The Shield: Who's Going Down?

The Shield series finale is next week, and word on the street is that the most frenetic, intense, hardcore cop show ever made is going out in a blaze of glory. Entertainment Weekly reports that four major characters will die. So who will it be? Here's a quickie handicap of the field:

Councilman David Aceveda (10-1): At one time, I was confident Aceveda would end up dead. But now I'm not so sure. It almost seems better for him to succeed and become mayor, keeping the cycle of cynicism and corruption going. Of course, he's right in the middle of the cartel sting, and he could get caught in the crossfire while trying to prove himself to ICE. But Aceveda always manages to slip through sticky situations, and I see him getting away safely.

Det. Steve Billings (5-1): How ironic would it be for Billings to go down in the line of duty and receive a hero's sendoff? It seems his primary concern (other than beating the system) is providing for his ex-wife and daughter, and the widow's benefits would do that. Hmmm, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking he's a dark horse candidate for the morgue.

Det. Ronnie Gardocki (3-1): Ronnie needs to run. Now. The cops have him for being Vic's bagman, and the feds have him on Vic's confession. He has zero options. I could see him whacking Shane, maybe even Mara, and then taking his own life. He might be smart enough to escape to Mexico or work a deal to rat on Vic, if there's anything left he could be tried for. But Ronnie's future isn't looking good.

Off. Tina Hanlon (20-1): She could have been killed off a few times before, and she doesn't seem particularly capable when all hell's breaking loose. But I don't think it'll be her, just because her character's been too minor and her death wouldn't resonate as much.

Det. Julian Lowe (15-1): Julian's story has fallen to the wayside over the years, but he's the moral compass of the show. Which is why I could see him falling victim in the battle against the baddies. What more poetic than the death of the one good cop? Still, I don't think the show will end entirely cynically, and I think he'll make it.

Cassidy Mackey (10-1): Vic's daughter has been in various stages of teenage meltdown all season. I could see her attempting suicide as a cry for help, only she turns out to do it right.

Corrine Mackey (50-1): No one's safe, but I think Vic's ex-wife is as safe as can be. Vic won't hurt her, and unless there's some sort of tragic accident, I think she'll emerge unscathed. Well, physically, at least.

Vic Mackey (2-1): The ending is Shakespearean for the baddest cop on the block. He's finally come clean on everything he's done and has federal blanket immunity. But he can't just walk away. Vic has sinned, and he has to pay somehow. Who'd kill him? The list of enemies is long, but I don't think Vic will go down a chump. He would have to be killed by a worthy foe -- not some cartel hitman or a random cop. It would have to be someone close, someone to complete the circle of tragedy. Ex-wife Corrine, in fear of her life? Or unstable daughter Cassidy? I could see either one popping a cap in Vic's skull in self-defense. I don't see Vic going the suicide route, but that's a slight possibility too. I'm also holding out for a small chance that Vic gets away, but loses everything he holds dear -- his family, his reputation, his future.

Off. Danni Sofer (30-1): I don't see her going down either. In fact, I see her as more of a threat to kill Vic, like Corrine, in some sort of self-defense scenario. And she's a single mom. Leaving a trail of orphans is no way to end a show. (Except for you Jackson, sorry kid.)

Mara Vendrell (3-1): Her odds increased in the last episode, when she gunned down an innocent woman. Mara was never innocent, but now she has blood on her hands. She's as desperate as Shane is, and might see suicide as the only way out. The tricky question here is her unborn baby and son Jackson. Vic's already said Jackson's too young to be a credible witness, so he's safe. But who'd take out a pregnant woman? A desperate Ronnie?

Shane Vendrell (even): Shane has to die. He killed Lem, his best friend, and so many bodies have dropped as a consequence of that. He has to go down. But by whose hand? Vic would risk his immunity by killing him now. But Ronnie would do it in a heartbeat. I don't see a random cop or gangbanger out for a bounty getting it done. For all the wrongs Shane has done, it has to be someone close to him. Maybe even himself -- Shane's becoming unwound, no place to run, no future for him or his family, and now he's hopped up on drugs. I can easily see a murder-suicide with him and Mara.

Det. "Dutch" Wagenbach (3-1): I'm getting scared for Dutchboy. He'd be at the center of any cartel/Ronnie takedown, but I think the bigger threat is the budding serial killer kid who's apparently calling him. Dutch has always had a thing for serial killers, and maybe now he's got one who's smarter than him, and who's looking to eliminate a threat. Watch your back, Dutch.

Capt. Claudette Wyms (4-1): Her health has been faltering all season. After her meltdown at the federal building, will she stroke herself out? Or can she live in a world where good cops fail and bad cops escape justice? I don't like her going the sleeping-pills route, but it's possible. I see more of a Frank Pembleton-like health breakdown.

