I wrote most of this review a few days ago, but I’ve put off writing this intro for a while now because it genuinely feels like there’s nothing I can say about this episode that will quickly put its impact into words. It is one of the most emotionally exhausting experiences I’ve ever had, the highest point of one of the most dauntingly impressive shows ever made, and the heaviest episode ever made without any contest at all. People start this entire 88 episode show just to see this for a reason. No matter what you think about the show overall, how little you might resonate with its cast or often-frustrating style of storytelling, the one thing about The Shield that you can never take away from it is the strength of its conclusion. It perfectly aligns with everything the show was about from the beginning, concludes every character in an incredible way, and brutally recontextualizes the series as a whole so well. [SPOILERS] This review will mainly focus on Vic and Shane as they’re where most of the impact of this episode comes from for me and I don’t want to make this review any more messy than it will be, but I will say that I am very satisfied with everyone’s conclusions. I feel like a lot of finales attempt to be as conclusive and satisfying as they possibly can be from a plot perspective even if it means making its thematic conclusions hold less weight, and I have a great amount of respect for the writers for what they chose to do here. They stay true to the more realistic style of storytelling that this show thrives off of even if it means the fates of certain characters feeling a little more ambiguous, proving that just like the rest of the show, they’re not open to holding the audience’s hand in any regards. With that being said though, I don’t think that much here was very open-ended either, with every plot here solidifying the direction that the whole cast are headed down, and this first section will be about those conclusions before I get into the endings of the strike team. The Huggins plot, although it is the one plot from the episode that I hear occasional criticism for, still does a solid job of concluding multiple members of the cast and only makes this episode better in my opinion. Although it isn’t as unbelievably hard-hitting and emotional as the stuff focusing on Vic and Shane, it effectively concludes a couple of characters in just a few scenes, doing all it needs to without hindering the quality of the episode overall. Its main purpose in my opinion is to give one final nod to the series’ more political themes, with Huggins’ character representing a better, more progressive future in which the corrupt systems depicted throughout the show no longer exist. His death within this episode serves as a grim reminder of how deeply rooted those systems are and how difficult they are to replace, and is especially intriguing considering how it’s implied that Aceveda may have been the one who was responsible for his death. Although it isn’t revealed if he did cause Huggins’ death, this is a perfect end to Aceveda’s character to me, showing that despite the morally righteous version of him that we believed in at the start of the show, he will do anything to achieve his own goals, fulfilling Aceveda’s arc of corruption as the show progressed. Another excellent moment as a result of this plot is the shot of Julien longingly staring at a gay couple as he drives past to talk to Huggins, which was a perfectly subtle hint at his continued internal conflict over his identity that made me appreciate Julien’s arc over the whole show far more. While I do still believe the way Julien’s character was sidelined in seasons 5-7 was frustrating, especially for how S4 proved that Julien’s character was interesting beyond his sexuality, this one shot helped me realise a lot about why the show never truly focuses on Julien’s identity past season 3. Although it would have been satisfying from a storytelling perspective to see his identity come back in some compelling way over the last few seasons, The Shield is a show that often prioritises realism over traditionally satisfying storytelling, and this aligns with that well. When reading an interview from Shawn Ryan he mentioned how he heard that many closeted gay men who are already married often take around 20 years to finally embrace their true identity, and this one small shot lets us know that the show hasn’t forgotten about Julien’s sexuality, that that struggle within him will continue, but the showrunners merely didn’t believe they had the time to bring it back in a believable way, which I’m perfectly fine with. The other side plot of this episode is the Lloyd one which concludes Dutch and Claudette’s characters. As I said at the start of this review, many of the conclusions here do feel somewhat open-ended and inconclusive from a plot perspective, and this is the greatest example of that since even though he was Dutch’s