On not spoiling the end of "The Shield"

The FX network did something nice for TV critics the other week: It put the much-anticipated finale of "The Shield" -- the whole episode -- on its password-protected press web site to give reviewers like me a chance to see it and talk it up to our readers.

The understanding would be that we would keep the ending a secret. Who knows, maybe they wanted the whole website business kept a secret, and now they're going to send someone to torture me (and by "torture" I mean "force me to watch this season's episodes of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'").

I almost took FX up on its offer. After all, critics usually are forced to watch finales in real time like everyone else (and yes, I too lunged for my remote after "The Sopranos" cut to black).

But then I went online and noticed the Associated Press had already published an advance review of "The Shield" by its TV critic, Frazier Moore. Now, let me say that Frazier is a good guy. He was an early supporter of mine back in the early 1990s, when I was an Internet nobody. He is a workhorse who never ceases to be interesting or interested with whatever is thrown his way on the AP beat.

So far as I know, Frazier has made only two mistakes his entire career. The first was in 1995, when he wrote a column calling for Andy Rooney to retire. (1995!) Andy retaliated by giving out Frazier's phone number during his next "60 Minutes" commentary. Actually, I think both men wound up enjoying the publicity.

The other mistake was in Frazier's review of "The Shield." He gave something away. It may have seemed like a harmless enough hint, but it was what the late NBC news chief Reuven Frank would call "something something" -- it wasn't trivial. It was a bigger clue than I cared to read in an advance review, and in fact it helped me make up my own mind: Even though I could watch the "Shield" finale ahead of my viewers, I would instead watch it with them.

I'm not a hero. I just don't want Michael Chiklis coming to pay me a visit.

Of course, there are two ways to spoil the ending of "The Shield": One is to tell me how it ends. The other is to blow it. Pull a "Seinfeld" or (some would say) a "Sopranos.

To be honest, I've had my doubts this season. Why, not long ago I wrote, "In a way I feel sorry for the writers who have had to string along this inevitable, unavoidable reckoning that we've been waiting for." Well, after last week's taut setup episode for Tuesday's finale (it airs at 9 p.m. CT Tuesday on FX), I don't feel sorry for the writers anymore. Clearly they're having a blast bringing seven seasons' worth of dramatic near-misses to an end.

For now, there is truly no place for Vic Mackey -- the rogue cop played to Emmy-winning perfection by Chiklis -- to hide. He has betrayed literally everyone around him, including the last member of the crooked strike force to stand by him, Gardocki (David Rees Snell). In exchange for immunity, Vic spilled his guts and told his new employers at ICE the FBI everything. Everything. And since he will lose that immunity if he tips off his compadre, Gardocki is toast.

Vic's ex-wife Corrine (Cathy Cahlin Ryan) also stands to lose if Vic walks, because he'll soon learn that she betrayed him. Yes, I realize he has invoked "my family" about a thousand times to justify why he's selling somebody else down the river. But as the crooks and the cops have closed in on him -- the crooks want him for stealing their drug money, and it's finally dawning on the cops that the detective killed in the "Shield's" very first episode was not shot by a dealer but by Vic -- he's let even the tightest bonds fray. His oldest daughter (who's played by his actual daughter, Autumn) is ready to break away. Corrine is terrified of him.

And if he gets his federal badge, Vic will be out on the streets looking for revenge. No one, in short, is safe if he gets away with murder.

Even if this has a traditional Hollywood ending, you just know the writers of "The Shield" aren't going to get there by traditional Hollywood means. But we won't know for sure until we watch it -- together. Afterward, let's meet up at TV Barn and talk about it.