After having followed Michael Chiklis aka Det. Vic Mackey and his crew on „The Shield“ for quite a while we all knew this trip was heading for disaster. The outcome wasn’t much of a surprise in terms of no one getting away clean. The real shock though was having to admit that after all nothing had changed.
„You’ve opened up a whole new world of possibilities for yourself … and they’re all bad.“
We all knew from episode one what Vic was capable of and allthough he kept adding more and more atrocities to his résumé it all seemed to serve a greater purpose, a deeper sense of justice. At least that’s what we all wanted to believe – including Vic. But in the end we had to discover that there’s no lesson learned here for Vic Mackey – no matter how much we wanted it to be different.
„Are you putting up a fight because you really have to or just because you’re a fighter?“
I think this one question is the perfect description of Vic’s personality. Looking back it seems like the one pattern dictating all his decisions – and still it took me the whole seven seasons to figure it out. But it really hit me like a rock during that final episode when Vic finally decides to keep fighting once again and not quit his dead end assignment. For a moment it seems like he would realize what he had done and that it had been exactly the same kind of behaviour that had gotten him in that situation. Instead he sold out Ronny to take the fall and just keept on doing things the Vic Mackey way.
„Vic led but I kept following. I don’t think one’s worse than the other, but we made each other into something worse than our individual selves. I wish I’d never met him.“
(Excerpt from Det. Shane Vendrell’s suicide note)
Not much left to add: Exceptional writing and acting – I will definetly miss the show along with all the all the laughter, tears and those disturbing moments in between.
