2 out of 5

Created by: Shawn Ryan

Oooh, okay, I get it: in some kind of meta commentary on fatherhood, and lineage, Shawn Ryan created unlikable cop Vic Mackey – racist, quick to violence, stupid – and his similarly obnoxious ‘Strike Team’ of detectives, and then at some point Kurt Sutter came onboard and honed his sensibilities of cool penis posturing and sensitive tuff guyz and dumb double-crosses and created Sons of Anarchy, which is essentially The Shield on bikes.  Except, I guess, as annoying as that show could be sometimes, we generally started on the lead’s side, and maybe wavered slightly in allegiance but could follow his decision making.  But here, we’re saddled with Ryan’s view of a protagonist: dirty cops for the “right” reasons, setting aside money for family, or for themselves in order to fund eventually doing the right thing.

The show opens up with detestable behavior – which I accept was the point, and was likely more shocking back in 2002 – and then doubles down when Mackey offs one of his own guys before said guy can turn on him.  This sole crime becomes the focus point for a lot over the course of the show’s 7 seasons, and given Vic’s protestations at various points that he’s not a killer, it seems like an overreaction, which is good summary of the show’s unintended m.o.: promoting the dredges of our behaviors to have us sympathize with pieces of shit.  There are points, when Vic is trying to get above his past, that the show crawls out from underneath this: season 4, when Glenn Close comes in as chief, there’s a respect and rapport that builds between her character and Mackey that finally allows the latter to drop the glowering and unilateral unintelligent decision making b.s.; season 6 has another co-lead on the Strike Team, and seeing Vic suddenly act like an actual cop while still navigating the complexities of the street and gangs (as opposed to mostly just smiling like a creep while leering at girls and yelling at thugs) is satisfying; and throughout, Michael Chiklis acts above the dialogue and scripts he’s given, giving Mackey gears a’turning behind his eyes that suggest a guy who’s not in control but doesn’t know it, always swimming out of his depth.

This is infinitely more layers than the show itself can manage, though.

There’s never a point where I felt like I believe Vic could get away with what he has, much less maintain a crew of like-minded goofs for long enough to do so.  The camaraderie that exists between the Strike Team is just written in; it’s there before we got there so we accept it, but it’s never real – they’re too abusive toward and doubting of each other for it to work.  The Shield also has a habit of trying on complex emotional concepts – one character is sexually abused; one is a possible sociopath – but only doing so to maintain the grimy and ‘serious’ exterior of the show; these concepts are never really followed through on, unless it’s just to set up a To Be Continued type stinger for the next episode.

The Shield’s production helps to move it past it’s lacking in the drama and character department: ‘The Barn,’ the rundown Farmington police station out of which Mackey operates, feels legit, and not Hollywood in the least.  Its interrogation rooms are hard to get to and low rent; the chief’s office isn’t very private or too spacious; the holding pen is always stuffed to capacity.  Politics – inter-office and inter-department – are as much of a threat as whichever drug or perp is that day’s focus; the gang inter-relations are messy and never settled; the show’s L.A. is a cesspit of constant trouble.

So mixed in here are good cop procedural elements, and the basis for a good dirty cop show.  Which, for the record, I like, as long as I feel like I understand why we’re following that cop or cops.  But The Shield’s primaries are neither compelling enough for a character study, smart enough to make their many crimes against criminals believable or interesting, or sympathetic enough to worry about when their dunderheaded decisions come back to bite.