Previous Episodes:
I think this episode could really blow things wide open.
*As I am heading to outdoor education tomorrow for 3 days with my sixth graders, I will have to rely on the rest of The Shield faithful to take this thread to the height of its potential.
*If you have seen the latest copy of Sports Illustrated, the guy in the citi advertisement on pg. 12 reminds me a lot of Dutch. Pretty damn funny.
um…well, I have had a few beers tonite, but color me totally confused at the ending. Can someone please fill me in?
Not that I didn’t watch it, but jeez, what the hell is going on? Who were those two bangers Vic grabbed? What did he do with them?
I am (more or less) following the Julian/Dutch/etc storylines, but I’m not getting what happened at the last 15 min of this episode.
Also had a few beers (it’s kind of a ritual now)…
At the start of the episode, there was some kind of big arson crime. Vic’s job was to find who done it, but Acaveda pulled rank and made someone else take the case. Skip to the end of the episode where Vic uses his knowledge of the informant’s idendity (the mexican guy Shane has been using) to aquire knowledge of the arsenist and some other russian bad ass who had some shit to do with it (but as I’ve had a few beers, it’s all shady). Vic finds BOTH of those guys, fires two shots into nothing (notice he had gloves on) and waits for the neighborhood to call 911 on “shots fired”, leading the po-po’s to the Russian and the arsonist.
*Just wanted to point out that if I’m wrong on anything, please feel free to correct me. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’ve had a few beers. And am on my way to another. 
The Russian is who they’ve been trying to bring down with the garage sting. They learned of a planned arson, but they didn’t know the location or the arsonist. Rawlings told Mackey to bring the Russian in on what they do have (apparently a good bit) so they can force him to give them a name. Aceveda pulled rank, based on the Church bust, and the Organized Crime Unit took over the case. Mackey was not pleased. So he used Shane’s informant to find out the name of the guy the Russian planned on using to get out of the country. Once he had a name and address, he went to the apartment and forced the Russian to hand over the name of the arsonist. He brought the arsonist to the apartment. He couldn’t arrest them because he’s not leading the case—Organized Crime is. He shoots at the wall and leaves them as a nice gift…and of course, everybody at the Barn knows who is responsible, but he’s also playing the game…it’s a win/win situation.
It will be interesting to see how Aceveda keeps Julian at the Farm without everyone knowing that he’s acting as Aceveda’s eyes and ears.
To expand a little on pepperlandgirl’s post, the Organized Crime Unit (“OCU”) moved, in Mackey’s view at least, too early on the bust, and the lead Russian wasn’t in residence. OCU’s thinking was to turn one of the arrested to get information on the arsonist and prevent the fire, but they all demanded lawyers and shut up.
Vic just screwed Shane. He gave up Shane’s CI for his own ego (which is not to put a murdering arsonist and a cigaret runner on equal terms). This is the kind of dealings that got him into problems in the first place. Vic’s definitely an “ends justify the means” type. Of course, when the guy you are about to screw over has just reluctantly agreed to put a cap in your ass, I guess it is a little easier to forget to use lubricant.
Julian, especially given Vic’s and Danni’s attitude, was justifiably outraged. Unfortunately, he’s too small a cog in the wheel to really make a statement.
I disagree. What got Vic in trouble was using his position to run a side business accepting money from drug dealers and gangs in exchange for protecting them. And his ego wasn’t the reason, otherwise he would have arrested and them and tried to bullshit his way out of the trouble that would have caused. I think Vic is genuinely interested in justice now, and he saw this as threefold justice: 1)stop the arson that would have killed several innocent families, 2)put the Russian mobster behind bars and 3)give the CI guy what he deserved for being such a scumbag.
That’s what I was thinking too. Vic is doing his damndest to walk the straight and narrow this season, good soldiers Lem and Ronnie too. He’s still a good cop–all three of them are–but they got greedy and let things spiral out of control for a while. It’s actually nice to see them as more sympathetic, upstanding characters this season, especially when contrasted against everyone else’s character arcs that paint them as more conflicted (Claudette, Monica, Julian, Dutch) or just plain BAD (Shane and Aceveda).
Yeah, he used to be the loose cannon. Now it’s kinda weird to see his relationship to the Captain. She is a really good motivator, and Vic really wants to impress her.
I thought the ending was so, so cool. The main point that I got was that Vic’s been trying to walk the straight and narrow, but his reward was a slap in the face, what with demotion from the seizure unit for political reasons. So now he’s back to playing by his own rules.
The old Vic is back. Watch out, LA.
I just wonder how Vic is going to take down Shane. Is he going to kill Shane himself, or get one of his cronies to do it for him? Perhaps even get Antoine to kill Shane, somehow.
Vic is going to help Shane find the body of the little girl and either get rid of it or pin it on The Preacher, or whatever his name is.
Shane will then fall back into the fold, knowing Vic has saved his butt once again.
Oceveda’s infamous blow job is going to come back to haunt him, although I am not sure if it will be Glenn Close or Vic to get the photos of that…could be a season finale slam dunk.
I believe it was made clear that Aceveda got the camera phone from the guy and got rid of the photos of the blow job. I think it’s his pet hooker that’s going to get him nailed.