The Sheild REWATCH, Episodes 2-8 with a focus on Episode 8

I know I said that I would be writing about each episode of the final season as I watched them, but as I made my way through the first half of the season I began to remember why, when it was originally aired, I became frustrated with the show and ultimately stopped watching. The constant merry-go-round of convoluted plot twists, combined with the occasionally great, often times cheesy Vic Mackey one-liners can be a lot to handle.

To be honest, I was getting a little bored, and frankly stopped caring about which mob boss, or federal agent, or Strike Team member was trying to blackmail who. That was until I reached episode eight.

Shane, upon discovering Vic and Ronnie's failed attempt to have him murdered along with the Armenians, decides to strike back. He enlists the help of a gangbanger named Two Man (Well, really he blackmails him into helping. At this point they should have renamed the show That Show Where Everyone Blackmails Eachother for 43 Minutes) to kill Ronnie, while Shane will take care of Vic himself. The plan blows up in his face and both Vic and Ronnie survive. Two Man caves and gives up Shane, who flees The Barn during Two Man's confession. Before taking off for Mexico or some other safe place, Shane has Mara pay a visit to Vic's wife Corrine. She tells Corrine all of the Strike Team's dirty secrets, including Terry's murder and the money train heist. She tells (blackmails) Corrine that unless she and Vic help them avoid apprehension she will make all of Vic's dirty laundry pubic. Corrine agrees, but tells Vic that after this ordeal is over she and the kids are leaving for good and he will never see them again.

Now that's what I call an episode! With only a few episodes left, the pace and the stakes have certainly picked up. Although I'm pretty sure I know how the whole deal ends, I look forward to finding out how it all unfolds. I'll do one final, comprehensive post about the season and the show as a whole after I watch the series finale.

The Sheild Final Season REWATCH, Episode 1

The first episode of the final season of The Shield starts off along the same line as the sixth season ended, with a member of the Strike Team entering a fellow member's home and terrorizing his wife and children. This time its Vic and Ronnie waiting for Shane to come home and find his wife bound and gagged. They jump Shane and he spills some of the beans about Armenian predicament he has gotten them all in. The whole plot with the Strike Team, Paz Pensuela (I think that's the guys name, but I'm not exatly sure. I'll get this figured out by episode two), David Aceveda, and the two major Armenian players is simply too complicated for me to articulate clearly in this forum, but if you haven't seen the previous 6 seasons of this show and you don't understand a thing you have just read, please stop reading and get the DVDs (then, of course, start reading again).

To summarize where we are at now please draw your attention to the longest sentence you will ever read on this blog. (I am going to try my best to properly punctuate this but...unlikely):

Vic is trying to save his job, which he is in danger of losing (due to forced retirement) because of a long history of accusations and suspicions leveled against him, ranging from extortion to armed robbery, money laundering, black mail, kidnapping, and murder, by using leverage (another word for something a person uses to blackmail another person) against city officials, including Aceveda (Vic finally sees the infamous picture of Aceveda with a Mexican banger's dick in his mouth from a couple of seasons back. This is one of the great things about watching episodes of a show you used to really like after a few years of separation, you get reminded of great bits from the shows past; like Aceveda sucking a guy's cock. Good stuff), and Mexican real estate developers with ties to both drug cartels and the Mexican government, while at the same time attempting to keep his family both safe from, and in the dark about, the threat that the Armenian mob, who now finds itself in the unenviable position of being in the midst of both an internal civil war and a power struggle within the Strike Team between Vic and Shane, poses to their lives as they know them.

The episode ends with Vic using Pensuela to pressure one of the people who decides whether he is able to remain on the force to step down from his position on the panel, giving him an extra 30 days on the force. The end also gives us a idea of what we will see in the coming episode or two. Vic and Shane have, seemingly (we kinda know already that solving this problem with the Armenians won't be that simple), played the Mexicans against the Armenians and now just have to, in Vic's words, "sit back and watch the gang war". By the way, how awesome does it sound to be able to "watch a gang war". If I was flipping through the channels and landed on a show that promised me the ability to watch a gang war I would take he batteries out of the remote and settle in for the duration because that show would not coming off the t.v., ever.

