO help).  Vic had to go to the "ATM" of the Strike Team's stash to get the $100K.  Oh, and coincidentally, he probably wasn't wanting to have to make official explanations for how they got their front money for the sting, and just exactly how all that went down.

Of course, they got their money back $20K light, which minor loss wouldn't be a big deal at this point.  However, of course, we expect that little bit of money now circulating will turn out to be part of the $50K in marked money from the Money Train (which story was otherwise thankfully on the back burner).  That at least would be the obvious upcoming wrinkle.  We'll see if it plays out that way.

Meanwhile, on repeated airings I note that having Garza dead to rights for putting the bookworm up to what turned out to be a double murder, the only bit of a deal Dutch would offer was that the DA would not seek the death penalty if he turned over the 3 dozen missing automatic weapons.  

Thus, Vic taking them out of play meant that he lost the last thing he could deal.  Vic appears to have been, among other strategic considerations then, setting this thug up for the death penalty.  Note, however, that this is not particularly sleazy.  Vic isn't in any way framing him:  he was absolutely guilty, and Vic did nothing to finesse the evidence.  He just snatched away the banger's last bargaining chip. Too bad, so sad.

And it ended with a nice revel on a boat, drinking beers and listening to Willie Nelson sing "Nothing I Can Do About It Now" as they tossed the nasty weapons into the sea- except for a few they saved out for emergencies, natch.

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It felt good to see Julien doing well.  He's doing so good, in fact, that they didn't find it necessary even to reference in the "previous" preview any of his issues- not even the crazed violence from last week.  Note how well now he's bonding with the boys, and particularly new cool guy Tommy.  I'm sure Julien really appreciated the active show of support from Tommy when they thought the captain was getting ready to come down on him.

The scene in the church over which he thought he was getting grief was really funny, watching Julien burst into their services to tackle his perp.  He apologized nice and politely, but he took his man down.  

It'll be interesting now to see how the relationship between Julien and his former training officer Danny gets re-negotiated now that Julien is happily bonding with the guys, including his new partner Tommy.

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Notice the moment of male bonding between Dutch and Vic/Shane over sending them to check out the banger's alibi that he had been at a strip club the night of a shooting.  The bonding came as Shane admitted to knowledge of the particular club, which Dutch was happy to smilingly and conspiratorially represent as an example of Shane's dedication to his profession, and knowing the local sleaze joints.  Vic was, of course, quite happy to second that interpretation.  Nice to see them getting along with Dutch.  They obviously haven't always.

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Shane enjoyed posing as a neo-Nazi maybe just a little too much.  His explanation to the Mexican banger why they wanted to deal rather than put them down: "Besides, we're still going to need somebody to mow our lawns after this race war is over."  After that clever crack, him and Vic both about deserved the knee in the nuts they took.  Yeah, that guy ends up apparently headed off for a death penalty case- which he deserved.  But Shane certainly deserved that knee- and the response that they should mow their own lawns.  Ha!

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Blood brothers and people skills

The "blood and water" theme of the title comes in large part from the conflict here between Vic and Shane.  Indeed, Shane sulks, and Vic just gives him the day off. 

It's not exactly obvious what Shane was really mad about, other than leaning on him a bit over the girlfriend's car.  Vic had just volunteered to take the blame from amongst them for the punking they got in the opening sequence, and volunteered to have the (relatively minor) cash loss deducted from his own part of the Money Train loot from whence their lost money came.  Best guess is that Shane just wasn't liking the general perception of his place along the Vic Mackey brother partner---boss range.  

Note the difference in their emotional reactions.  Shane is brooding all day, making excuses to his woman. He's mad about his position in the pack hierarchy, and eventually obviously much more sick at heart for being out for a minute with his main partner and boss.  Vic is his GOD and master.  He just can't stand being out of grace.

Vic, on the other hand, is utterly unperturbed at all times.  He just brushes him off, and goes about his business.  "He'll come back when he's ready" was about all he had to say about the little flair up, and he's back to the business at hand.  Doesn't really appear that he gave it another thought.  Just let him have his little mad spell.

But he does graciously just say nothing about it when Shane comes back, and is re-bonding in the final scene on the ocean playing Willie, drinking beers, and tossing weapons into the sea.  Vic people skilled Shane nicely.

Ah, people skills.

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It's not the kind of thing that will likely draw much notice, but the short scene in the Barn between Vic and Corrine was a tight piece of writing.  The whole scene probably doesn't last more than 90 seconds, but it covers quite a bit of ground.  They accomplish a fair amount of exposition, starting with the first notice that the characters are now divorced.  "Divorce means having to work around my schedule once in a while."  (Thank God they didn't try to wring that one out, with court scenes and such.) We get her new work situation, and the hint of potentials for drama there, and some of their politics with the children.  "I thought you WANTED to spend more time with the kids..."

Moreover, it accomplished this exposition through dramatic conflict- a simmering argument in the office, cut short by the appearance of the boss.  It gets the information across in a natural and interesting way that also shows some of the continuing adjustments and negotiations of their relationship and balance of power.

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