greatest opposition over the course of this season, Lloyd doesn’t get caught by the show’s end. However, I do feel as though this was quite deliberate and poses an interesting question to the audience. Considering that there is evidence found from Dutch’s house in regards to the murder of Lloyd’s mother, suddenly Lloyd’s guilt is put into question and this show confronts its audience one last time. Should we believe Dutch when he says that Lloyd is framing him, looking past the multiple times this show has proved that Dutch is inseparable from the serial killers he catches due to his fascination with their morality and sense of thrill from murdering, or should we consider whether or not Dutch might actually have been the one to kill Lloyd’s mother? More importantly, if we simply believe that Lloyd is guilty without any proof of that being true being provided by the end of the show, what does that say about us? However, I also think this conclusion is less an addressal of Dutch’s morality and potential guilt, and moreso about showing how Dutch and Claudette’s friendship will persevere. Thanks to the show temporarily making you think Dutch might lose his job only for Claudette to come to his side, Claudette’s admission that she’s slowly dying and Dutch being a friend for her regardless, this episode reassures us that no matter what the world and job will throw at them after this point, they will make it through, supporting one another until the very end. I love their friendship so much and was both so upset seeing the show basically tell us that Claudette is going to end up dead eventually but so moved seeing how Dutch and Claudette’s friendship will persist despite that, such a poignant end to such a heartwarming dynamic. Anyways, now for the rest of the episode. —————————————————————————————— I feel like it’s hugely important to discuss Vic and Shane’s dynamic throughout the whole show to explain what makes this episode as brilliant as it is. The Shield opens up with Vic murdering Terry next to Shane for a reason. It is the most bold indication of Vic’s corruption that anyone can imagine, throwing any preconceived notions of what the series will be like away from the jump. As the show went on though, this scene begun to stand out to me less because of that and more due to how it establishes Vic’s role as the root of the strike team’s corruption, with Shane and the others internalising the values this moment represents, particularly of loyalty and doing anything to preserve those that you care for. Vic is by far the most willing and open to violence by this point in the show, he always gets away with the crimes he commits as a result of his skill and charisma, and because of those things, the rest of the strike team look up to him as a mentor, and for Shane, a father figure. This brings me to Shane, who manages to be the most complex and tragic of any of Vic’s disciples because of his childlike tendencies and deeply impressionable nature in regards to his dynamic with Vic. During literally any section of the show where Shane and Vic are at odds with each other, he is characterised as an incompetent mess who doesn’t know what to do by himself. When he mimics Vic in season 4 by starting an arrangement with a drug dealer, it blows up in his face and he ends up crawling back to Vic. After Shane confesses to Vic about killing Lem, something that tore apart their relationship, Shane makes a deal with the Armenian mob that leaves him scrambling not to get Vic’s family killed, with the two of them working together to avoid that happening. This is why Shane and his dynamic with Vic is as powerful as it is to me, it’s the story of a kid who doesn’t know what to do on his own, desperately clinging to the values and behaviour of the person he admires most in a devastatingly humane way. The last aspect of their dynamic that plays a role in making this conclusion as agonising as it is to me (or at least, the last one I’ll discuss in this review to be concise) is their dynamic after Lem’s death. In 5x11 Shane kills Lem, another member of the strike team, because he sees it as necessary in order to preserve himself and the rest of his family. This is a moment parallel to Vic killing Terry in the pilot, it’s identical in motive, but it manages to surpass Terry’s death in severity because of how much more committed Shane had to be to kill one of his closest friends. Shane’s personality was always more reckless than Vic’s and so was his capabilities for violence, one example of this can be seen in 4x10 when Shane nearly kills Antwon. He’s so rash and compassionate that he would kill Antwon in broad daylight inside a police station, willing to go to jail as long as Antwon can no longer incriminate Vic and the rest of his friends; that’s how much Shane was willing to sacrifice for everyone else in his life above himself. It’s because of this that the values represented by Vic killing