The Shield: Season Six
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Movie Reviews of The Shield: Season Six
Movie Review: Great set up for the last season
Summary: 5 Stars
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 Vic need to form an uneasy alliance to save Mackey's job, solve the murders, and save Aceveda's future political career.
But the best part of this season is the character changes that happen with a lot of the key players. Lt. Kavanugh (a brilliant Forest Whittaker) becomes everything that he spent his career fighting. Vic becomes an out of control man, hell bent on only one thing, revenge. Claudette uses Vic-like tactics to not only salvage her job, but to put an end to Vic's reign at the barn, bringing in Hiatt (Alex O'Laughlin) to replace him. And make sure you catch the scene with Dutch and Danny in the finale. Season 6 is a polarizing change for the characters. And for the most part, the changes are amazing to witness.
The only problem, as another reviewer put it, is that the stroies seem to slow down some towards the later part of the season, mainly because of the uncertainty that there would be a season 7. I'm glad they decided to give it one last hurrah.
Vic Mackey is probably the greatest anti-hero created for television. I can only imagine how this will all end for him. Be sure to check FX networks website for interviews with the cast. Some good stuff there.
Just like this DVD set.
Movie Review: Power plays and failed ambitions in the penultimate season
Summary: 5 Stars
Caution: Spoilers ahead (although I personally believe that most of the people who read the reviews on this series are fans, not newcomers).
The Shield: Season Five was a shocker...while Season One opened with the details of Vic Mackey killing Terry Crowley, there's an unspoken ethic in this realm of Terry being a "rat"...yes, Vic killed a fellow cop, "but"...
...the same can't be said of Shane's grenade toss and the death of Lem. It was a senseless death, uncalled for...Lem spent most of the fifth season coughing up blood and drinking Pepto Bismol over the stress caused by his decision to "take one for the team."
But in the world of all great Shakespearean tragedies / Greek dramas, it was the necessary catalyst for Shane's ultimate fate in the final season.
In Season Six, we also get Vic's Stike Team "replacement," Kevin Hyatt. I think we pretty much know coming out of the gate that Hyatt is a weasel (as is more than abundantly evident from his post-one-night-strand behavior with Paula Garces' officer Tina Hanlon, but we also see it much earlier in the season). We also see the irony of Forest Whitaker's "Kavanaugh" meeting his final downfall for becoming Vic in order to take down Vic, and Wyms (CCH Pounder) fall to the same behavior as she lies to Vic upon Hyatt's entry in order to keep him on board in his final days, believing he has a chance at keeping his job (he doesn't). It's the same behavior, but Kavanaugh falls and Wyms rationalizes her actions. In the final season, Vic has the last laugh...sort of.
In short, virtually every member of the cast makes an ill-conceived, fateful decision in this season, leading up to the Season Seven climax. A lesser show could be accused of manipulative scripting, but when it comes to The Shield...with the benefit of hindsight...these were all carefully considered, logical moves.
A powerful season no matter how you look at it.
Movie Review: The end is near...
Summary: 5 Stars
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 Shane offering his services to the daughter of an Armenian mob boss (Franka Potente) which he comes to regret. While the sixth season of The Shield offers nothing that hasn't been done on the show before, it is still an ever-compelling television experience that you can't get on network TV. The main cast is still good, and while Forest Whitaker doesn't stick around nearly as long as he did on the previous season, both he and Franka Potente provide for wonderful guest stars. All in all, when watching this season of The Shield, one can tell that the end is indeed near, and what develops next may very well prove that this series will go out with quite a bang.Movie Review: A Show Where "Out of Control" is Business as Usual
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always marvelled at the writing staff on THE SHIELD.
If you've watched it from Season One til now, you've had to be amazed at the explosive twists and turns of the ongoing plots swirling around Vic Mackey and his Strike Team. Somehow the writers have never written themselves into a corner--and I was certain they had in the early seasons!
When this show began, I was in no mood for another cop show. The friend who pushed the Season One DVDs on me assured me that this show as worth checking out. I've been a fan ever since.
I saw Michael Chiklis on "The O'Reilly Factor" and Bill O'Reilly brought up the comparison of THE SHIELD with THE SOPRANOS. They're both critically-acclaimed crime shows about seriously flawed men on different sides of the badge. As much as I've loved the first three seasons of THE SOPRANOS, they just never got their groove back from Season Four on. People are still griping about that controversial "cut to black" finale.
But THE SHIELD has hit the high marks every season.
Love the cast, love the stories, love the show. (Make sure you watch it from the beginning though: it's worth the ride).
Movie Review: Alex O'Loughlin as Kevin Hiatt Shines!
Summary: 5 Stars
I discovered Alex O'Loughlin on Moonlight and have since collected all of his work on DVD - TV and movies. He is outstanding as Det. Kevin Hiatt, and outshines the rest of the cast. His portrayal of Kevin is exciting, his american accent is impeccable, as are all of his accents (as most know, Alex is Australian and has a very strong accent in his "real" life), and he is oh, so sexy. You just don't get much sexier than his infamous "chair scene" on this DVD.
He left The Shield for Moonlight in 2007, and now we have those 16 wonderful episodes on DVD. Do yourself a favor and buy this DVD and the rest of Alex's work on DVD. I am looking forward to his new work coming out in 2009, including a guest starring role on Criminal Minds on 4/29/09, and he is now filming a pilot for a series in which he portrays an organ transplant doctor, "Three Rivers". It should be picked up as a series for the 2009 fall season. His movie "WhiteOut" premieres on 9/25/09. Bottom line - buy this DVD and anything you can find with Alex O'Loughlin - you will be so glad that you did!