Steve helps to choreograph a date between Tina and Hiatt and goes so far as to steal Tina’s cellphone, sending Dutch a text message so he thinks its from her. The poor guy smoothes his hair, buys a bottle of wine, and shows up at her house. Through the window he sees Hiatt screwing Tina. I changed my mind about Steve; though Dutch has been a jerk about the vending machine scam, this was going over the line. But that is about the extent of the storyline for Dutch and Steve. Seriously, the happenings with these two have been so trivial. They spent most of the episode interrogating the victim’s lover, and NOTHING happens. Will Dutch and Steve ever get a meaty storyline again, or are they just the Punchline and Judy of the show?

Shane is going “deeper into the Armenian beast than [he] ever intended.” He brings in his Armenian Gang Princess to pose as a bookkeeper for a bakery to implicate rival Mafia families. Great line alert: when Shane brings in the Princess posing as an accountant, Claudette says, “I don’t want to find her chopped off feet on my desk tomorrow morning.” Shane and Ronnie stake out the docks with the Armenian competition, and the tension between the two team members is thick. Shane tells Vic that he’s pulling his request for transfer since he’s convinced that Vic will be out in a week. Vic comes in between Shane and his new princess partner. Shane, in yet another brilliant move tells her that Vic robbed the money train and claims his own innocence to regain her trust. Now, it seems, she’s going to have Vic killed and Shane is once again in deep shit. I’m guessing that next week either Vic or Shane has to die, and I seriously doubt it will be Mackie.

Okay, so Cruz’s involvement is cinched. He tries to intervene on Mackie’s behalf with Aceveda ever since Mackie mentioned his situation to the one-armed diplomat and threatens to look into Cruz’s involvement. Vic shows up at the Cruz’s construction site to confront him, and oh my GOD! Cruz gives Mackie the snapshot of Aceveda being orally raped by the gang banger! I wondered when that was going to show up again. Now things are getting interesting.

The coming attractions look good, and I am so happy and relieved to feel the tension return to my favorite show. Now, if season seven can just keep it up…