Terry at the start of the show like extreme loyalty were instilled into somebody who would eventually end up being even worse than Vic himself, which eventually manifests in Shane killing one of his own closest friends. When Vic finally learns of Shane killing Lem in 6x6, upon seeing that the values he exemplified by killing Terry managed to turn his figurative son into somebody even more violent, impulsive and committed to his ideals than he is, instead of attempting to empathise with him, he tells him that he’ll kill him if he ever sees him again. Throughout the entire show, Vic has been seen as incredibly unempathetic, only being able to rest his psyche as he abuses and mistreats criminals due to his inability (or rather, stubborn refusal) to see their humanity, and it’s when this unempathetic nature causes him to persecute the son he raised rather than see how he turned him into who he is that Vic and Shane’s dynamic comes full circle. This is a father rejecting his son, one who only ever looked up to him and wanted to be like him, for following in his footsteps to an extent that he never could have imagined. The first of the truly notable scenes in this episode is the phone call between Vic and Shane, which at first didn’t hit me profoundly, but tore me apart rewatching it knowing what it would lead to, especially for how it highlights everything that I just discussed. Not only does it foreshadow their eventual conclusions (Shane saying how his family will “be there” for whatever his fate is while Vic’s family aren’t there for him), but it’s the final nail in the coffin that brings Shane to kill himself and his family. This is Shane’s last cry for help, his final attempt to reach out to Vic and for them to work together. Although Shane tried to murder Vic and on paper Vic has no reason to help Shane anymore, his frequent lack of empathy once again leads him to persecute the child he raised. It was Vic’s initial attempt to kill Shane in 7x6 that instilled the mentality within him that it was something he had to do or would be able to do himself, he was only following Vic’s lead one final time, and it’s Vic’s final refusal to understand this that leads to Shane’s fate. Even though they still care for each other deep down and by the end of this episode Vic will deeply regret how he treated Shane, their final words with one another are ones of bitterness and malice as they tear each other apart, once again with Vic’s refusal to empathise with Shane leading Shane to make worse decisions. This of course brings me to Shane’s conclusion. Shane’s death is one of the most gut-wrenching, painful things I’ve ever witnessed. A lot of the best scenes I’ve ever watched utilise music to enhance the emotion presented within them, but the choice to make this scene completely silent and diegetic was perfect. The silence of this moment is haunting, suffocating, and the slow reveal that he took Mara and Jackson along with him was genuinely impossible for me to fully take in or accept on a first watch. The choice to have Mara and Jackson’s deaths and the preparation towards it happen off screen is perfect as well, it leaves it to the audience to imagine the moment they passed which is so much more devastating and dark than if we had seen every step of the way. The Shield is a show that is incredibly grounded in realism, and because of this very down to earth approach to its story and style, it never truly suggests how you should feel about a character or gives you a clear window into their minds. Because of this, Shane’s murder-suicide is such a difficult scene to think of or analyse. What could bring someone to do something so unfathomably painful and twisted? Because of the extremity of his actions and how difficult they are to justify, any justification I can think of for this moment feels unbearably tragic. The first interpretation I can think of is one I’ve seen discussed by a few people, which is that Vic’s mentality of valuing the loyalty and togetherness of family is influencing Shane at this moment. Shane dug himself into a corner so impossible to escape from that his best outcome is for both him and Mara to go to prison and for their son to go into foster care, and when faced with the reality of what his actions have led to, just like the rest of the final stretch, Shane can’t accept it. He can’t let go of his childlike dream that was never going to happen in the first place. So he takes the ideals that Vic embedded within him to the most extreme extent, dying alongside his wife and child, taking the one remaining option that won’t wound his pride or betray Vic’s beliefs. As Shane said in the phone call scene, they were together for it. However, I think the most important (and most crushing) aspect to Shane’s motives here was his attempt to preserve Mara and Jackson’s innocence. One of the most frequent themes throughout this show is how people can corrupt others, with