Final Thoughts:

This episode gives Ronnie's first full blown murder. He kills an Armenian hitman, who went after Vic's family, to keep some heat off Vic. He seems a little shaken by the indecent.

Also, we saw a lot of Vic's older daughter, Cassidy, in this episode. She could not be weirder. She gives me the creeps every time she is on screen. His youngest two kids are the ones with autism right? Cassidy is supposed to be "normal" I thought? What the hell is wrong with her, is the character supposed to be all weird like that or is it just the actress that plays her? And lastly, Cassidy is a terrible name. If your name is Cassidy, and your first name is not Butch, you suck.

The Sheild REWATCH Intro

I am off work for the Holidays for a few days, my girlfriend is out of town and pretty much all of the good shows are on hiatus until next year. Perfect timing for me to catch up on some shows that I missed out on when they originally aired. My XBox recently broke and I was unable to watch my Netflix Instant Watch movies and shows, but my girl came through for me and got me a new one for Christmas. When I got onto Netflix, I was pumped to find the last two seasons of The Shield were available for instant viewing.

Before I get to writing about any specific episodes, I would first like take a moment to discuss the show in general. I loved The Sheild when FX introduced it. To me, prior to The Wire premiering, The Shield was the ultimate cop drama. Better than Law and Order, better than NYPD Blue, and certainly better than any of the bullshit CSI spin-offs the networks have been peddling for the past decade. (By the way, I know there has been some confusion over what this past decade will be known as in the future. Will it be called the aughts? The zeros? I suggest calling it The Decade of Shitty Network Crime Dramas with Acronyms In Their Titles. Catchy right?) But for some reason, I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of the sixth season. I can't remember the exact reason, but I suspect it had something to do with The Wire being aired around the same time. My thought process was probably, "If I can watch a cop drama that a. Airs on HBO and allows cursing and nudity, b. Takes place in my fucking backyard, and c. Is arguably the very best show ever to grace a television screen, why would I waste my time with The Shield?"

Looking back, I was wrong to think this way. It is unfair to hold The Shield, or any show for that matter, to the standards set by The Wire. The next spate of postings will be dedicated to analyzing season seven, the final season, of The Shield and will serve to keep my mind nimble as I wait for the new season of shows to start as well as to pay tribute to a great show that, as the show drew to a close, did not garner enough credit from this viewer. I am sorry, The Shield, I hope these posts make up for me abandoning you on your death bed.

Humpday Reviewed

So, you know, its the end of the year and everything and the internet is teeming with these "Best of..." lists (even more so this year than most due to the fact that it also the end of a decade). I kind of like these lists, mainly because I often have my impeccable taste in music/movies/shows/restaurants/whatever validated. After reading a few you start to see the same movie (or whatever the list is comprised of) pop up on several different site's lists. This year, one of those movies is Humpday, something I hadn't seen yet. Interest piqued by the title, I decided to check out what the movie was about. It's website claimed: "Late into the night at a wild party, two guys find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together." Sounds promising, right?

The first thing I noticed when Humpday started was that it stars Mark Duplass, who I had just been introduced to on FX's The League. The League has been discussed a few times on this blog, but not since the last four or five episodes aired. I'll get back to Humpday in a second. Like almost all of FX''s programming, I thought The League was an original, well conceived show with a great premise. However, unfortunately the execution of that central idea/theme left a bit to be desired. The show's funniest characters (Ruxton, Dr. Dre, Taco, The Oracle) weren't used to the best of their potential and towards the last few episodes the story arc really came off the tracks. It felt like a big inside joke that the audience was only halfway in on. (What was the fucking deal with Shiva? Why was she so influential during the league members' formative years? Why did they name the trophy after her?) All that said, I would still definitely watch if they decide to make a second season.

Humpday is being billed as a comedy. Don't be fooled, friends, for that is an complete and utter miscategorization. This movie, while providing a few chuckles along the way, builds a level of edge-of-your-seat tension and what-the-fuck-is-about-to-happen suspense that puts Hitchcock to shame.

