Yet Captain Aceveda, his chief enemy in the first season, spoke quite reasonably in describing him as "Al Capone with a badge." He may do a great service to the community, but he's WAY over the top. If you had a guy like this on your local police force, somebody would have to kill him.

The truly amazing thing about this show, though, is that if Mackey were killed, you'd STILL have a great show. There are several other characters just as intriguing. Captain Aceveda with his political aspirations leaks a confidential internal affairs investigation of Mackey, who was accused (rightly) with stealing POUNDS of cocaine from evidence. Aceveda is clearly acting in an illegal and self-serving manner, yet you could well imagine his reasonable defense that Mackey needs to be exposed despite the efforts of higher-ups to cover his ass.

Rookie officer Julien Lowe particularly interests me. He comes from a moral viewpoint exactly opposite of Mackey. He has a very clear moral compass based on his deep Christian faith. There is right, and there is wrong. This brings him into inevitable conflict not only with Mackey, but with himself. He's gay, and he has a level of integrity that won't allow him to make excuses to justify his sin. His integrity as a Christian places him at war with himself.

This hardly scratches the surface of this show. Almost every scene in the entire 13 episode first season was intriguing and quotable. Available now on DVD, this one is a must-own. Not being typically a big fan of cop shows, perhaps I'm not the best judge of such things. However, I'll take the 13 hours of The Shield's first season over even the entire run of Dirty Harry films, let alone the typical network tv cop fare.