Holy shit!
:eek:
I say again :eek:
That’s it. Man.
That wasn’t right for Ronnie. I’m just sick about that. I feel as bad about him as I did for Lem. But I guess that’s the show. Shane killed Lem. Vic killed (in effect) Ronnie. Vic killed Shane. Vic killed Terry. I didn’t watch seasons 2 and 3, but it always seemed to me that Lem was Vic’s favorite, so it’s fitting that he’s the only one that Vic didn’t really get.
I know in the interview that Chiklis said it wouldn’t end like everyone suspected, but I didn’t expect an almost non-ending. What was put in my mind was that he would maybe try to bust Ronnie out. I definitely don’t see Vic doing a desk job for 3 years. Is he really so callous that he can just hang Ronnie out to dry like that? And being away from his family is going to tear him up.
Fuck that ending. That is all I have to say. I feel like they just wasted years of great writing. This show was great because it didn’t follow the pattern that every other show has followed. A chance for a really epic ending–and they take the easy way out. I’m truly pissed and let down.
Agreed. Highly disappointing ending–specifically, the “closure” with Vic.
Although, maybe expectations for the finale were so high, the show couldn’t meet them.
I was okay with Vic’s ending – no power, no control, no respect, and separated from his family. That’s some justice. It should have ended there. But then he put his gun back on. What’s the moral here? You can’t keep a good man down?
The way they showed Vic at the very end, as he walked away from the desk, I thought he almost had a look of getting ready to plot his next move as a street cop. I wouldn’t see him being depressed working the job 9-5 and being pissed everything fell apart. I’d see him finding a way to be Vic F’ing Mackey from 5-9.
No big surprises in tonight’s ep., but as always with The Shield, it’s just as much about how the story unfolds, and the little twists and kinks thrown in along the way, and the acting. Always the acting.
I’m glad they went out with a bang; this way The Shield will always be remembered as a top-quality show, instead of a “has-been” that “should’ve ended three seasons ago.”
I loved the ending. “Vic Mackey” has had a cachet of a kind of “legitimacy” throughout the series as being a stand-up guy, as long as he identifies you as one of “Us” instead of one of “Them.” That he would do anything, anything, to protect friends and family.
Tonight just burst that bubble, and showed “Vic Mackey” as the asshole he truly is, and always was. All the bodies, all the lies, the deceptions, hustles, cons, it all cost him everything he claimed valued: his family, his friends, his career.
He is now outcast, a pariah, that other cops will talk about for years, and not in a good way. Olivia as much as put him in a prison by chaining him to a 9-to-5 desk and cubicle shuffling endless intel reports for the next three years.
They didn’t show it, but I think Vic is going to take that hand-cannon of his home, drink a few beers, and stick the barrel in his mouth. Maybe not tonight, but before that 3 years is up, he’s going to eat a pill.
Especially if he’s called as a witness for the prosecution at Ronnie’s trial, and Olivia makes him do it as part of his job at ICE. Which sounds a lot like something Olivia and Claudette could easily cook up between them.
Interesting that Ex-Tank and I have completely differing views on Vic’s future. If he’s the selfish bastard he’s been shown to be, then I think he starts looking for ways to make things better for himself.
He can’t “make things better for himself,”; not through any LEO channel in the USA. No one will reference him for another job.
Vic was an “action junkie,” the “jock douchebag superstar” who lived for the limelight. Look at how he treated Dutch, the “geeky nerd boy,” throughout the series. Classic high-school bully behavior.
Now he’s no one. A faceless drone, no family, no friends, with a future that ends in three years. Being a faceless corporate drone may be fine for us everyday mortals, but Vic won’t be able to stand it. It’s an especially crafted Hell, applicable to this particular sinner.
At best, he’s going to wind up as another “Smitty,” the P.I./“Security Consultant”/Locksmith that the Strike Team used a couple of times, but without the inside help of someone in the Dept.; if Vic were dying of thirst in the desert, no one in LAPD would spit on him, lest it gave him the strength to crawl to the nearest water hole.
So at best he gets “survival.” Does he deserve worse? You betcha. But he cut his deal and got what he needed in the end just to “survive.”
I don’t think Vic really treated Dutch that poorly. Dutch always falsely accused him of things, like putting the shit in his desk, but it wasn’t actually Vic. Vic gave him props in season 1 when Dutch busted the serial killer, Vic gave him “advice” when Dutch basically asked him how to convict someone without evidence ("Sometimes you need to make the evidence fit the crime.), etc.