this idea first being expressed through Vic influencing Shane, but now being repeated with Shane influencing Mara. In the episode before this, Mara accidentally killed an innocent woman while trying to save Shane, and it’s such an important scene for how it affects Shane’s decision in this episode. Shane managed to bring the one person who he loves the most in the entire world, the only person left in his life who he still saw as being pure, down to a level of violence she never imagined she had within her. Mara’s humanity is stripped away as she kills somebody with the hollow justification of doing it to help someone that she cares for, and in this moment, Shane becomes just like Vic. He ruins what he cares for in the exact same way as Vic did to him, and when Shane realises that he’s becoming exactly like the person who’s corrupted him so thoroughly and caused him so much pain, he can’t stand it and he sees breaking this cycle of corruption as the only way out. Once I realised this, what Shane did became so unbearable and difficult to stomach. “They left the way I first found them, perfect and innocent. They were innocent and they're in heaven now, and we’ll always be a family.” The last part about Shane that I want to talk about is how his conclusion affected me personally. I see myself in Shane so much. I know what it’s like to change yourself in order to please the people in your life who you admire and love above yourself, to mimic the actions of others to fit in with them better even if it’s not the real version of yourself, to feel like the people who matter most to you don’t love you like you love them because they don’t express it, just like how Vic acts in the phone call scene despite the final scene proving he still cares for Shane. It’s because of this that Shane’s horrifying conclusion is oddly empowering for me since it’s made me more motivated to stand up for myself in those kind of situations, the more I’ve seen myself in Shane throughout the show the more I’ve been inspired to be my most honest self and reject the influence of those around me even if I love them. To me, that’s maybe the most life-changing thing I’ve ever gotten from a show outside of Mr. Robot. It’s at this point that I want to mention the structure of this episode, and how it’s close to being the best structured episode I’ve ever seen. The Shield has a lot of episodes with interesting structures, Trophy and Kavanaugh have great self-contained arcs that serve their own unique purpose, Party Line perfectly helps illustrate the desperation of Shane and Mara’s situation with how it gradually devolves, Back to One’s plot is perfect due to how the falling tension after Guardo’s death lets you realise how terrible Vic truly is, etc. However, none of them come close to Family Meeting in this regard. A lot of the time with painful events in life, particularly relating to grief, those harrowing experiences can alter time significantly. We separate our life into a before and after, seeing all the warnings that led up to that moment and how nothing is the same since. Part of what makes Family Meeting so special is how it emulates this, especially with the perfect choice to have Shane’s death be around the middle of the episode. The first half leading up to his death is built around dread and anticipation, both with knowing that Ronnie’s going to be arrested and with the anxiety of knowing that no matter what, things won’t end well for Shane. Everything after it lets the insurmountable grief of Shane’s death sink in, and suddenly every moment before it, not just in the episode but the show overall, becomes far more tragic. Whether it be Vic and Shane’s last phone call, Shane buying the rose and toy car or even Terry’s death in the pilot, these moments suddenly tore me apart as I watched this episode and it sunk in what these events led up to, and it’s exactly that that makes even the most unassuming scenes from this episode incredibly moving, important and heartbreaking. It’s with this that I reach the second half of the episode, which is even better than everything I’ve just discussed. The first half of this episode while Shane is alive is heartbreaking, especially with the full context of what happens afterwards. Seeing what Shane does is so universally able to be emotionally impacted by for so many reasons. Everyone was a kid once and has relationships in their lives where they feel like their power dynamic is imbalanced with them being on the weaker end of that dynamic, and therefore anyone can fundamentally relate to Shane on a profound, personal level. It’s also what makes his suicide so heavy, it provides a reminder of the consequences of what can happen if you don’t reject the influence and corruption of those around you, if your love and care is rejected by those who matter to you, and that reminder is utterly harrowing. However, the second half of this episode is arguably even