Anything I say about "The Shield" is not as important as what this series says to us, about us. What it says about our own character and making compromises, and the fallout from our choices. "Trust me, there's a way out.
There always is," says Michael Chiklis, who plays notoriously gray-hat Detective Vic Mackey, during one murder investigation. "First we find out the truth. Then we figure out what to do.
" In this scene he wasn't talking about himself. He wasn't talking about us. But he could have been.
Don't be misled: This L.A.-based cop drama (sixth season premiere at 11 tonight on FX) is no simple morality play, where the lesson is always stick to your guns, don't give in, compromise is a slippery slope.
Sometimes we do have to make concessions. Look at the rigidity of Forest Whitaker as Internal Affairs Detective Jon Kavanaugh, whose quest to nail the corrupt, murderous but counter-intuitively decent Mackey finally pushes him to abandon his moral code: "I framed a guilty man." Let's just say saints fall hard.
Perhaps, if he had made smaller, pragmatic concessions along the way, Kavanaugh wouldn't have felt compelled to take that final, fatal leap. But even on this point "The Shield" doesn't make it easy: It's replete with small allowances that lead to even greater plummets from grace. The trick, it seems, is knowing when to bend.
Even Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder), the captain of the station house appropriately called "The Barn," and the moral anchor of the drama, must give ground in the face of political and criminal realities. "The truth may not lead us down the path we want," Wyms says. You get the feeling that Shakespeare would like this show.
Nobody's hands are clean; the bad guys, for the most part, have an inherent humanity. The good guys are flawed, if not evil. Self-interest shrouds all.
If you want, you can forget all the reflected introspection, and just enjoy "The Shield" for what it is: one of the best dramas of its generation. You easily get lost in "The Shield," in its performances subtle and broad, in the intricate writing in which the end game appears evident but is rarely what it seems. The performances live up to the writing in this Shawn Ryan creation.
More tension can be displayed in a Whitaker eye twitch than in pages of dialogue. And Chiklis has mastered the most menacing smile on TV, one Mackey employs when his next play comes into focus in his head. And this is a season where the next play, and the next, and maybe the last, begin to take shape.
Season 5 ended traumatically with the grenade murder of Strike Team member Curtis "Lem" Lemansky (Kenneth Johnson). Vic goes on a lethal tear to find the killer, not knowing it's in fact fellow Strike Team member and friend Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins). Vendrell killed his best friend because he thought he was going to rat out the fellow cops; he'll learn to devastating effect that wasn't the case.
The Kavanaugh investigation of Mackey will come to a stunning close. Wyms will fight to keep The Barn open, even as the body count mounts. Officer Julien Lowe (Michael Jace) will join the Strike Team, which will also get a new leader in expectation of Mackey's retirement: Former federal agent Kevin Hiatt (newcomer Alex O'Loughlin, son of the late AC/DC singer Bonn Scott).
More than ever this series is violent and profane, a - need we say? - adults-only drama. The brutality is as relentless as its authenticity.
You are forewarned; stay away if this type of entertainment troubles you. "The Shield" is up for 10 episodes this season; Season 7's 13 episodes in early 2008 should conclude the series' run. Along with HBO's underappreciated "The Wire," "The Shield" ranks as the richest, most realistic cop drama ever presented on TV.
(You can argue over what cop show ranks as the "greatest." And, yes, "Holmes Yoyo" qualifies.) The series that put FX on the map, paving the way for other dramas like "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," should be one we'll remember.
Years from now we could still be thinking about "The Shield," and ourselves.
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