Basically, the movie is about two old college friends, who's lives had lead them along separate path's, reuniting...and then deciding to bone each other. Duplass plays Ben, an affable yuppie who has recently decided to try to have a baby with his loving wife Anna. One night the couple is awoken by the sound of his old buddy Andrew pounding on their front door. Ben hasn't seen Andrew in years and Anna has only met him once (at their wedding) and doesn't appear to recognize him (presumably because of the thick beard he is now sporting). Surprised, but happy to see him, Ben invites Andrew inside. Anna is a little freaked out, but she is a good sport and welcomes him with open arms, even offering to make her famous pork chops for the three of them. Ben asks him what he has been up to and where he has been and is informed that Andrew has been working on art projects with impoverished children in South America. He also tells them about a trip to Morocco during which he met a princess who bought him a hat, which he wears throughout the movie.

The next day, while Ben is at work, Andrew meets a group of fellow 'artists' who invite him to a party at their house/art studio, which they have named "Dionysus" or something to that effect. Andrew gladly accepts the invitation and extends one of his own to Ben to join the party when he gets off work. Reluctantly, Ben shows up at Dionysus, with the intention of only staying an hour. After a few drinks and a joint he starts to really have fun getting to know these hippie-art-freaks and catching up with Andrew. As everyone continues to party, the conversation eventually turns to an "art contest" hosted by a local movie theater called Humpfest for which contestants submit an amateur porn movie.

Someone (I think it was Ben, but I'm not sure), suggests an idea for a porno that would be sure to win first place in Humpfest: Ben and Andrew, two completely straight dudes, totally just nailing each other. Jackpot. Everyone agrees that it is a brilliant idea. They schedule the shoot for that Sunday.

The remainder of the movie is like a perverse version of the chicken scene from Rebel Without a Cause, except with cocks instead of cars. Neither man wants to back down or let the other off the hook. It is back and forth with the "will they or won't they go through with it" until the tension boils over into a you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it final hotel room scene that will absolutely make your skin crawl, gay or straight.

While I'm not sure this movie would make it on any of my lists for best movie of the year, it certainly sits atop my list of movies during which I uttered the phrase "what...the.........FUCK" the most times. In a year full of bromances, Humpday is the strangest.

SOA Season 2 Finale! (Sorry it took so long to get up)

Let's take a second to catch our collective breath and take inventory of where we are and who we have left.

Jax and Clay are on land. The Irishman Cameron (Da') and baby Abel are at sea. And Jemma and Unser are in the wind.

The bodycount, in my estimation is as follows:
The Nazi inmate who gouged out Otto's good eye.
Henry Rollins.
A slew of Mayans.
Edmund Hayes (the young Irishman).
Polly Zobelle.
Half-Sack (Dagger. Literally.)
Did I miss anyone?

So how did we get here?

The season finale starts with Weston and Zobelle sitting in jail with SAMCRO waiting for them outside and Unser keeping tabs inside. Unser catches wind of Zobelle's imminent release and approaches Agent Stahl for answers. He tells her about Jemma's rape and explains that he needs a reason to give Clay as to why Zobelle is being released. A strange look appears on Stahl's face (the patented "I'm thinking but it also looks like I might have just sharted" look Stahl has popularized) and she proceeds to tell Unser that Zobelle is an FBI informant. At first, I suspected that Stahl was making this story up in an attempt to somehow set SAMCRO up down the line, but soon after we find out that Zobelle is indeed an informant. Weston is also released from jail once the cops find out that the witness that placed him at the scene of the arson is himself a convicted felon. Unfortunately for Weston, unlike Zobelle, he does not have the benefit of a Mayan escort out of the jail.

Sons of Anarchy has, at its core, always been a show about two things; loss and the relationship between fathers and sons. Last night's episode displayed those themes in spades.

In order to keep himself safe from the Sons, Weston (wrongly) thought it would be prudent to bring his young son with him to the tattoo parlor while he got some new ink. Jax and company ambush the pair in the bathroom. They spare the boy, but not before Weston leaves him with a last piece of fatherly advice, "never talk to the cops". Weston doesn't beg for mercy or try to delay the inevitable. He only asks that the boy never see his father's bullet riddled corpse in the bathroom stall. Jax seems content to oblige.

Upon arrival back at the club house, Jax is met by Clay and the crew who express their pride in Jax. Clay embraces him and tells him that he is a good son. Drinks are raised and a toast is made to "sons". It is implied that this toast goes for both capital S "Sons (of Anarachy)" and lowercase s "sons (Jax)".