more impressive and hard-hitting as it focuses on something completely different: The father’s torment in the wake of what he’s caused. The “he wrote a note scene” is just… Fuck. It’s too heavy to even try to really talk about. I can’t do its impact justice, but I’ll try my best. Shane’s suicide note is one of the heaviest things I’ve ever heard. What makes it so special to me aside from adding depth to Shane’s choice to kill Mara and Jackson is that it really encapsulates everything about Vic and Shane’s dynamic that I love all in this one note. The way they brought out the worst in each other, Vic’s role as the person who brought on the way they corrupted one another and Shane’s role by following his lead without question, it’s all there. This note painstakingly sums up every detail of it without feeling like it’s unsubtly spelling out the themes behind their dynamic or coming across as something Shane wouldn’t naturally say himself, and it’s heart-wrenching. Speaking about the context of this note though, this scene does wonders for Vic’s character and every detail of it is perfect. Vic learning about Shane’s death, the interrogation scene and Ronnie’s arrest all happening in a row is just absolutely insane, and to me, serves as the final deconstruction of the version of Vic Mackey that he presents to the rest of the world throughout almost the entirety of the show. After Ronnie tells Vic about Shane, he’s called up to interrogation and the scene starts with him sitting in the chair of the interrogator, before Claudette corrects him and he takes the other seat. This reinforces the “cops are criminals with a badge” motif one final time so well. Now, Vic is on the receiving end of the system that he’s capitalised upon as he realises the dehumanising nature of it as he’s no longer protected by his job, being seen as nothing but a criminal without care for his side in the story when it comes to Shane’s death. Considering how I believe that this scene serves as a deconstruction of Vic’s surface level persona, I think it’s also important to mention how this scene serves as a parallel to Kavanaugh in the interrogation room during 5x8. As a recap of what I said in my 5x8 review, the interrogation scene is partially as brilliant as it is because of how it breaks down Kavanaugh’s character as we see him at his most intimate moment. This is best represented by the “everyone sees me” line from Sadie, which is a representation of Kavanaugh’s insecurities and how everyone can see his incompetence. Considering that the premise to Vic’s interrogation here is similar since we are also seeing him at a devastatingly personal moment, I believe the intention of this scene was to show Vic for who he truly is in the same way, and how it does this is brilliant. Vic has always been characterised as being in denial of his own immorality and wrongdoing. Usually it’d be done in a pretty subtle way, he would get called out for a crime he committed or something corrupt he’s been accused of and smirk it away without ever facing repercussions for it, but as a few moments from the show convey (for example, him asking Joe in 2x3 if he ever regretted the way they did things when they were partners), I do believe Vic has a sense of guilt over what he does that he quells deep down inside him. Part of what makes this scene so good is how it brings his denial of the weight of his actions up to the forefront of his character as he’s face to face with what he’s done, being given no room to deny it. When he looks into Claudette’s eyes it isn’t to challenge her, but rather him refusing to look down because if he looks down at Shane’s note or the photos of his lifeless, bloody face, it’s an acknowledgement of what he’s caused. When he breaks the camera off the wall, it’s symbolic of Vic rejecting the truth, as well as the consequences and judgement of the system he poured his entire life into. He has always viewed the law in the most uncritical manner possible, and yet when he is on the receiving end of that same crooked system as the show uses this interrogation to cement who he really is, his reaction is one of rage and unacceptance, denying his accountability one last time. Following this we have Ronnie’s conclusion and holy fuck. It’s actually insane how much I got out of this scene considering how little I got out of his character for most of the show. Throughout these last 2 seasons, although Ronnie improved exponentially, I was initially somewhat underwhelmed by the lack of internal conflict from his character even as the stakes of the show became so much more dire, but in retrospect this conclusion makes his entire character age so much better. Ronnie was always the character who affected the interpersonal dynamics of the strike team the least because he had less of a conscience than anyone else. He was the most willing to support Vic and be complicit in his actions; while Shane felt a lot of