When FX launched its first drama, The Shield, the promoted it with the tagline: "The Road to Justice Is Twisted." If you didn't believe the show had a mission statement from the start you can't deny it now. The Shield's series finale, "Family Meeting", contained everything a great episode of the show should: drama, drugs, twists and heartbreakingly awful decision making. Decisions that have cost and irreparably damaged lives. Some of those decisions weren't necessarily made in this episode, but instead were set up years ago. Vic's own road to justice (Did he really get any? More on that later.) began years ago when he had friends, family, and a great opportunity to run an experimental team in the Farmington district of L.A.
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In the ultimate penultimate episode of all time, The Shield's final act prepped itself to close out the series in it's typical, unrelenting fashion. Double dealing, backstabbing, murder, and drugs were the order of the day in Farmington. Oh, and with a show like this I suppose I should specify I'm talking about metaphorical backstabbing.
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After last week's game changing episode, The Shield delivered us one of the tightest, most suspenseful episodes in the series run. The show, winding down to its Nov. 25 series finale, is anything but short on plot right now with Shane and his family on the run, a demoted Ronnie, a budding serial killer on the loose, a Mexican coup of the L.A. political landscape and a shield-less Vic Mackey.
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During The Shield's seven season run, there are a handful of moments one can point to which color every event that comes after it. Going all the way back to the pilot, you'll find the murder of Terry Crowley. At the end of the second season The Strike Team hit the Armenian Money Train. That money, which Lem ultimately burned, tore the team apart during Season 3. While Season 4's star was Glenn Close, it was the introduction of Anthony Anderson's Antwon Mitchell which really shook things up. And how could you not mention the murder of Curtis Lemanski in Season 5? This week's episode brought us another one of these turning points. The Shield as we knew it will never be the same.
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The aptly titled sixth episode of The Shield's final season featured Vic Mackey pulling the strings as hard as ever over the various gang members in Farmington, Dutch and Claudette briefly re-teaming on a possible murder case, the return of a long lost strike team member and a long standing feud seemingly coming to a head. With only 7 episodes left in the show, things are really starting to come together. I just can't figure out what's going to happen next.
Read my complete recap, after the jump.
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The freight train that is The Shield continued to shuttle towards it's final destination this week. With only eight episodes left the writers aren't wasting any time setting up what are sure to be the show's final story arcs.
This week's episode began with an investigation into Robert Martin's assassination. You may remember The Cartel murdered Martin in order to send a message to the Armenians, who are believed to be in possession of The Cartel's "box-o-blackmail." Speaking of the box— seemingly offended by the moniker I've chosen to give this plot device, the writers have seen to it to name it the "box of sins"
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Man what a season Cant the final season just start next week Or cant we just fast-forward to March 2008 right now Leave Christmas in just for the heck of itAgain The Shield threw me for a loop I was expecting either Shane or a member of the Mackey family to bite the big one and none of them did I was expecting Vic to get his job back but not by exposing the Mexican mob and I certainly didnt expect him to walk out of his hearing As Ive said before the twists and turns are what make this show so great We start off with a bang right where last week left off with Vic and Aceveda doing a dance I loved what happened between the two of them in this episode Vic tries to blackmail Aceveda by showing him the picture Then David turns around and sends a lawyer to tell Vic hes being sued and will lose everything Then Vic goes back to Pazuela and gets the memory card which forces Acevedas hand But instead of just trying to get his job back Vic teams up with Aceveda t
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I know its probably bad to start off a blog about this weeks episode by saying I cant wait for next weeks But its true The last time I remember anticipating a finale as much as this one it was the final episode of Cheers And this is just a season finale I mean jeez my heart My poor tired heart I know my heart cant wait until 1105 pmET next week for it to be over It gets a workout each week and Im sure the ticker is a little exhausted at this point Then again we get to wait nine months for more so its bittersweet Anyway where were we Right we had another heck of an episode leading up to the finale Everything looked kind of calm at the beginning but in true Shield fashion it all hit the fan by the end of the hour Lets talk San Marcos first We finally have some closure on the whole situation Vics goal was to solve the murder case before he got pushed out so he had five days to figure it out which of course he did in one That contractor guy gave
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With only three episodes left in this season this week we get our setup episode for the final two Dialogue-heavy and bloodshed-light we get some more insight into Shane and the Armenians and find out that Hernan is not dead after all Shanes in the middle of this gas-station murder and is talking to the daughter of the Armenian mob boss Shanes talking to her like she doesnt know anything but clearly shes more on her game than he thinks And soon she might be in charge herself since Pop is on his deathbed Meanwhile shes paying Shane to look into some apartment robberies and he finds a nice hooker whos able to give him a little bit of intel on the people who broke into her place He gives it to her and she takes care of the problem herself She seems to have Shane wrapped around her finger now Man Shane just cant lay low for one minute and stay out of trouble can he After all this time we finally see Ronnies reaction to Shane
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All talk and no action Thats usually not our buddy Vic Mackey But last week I clearly heard him say to Shane If I see you again I will kill you Vic saw him again and Shane is still walkin and talkin as far as I can see I mean I hoped it would happen I hoped Vic would pull up to Shane and pop him one but I also knew it couldnt happen that easily Shanes no dummy we all knew that I always considered Vic to be the more cunning of the two but Shane has really upped his game this time It was hard to tell up front what Shane was going to do with his documentation The episode started off with him writing all about Terry and we saw later its Tavon the money train and everything else they did I wondered if Shane thought the only way he wouldnt get killed by Vic is if he implemented Vic for everything so I figured Shane might take the offensive on this one But that doesnt do much for him since his name is all over those items as well Hes clearly smarter than
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