Return of the Tough Guys Tense times for Vic Mackey Jack Bauer in sizzling new seasons
Has
The Shield’s crooked and combative Vic Mackey (
Michael Chiklis) finally met his match?
This dirty cop, who happens to be the most effective and ferocious detective on the meanest streets of Los Angeles, has literally gotten away with murder (a fellow cop’s, no less) since the very first episode five seasons ago. Like Tony Soprano, he’s an antihero you find yourself rooting for while cringing at his brutal excesses.
But the noose is tightening, courtesy of a crafty, hungry new Internal Affairs nemesis, Lt. Jon Kavanaugh, played with smiling relish by Forest Whitaker.
Cat and mouse — or, rather, vulture and lion — don’t actually meet until the third episode, by which time Kavanaugh has taken extreme measures to get deep inside Mackey’s business, playing a potentially deadly game of betrayal.
As Mackey faces retribution as a “poster boy for corruption,” he and the rest of the embattled Farmington squad — from inexperienced rookie cops to soul-weary veterans — contend with the everyday horror show of race riots and unthinkable evil on the streets.
The stakes are steeper than ever on TV’s most blistering crime drama, and that’s good news for anyone with a taste for tension.
Meanwhile, as the equally long-awaited 24 revs up for a four-hour, two-night season premiere, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) soon discovers you can play dead for only so long.
I lost count of how many times I jumped and yelled at the TV in the opening minutes of 24’s relentless, fiendishly entertaining first episode. It never lets up, and why in the world would you ever want it to?
As the fifth season begins, our hero has been living under a new identity 18 months after faking his death. But terrible circumstances catapult him, and the new innocents in his life, onto a sudden collision course with nonstop danger — and, inevitably, CTU.
Before long, it seems everyone’s in harm’s way, and Jack’s mission is to get at the truth while he has multiple targets on his back. “Relax, he’s really good at this,” snarly CTU tech Chloe (the amusing Mary Lynn Rajskub) tells a stunned observer. Jack Bauer is lethally good — better than ever, in fact — and so is the show, a breathlessly paced torrent of tragedy and impending disaster on multiple fronts.
Of special note this season: Jean Smart’s wily performance as a possibly unstable but ultimately steely first lady to wimpy President Logan (Gregory Itzin). She’s one of many fresh new characters to fret over.
I didn’t know how 24 could top last season, but so far it’s working. And the edge of my seat is already frayed.