While out shopping for supplies with Tara, Half-Sack and baby Abel, Jemma spots Polly Zobelle who is buying flowers for Eddie. (She has disobeyed her father and left the protection of the cigar shop to see her lover one last time before flying home to Budapest. Speaking of Budapest, I guess this explains the strange accent/inflection Zobelle has slipped in and out of all season.) What follows, will reverberate in Sons-of-Anarchy-land for the show's foreseeable future.

Tara sees Jemma sizing up Polly and asks her who she is. Jemma tells her that she is the one that lured her into the van and hit her over the head, leading to her rape. Jemma and Tara, with the baby in the backseat and Sack following on his bike behind pull out behind Polly as she departs the flower shop. Tara asks where they are going and Jemma responds, "We are going forward, Sweetheart." This where things get really complicated. (Please forgive the lengthy plot summary, but the next sequence of events is pretty complicated, so I figured it would be best if I told what happens first and then tried to analyze it as a whole after.)

Jemma and company follow Polly in the direction of the ATF safe house where Edmund and Stahl are waiting for the arrival of Cameron. Cameron has instructed Eddie to kill agent Stahl in order to prove his allegiance to Jimmy O. Eddie attempts to accomplish this first by trying to shoot her, only to find out his gun is loaded with blanks, then by punching her in the groin. After this fails, he tries to make a break for freedom, only to be gunned down by Stahl. Panicked, Stahl lies to her AFT partners over the radio, saying that the shots they heard were all the blanks from Edmund's gun.

A few minutes later, Polly arrives on the scene with Jemma right on her tail. Tara, sensing what Jemma has in mind, tries in vain to talk her out of it. Jemma responds with some bogus reason about having to do this because Jax and Clay are out there risking their lives for her. For good measure, she throws in a bit about God having put Polly in her path so she can "fix the part of (her) they ripped open".

Polly walks into the safehouse and sees Eddie laying on the floor in a pool of blood (Stahl is sort of hiding behind a wall in the room with Eddie's body when she walks in). Polly pulls a piece out of her purse (damn, I'm like the king of alliteration) and slowly walks toward Eddie's body. As she approaches the room with Eddie's body in it, we see a great shot of Stahl behind a wall, next to the door Polly is approaching and Jemma entering the front door right behind Polly. All three women are in the same frame and each has their weapon drawn. Stahl can't see Polly or Jemma, Polly can't see Stahl or Jemma and Jemma can't see Eddie or Stahl. But we can see them all. Jemma tells Polly to drop her gun, when she refuses and makes a move towards Jemma, Jemma shoots her. Jemma, mentally and emotionally exhausted, plops down on the coach instead of immediately leaving the scene. Big mistake. Stahl pops out from behind the wall and points her gun at Jemma. Jemma sees Eddie's body laying behind Stahl and calmly says to her, "Bloody day for both of us, huh?" Stahl asks Jemma about Polly's involvement in the rape and says she is sorry that it happened to her. Now at this point, I am thinking that it might be a possibility that Stahl would just let Jemma go out of pity over the rape and somehow make the scene look like Polly and Eddie killed each, maybe like a Phil Hartman/Steve McNair-esque murder/suicide took place. But of course Stahl had to act like the world class cunt she is and made Jemma touch the gun that she shot Eddie with, leaving her prints on it and making it seem like Jemma shot both Eddie and Polly. Then she lets Jemma walk out. When Jemma is gone, Stahl radios for back-up and says that Jemma killed Polly and Eddie. Cameron, who is enroute, overhears this on his police radio scanner and becomes overcome with rage...

Phewww, that was exhausting. Is everyone still with me? Were you able to follow all that? Well, who cares, if you're reading this, you probably saw the episode anyway.

I have several bones to pick with this series of events. First, why did Stahl have to lie to her partners about shooting Eddie? He attacked her, why wouldn't she have told them the truth? Why would she risk her career and her freedom by lying and trying to cover up the shooting when it seems like she was totally justified in her actions? Second, it seems like it is totally out of character for Jemma to decide to take revenge on Polly like that. She spent almost the entire season trying to keep the rape under wraps because she knew that the violence that would occur if it were to come out would bring her world crashing down. Also, she has wittingly made Tara an accomplice to murder by telling her what she planned on doing. Granted, these are small gripes about what could be easily considered the most exciting, suspenseful and gratifying 15 minutes in show history.

