“The Shield”: Tony who?

April is finally here and with it, the return of baseball, short sleeves and television's most riveting drama series.

  Oh, and “The Sopranos” is coming back, too.

  Yes, it looks like another one of those springtimes when HBO is going to suck all of the oxygen out of the publicity tent. (To give you some idea, HBO actually requested that critics please refrain from doing their mega-blowout features on “The Sopranos” until March 28. The show's final season doesn't begin until April 8.)

  But if there is any karmic justice, if it is true that the amount you spend hyping a program is inversely proportional to its true place in the cosmos, then this just might be FX's “The Shield's” year. This might be the season that television's most consistently risk-taking program starts to peel away some of those critics who've been moshing on “The Sopranos” even after it was clear the show was no longer worthy of such outsized praise.

  By contrast, Shawn Ryan and his writers on “The Shield” have delivered the goods season after season. Storylines have held up, characters have evolved. And unlike on that other show, season six of “The Shield,” which begins Tuesday, finds Ryan and company continuing to challenge themselves and the viewers to keep this hellride going.

  As you'll recall, season five ended in a mess, with Shane (Walton Goggins) using a grenade to take out his buddy on the L.A.P.D. strike force, Lem (Kenneth Johnson), based on some faulty information. Of course, he doesn't tell his boss Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) what he's done, so Vic -- who can turn into an insanely vengeful maniac better than any Hollywood gangster -- charges out to the 'hood, looking for a head to roll. Homicidal is not an ideal mood to be in generally, but in Vic's case it's doubly unfortunate because the obsessive Lt. Cavanaugh (Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker) is zeroing in on him, looking for any sign that he might be the kind of guy to take the law in his hands.

For you see, Cavanaugh is certain Vic killed one of his own. Which of course, he did, way back in the pilot episode. The killing of a strike-force officer and subsequent cover-up by Vic and his men has never been forgotten. It has reared its head again and again, not in a cheap, episode-padding way but in ways that push the storyline forward and force everyone to deal with the fact that Vic, for all his virtues and tragic failings, is at his core a dirty cop.

  And here is where “The Shield” has proven it's worth our attention, season after season, long after we've stopped hanging the “Welcome Back” sign for other programs. Better than any serial on television -- better than “24” and certainly better than “Lost” -- “The Shield” knows how to sustain tension over an episode, over several episodes, over several seasons. It applies and releases pressure better than any show on TV, with entertaining and sometimes surprising results.

  So for instance, while Vic, Shane and Gardocki (David Rees Snell) are running around L.A. looking for the real killers, that creep Cavanaugh is looking for ways to frame Vic for Lem's murder. And as he begins to take illegal measures to make that happen, you realize you are rooting, hard, for Vic. You're rooting for him to get away with murder -- not the one he didn't commit, but the one he did, all those long years ago.

  And that's just the opening course. As you'll soon learn, the stage is being set for one of the most gut-wrenching, we-dare-you-to-keep-watching seasons of television ever. If you thought season three of “The Shield” was grim, when Captain-now-Councilman Acevada (Benito Martinez) was forced to do the nasty on a gangbanger, well, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

  And really, I've only scratched the surface of the human drama going on inside The Barn, as the police station on “The Shield” is called. Claudette (CCH Pounder) is now running the station, and she's determined to chase the demons out that have been swirling around this converted church for years.

  “The truth may not lead us down the path we want,” she says philosophically. “But it's the only way to fix this place.”

  We don't know if justice will be served by the time “The Shield” hangs it up after next year's seventh and final season. It's foolish to predict where the show's creative forces are taking us. Here's what we know -- if it picks up the Emmy Award for best drama some time in the next two years, justice will finally be served.

Comments

[Aaron]

A reader writes ...

You know, the first show I watched while testing out the AppleTV was
last-season's "Shield" finale. I had _intended_ to merely push a
button or two, note that cool, it works and everything, let's move on
to podcast syncing features...but dammit, I had to sit and watch the
entire thing. And just like the first time I watched it, I was
muttering "Holy Christ" every six minutes.

I cannot _wait_ to see what happens to these people. Best of all, I
have _such_ respect for the people that make this program that at no
point will I be thinking "Well, they can't _possibly_ kill off Vic."
This is probably the only show on television in which anything can
happen.

(In fact, I'm actually disappointed that this isn't the last
season...I can't wait to learn Vic's ultimate fate. Killed in action?
Suicide? Life in prison? Running out the clock in Mexico, trying to
make a better go of the whole Fugitive thing than Gilroy did?
Anything's possible.)

Truly, the most amazing show on television.

-- Andy Ihnatko

[Reality Check]

Aaron, ITA. Damn near every episode, I find myself saying, "Holy $#!+, there's no way they can top this!" But they do.

Hands down, the most riveting series on TV. Possibly ever.