Anyways, I feel the need to defend the ending to this show, but I definitely didn’t expect (or want) the ending to be something that needed defending. Still, Vic is basically stuck in purgatory, and has to live with all of the shit he’s done. I think I’ll be mulling over what Vic is about to do with that gun. The look on his face definitely looked like he was out to kill someone other than himself, but I can only imagine who. I think Mackey is going to be a short-lived vigilante, cleaning up the streets until he gets caught and sent to jail.
I was hoping he’d make some sort of deal with Olivia or Claudette to train his immunity to set Ronnie free.
By the way, here’s a great (and LONG!) Q&A with Shawn Ryan, the creator of The Shield
I thought it was a great finale. What else could have happened? There was no way Shane or Ronnie could escape their fates without some bullshit deus ex machina. And Vic’s private Hell was about as much punishment as you could reasonably hope for. I’ll write something more in-depth tomorrow when I’m fully awake, but I was happy with it (if that’s the right word to use for such a depressing episode).
I just rewatched the last 20 minutes or so. Right after Ronnie gets arrested, Claudette tells Vic he can leave now. Vic looks right at Dutch, then has to look down, acknowledging that Dutch is the better man, and the better cop. It’s a great moment, and I completely missed it on first viewing.
Olivia Murray found the perfect Hell for Vic Mackey. I wanted to see him get his, and he did.
Shane killing self and family was telegraphed last week with “I want to go home” from Mara and Shane sobbing that Mara would not go to prison. So it was no surprise when it finally happened this week. Shane was an idiot who should have left the country the night he left the police station, the rest was just swirling down the toilet bowl.
Vic selling out Ronnie was inevitable. He would have killed Lem if Shane hadn’t and if he had been pushed far enough. Will Vic kill himself? No, Vic is the ultimate narcissist. Will he make it through 3 years of sheer hell in the workplace? It’s nothing most of us don’t do every day, but Vic will have trouble with it. He is an outlaw and we are not. He doesn’t see the rules as applying to him, we do see the rules as binding us. The difference and what fascinated us for so long was that we were envious that the laws didn’t apply to Vic, but he constantly pretended that he loved his family and friends. He didn’t.
On edit, I liked the ending, but it was not as powerful as last week’s lead up, which was the best “hour” of television I can remember. I feel smug predicting that Lloyd would try to set up Dutch for his mother’s murder. I thought Lloyd would do a better job. Claudette stood by Dutch, and I thought that she would send the case to IAD.
My favorite scene from tonight was between Dutch and Claudette, starting when Claudette told Dutch she was off the drugs and concluding with her thanking him for being her friend through all the shit. Second favorite was Claudette’s staredown with Vic in the interrogation room. Claudette was one of the few never intimidated by Vic (and that includes Aceveda). CCH Pounder is an amazing actress. Third was Ronnie crying, both sad and happy simultaneously while Vic knows that he’s under the executioneer’s axe.
I have to disagree with Intense Porpoise. Shane may have dropped the grenade, but Vic created Shane. He trained a child how to lie, cheat and steal, without instilling the intelligence necessary to know when to do it and more importantly when not to do it. Shane saw the situation as equal to Terry Crowley; Vic, of course, disagreed.
Vic is fucked, but it just wasn’t enough closure for everything he has done. That he’s lost his family, perhaps forever, is small consolation. I wonder if Corinne gets an order of protection, and Vic defies that order of protection, if that invalidates his deal.
I can’t believe Shane took the family with him. Damn. And they were only half way through the episode!
Vic has nothing now. His family left him. He sold out his most loyal friend. He has no power or leverage on the street because he’s not a cop anymore. Does he have any money train cash left? He’s stuck in a cubicle. My friends and I laughed out loud when we saw Vick motherfucking Mackey in a suit and tie. He’s crushed. He won’t kill himself, but he’ll have to move away, or find his family.
Ronnie got the shit end of the stick. He should have gotten away to Mexico or something.
Question: I was a little unclear as to how they finally cracked the serial killer kid? Did they find something? What did I miss?
FTR, we were all pretty far off as to how this would end. I liked it.
Me too. I was outside with the dog and missed a few minutes.
Did they really find something, or was it just Claudette knowing Dutch so well, and therefore being certain that the kid was responsible?