Zobelle, stilled holed up in the cigar store with Alvarez and the Mayans, gives up on waiting for Polly and decides to head out of town without her. (This is how we know Zobelle is truly evil, he abandons his own daughter. Even Weston, the Nazi rapist refused to flee without his kids. In keeping with the theme of the show, I wonder if Polly was a 'son' and not a daughter, would Zobelle have been so quick to leave her?)

On a winding road outside of Charming, the Sons ambush Zobelle and the Mayans. They spare Alvarez (incomprehensibly) and chase Zobelle into a nearby bodega. The store is filled with school children, so instead of running in guns blazing, the Sons decide to lay siege and wait for the kids to leave.

Meanwhile, at Jax's house Half-Sack tells Tara that Jemma is gone and the Feds raided the house that they saw her go into. While Tara is on the phone trying to explain the situation to Jax, Cameron bursts in, gun drawn. Jax hears her shriek before the line goes dead and is forced to leave Clay and the rest of the crew and head home to find out what it going on. (Opie goes with him. It is nice to see Jax and Opie together again and the writers really pounded this point home by having them repeatedly refer to each other as "Brother".)

Grieving, bloodthirsty, and bent on revenge ("A son for a son."), Cameron stabs Half-Sack, ties up Tara and absconds with baby Abel. This scene is tough to watch. Cameron, sobbing, holds a knife to the baby, looking like he might actually go through with it until Half-Sack jumps up, only to have the knife buried in his chest. This is a real shame, who is going to provide the show with its much needed comic relief now that the uni-balled Prospect is no longer with us? (I came across an interview with Kurt Sutter, creator of the show, and he claims that the actor who played Half-Sack wanted off the show. This may or may not be true, but if it is, what is that moron thinking? Does he think that 7th Heaven, or American Dreams or The OC is going to come back for another run?(He had small, but recurring roles in these notable shows. None of which were half as good as Sack))

Upon Jax's arrival Tara fills him in with what happened to Abel. The color drains from his face and is replaced with sheer panic. He immediately calls Clay and manages to utter the simple, yet effective, "I need you." Clay, understanding that family is more important than revenge rounds up the troops and heads back to Charming to find Abel. This is a telling and meaningful act, considering the state of the relationship between the two throughout the season as well as the personal importance killing Zobelle holds for Clay.

This monster episode ends with Zobelle boarding a charter jet (When the woman checking him into the flight asks whether his daughter will be accompanying him, he calmly says no and that he will just have to "adjust and adapt" without her. And this is after he knows that she has been killed! Cold-blooded.), Hale comforting a sobbing Tara, Unser driving his police car out of Charming with a fugitive Jemma in the passenger seat, and Jax and rest of the Sons watching Cameron speed away from the dock in a boat with Abel, all while a vastly-inferior-to-the-original cover of 'Gimme Shelter' wails in the background (This episode seemed to use background music to drive home the mood of a scene a lot more than the show had in the past. Sometimes it worked, other times...not so much).

This leads us to the obvious question: What will season 3 have in store for us?

We know for sure it will involve:
Getting Abel back.
Somehow bringing Jemma back to Charming.
Dealing with the fallout with Irish.
Stahl fucking everything up for the club.

Kurt Sutter claims it could involve:
The club going to Ireland. (Intriguing.)
Unser stepping down as Chief of Police.
Tom Arnold's Georgie could be back.
The federal charges against the club from when they raided the Aryan Church have not disappeared.
Opie will continue to struggle in his relationships with the people responsible for Donna's death (Clay/Tig).

Well, until next season......The Crow Flies Straiiighhhhttttt.

Your Boy Gets Some Validation

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I am like an Oracle in terms of being ahead of the curve on television shows. Exhibit A, a link to an article in Slate, a well-respected online magazine, which gives props to NBC's Parks and Recreation. I doubt the author reads That Unfresh Feeling, but some of the language and opinions in the article are nearly identical to postings I did about the show weeks ago. Snaps for me.

Check back soon for a comprehensive look at the Sons of Anarchy season finale.

- Huge. Quickly. Bye.