So place your bets. My money's on Billings, Shane, Mara and Ronnie.
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The Shield: This Can't End Well

I really want Vic Mackey to get away with it all. Despite all the bad stuff he's done on The Shield -- and there's a lot of it -- he's still the guy you're rooting for, the only one tough enough to get his hands dirty and do what's necessary, whether it's for the good of him, his family, or his city. There's something slightly noble in how he won't skip town before he takes down the Mexican cartel. Sure, it's a whole lot of self-preservation at work too, but with Vic being Vic, you know he could run now and live a life of leisure on some Mexican beach. But Vic's not a quitter, and he's in it till the end for better or worse. And of course, it'll be for worse.

Vic's the ultimate player -- the riverboat gambler who can read the situation and quickly adapt it to his advantage, raising the stakes higher and higher and somehow always winning. He's covered his back pretty well in his illegalities -- from murdering fellow cop Terry Crowley to robbing the Armenian money train, to countless other set-ups, frame jobs and abuses. There are precious few loose ends. But even those are now starting to unravel. Shane's on the run with his wife and sick kid, along with his file that could send Vic to prison for life. Vic's cornered, starting to panic, abandoning his code -- he's always had a soft spot for women and children, even the ones who've burned him. But now he's willing to kill Shane's wife, Mara, and her unborn child to save himself. That's a pretty big line to cross.

You get the feeling Vic's taken one step too far, and has fallen off the ledge and can't go back. Now his ex-wife, Corinne, is spilling her secrets to the cops. Vic's trapped on all sides, and I don't see a viable way out. He can run, now. Or he can stay and fight, and inevitably lose.

There are only four episodes left of this brilliant series, and however many twists and turns are left, and whichever direction Vic turns, you just know it won't end well for him. Judgement day is almost upon us, and Vic Mackey is going to go down guns blazing.
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FX, my nemesis

Curse you, FX! You don't provide an HD channel, yet you offer Sons of Anarchy and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in HD on On Demand. So I decide to watch those two shows On Demand this week, only to wait, and wait, and wait until you make them available. It's Saturday and still I await Wednesday's new adventures of Sam Crow. Come on FX, be like a normal network and post your shows the day after they air!

And to add to the frustration, why isn't The Shield available On Demand? Way to make your best shows more unavailable!
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The week in review

The TV season isn't in full swing yet, so there are still gaping holes in my viewing habits. That being said, here's a list of not so much my favorite shows from the past week, but the shows I watched. Ranked in order of awesomeness.

1. The Shield: This is the highlight of any week it's on. God, this show is good. The tension just keeps winding up, and you know it's going to explode before the season's over. Vic playing two organized crime syndicates off each other while double-crossing both of them? Vic and Shane working together to make things "right"? Vic trying to keep his career as Claudette has him in her sights? And while his own daughter almost blows everything up by trying to press charges against him? Tick tick tick tick.......this is not going to end well for anyone. Oh, and how scary were the Spook Street boys? And they're NOT one of the Top 10 gangs? Yikes.

2. Fringe: OK, the acting wasn't great, some plot points were absurd and there was a ton of awkward exposition. But the mystery was outstanding and I love conspiracy theories. The Cate Blanchett lookalike they got to star in the show is no Dana Scully, but that's probably a good thing -- there are already too many X-Files similarities. But I generally liked her character. Pacey -- err, I mean Joshua Jackson's character -- was a little young to be quite so patronizing, but once he dropped that act he was tolerable. And you've gotta love any show with Lance Reddick (Daniels from The Wire). He's just as ominous here as he was in his guest role on Lost last season. The giants locator subtitles were kinda cool (and were reminiscent of the Lost title, hmmm), but that's a trick that might get old. But overall, good production values, nice complex mystery that'll take forever to solve, and good bits of humor to break the tension. And I love how it was shot in Boston in winter. Like X-Files when it was shot in Vancouver, the location adds all kinds of moody undercurrents.

3. Entourage: The boys are back. Are they better than ever? That remains to be seen. But after a year-plus layoff, it's good to have them back. The opening scenes made me want to go to Mexico ("Wow, it's gorgeous, I never knew the coast of Baja was like that!"), until I realized they shot it in Hawaii ("Oh. Nevermind"). Vince is broke and a Hollywood pariah after his awful Medellin (reviewed in a hilarious guest appearance by Richard Roeper), which went straight to video (ouch). Hopefully he'll bounce back quickly because this show is at its best when Vince & Co. are living the high life. Broke Vince doesn't do much for me. But that bizarre bit with Drama and his new French girlfriend chirping at each other cracked me up.

4. Gossip Girl: Last week I said I wasn't hooked on it. OK, maybe I'm a little hooked. It's soapy and trashy, but not brainless. Which gives it one up on The Hills. This is quickly becoming my guilty pleasure show. The dialogue is snappy, the plot twists are delicious (Nate becoming a man-ho? Nice!), and it's self-aware enough that you know it's never going to have "a very special episode."

5. Sons of Anarchy: It seems to exist in the same universe as The Shield (One-Niners, corrupt cops everywhere), but not in the real world. It just throws me how it's set in San Joaquin County, but in a San Joaquin County with mountains, where Lodi is the major city, where heroin is bigger than meth, and where it's not oppressively hot. That bit of fantasy aside, I'm liking this show. I'm glad Charlie Hunnam (the Brit from Undeclared) finally has a good show, Katy Sagal is building an Emmy-worthy role as the resident Ophelia/Lady MacBeth, and I love how the gang is made up of a who's-who of character actors who look like serial killers (especially Kim Coates and Tommy Flanagan). I'm not completely hooked yet, and I hope it gets more compelling, because if not, it's in danger of dropping to my wait-for-DVD list once more shows start up.