guilt over Terry’s death at first and Lem confronts Vic over whether or not he did it in 5x2 and presumably would have been outraged to learn that he did, when Ronnie learns about Terry’s murder in 6x8, he is completely fine with it and just wished that he had been trusted with the knowledge of what Vic did from the start. What makes this conclusion as incredibly underserved and well written as it is, especially for Ronnie considering what I just discussed, is how Vic betrayed his loyalty by implicating Ronnie in all of the strike team’s crimes since the beginning of the show. Even if you believe Ronnie deserved consequences for his actions, the way that it happens feels like such a giant betrayal that hurts to watch so much, especially when you realise that Ronnie will likely be murdered in prison by Antwon. Throughout the show, the audience almost takes Ronnie for granted thanks to his lack of any real importance. He simply goes along with what Vic wants with little exceptions, being the perfect embodiment of all of the values that Vic preached, and yet it’s HIM who got screwed over by Vic the most directly. This conclusion alone takes a relatively mediocre character into one who’s good at the very least. This scene is also so perfect for how it reflects on Vic. As I said before, the show began with the strike team’s corruption and eventual downfall being sown with Terry’s death. In the following episodes Vic justifies what he did to Terry as “necessary”, and talks down upon Terry for being a rat. In the few scenes that we did get with Terry in 1x1, 1x2 and 2x9, when he talks about his decision to help build a case against the strike team he often asked questions similar to “what’s in it for me?”, and we can tell that despite his deeply rooted loyalty that most cops have, Terry ultimately gave up that ideal for his own benefit. On a surface level this couldn’t be any more different to Vic, but as his betrayal of Ronnie proves, they’re far more alike than Vic wants to admit. Since Vic confessed to all of his crimes even if it meant Ronnie getting arrested due to his need to prioritise himself, we see that Vic is JUST LIKE TERRY. He was a man who claimed to stand by a certain set of values, but when it came down to it, he would always be willing to betray those ideals for his own sake. This somehow makes Shane’s death even more heartbreaking when you consider that Shane committed himself to Vic’s ideals so thoroughly that he decided to kill himself and the rest of his family, when deep down the values that Vic claimed to believe in never even mattered that much to him at all. Furthermore, I want to talk about the wider theme of loyalty throughout the show and what it means for cops generally. One of the core aspects of The Shield’s political commentary was the idea of loyalty and brotherhood between cops, and how as much as it can be seen as necessary because they depend on each other with their lives, it also fosters corruption and negligence. For example, when Julien’s conscience makes him decide to report Vic after he steals drugs from evidence, he is heavily pressured not to follow through with doing so and is socially ostracised within the barn because of what he does, highlighting how standing up against the wrongdoing within this system isn’t encouraged since it isn’t loyal and doesn’t make you a “real cop”. It’s because of this idea of loyalty that cops hold onto so deeply that Vic, despite being very morally questionable in many regards, was still seen as admirable by the barn as a whole, with this admiration being something that Vic cherished highly. He preached this value of loyalty so strongly throughout the show, and the respect and care he extended to the rest of the strike team was a huge element of how such a monster of a person was able to captivate viewers regardless of their opinions on him. Even if Vic was a monster, he was a monster with rules, values and an ethical code of his own, which made him respectable on some level even if his worldview and methods were flawed. Ronnie’s conclusion works as well as it does because of how we see this initial perception of Vic’s character get unveiled. The entire barn, who respected Vic despite his polarising nature, see Vic for who he is as he betrays Ronnie. As Vic leaves the barn one final time, it feels as though he is being exiled for not living up to the expectations everyone had of him, as he was both the person who preached the ideals represented by cops the most, and the person who stood by those ideals the least by the time the show was over. With that, the Vic Mackey who we’ve known throughout the majority of the show is concluded. Finally, we have the last scene of this entire monster of a show. I really struggle to pick my favourite scene of The Shield, it could go either way between Lem’s death, Shane’s conclusion, Vic’s last visit to the barn and this scene, but something tells me that