TV is the New Reading

‘The Shield’ set to go

out with a colossal bang

If the ramp-up this week is anything to go by, the FX crime drama “The Shield” is going out Tuesday with a colossal bang.

For seven seasons, the bad boys of L.A.’s Farmington district Vic Mackey, Shane Vendrell, Ronnie Gardocki and Curtis Lemansky – collectively known as the Strike Team – have been a legendary force within their station house, all the more infamous for their dark dealings.

Since it was instituted, the Strike Team’s main objective has been management of gang violence in the Farmington District. Mackey, team leader, was notorious for playing gangs against each other, skimming off the top in money laundering schemes, disappearing contraband and generally blurring the line between criminal investigation and criminal activity. And oh yeah, there was that thing in the pilot episode where he murdered an internal affairs investigator.

To be fair, the Team under Mackey’s direction has had some wins, putting away the worst of the gang leaders and getting tons of drugs and weapons off the streets. But the group’s more nefarious activities haven’t gone unnoticed, either. A steady stream of department captains and internal affairs investigators have tried to get Mackey and his team to slip up in an almost constant series of investigations over the years, none of which ever managed to pay off, and generally left the investigators looking foolish, feeling frustrated and even getting fired.

Meanwhile, the pressures the team has been under have sparked internal schism heading into this final season. Vendrell murdered Lemansky with a grenade to keep him from testifying and, when he was discovered, he plotted to kill Mackey and Gardocki – mainly to thwart their attempts to kill him first.

Failing that, Vendrell and his pregnant wife and child went underground. The past few episodes have traced a dangerous dance of who gets arrested, who gets implicated and who gets immunity – Mackey’s endgame strategy for assisting in a federal investigation.

The show has been consistently entertaining from the perspective of strategy and gamesmanship. If Mackey was without honor, we’d have long since stopped caring about whether he evaded his inquisitors. His continued love and support of his ex-wife and his children and his fierce loyalty to his team members have made him a tragic figure – especially when forced to sell out one for the other.

The tightrope he’s stretched for himself heading into the series finale is as taut as the stakes are high, and personally, I can’t wait to see how this ends. The MA-rated 90-minute series finale of “The Shield” premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday on FX, with encore presentations through the rest of the week.

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