TV Verdict

The Shield, Stiffed

Yeah, I know ripping on the Emmys is like shooting fish in a barrel with an AK-47, but Holy Cow did The Shield–the best series on TV last year–get shafted with extreme prejudice. (My review of the final season, by the way, is here.) I yield to no one my admiration for what creator Shawn Ryan, [...]

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The Shield: Series Finale Review and Post-Mortem

When I was watching the Knicks-Bulls rivalries in the mid-1990s, as much as I wanted to deny what I was seeing and think that John Starks and company had a legit shot at dethroning the champs, Michael Jordan would always come up with a big-game play and remind me, painfully over and over again, [...]

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The Shield: S7 E4-6 Roundup

It’s a funny thing about wishes. Sometimes you make them, and they come true. In my last recap of recent events in Farmington, I criticized The Shield for dropping story lines hyped up in the previous season and giving practically no mention of them. Well, whine no more! The Shield [...]

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The Shield, Season 7 Ep 2 & 3, “Snitch” & “Money Shot”

Oh, to be a resident of fair Farmington. When it rains, it pours. Episodes 2 and 3 of The Shield have been something of a slow slide into a rough time for Vic and his hapless gang of merry muckrakers as they try to weasel themselves simultaneously in and out of fire from friend and [...]

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The Shield: Season 7 Ep 1

Oh, Vic Mackey. So bald, so surly, so leather-clad. Is there any police procedure you can’t break? The final season of FX’s envelope-pushing cop drama, The Shield returns to the air with all manner of noise: gun fights, murders, feet being chopped off by axes, police corruption, lies, double-dealing and betrayal, oh my! [...]

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