For some reason I’ve never cared to catch every episode of The Shield despite the fact that it has never failed to entertain me. Like most cable dramas, it has about a dozen or so episodes a season, so the makers can take their time in fashioning gripping plots and character arcs. I think though I’ve never tried to catch all of it because on more than one occasion I randomly tuned into it only to stumble onto a scene where the police discover something gruesome–like six people murdered with machetes or something equally horrific. The show is unfortunately somewhat riddled with this sort of sensationalism, and the LA it depicts through hand-held camera work and a grainy tint is suffocatingly hellish and depressing.
For most part, the purpose of all that is just to generate mood. Above all else the show is a thriller, and the substance of its narratives hinge on the doings of a trio of corrupt cops. A season’s story arcs usually concern their shenanigans which are punctuated by more episodic “case of the week” plots. I think this is the sort of show that would never have been possible without The Sopranos. Like with Tony Soprano, we are at the same time forced to root for, root against and have sympathy for these corrupt cops as they continually abuse their power and are humanized by those close to them. Actually I’m not entirely being genuine with this comparison: that’s what many other people supposedly got out of The Sopranos. I personally found Tony Soprano to be irredeemably evil and repulsive–which is why I never cared for the show all that much. The Shield handles the morally vile characters at its heart better, perhaps because it contrasts them with ethical and responsible characters.
Anyway, I’ve been catching the final season of The Shield currently airing on FX. It’s getting quite climatic as the actions of the corrupt cops catch up with them and they turn on each other. It’s gripping stuff–perhaps not The Wire gripping, but good enough nonetheless.
