If The Shield (Season One) were made today. Spoilers of course.

Cafe Society
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  1. The strike unit shoots an unarmed fleeing felon because the cigarette box he had looked like a gun…and they felt the need to plant a gun on him? Ha! That’s just another day at the office today.

  2. I’m sure even in 2002 the audience was saying, “Man, that’s fucked up Julian.” when he decided to undergo religious sexual preference therapy…but today? Even with the understanding that our protagonists are acting out of ignorance and desperation, there’s no way that storyline gets made without a billion people saying how irresponsible it is for the show to go there.

  3. Cops are being targeted in ambushes? And it’s a conspiracy as opposed to a lone nut? Goddamn Martial Law would be enacted. The blowback would be much more immense than what was depicted.
    Question: How was arresting Gilroy an option? He’s got a ton of dirt on Vic.

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It seems appropriate for me to bump this thread because, in a binge, I just finished The Shield Season 1.

In the thread Your Top 10 TV Shows, I didn’t deserve to post. What would Rip Van Winkle, who watched TV as a school boy submit? Route 66, Alfred Hitchcock Presents ? Or a few later gems like Banacek ?

But in recent few years I’ve binged, and caught up with some of the more recommended series; so I used that thread for a different purpose. I found several that liked the same series I liked, but none came anywhere as close as Zeldar’s list:

(I’ll take the liberty of bold-facing and underlining the choices I agree with.

I like all these I’ve seen, though had never heard of Shield nor Terriers. (I wanted only several episodes of Deadwood, does it get better? I think I liked Boardwalk Empire more than Deadwood, though still not enough to keep watching.)

Seeing Zeldar’s list, and how close his taste was to mine (but where’s True Detective?) my mission was clear: Watch Shield or Terriers. I picked the former, binged on an entire season in just a few days and …

Wow! I prefer The Wire, I think, because the characters are much more empathetic, but even so, The Shield is …

Wow!