I'm Sure I'll Regret This

Opening disclaimer: I am a white guy, and I may be discussing race in this post. I don't expect to say anything controversial, but better safe than sorry.

I was watching The Shield Tuesday night. Quite honestly, it ruled. I leapt from my couch five times to pump my fist in the air and scream "That was awesome! All right!!!" in the span of an hour. Lt. Kavanaugh (Forrest Whitaker) fell apart under the weight of his attempt to beat Vic Mackey at his own game, and Vic has gone off the deep end, or gotten damn close. But then I started thinking (that's never a good sign).

Vic Mackey is white. He's had several people after him for his actions, and most of them have been non-white. His first commander, Captain Aceveda, is Hispanic, and has continued to be a presence since his ascension to the city council. Chief Johnson is African-American. Detective Wyms (the current Captain) is African-American, and so is Kavanaugh. The only real Caucasian threat Vic had was Captain Rawlings in Season 4, though Detective Wagenbach has been a periodic thorn, but seems to lack the nerve to challenge Vic directly. And though all these people have tried to bring Vic down for all the illegal crap he does, none has pulled it off yet.

Aceveda (Benito Martinez) hamstrings himself by simultaneously trying to expose Vic's dirty deeds for the good press, and use the Strike Team's success at capturing drug dealers and the like to make himself look good. Maybe if he stopped condoning Vic's actions when it's politically convenient, he'd have caught him red-handed by now.

Chief Johnson is mostly trying to salvage the department's public image by forcing early retirement on Vic, but that's not much of a deterrent. If you're kicking him out anyway, why should he stop burning suspect's faces on ovens (see Season 2)?

Kavanaugh couldn't beat Vic playing everything by the book, because Vic was playing dirty, intimdating witnesses, using the fact Kavanaugh bugged his office to set up the IAD man, screwing Kavanaugh's mentally unhinged ex-wife. Then when Kavanaugh tried to play dirty (planting evidence, convincing witnesses to lie for him), he found out he wasn't as good at it as Vic (and that it hurt him to do it), so he crashed and burned.

Captain Rawlings (Glen Close) came closer than anyone, because she didn't seem to be actively trying to bring Vic down. She came to the Farmington district to deal with the gang problems, which gave Vic more reason to trust her, which was why it was all the more shocking when it turned out she had an I.A.D. man using an informant (Emolia, who was very important in Season 5 and thus far in 6) to set up Vic. She set up the pieces the Kavanaugh ultimately couldn't capitalize on. Does that say something, maybe that she could get closer to Vic because she's more similar to him than his past antagonists? Was it that she's white, or that she didn't seem more interested in bringing him down than the criminals Vic is stopping?

Of course, Vic evaded even Rawlings' attempts, and now it's Wyms' turn (CCH Pounder, the voice of Amanda Waller in the Justice League). So we'll have to see how that goes. Wyms has, like her frequent case partner, Wagenbach, been on the fence about Mackey. She hates his methods, would prefer he was gone, but recognizes he gets things done. By the looks of the previews, she's going to go with Chief Johnson's plan, forcing Vic into early retirement by going ahead and introducing his replacement. At the same time, I'm sure Wyms will try to keep Mackey on lower profile stuff, where he won't be as tempted to break rules. Of course, if Vic keeps running around being crazy, she may not have that option, at which point I'm sure she'd be willing to lower the boom on Mackey.

I was thinking about discussing how the Strike Team's criminal adversaries have also all been African-American or Hispanic (the exception would be the Armenians, who were a major problem in Season 3, after the Strike Team hijacked their money train at the end of Season 2.). Despite several attempts to wipe out the Strike Team, they've all failed as well. Though Antwan Mitchell (Anthony Anderson, playing a kickass ganglord) did come pretty damn close to taking them down, but that was mostly because of Shane being an idiot while working Vice. He had dirt on Shane, and the Strike Team ended up doing certain questionable things (even by their standards) to try and keep Mitchell from talking to Kavanugh.

I don't know that there's a conclusion to draw from this, other than the protagonist has gone up against a diverse bunch of foes, and yet, the white guy is still coming out ahead (so far). I think it bugs me that I root for Vic, though he's an anti-hero at best, and I wonder if it's because he's not messing with white people most of the time, so I divorce myself from the extreme violence more readily. I really hope it's more of a Garth Ennis-Punisher thing, where he's just so ridiculously badass I find it awesome.