Official The Shield Final Season thread FX 10 ET: 11/25 SERIES FINALE TONIGHT!!! (90 minute episode)

[bwoodfolkgd74]

Great Finale.

ronnie was loyal to a fault, he never signed any papers, he should have been ran. vic was not going to bail out on his kids.

 

[ghenges]

I was disappointed.

 

[lazy b]

Originally Posted by Joe Billionaire

yo anyone know the name of that song? something something "its the end of time..." they used to play it at the beginning of the previews and when this season first kicked off

Farewell Ride by Beck:

 

[chitown4eva]

subtle
This is why its disappointing. The Shield is anything BUT subtle. For an extended episode, it was just...lacking. I dunno.

It wasn't bad, it was just Law & Order-like.

 

[lazy b]

New York Times Review:

The Shield' Wraps Up, All the Bills Coming Due
By GINIA BELLAFANTE

During the past year two of the greatest crime dramas ever on television have come to an end: "The Wire" left us in March, and "The Shield" on Tuesday in a cut deep enough to leave us bleeding for quite a while, no matter how tight the tourniquet.

In its seven seasons on FX, "The Shield" has shown what child's play all those other vigilante narratives have been. Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), who leads the police strike team in the grisliest sectors of East Los Angeles, jury-rigged the rules so aggressively, and so often based on nothing more than his own self-interest, that he left the Jack Bauers and Dirty Harrys to seem like hospital gift shop volunteers.

Mackey has always been sketched many shades darker than his analogues in lone justice, but earlier on that seemed easier to dismiss.

If mauling sexual predators, saving crack babies and getting mob kings are all included in his job description, what's left off his résumé is murdering his enemies, torturing the wrong suspects, turning drug busts into personal revenue streams and igniting ethnic blood feuds to protect his position. (He is a master triangulator, not in the Clintonian sense of the term.)

Standing over a brick of looted cocaine during the first season, Mackey says he doesn't "want my kids to end up in U.C. Northridge hell," as if there were some nobility in moving stolen narcotics to land your children higher up on U.S. News and World Report's college rankings.

And yet to say that Mackey was committing a legion of sins all for the benefit of his family isn't the whole story or even a truthful fraction of it. Mackey shared none of Tony Soprano's lust for status, membership in the affluent society or even a good time. Each season the show drove Mackey deeper onto the defensive, so that increasingly, evading the law seemed merely an end in itself. He sweated to save his badge from the fed-up law enforcement functionaries who kept angling to take it away, but save it, the show asked with a finesse bordering on the subliminal, for what?

At the outset the shield stood for the strike team's sense of collective loyalty, the vow of silence against the prospect of prim interrogators. But as the series ended, with the members' allegiance to one another destroyed, the shield began to represent Mackey's delusions and also our own. To watch "The Shield" is to enter into a contract in which depravity must be read only as moral dubiousness and charm as exoneration, and in its final hours the series showed us what fools we were for ever signing the paperwork.

It seems priggish to understate how spectacularly "The Shield" delivered that comeuppance. It put us under a cold shower and ordered us to wake up, forcing the audience to look at Mackey - literally, in extreme close-up, at his bloodshot eyes and ravaged expressions - and ask what it was about him we ever found so redeemable.

How did Mackey fare as a father? Not terribly well; his devotion to his family was largely a matter of assertion rather than of practice. When the cellphone calls came during meetings with teachers and doctors, when his wife was scuffling - two of his children were autistic - the gang-busting and body counts remained his priorities.

In the end it was the doomed and disgraced Shane (Walton Goggins), whose deviance Mackey had cultivated, who emerged as a caregiver to his own wife and son as they squatted, poetically, in a house lost to the vagaries of the declining real-estate market.

In the penultimate episode Mackey, having cut a deal with federal agents to grant him immunity for all the crimes they don't even realize he has committed, faces down a female investigator with a tape recorder and inquires, "How much memory has that thing got?" Probably not nearly enough, because the tales of Mackey's transgressions are longer than the Decameron.

During this last season Mr. Chiklis's pneumatic body seemed pumped up by the ferocity of Mackey's denial, a denial he could no longer sustain. The actor's rotund face is the kind in which wrongdoing is almost too easily assumed. For that reason and also because Mr. Chiklis always seemed to be enjoying himself in excess when saying things like, "Excuse me while I get a Kleenex for the rest of this sob story," I had a hard time buying the idea of his giftedness.

But his performance in the final scenes on Tuesday went a long way toward reversing that impression. Mackey is killed off brutally: not by gunshot, but by cubicle. His agreement with the feds commits him to a $62,000-a-year job issuing reports on gang violence from information gleaned entirely at his desk.

