The Shield (Season 4)

Season 4 of The Shield started off feeling like a soft reboot of sorts, with a lighter tone, premiere that essentially reintroduces the cast, and of course, the stunt casting of Glenn Close. As a result, the first few episodes just felt off tonally, but once I realized what this fairly focused season wanted to do, I slowly started to really come around it.

Season 4 starts off on a pretty shaky note, with the Strike Team separated and Aceveda leaving for a new captain named Monica Rawling, played by Glenn Close, to take over. The Strike Team separated isn't that big of an issue, as much as I missed their chemistry for most of this season, it was still really satisfying to see them reunite. Rawling, on the other hand, definitely took some time to grow on me. Close is great here, and her dynamic with Vic is excellent, but her character just felt so much less interesting than Aceveda... at least until she really starts to implement her civil forfeiture policies. This is where Season 4 kicks into high gear, as much of the season grapples with the concept of civil forfeiture, dealing with its good and bad aspects and tackling all the minute aspects of that controversy. You can understand where Rawling is coming from, but the show never paints her policies as an unambiguously good idea, and we even have a strong subplot about Julien (the rare black cop) being against the policies himself. More than any prior season of The Shield, Season 4 really feels like it's trying to deglorify the police, and whenever it stays focused on the civil forfeiture debacle is when it's at its most engaging and thought-provoking.

Season 4 is a really focused season, fairly lacking in the mess of subplots and story beats that the last few seasons had. Pretty much the entire season is focused around Rawling, with even the main antagonist Antwon Mitchell, played by Anthony Anderson, being frustrated about her policies. Similarly to Rawling, it took a while for me to find Antwon an interesting antagonist, probably because I spent much of the first few episodes seeing him as Dre from Black-ish. However, after a brutal showing in the fifth episode, I was immediately sold on Antwon as a threat, and his charisma and seeming untouchability made for hands down my favorite antagonist in the show to date. Unfortunately, just as Season 4 had a rough start, it also had a bit of a rough ending. Halfway through the season shifts focus to a bunch of cop killings, which causes Vic and Rawling to think it's because of the forfeiture policies. It wasn't, it was actually caused by a bunch of Russians, completely unrelated to the policies. Even more Rawling gets fired in the finale, but that wasn't because of her policies either! Season 4 posed a bunch of genuinely fascinating and thought-provoking questions, and just refused to offer some sort of answer or conclusion. 

At its best, however, Season 4 had some pretty strong high points:

Tar Baby: While the season had been slowly improving in quality over the last few episodes, the ending of Tar Baby was where I was hooked. Antwon shooting Angie in cold blood as Shane and Army watch was a terrifying yet incredibly well-executed scene that showed me that The Shield still had its bite, and that Antwon is not at all close to Dre.

Back In The Hole: As much as I've griped about Season 4's ending, I will say it definitely didn't help that Back In The Hole was essentially the climax of the season. I'm a big fan of interrogation scenes, so the fact that the majority of this episode was an electric interrogation between Vic, Rawling, and Antwon made for one of the best yet. Even more, Rawling starting to suspect that the Strike Team is corrupt leads to some great confrontations within the team, as well as set-up for the finale's fantastic hook.

Ain't That A Shame: While the underwhelming events of Judas Priest definitely dragged this finale down a bit by proxy, the sheer amount of stuff that happened in Ain't That A Shame still made for a really solid ending to the season. The Strike Team chasing after the drug lord led to some of the best action in the show to date, the set-up for an Internal Affairs investigation was an exciting hook for Season 5, and Rawling still managed to go out with a bang as she arrested Antwon for real.

Overall, Season 4 is a bit of a frustrating season. It had a shaky start as it struggled to adjust to its new status quo, and an underwhelming resolution that dropped all of the season's interesting elements. But that middle section was so damn good, dealing with some fascinating ideas, boasting the show's best antagonist to date, and focusing around a single well-developed and morally flawed character.

Oh, and one more thing. Stop showing the goddamn rape scene in the Previously On segment!

3/5 Stars