The SHIELD
It’s probably one of the greatest shows on television right now, if not ever, and there’s not much being said about it. The entertainment rags prefer the light stuff, or pop tv that doesn’t take many risks. A rare thing on television is a show that takes risks or has good writing, that can stand out in an age of cookie-cutter tv. The S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of these shows.
I’ve only seen the latest season (the 4th) and I’m so hooked, it makes me want to go to Best Buy tomorrow and pick up the other seasons. The combination of the characters and plot is explosive. I think that’s the only way I could really describe this show properly: explosive.
The show highlights (or at least in this season) the dark side of the police force in a large metropolitan city. This isn’t a show about solving a crime by examining threads of clothing under a microscope, or finding a bum on the street who was a witness and following that to find the killer. It’s about corruption of the police, the side deals between authorities and criminals, the battles for turf between rival gangs, about mutiny within the force.
It’s juicy.
Taking one fifteen minute chunk of these show leaves drippings coming out of your chops and making you hunger for more meat. The SHIELD is not a drug that makes you addicted to it, but a shot of testosterone in the ass and makes you roar with rage. Your body becomes a Neanderthal again and it’s alright to go slug a guy if he doesn’t give you the information you require. Dangerous stuff, this is, and it keeps me coming back for more.
The cast of characters will probably change in the next season, but it’s set-up like any other cop show it seems. You have a police captain, you have investigators, you have undercover cops and uniform cops, plus people higher up. Simple enough, except when you take into mind that the police captain is a raging bitch who will stand up to anyone and is stubborn enough to do anything it takes to get her way, which is always the right way. Her right hand man in the force is a berserk macho guy who when in the face of the enemy is a real asshole – but he’s totally cool: the hero antagonist. The berserker has a gang of his Viking lords with him who will raid, pillage, and burn the places they travel to – ultra cool, especially when they go from one place to another quickly chasing a guy.
The investigators are a white man, black woman pair who are constantly in odds with each other, still fighting for the same cause, but a thick layer of racial tensions hangs about them that keeps things interesting. The uniform cops didn’t have much airtime in this season, but are the opposite pair from the investigators: white woman, black man, with another air of racial tensions, but different, since the black man grew up in the area where the station is. He’s a local brother and doesn’t like taking down the people he may have grown up with. That’s the core of the station.
The next layer is above or below that core, depending on how you look at it. You have a city councilman who’s directly linked to the police station as a lawyer and has ties to the Drug Enforcement Agency. The man is a wuss, but pure evil. He’s the Gollum of the show: dark and slimy, going behind backs to get what is most precious to him. The man alongside him has ties to the police chief, like Saruman honestly. But below them you get into Antwon Mitchell, one of the biggest (literally), bad asses in LA. Runs a gang, the Don of Farmington, with his posse of boys and networks of drug traffickers. Not afraid of the cops and that’s what ends up being the climax of this season. There are other characters, as well, from informants, to gang members who get busted, to spouses and girlfriends, but it’s the characters mentioned above that really give this show a roller coaster ride.
The plots are gritty and you feel one show flows into the next; whatever the shoe picks up in Episode 1 it carries that shit all the way through to Episode 13. You don’t miss a heartbeat in the action as it rolls along, meaning you don’t miss much character development along the way- oh, and you do start to care about these characters, unlike so much of the other crap on television. Just writing about this show makes me want to walk into the neighbourhoods surrounding my building in hopes of having a gun shot at me. It seriously fucks with your head and causes you to stop your fist mere inches from pounding your tv set in excitement while screaming, “Hooyah!”
Forget about the stuff on NBC. The S.H.I.E.L.D. is the REAL Must-See TV.