6. Burn Notice: I haven't watched this week's episode yet, but it came back after a three-week, U.S. Open-induced break. This is one of my favorite shows and it has a secure spot on my weekly best list, even sight unseen.

7. The Hills. I don't know if I saw the most recent episode of last week's. Either way, it just annoyed me. I'm so over this show. The gang jetted to Vegas for Frankie's birthday. Drama ensued, yadda yadda yadda. It's sad watching this knowing that these are real people. They're all just so vapid and shallow. I can get all the same trashiness with Gossip Girl, plus not feel dirty for watching real people humiliate themselves.

What I didn't watch:

True Blood. Ehhh, it just doesn't sound up my alley. Maybe I'll check it out On Demand if I'm bored someday. Buffy gave me all the vampire storylines I'll ever need.

90210. Seriously? I didn't even make it through the pilot. It's baaaaad.

Mad Men. I know, I know, it's the best show I'm not watching. I've seen it, I've liked it, but it's just not compelling enough to get me to watch every week. It's in my DVD pile.
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Return of The Shield

So how cool was that season premiere of The Shield? I had almost forgotten how much I love that show. But from the opening scene where Shane gets a brutal (and well-deserved) beat-down, Vic Mackey & Co. showed they're back with a vengeance. The plot points in the hourlong buzzsaw were dizzying -- Vic and Acevedo's newly acquired blackmail files (the scenes between the two of them are amazing), grisly gang "blood lines" being painted on city streets (the severed leg was a nice touch), Dutchboy's super awkward, post-coital exachange with Dani (I had totally forgotten about that!), Armenian mob power plays, Mexican developer power plays, a hot ICE agent, Ronnie passing the point of no return, a dead hitman suddenly missing his feet (Shane. . . dude. . . wow), a lazy cop getting his comeuppance (couldn't happen to a more weasely guy), a shootout punctuated by Vic plowing his car into the middle of it all and a tense truce between Shane, Vic and Ronnie that you just know won't last. Oh, and the Strike Team stoking an all-out gang war between the Mexicans and Armenians.

Now that's how you kick off the fall season.

If there had been any doubt before, The Shield just re-established itself as my No. 1 show. I'm already salivating for next week's episode.
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Shows, exciting and new . . .

New shows I'm looking forward to:

1. Sons of Anarchy -- From the creators of The Shield comes this drama about a gang of outlaw bikers out to protect their California town from drug dealers and developers. Civic-minded gang guys? Um, OK. But the trailer looks intriguing, and Dutch from The Shield will have a recurring role as a DEA agent. And all those Shield ties give it instant cred.


2. Life on Mars -- ABC might screw this one up completely, but the original BBC series was, well, original, and compelling. In a nutshell, a present-day cop gets hit by a car and wakes up stuck in the '70s. Did he travel through time? Is he in a coma imagining it all? Is he just crazy? The big problem I think ABC might face is longevity -- you can only tease the audience so long with the reality vs. imaginary question. It lasted two seasons in the UK. That's about one full U.S. season. I'm skeptical they'll pull it off, but it'll be worth checking out. This is one show that I think will fall one of two ways -- either it'll be the best new show of the season, or it'll be a trainwreck of Bionic Woman-like proportions.


3. Fringe -- Rumor has it the pilot needs work, but the trailer for the JJ Abrams show that looks like a cross between X-Files and Altered States is dark and interesting. Maybe a little too out there to catch a big audience though, and with what's bound to be a tangled series mythology, this is a good candidate for quick cancellation if it doesn't draw viewers right off the bat.

4. Dollhouse -- Joss Whedon is back on network TV, and he's bringing along former slayer Eliza Dushku to star in it. I don't care what the show is about (though it sounds weird and creepy and dark, if disturbingly like a hybrid between Dark Angel and AI), he built up enough viewability equity from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I'll check it out. This'll be a midseason replacement on Fox.

5. Kath & Kim -- Remake of an Australian sitcom about a dysfunctional mother and daughter, and supposedly it killed at the network upfronts last month. I might check it out, but it sounds a bit too sitcomey for my liking.

6. Worst Week of My Life -- Another remake, this time of a British sitcom. It too is getting a lot of buzz. The series follows the misadventures of a guy in the week leading up to his wedding. So what happens after that? Will it be like 24 and he'll keep having horrible weeks as the series progresses over the years? I'll check it out, but I'm already dubious about its staying power.

7. True Blood -- Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) is back on HBO, this time with a romantic drama based around Southern vampires and the women who love them. Or at least a woman who loves one of them. Anna Paquin (X-Men) plays the psychic waitress with questionable taste in men. The previews look slightly ridiculous, but it's got a cast (including Alexander Skarsgard of Generation Kill and William Sanderson of Deadwood) that could make it interesting.
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