TV Review: The Shield – “Chasing Ghosts” – Deja Vu or Action Resurrected?

Oooh! Shane is busted! Not busted enough for this gal, but I get ahead of myself. It was an exciting episode this week, to be sure, however I’m just not certain it isn’t third and fourth season leftovers.

Antwon Mitchell has a better arrangement in jail than Martha Stewart, what with “affectionate” women visitors and the ability to order the guards around. Mackey visits Antwon to accuse him of arranging Lem’s murder, but he strikes out. It was a long shot anyway. Ronnie and Vic are continuing to pursue leads on the case, and now Shane is trying to convince them not to, he’s too busy looking at houses. Vic realizes that Shane counted the grenades the night of Lem’s murder. He and Ronnie are starting to put two and two together. But when they go to confirm the number of grenades Shane checked in, they discover they’re all there.

If Shane was obnoxious before, this week he is off the charts. There really is nothing likeable about him anymore. He spent the entire episode smirking, sitting with his feet on the table, and trying to convince them to give up on Lem’s case.

Meanwhile, the city controller’s daughter’s been murdered so the strike team is put on the high profile case. Aceveda is right there trying to manipulate the facts. They start to uncover soccer mom heroin addicts and a dark underbelly to the politician’s heroin-addicted, trick-turning daughter. The raid on the murderer’s apartment was fabulous with its throbbing metal soundtrack and tension-building, sneaking-around-corners-ducking-automatic-weapon-fire action. Vic offers to bring the suspect in himself, supposedly to take the political heat, but as it turns out, it is so he could manipulate the situation to benefit the controller, and thereby gain favor towards his defense. Claudette begins to realize that Vic helped manipulate the facts to aid the cover-up.

Tina is back from her cop-modeling job, and she is not happy to be paired with Danny. Seems they both find Hiatt kind of cute — this should be good, finally the poor women gets some decent plot. When Danny talks to Tina about her attitude, Tina boasts about her new friends in high places, and the alpha female pissing match begins. I’m putting my money on Danny, what about you?

Article Author: Ann Hagman Cardinal

Ann Hagman Cardinal is a freelance writer as well as the Director of Alumni Affairs for Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first novel, Sister Chicas--co-authored with two other Latina writers—was released in 2006 by NAL/Penguin Books. …

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