The Shield S01E02: Our Gang Review
Medium: Television
Release date: 3/19/2002
Review date: 11/4/2024
Score: 8/10
It's a good sign to me how slowly this show is going to move by Episode Two picking up right where S01E01 ended - no jump cuts where the showrunners can just handwave everybody in the precinct sweeping everything from the botched raid under the rug during the cut-away; no, we’re showing the aftermath of Mackey killing the undercover mole in real time, both in terms of how the perpetrators deal with the psychological fallout from the murder and the higher ups at the LAPD working to cover up and handwave the behavior of the involved officers. It's a pretty honest and ugly portrayal of the police that most TV shows, especially police procedurals, shy away from, so I’m quite thrilled to see “The Shield” choose to tackle it head on. All of episode two involves the aftermath and effects of the shooting, whether that be the on the street beat cops deciding they need to “act tougher” as criminals will now “feel emboldened to commit more crimes” since a police officer was recently killed, to the precinct captain trying to juggle the Internal Affairs investigation into the shooting along with his own off-the-books investigation, to finally the members of Strike Team as they deal with the PTSD of the shooting and trying to keep their mouths shut. It's a tense episode at times, and I appreciate the honesty of having Mackey, clearly a crooked cop to the bone, still struggle with feeling like he betrayed the mole and failed the team - the fact his character can be as nuanced as he seems hopefully indicates “The Shield” has the legs to actually be interesting for more than a single season. Likewise, Walton Goggin’s character Shane, who’s shown to be quite the typical shit-talking man’s man in the precinct and in flashbacks, is also given a little more opportunity to be portrayed as something a bit more than just a simple thug, which should be fun to follow through on - he seems to be the Strike Team’s weakest link at this point. “Our Gang” also introduces the audience to Assistant Chief of Police Ben Gilroy, Mackey’s guardian angel higher up in the LAPD who helps weigh the scales in his favor during Mackey’s investigation so Internal Affairs concludes no foul play. At the end of the episode Gilroy confronts Mackey and reveals he’s the one who tipped him off about the mole in Strike Team, and after claiming that he thought Mackey would never purposefully kill another police officer, presses him about whether the mole dying during the raid was planned or not - Mackey lies and claims the death was just an unfortunate on-the-job accident.
I’m really enjoying “The Shield,” I know my emphasis on the reality of its portrayal of crooked police work might make it sound like the show is lecturing you for the whole run time, but both episodes I’ve seen so far have been immensely entertaining - the cast has down a fantastic job, and even the characters I know I should think are completely unlikeable manage to have a bit of charisma to them. Mackey and Shane, for all their criminal behavior, are funny guys, and it's easy to see how people could be tricked into thinking that their violent corner cutting can be handwaved in light of them just “getting the bad guys.” Likewise, the comparisons between Mackey and Strike Team to the very criminals they’re purporting to fight and catch is made very clear (see this episode’s title “Our Gang”), with much of the LAPD’s actions following the aftermath of an officer death being closer to that of a gang closing ranks, staying silent, and protecting its own rather than the actions of just lawmen trying to discover the truth, comparisons I have a sneaking suspicion will only get clearer and more pronounced as the “The Shield” goes on.