The Shield - "Back to One" - 4/17/07
 

Can't believe no one put the thread up yet...

Initial thoughts -

Nice to see Ronnie get a spotlight.

Wow, Dutchboy is really having problems. First Billings deflates his ego, now he thinks that Tina is giving Ronnie the eye.

Speaking of Billings, what a hit on that guy when he tried to rabbit! Vic would have been proud.

Wonder how Shane sleeps at night.

Chiklis should just send a picture of his face after he got done beating Guardo for emmy consideration . That was intense.

Billings was great again.

I like how the camera went to Dutch's face whenever Tina was eyeballing Ronnie:lol:

Steve was killing me in this episode.

Shane is in so much emotional turmoil. He's bound to crack.

Ronnie had more lines/camera time in this episode than the rest of the entire series so far. Who do you think will be the first to discover Shane killed Lem, Vic or Ronnie?

Dutchboy needs new car music when he's trying to impress the ladies. He struck out last year with "Hungry Like the Wolf" and I don't think A Flock of Seagulls was doing much for Tina.:lol:

Great to see more Ronnie. I really think he's a sociopath. Nothing phases him, no emotion.

I know I didn't but I can't help feeling I missed an episode. It's been two episodes since the house of the dead, and other than bitching about the "body count" nobody mentions it. Shouldn't some of the detectives be working on it? Why wouldn't Dutch be all over it?

Ronnie is the man.

Freaking HARD CORE episode!

I agree that Ronnie got more camera time this ep then the entire series.. But it was nice to see..

Shane is seriously going to eat a gun.. I don't know how that kat can talk all this guilt..

Nice to see Ronnie in front of the camera. Can't wait for Dutch to do that chick from Harold & Kumar.

It really shows you how ridiculously hardcore the strike team is that in the absense of Vic, Shane and Lem, Ronnie looks like a goddamned Spartan compared to any of the other cops on the scene. It's all attitude. Julian's a big guy, and even he looked like a keystone cop compared to Ronny taking down a perp. I'm glad to see him get an episode to shine in, but I couldn't even enjoy it, I was so knotted up in Shane's guilt. This is the best damn show on television. How do they continue do it?


Doc

Guardo's torture mixed with Shane's guilt was some of the most intense drama I've ever seen. And the torture itself was one of the most brutal things I've ever seen on network tv.

I agree. I told my friends that those scenes were probably the most violent stuff ever on non-HBO television that I've seen.

Having your face burned on a stove probably gives you a more introspective look at life.

Torture was "off the chain"...whoops, did I really say that?

Great to see Gardocki run through that murder case/Horde bust like a minor inconvenience. Billings was again fabulous and his on-target dressing down of Dutch was amazing. "You're very sarcastic. I forgot to mention that too."

Dutch'll find the girlfriend who'll finger the Strike Team to make the show nice and messy in Cavanaugh's absence.

And now Shane watched a guy get tortured and murdered for killing Lem who he knows did not kill Lem. Even though he was right the guy was bad, he was killed by Vic for doing something he didn't do, and of course could've stopped it. Shane has no good way out of this. None at all...

I also liked how Dutch wanted to give his observations back to Billings and Billings would have none of it.:lol:

:rimshot:

But you've got to love the Fed's line about, "can you lose the date?" The last time I think he "got" any was after making a house call to a widow in Season 2.

He really needs to chase more cats down an alley.

And did anyone else notice the smile and raised eyebrow the rookie cop gave the PR guy with the camera equipment? With the sex shop debate in the first episode and now this, its got to be leading to something.

Heavy episode. If I were Shane, I'd look at this like a gift. I mean, Guardo had already killed a bunch of other people anyway. They were just getting payback.

There was some amazing stuff in this episode, just with facial expressions.

You do wonder how this is going to snap back w/ Guardo's girlfriend not being able to find him.

The Strike Team is really screwed. Vic pissed of the Latino gang last week, now he can be linked by the girlfriend/crew members to Guardo disapearing. On top of that we have an undercover FBI agent in Guardo's crew who might have known about the girl being kidnapped and Dutch still looking into Lem's death.

Vic should have listened to Shane and walked away. Wouldn;t be ironic if one of them really did die by a Salvador grenade?

Chiklis is unbelievably good. He plays intense like few I've ever seen. And that chain beating!

Also great was Shane alone with Guardo. He knew what was going to happen, and tried to talk himself into it, reminding himself that Guardo is a very bad guy even though he didn't kill Lem. I really thought he was going to break.

Glad to see Ronnie get so much screen time too. He had Tina creaming in her uniform.

I will say this, Dutch has some sweet taste in music.

I thought that Acevado was going to force another city to split time with Farmington as far as investigating the blood bath?

Great to see Ronnie on his own. It makes you really see how badass the strike team is as individuals. Dutch boy and Billings were hilarious. Vic is just hard core, but the blind rage is going to come back and bite him in the ass. He was seriously sloppy in his crusade to find Guardo. Just so many things to link him back to Guardo.

Oh man, another great ep. Poor Shane, he is definitely going to eat a bullet. Be it his, or Vic's.

BTW, just read some nice news:

Kurt Stutter just finished the script for Punisher 2. *wank wank*

that part had me cracking up

The headache line was great as well. :lol:

This show has me asking the question are not the writers the real stars of this show?
I never hear about writers threating to leave a show because they want mega bucks.
I know they belong to a union, but the writers of THE SHIELD are underpaid.
When we hear that the cast of FRIENDS got $1 million each for staying on the show wasn't the writers that made the show.

AMEN.

Just caught the ep. on my DVR. AWESOME. I don't think there's ever been a show on TV that's been THIS good for its ENTIRE run (and this without two of the show's most riveting characters, Lem and Kavanaugh).

That said, I can't wait for next week's ep.!

The Wire springs to mind..but agreed, it's a rarity.


-Paul Jacobi-

I know that we can't say where, and I wouldn't do that, but if you know where to look online you can find the next two episodes to download since the show apparently airs earlier in France.

It's because the press kit contained a DVD of the first 6 episodes.

And this press kit has the episodes with French as the language for the opening credits? I've read that it's because France is airing 2 episodes/week of the Shield over there.

Was the press kit in French? The episodes online have French text (nothing major, just where it says "created by" and that sort of thing in the credits) and there is a TV station logo on the picture.

Anyway, the next two episodes are flat out awesome. You haven't seen anything yet.

EDIT:

Ha, Patman beat me to it. The only bad thing about this is that I can't talk about the episodes here yet. :lol:

Huh, ok, my bad. I figured that it had to be the press kit episodes (search eBay for "Shield Press Kit" to see one) because Europe is almost always behind the US in airings when it's a show from the states, and I figured if you were watching it in English it couldn't have come from France because it would have been dubbed...