So long Vic Mackey
Posted by Andrew Adams on May 21, 2009
Filed Under Culture, Media, TV |
So it’s over - the last ever episode of The Shield was aired on Monday night. It was one of the greatest TV cops shows ever, possibly the greatest,* and in corrupt detective Vic Mackey, portrayed superbly by Michael Chiklis, it had one of the most compelling central characters in the history of the genre.
The ending was handled well - there was no final blaze of glory for Mackey, no explosive climax. He managed to foil the best efforts of his adversaries to prosecute him for his various misdeeds, but he still ended up paying a big price for his sins. Vic’s family were moved into witness protection to escape from him after his wife turned on and him tried to help the police bring him down. Ronnie Garocki, his fellow strike team member and his closest friend was hauled away by their former police colleagues to pay the price for their various misdeeds over the years, sold out by Vic himself. And the ultimate humiliation - after getting the job with the Feds he had been so desperate for he was relegated to a mundane desk job, faced with three years of pushing paper instead of being out on the streets busting the bad guys. The sight of Vic, dressed in regulation suit and tie, being lectured by the HR lady on the workings of the air conditioning system was a superb portrait of a proud man humiliated by the banality of his situation.
There were certainly some shocks along the way though, and the scene in the penultimate episode where Shane Vendrell, Vic’s former colleague turned enemy killed himself and we then saw the dead bodies of his wife and young son laid out peacefully on the bed, her clutching a bunch of flowers and him a toy, was one of the most literally jaw-dropping scenes I can remember in any show.
And that’s the beauty of the Shield - however brutal it could be at times you never lost sight of the humanity of it’s characters, however unsympathetic their action made them, and the show still had a moral core. You never hated Vic for the things he did, you could always see he did have a moral purpose, never doubted that he genuinely wanted to make LA a better, cleaner place and never doubted his devotion to his family however often he unwillingly hurt them. But neither did you want to forgive him for his crimes - in the end he had to pay one way or the other, and he did.
There were also many excellent supporting characters and performances, but special mention must go to Jay Karnes as slightly nerdy but brilliant detective “Dutch” Wagenbach and CCH Pounder as Claudette Wyms, his former partner now promoted to Captain and suffering from a painful and incurable illness. The relationship between the two of them was superbly played and quite touching, and when she finally decided to ditch the medications which had been hindering her performance and do her job she loved the way she wanted despite the pain it was again quite moving.
So farewell to one of TV’s great shows and great characters. It’s probably right that it ended when it did but it will be missed. There have been few like it.
*Advocates of The Wire please note I’ve only seen the first series so it’s hard to make a comparison.
Comments
One Response to “So long Vic Mackey”
Leave a Reply
I’ve only seen the first and last series of The Shield, and think it’s good but overrated (The Wire is waaaaaaaay better). But I have to agree the last episode was brilliant - the colc contempt that dripped off the FBI woman when she realised just exactly what Mackie was, and shades of Marlo (I won’t give away anymore) in Vic’s final inability to give it all up.
Maybe they can make a spin-off out of the blossoming war between Dutch and his teenage psycho killer.