TV Review: The Shield, season 4

TV #1 of 2023:

The Shield, season 4

This is a rebuilding era of sorts after the shakeup of the previous year, with the Strike Team disbanded and Aceveda finally moving on from the Farmington precinct, albeit for a supervisory political position that keeps him relevant. In the wake of those familiar power structures, we have Glenn Close as the replacement captain and Anthony Anderson as the major drug lord from her past joining an already-strong ensemble, resulting in what’s probably the finest run of this series since the first. (Neither seems likely to stay for long, of course — I’m getting Dexter vibes in the casting of these ringers to presumably do their thirteen-episode showcase and depart. But while here they’re great adversaries for one another, and Monica is marked as a classic tragic heroine from the start.)

The primary plot arc follows her big controversial policy of asset forfeiture, which Rawling swears will curb crime in the region but, as typical for the depictions of policing on this show, mostly appears to hurt civilians without making an impressionable dent otherwise. I can’t say it enough, but The Shield is anti-copaganda through and through. Call them antiheroes if you must, but the officers and detectives on this program are self-interested and morally compromised at their best, and outright hostile to the community around them at their worst. Protagonist Vic Mackey obviously strays outside the lines of appropriate conduct all the time, even now when he’s nominally trying to keep his nose clean, but his do-gooder colleagues Dutch and Claudette quite shamelessly (and legally) mislead and lie to the suspects and witnesses they interview, all while largely overlooking the antics of Vic’s gang within the force.

And the dramatic irony, of course, is that it’s not the times when the once-and-future Strike Team are most egregiously nefarious that seem poised to bring them down. Instead it’s the smaller moments of humanity, like Lem reluctantly stealing and then returning a dealer’s stash to pressure him to give up the location of a missing girl’s body, that ultimately get them pinned — so far still unknowingly — by an internal affairs investigation.

My favorite storyline, though, involves Shane splitting from his temporarily-reformed friend/partner/boss, remaining a dirty cop and swiftly entering into collusion with the reemerged kingpin Antwon Mitchell, who subsequently sets him against Mackey for spoiling his business. Repositioning the loyal subordinate as a threat — one who can’t be taken down without all their shared sordid history coming out — is just smart writing, and if this angle had lasted through to the finale, I’d likely be looking at a five-star rating for the season. As is, the reconciliation and defusing of that tension comes slightly too soon in my opinion, leaving several episodes of relatively falling action and a reversion to something closer to the old status quo. It’s still outstanding and incisive TV from scene to scene, but a slight step down from the electrifying edge-of-your-seat feeling earlier on.

[Content warning for gun violence, gore, pedophilia, rape, drug abuse, domestic abuse, racism, homophobia, and violence against children.]

★★★★☆

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