this is the best of them all. It makes such a strong argument for the best directed scene of all time, says so much with so little, gives Vic one of the best character conclusions in all of TV, and is one of the best final scenes (and scenes in general) ever. When I describe this scene it honestly feels like I’m describing some kind of masterful painting by a renowned artist, every single element of it comes together to create something so grandiose and layered, with this scene perfectly illustrating and providing a physical manifestation of Vic’s mental state. Vic’s conclusion is one of purgatory. It’s been described as such by countless people, including Michael Chiklis himself. He is chained to a gruelling office job for the next 3 years, and any violation of this sentence will lead to him suffering the consequences he’s lost everything to avoid. Something that I discussed in my Possible Kill Screen review was the audience’s relationship with the art we consume and how the enjoyability of a story can often desensitise us to the severity of a character’s actions and wrongdoing, and in many regards, Vic is similar to the audience here. Since the beginning of the show, he has taken too much pleasure in exercising his power and control from his job to ever stop and think about what was wrong with what he was doing, whether it be his blatant criminality or his toxic influence on the strike team. Vic’s conclusion is perfect because it serves as the antithesis to this, concluding his story and the narrative of the show in the most bitter, unforgiving way imaginable. Vic has been punished with the worst fate possible for him, even worse than a prison sentence: A job where he has to restrain himself from his immoral tendencies and takes no joy in his work. Vic has no choice but to let his actions sink in for the next 3 years of his life, and as the final scene of the show, the audience now has to reflect on the story in a similar light to Vic over these 3 years. I think the most important shot of all from this scene is the slow zoom in of Vic tearing up. I described Vic’s final visit to the barn as the conclusion to the surface level version of Vic earlier, and I want to elaborate on that. As I mentioned earlier, I do believe that Vic has a conscience, but he simply hides it deep inside, and I think the same can also be said for how Vic buries his real self. He hides away his guilt, his regret, his compassion, and it’s only in rare instances that we see this version of him come out like in the S1 finale once he learns that Corrine’s left him because he put her in danger. It’s because of this that the zoom-in with Michael Chiklis’ perfect facial acting as he ever so slightly tears up is so inconceivably important to my perception of Vic’s character by the end of the show, completely changing the way that I see him. This is the real Vic responding to what’s around him, the version of himself that he hides from the rest of the world, and as we see him have this reaction, we can tell that Vic feels genuine guilt and hurt for losing his family, betraying Ronnie, being responsible for Shane’s suicide and so much more. Just like Shane, the version of himself throughout most of the show that causes so much hurt and suffering isn’t an honest version of him, but rather a warped version of who he really is caused by the influence of others and his desire to be admired by them. It’s this remorse that manages to humanise such a horrible person in the very last scene of the show. After constantly scrambling to preserve himself throughout the whole show, he finally manages to do it; he miraculously avoids facing consequences for every terrible thing he did across the show, and yet he suffers the worst fate out of any character. While Kavanaugh got arrested for his crimes but ultimately found peace, Vic avoids getting arrested but is left with a fragmented, broken psyche. While Shane dies, he dies with everyone he cares for while Vic lives without anyone left for him. It’s because of this that despite how much I hated Vic’s character throughout the show, despite how much pain he caused for characters I had far more sympathy for, despite how vocally critical the show has been of him, at this moment I felt bad for Vic. Just like how everyone can relate to Shane’s struggles and be affected by his death, everyone has been in Vic’s shoes at some point. Everyone has had a point in their life after they lost something where they wish they could turn things back and do something different from the start, everyone has had a glaring moment of self awareness where they realised what they don’t like about themselves, that they’ve done something horribly wrong that doesn’t make them feel good about who they are, and I greatly appreciate how this scene shows the writers refusing to make Vic and Shane’s dynamic one dimensional where one of them is to blame and the other is made sympathizable. Ultimately, they’re