"We ask people who bring in their lunches to label them," a human resources employee tells him as he tours his new surroundings. Also, changes in thermostat temperature can be authorized only by maintenance supervisors. Staring at his empty space, in a bereaved, attenuated silence, Mr. Chiklis expresses the tragedy of all of Mackey's finagling. What he bought for himself is a lot worse than prison.

"The Shield" began in 2002, and it concludes at the end of the Bush presidency, making it hard not to see, in its examination of the downside of overreach and self-certainty, relevant analogies.

Yet each week the show offered portrayals of committed detectives - Dutch Wagenbach (Jay Karnes) and Claudette Wyms (C C H Pounder) - solving their cases through analysis and the constant challenging of assumptions. Unlike "24," the series never glorified rogue violence as necessity, and in a view radically at odds with the position of "The Wire" on urban corruption, "The Shield" believed that institutions were salvageable when decent people acquitted themselves ably.

In a subplot woven through the finale, Dutch went after a 16-year-old serial killer in the making - was he all that different from Mackey? - and landed him right where he wanted him, no sticks, no thuggery.


Entertainment Weekly review:

'The Shield' series finale: Who feels emotionally pistol-whipped?

Nov 26, 2008, 06:03 AM | by Dan Snierson

Categories: Television

Theshield_l Wow.

Give me a moment to collect my thoughts. I've made a seven-season investment in one of the best cop dramas in television history-FX's The Shield-and it all came to a head last night in 90 tense, dense minutes. I feel like I've been emotionally pistol-whipped. In a good way.

Before we talk specifics, let's move this party to the next page, out of respect for those Vic Mackey maniacs who haven't watched the series finale yet. (Advice to them: Call in sick, shave your head, hit the sofa, and cue up that bad boy immediately. And look out for spoilers in the paragraphs below!)



All clear? Good.

The first word that comes to mind is… S#@! As in, Holy. The second is… completion. As in, I felt a sense of completion when the corrupt members of the Strike Team finally got their comeuppance. And it was a type of closure that I never quite achieved from the admirable yet enigmatic Sopranos finale.

Series creator Shawn Ryan packed some capital-M Moments into the final installment, too many to mention here. I must say that I squirmed in enjoyment watching Ronnie be rewarded for his blind loyalty to Vic with a big, fat betrayal, and seeing Vic feebly apologize to him as he was taken into custody. "You're goddamned sorry?!?!?" retorted Ronnie. (Your anger is justified, Ronnie, but we're kind of amazed that you made it all the way to the end, outlasting Lem by two seasons.) Of course, this season had been spent focusing on a different Strike Team relationship, Vic and Shane's. And the fates of those two were resolved in a way that will stick with viewers for a long time, thanks to potent performances from Michael Chiklis and Walton Goggins.

You knew it wasn't going to end well for Shane, Vic's former partner-in-crime, but geez. The events leading up to his death-the curious attention he paid to the teenage clerk at the convenience store; his fixating on the toy police car and calling for pregnant wife Mara and son Jackson ("Family meeting!")-proved to be nice foreshadowing of grisly things to come. It was devastating enough that a desperate Shane shot himself on the toilet, leaving behind a mess of blood and pens, as well as an unfinished suicide note. But then to have Farmington's finest discover the bodies of Mara and Jackson laid out peacefully on the bed-Mara holding the flowers and Jackson clutching the little police car that Shane just bought at the store? Heart: Broken. Mouth: Speechless.

As for Vic? Killing the Mackey daddy probably would've been too easy. Letting him get away with murder-thank heavens for all-encompassing immunity deals!-wouldn't have felt right. So Ryan crafted a nifty justice-serving demise for him: Our dirty detective loses his family to the witness protection program and is sentenced to death by desk job, courtesy of the ICE queen. (Mackey, we're going to need that 10-page, single-spaced report on gang-related activity by 6 p.m.! For the next three years!) What a sight: Vic, dressed uncomfortably in a suit, trapped in his drab office cubicle, watching as those familiar cop cars whiz by on the streets below. But then, just before the credits roll, he pulls a gun out of a drawer, gives a tiny smile of realization, and heads out of the office with a trademark snarl. Is he off to settle a score? Is he itching for some vigilante action? And when he gets to wherever he's going, are we on his side? These are the fun-not so much frustrating-questions that we're left to ponder.

