Is Vic Mackey Going Honest?

The Shield season finale is tonight, so I want to rush and get this post up before it airs, and shows me to be a fool. Hopefully, the finals will be better than House was last week. I'm sorry House creative staff, but I liked Foreman, and your seeming attempts to make him a bigger jerk than House do not please me. In fact, it makes me sad. I already had a cast member designated as "do not like". She was called Cameron. But enough talk of crappy season finales, this is supposed to be about The Shield.

I've been trying to understand Vic's determination to crack the San Marcos murders. Technically, it's solved. One of the murderers is in custody, the other two were found dead, case closed. Yet Vic sees that there's something funny about all this. A Mexican government official was in the same room as a dozen illegal immigrants. The immigrants were slaughtered, and the official had an arm chopped off. Yet the Mexican government shows no interest in investigating this case. Likewise with the American government. The only thing either side seems to care about is that bag full of money the now one-armed Mexican official was found with, which he very dearly wants returned. And this disinterest seems fine with a lot of people. Even Captain Wyms, usually not one for looking the other way, is fine with just being happy that the people who did all the hacking to death are caught (or dead), and doesn't want more time being spent looking into the motivations. Yet here's Vic Mackey, no stranger to dirty dealings, with a full plate of problems of his own to deal with (not the least of which is Shane once again proving he's too stupid to pull off the same stuff Vic can), vowing that he's going to spend his last few days on the force figuring out what's going on. So what's the deal?

Part of me wants to believe that Vic has come to grips with his forced retirement, and wants to go out on a high note, exposing some massive conspiracy of drug peddling that involves people in the governments on both sides of the border. That would be a pretty nice last hurrah, probably whitewash a lot of the crap he's done, at least in the public eye. And if that were the case, I would love it. But this is Vic Mackey, and he's pretty much always working an angle, so I think there has to be more.

Like I said, if Vic could blow this thing wide open, for whatever reason, it'd be a nice feather in his cap (How many similes can I use? Am I using similes? High school English was long ago.), the sort of thing a guy could use as leverage to save his job. Added to that scene of him tossing aside those lists of employment opportunities Corrine brought him (though he was nice enough to wait until she left), plus all his machinations to stick around, and it's clear Vic isn't ready to give up on his badge just yet. I guess the thing I'm really wondering about is how Vic will play it, clean or dirty?

What I mean is, if Vic were to discover the truth, would he bring it to his superiors' attention, take it through proper channels, and then hope his bosses look favorably upon him for it (or that the public outcry is too great for them to send this "crusader cop" out into the streets), or would he try to use his knowledge against the people responsible, as extortion? With Vic, the latter is more likely, but a worse decision I think. He tried it with the city official, getting the guilty party to change the truth of what happened to the officials daughter, in exchange for help in retaining his job. When that fell through, he threatened to blackmail the father, only to be reminded that would reveal that he falsified a police report in an attempt to curry favor. I think it would turn out much the same in this case, where the people he'd be up against would be able to use all of Vic's past deeds to bring him down (assuming the Armenians don't do that first). Vic's threats and intimidation just won't work as well against people of money or power.

Of course, there is Aceveda, who has power, but never seems comfortable with it (because he's always trying to trade up, I think), and Vic has some incriminating evidence on him. But it was provided by the guy Vic is sure is involved in this whole mess. I'm curious to see just how Vic handles this situation. If he plays it dirty, as he has historically, Aceveda might just save his job. Of course, if Aceveda doesn't have enough clout, or refuses to bow to extortion, then Vic's wasted his time, and gone out like a punk. If he plays it honest, he might just get Aceveda on his side (by giving him the picture, no strings), and that would give him a politician, one that's always looking for some good press, to help Vic with his push for the truth.

I'm a little worried that storyline is going to get derailed by the whole "Armenians will kill your family" stuff, though. Oh Shane, you monstrous dimwit. You've been begging for a bullet in the head since you got the Strike Team mixed up with Antwan Mitchell.