both victims of the same cycle of corruption, Vic is merely the one who can live with his actions and realise this. However, with all of this being said, it’s important to note that Vic’s state of guilt and remorse isn’t how the episode concludes. In what is arguably the most important moment in the whole series, the lights of the office turn off. It’s a moment that snaps Vic back into reality, pulling him out of his state of intense thought. More importantly though, it serves as a reminder to Vic that he can’t give into his regret. He’s Vic Mackey, the tough, charismatic man who has never felt pain in his entire life. The man who expresses his rage and dominance rather than his sorrow when learning of his friend's death by ripping the camera off of the interrogation room wall. The man who is ALWAYS in control. To me, this is a far more fitting conclusion than if the scene had ended with Vic tearing up. Vic has quelled the more honest, empathetic and self aware side of himself for the entire series, and to see him snap out of this state of regret as the lights go off is so much more in character. I discussed at the start of this review how I love the sense of ambiguity from most of the character conclusions here. This episode stays true to The Shield’s signature sense of realism and doesn’t try to force in any rushed conclusions, instead hinting at the fate of most of its cast without setting them in stone. If I’m being honest, I don’t know how deliberate this was in most regards, as much as it’s just as good either way, for all I know the writers simply may not have felt the need to properly conclude the arcs of its cast. However, the best instance of ambiguity from any conclusion here, as well as the only one I can say for sure was intentional, comes from Vic. The one aspect of this scene that I haven’t discussed yet is how beautifully the internal conflict that Vic will experience for the next 3 years is depicted with just a few subtle clues. Vic keeping his gun even when Olivia told him not to, him walking to the window once he hears the sound of police sirens showing his continued reverence for his past life and the profession of being a cop, once again it’s unbelievable how much this scene manages to portray while doing so little, and it makes the audience wonder whether or not Vic even has it in him not to violate his immunity deal over the next 3 years. Maybe my favourite moment exemplifying this is Vic picking up his gun as he leaves into the night. Is Vic going to continue operating in the exact same way he used to with this gun, refusing to bow down to authority and lose control of his life, continuing to show his fatal flaw of never giving into his regret or going back before it’s too late, or did Vic simply pick up his gun because his shift has ended, already having come to accept his new lifestyle during the shot zooming into his face? The open-ended nature here and the way these small cues highlight the struggle Vic will have to endure over the next 3 years are so poetically crafted, it’s just amazing. The last thing I want to discuss in this review is how this episode recontextualizes the entirety of The Shield into a Shakespearean tragedy. Some of the defining attributes of these kinds of stories are a tragic hero, characters who possess a fatal flaw, an unintentional misunderstanding between characters, and all of these elements coalescing to create tragic outcomes. The Shield fits into this definition perfectly, not only on a surface level because of the fact that it has a tragic conclusion, but also because of the flaws and misunderstandings that led to that ending. It is the story of a man whose fatal flaw is that he corrupts those around him and denies his responsibility and wrongdoing even if it means hurting or blaming everyone else in his life, and his partner, who suffers due to his constant desire to mimic and follow the lead of this man. It’s the story of somebody who represented a set of values without ever truly standing by them and someone who adopted that person’s values to the extent where he literally took them to his grave, of a man who was never able to confess his care to his closest friend in the entire world and the man who wanted nothing but to see his love reciprocated by him, and although neither of them intended or are at fault for the conclusion that this story reaches, it is their collective flaws, their ability to bring out the worst in each other and their constant misunderstanding of one another that leads to these unbearably dark outcomes. Most importantly though, it’s the story of a father and a son, and it ends with a father's rejection leading that son to a catastrophic point of no return, and that’s what makes it affect me so deeply. #4 EPISODE OF ALL TIME EXTRA NOTES (also spoilers): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UCnxoL8g5mH4rKA59euQgKDk6CzADbgInMWu9L3R9ck/edit?usp=drivesdk