So, Shield fans, what did you read into that final moment? How do you think this finale stacks up against the farewells of other big shows? Were you bummed that Julien and Danny didn't score more screen time? Did you get misty-eyed when Claudette told Dutch that she was dying? Should the Dutchman and Billings join forces for a buddy-cop comedy? Are you now holding out hope for a Shield movie? (If you want to read Ryan's answers to Michael Ausiello's burning questions about the finale, click here.)


Boston Herald review:

The Shield: B+

Hell comes in many forms.

On the series finale of FX's "The Shield," rogue cop Vic Mackey (Andover native Michael Chiklis) finally faces retribution of a sort.

Series creator Shawn Ryan scripted this 90-minute episode airing at 10 p.m., titled "Family Meeting."

After Tuesday night, you'll never hear those words the same way again.

Last week, to win immunity from the feds, Vic confessed his laundry list of sins, including the murder of a fellow cop (all the way back in season one).

In return for his confession, Vic must deliver a drug kingpin planning to move a huge shipment of drugs through the city.
'The Shield' finale preview (Story continues below)

In one of the best moments of the night, Vic and his one-time lieutenant Shane (Walton Goggins) share a blistering exchange steeped in resentment, rage and even love. It's a testament to the terrific chemistry that exists between the actors.

Claudette (CCH Pounder) can't arrest Vic, but she finds a way to stab at the heart of his weaknesses.

She corners him in an interrogation room and manages to lacerate his seemingly impenetrable hide with a simple note and a series of photographs. Watch how Chiklis and Pounder play off each other.

After seven seasons, it's almost hard to remember how groundbreaking "The Shield" was. The series about a corrupt group of cops in Los Angeles featured strong language, violence and uncompromising stories. It was the kind of mature fare you might expect to find on HBO or Showtime. Chiklis even won an Emmy for his work in that first season. He, Pounder, Goggins and Ryan all deserve to take home some gold for their work this year.

Ryan obviously spent a great deal of time crafting this finale. There's no "Sopranos" cop-out. Still, I don't want to risk overpraising it. The story line involving a rival mayoral candidate seems like an unnecessary distraction and sucks time away from characters whom you care about. Julien (Michael Jace) remains, as he has been for much of the series, an afterthought.

By the end of the night, you'll know pretty much the fate of every player on this large canvas. Every outcome feels earned, no matter how dark or unsettling - and even in one instance - oddly humorous.

The more this viewer thinks about Vic's fate, the more it feels right.

Tuesday night's "Shield" feels like the end of a great, thick crime novel. It's deeply satisfying and a reminder that some TV series can both start and end great.

 

[yardfather]

Glad to see its getting such good reviews. Hopefully some emmys are in store for the show

 

[joe billionaire]

Originally Posted by Lazy B

Originally Posted by Joe Billionaire

yo anyone know the name of that song? something something "its the end of time..." they used to play it at the beginning of the previews and when this season first kicked off

Farewell Ride by Beck:

thanks!

 

[gunna get it]

3 stacks been on the show since like season 3.
He owned the comic Book store and used to go hard on the crackheads n dealers

___

I still feel like the last season was the weakest. And esp. The last few episodes. Just like the sopranos and the wire, it went out like a lamb instead of alion

 

[don dela vega]

i want to know what happens to that momma killing kid! and man did anyone notice shane's neighbor kim

 

[kingtre]

i wanna watch again prob tonight - but just lke the sopranos some of yall are reading too much into the last scene-

most likely everybody in that building has a personal weapon - thats what the lockbox is for...he was done with his job for the day so he unlocked his safe,tucked his gun and was going home -

remember when shorty told him he was not allowed to carry she said leave it at home or put it in a lockbox-

his punishment is being tied to that desk for the next 3 years without seeing his family, knowing corrine turned on him, knowing he left Ronnie out to dry andreflecting on the old team and past faults...

 

[lazy b]

Originally Posted by Kingtre

i wanna watch again prob tonight - but just lke the sopranos some of yall are reading too much into the last scene-

most likely everybody in that building has a personal weapon - thats what the lockbox is for...he was done with his job for the day so he unlocked his safe, tucked his gun and was going home -

remember when shorty told him he was not allowed to carry she said leave it at home or put it in a lockbox-

his punishment is being tied to that desk for the next 3 years without seeing his family, knowing corrine turned on him, knowing he left Ronnie out to dry and reflecting on the old team and past faults...

You're right but at least people are thinking.

I'm still mad that Corrine turned on him. I've never hated a character as much as I have hated her. Taking away a man's kids is the lowest thingyou can do to him and she did it. She was a terrible mother but in the end she gets what she wants.

The pics. he put on the desk were of everyone who he considered close. Notice it was only Lem and the kids. I don't think he felt bad at all letting Ronnietake the fall.