For once, it's not a cliché to say anything can happen.
The fifth and final season of The Shield begins January 10, and given the dark alleys this incendiary FX drama about the LAPD has taken us in the past, we just know it's going to be a brutal ride.
This is a show about loyalty and love and family, about the battle between tainted good and redeemed evil, within the same people, where even the characters who believe they're moral make a habit of compromising justice. It's about how, as O.J. Simpson once suggested without admitting to any crime, that anybody can be capable of anything when pushed.
The premiere made this clear when one cop shot another in the head to prevent himself and his corrupt crew from being ratted out. That cop/cop-killer, Vic Mackey, played by Michael Chiklis, is the show's hero and a sympathetic character, determined to keep his strike team together, take care of his autistic child and save his marriage, even if it means protecting and serving nobody but himself. You feel for him, even as he takes police brutality to new levels, cheats on his wife, steals enough cocaine to keep Kate Moss happy for life, or comes up with an elaborate plan to rob the Armenian mob.
He is, in this era of both television and reality, what passes for a good guy. You don't ever want to admit you understand or approve of everything he's done, but you're happy he's there keeping people safe, standing up for the powerless by abusing his own power.
The action and the moral depravity never stop. The Shield wrings more character development out of five minutes of a gang war than you'll find in an hour of Tony Soprano's therapy. And while the T-Bag character in Prison Break has been singled out for his pure vileness, there's really nothing shocking about this dude if you've watched one episode of The Shield.
There are the Armenian mobsters who chop off the feet of adversaries. The Mexican gangbanger who sets rivals on fire. The millionaire rapper who kills another rapper with his bare hands. A bad batch of meth that destroys unsuspecting junkies. A gay cop who finds Jesus to beat his "disease" before turning into a gay-basher when his partner is bitten by a criminal with HIV. The police captain with political ambitions who's forced at gunpoint to suck off a street thug, and who later reclaims his manhood by playing out rape fantasies with a prostitute. The frustrated, unpopular cop who breaks down after many long days of questioning sexual predators and murderers and strangles a cat to see what it feels like. The rapist who leaves his mark by tattooing victim's faces. The drug warlord who kills a child in front of two corrupt cops with one of their guns and threatens to frame them for the murder. The new police captain (played by Glenn Close in a career-redefining role) who coolly confiscates the homes of drug dealers, leaving grandmothers and children in the street. And a main character who kills and sets up other cops, holds somebody's face to a hot stove range, beats confessions out of witnesses, launders money he's stolen from the mob, and lies to the feds.
If you've been there since the beginning, you've long since stopped trying to figure out what happens next. These cops have dealt with every permutation of a race war that could ever happen in LA, so there's not much time for reflection with all the bullets flying. And amid all the drug wars, underage prostitution rings and serial rapists who go after old ladies, you realize these nightmares never end.
This show is so tight that almost every little mistake a character makes comes back with exponential consequences later, sometimes an entire season later. A few pinpricks can turn into a pool of blood if you're not careful.
Which is why we can't wait to see what transpires this season. This show has been so fearless and nonchalant about letting its primary characters evolve, suffer, leave the police force, disappear and even be killed, so it could go anywhere now. A gang could set fire to the entire precinct. A terrorist act could lead to martial law. Vic Mackey could die. This show has splattered paint outside the lines for four years. There's no reason for it to stop now.
Andy Wang and Erin Franzman live in Brooklyn, in one small apartment with two DVRs.