Mackey, we're repeatedly told, has been off his game since his wife ran off (woman's a lot quicker on the draw than Carmella Soprano). Which leaves the bulk of the real police work to Detectives Wagenbach (Jay Karnes) & Charlotte Wyms (C.C.H. Pounder, who continues to shoulder the role of moral center with her customary professional aplomb). One of the show's repeated ironies is the fact that, for all his ethical emptiness, Mackey gets results more consistently than the tough-minded Wyms.

In season two's premiere, for example, Vic and boys smuggle a dealer across the border (along w./ a big satchel fulla cash) where a federal warrant awaits; Charlotte winds up seeing the dealer's brother go free even though she and we know that this scumwad is a murdering rapist. To be sure, the writers have set things up so it'll work this way - brother one, after all, has the feds after him, while numero two only has a sealed juvie case against him - but in a time where legal niceties are being progressively downplayed over expediency in the War on Terror, it certainly feels like The Shield is reflective of something zeitgeisty.

For all the promo blather about Vic Mackey being a "different kind of cop," the reality is his brand of corruptness-cum-controlling-effectiveness has long been a film noir tradition. Think Orson Welles' Hank Quinlan in the classic Touch of Evil: now there (as Marlene Dietrich notes) was some kind of a man. Chiklis is surprisingly commanding in his role, but the fact is without the equally strong work of actors like Martinez, Karnes & Pounder to ground him, he'd quickly become tiresome. Even a different kind of cop needs hard-working mainstreamers to back him up and play against.

(Reprinted from Pop Culture Gadabout.)