Isn't rape a violent act?

Absolutely. I just think the face grilling was more shocking and more violent than the rape that took place last night. Then again, maybe since I am a huge Oz fan, I became desensitized to seeing forced BJs.

I would agree with you though. The face grilling really shocked the hell out of me. This more just grossed me out.

Um, yeah the kid was weird because he took a picture. I would think making a cop give him head would automatically make him weird.

Brutal!

I also think the guy getting his face grilled is far worse than showing a little nudity, or a little fake-oral action.

Well, her name IS Pounder.

That would have been funny if it had been Julian and he'd been like "Oh, ok!" I bet that would have freaked out the gang guy and he wouldn't have done it then. Acaveda should have practiced reverse psychology on him or something.

For anyone that knows anything about law enforcement, he ****ed up. Big time. You never do anything high risk like a search alone.

They had already cleared the house (and a cruiser showed up five minutes after the agent left).

Again, not the best decision, but he certainly didn't go to the house alone.

... but no officer in plain clothes would ever stick around alone to "check the rest of the house..."... at the very least, a uniform would have to be present. This is so when the owner gets home, he doesn't mistake the detective for a burglar and pop a few caps into him...

and I'm gonna have nightmares about that photo scene for a very long time.... *gags*

The owner of the house was in custody and had given permission to search the premises.

I had another nightmare about the Acevada scene last night (a full day after seeing the episode)! It woke me up in the middle of the night!

I have a feeling that Vic is going to end up with the picture, and use it some how to clear his money train money.

Its an absolute certainty that Vic gets that pic/vid.

He might but the problem is that you know that the picture will probably be sent to all the other Esses.

I assume that there will be a S4 of The Shield so this was the way to keep Aceveda in the squad instead of on the city council.

What's truly NOT remarkable is that every time someone ventures into a television thread on DVDTalk and makes a comment that doesn't just parrot back "best episode ever" - you get slammed thereafter with a petty "then don't watch it if you hate it so much" remark.

Nothing is more irritating in this forum than that one comment. Nothing. Nothing stifles conversation on this board faster than these predictable "naysayers-to-the-naysayers" always, always, always chiming in with their "go away, you're not wanted, if you don't agree that it's the BEST SHOW EVER" attitude. This irritates the living shit out of me.

I didn't say I "hated" it. I just pointed out that it follows a standard formula week after week after week. Compared to the other garbarge that's on opposite "The Shield" - thank you very much, but I'd rather watch Chiklis go through the motions than whatever reality filler is on the "big three."

grunter,

Your first post was completely derogatory to the show. There wasn't one positive comment. I'm not telling you not to watch it, but the impression I got was that you weren't enjoying it at all. So why tune in? That's all I was wondering. And you answered my question in your second post.

If we have an all-positive-only rule...

The every thread would start with "I liked this episode"

Followed by 4 pages of "Me too" posts




*yawn*

That's my point, groucho. Why must every post in a given television thread include something "positive?"

And why must every criticism of a show be followed by one of those "don't watch it, if you hate it so much" comments?

Which is exactly how this forum reads 99% of the time.

It doesn't have to. But if somebody hates an entire show (rather than a particular episode or two), it doesn't make sense to me that they continue to watch it week after week.

I sat throught Season Six of Buffy. It wasn't my favorite television show that year. But I still participated in threads, pointing out both positives and negatives.

If that happens, I'm all for it. But when every person in a thread talks about how great an episode is and one person comes in and completely rips it apart, it seems a bit weird.

If you don't like this forum, don't read it.

I don't mind a little negativity in threads, but I admit to doing the "why do you watch it?" in the Enterprise threads, but I think it's justified there when it's done by people who go in the thread before the show airs and bitch about it and they do it every week

It just seems strange that an episode that so many people liked you could not find one positive thing to say about. I understand maybe you don't want to be positive because everyone has been positive before you, but people like this show, and maybe take it personally when you just completely tore apart an episode they enjoyed watching. You can be negative, but sometimes if you take time to point out what you might have enjoyed before tearing it down, people might be more receptive to your comments. A spoonful of sugar right?

grunter,

You definitely sounded frustrated by the show in your original comments. IMHO, what you described as flaws (Claudette scowling, Aceveda's smugness) seemed to involve personality traits. To bring back the Star Trek analogy, it's like saying Kirk makes these dramatic pauses and Spock always refers to logic.

However, Derrich did a great job answering your critiques. I see a great deal of character development taking place on this show. It was pretty clear that Vic (and the strike team) operates on both sides of the law from the pilot, but we've seen a lot of progression regarding Acevada's political ambitions, Wyms' leadership and detective skills, and Dutch's insecurities.

I watched last week's show three times and most new airings multiple times. However, one viewing was enough for this particular episode! The face grilling last year was pretty horrific, but what made that tolerable was that Armadillo seemed to revel in the pain to show how tough he was. Vic just had to be pulled back in horror, wondering what he had to do to stop this guy. Frankly, I was more offended with Armadillo reason for "tagging" a little girl with a dove tattoo in season 2.

The commentary by the gang member (no pun intended) in this episode followed up by Acevada's reaction shot with the spittle in the corner of his mouth was incredible nauseating and disturbing. The scene at the end in the toilet completely sealed the deal.


I've never seen Deliverance, I was shocked by Oz and somewhat surprised by extent of the "gimp" scene in Pulp Fiction, but this was over the top! I may actually report this show to the FCC just like I did with the Janet Jackson incident!