Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Shield - Recap & Review - Petty Cash

The Shield
“Petty Cash”

Original Air Date: Nov 11, 2008

Tom R - TwoCents Staff Writer
tom@thetwocents.com

I don’t care if we just had the Emmy awards. Give Michael Chiklis his statue now. Skip the waiting. Skip the formalities. There may be two more episodes left, but he has earned the gold already. He won the award after The Shield’s first season, largely because everyone still saw him as “The Commish”, a good-natured small town cop. If he deserved the award for inventing Vic Mackey, he damn sure deserves another one for wrapping up the run, adding so many facets to the same character.

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[photo: Prashant Gupta / FX]

4 comments:

  1. The Shield
    “Petty Cash”

    Original Air Date: Nov 11, 2008

    Tom R - TwoCents Staff Writer
    tom@thetwocents.com

    I don’t care if we just had the Emmy awards. Give Michael Chiklis his statue now. Skip the waiting. Skip the formalities. There may be two more episodes left, but he has earned the gold already. He won the award after The Shield’s first season, largely because everyone still saw him as “The Commish”, a good-natured small town cop. If he deserved the award for inventing Vic Mackey, he damn sure deserves another one for wrapping up the run, adding so many facets to the same character.

    Two scenes highlight the talent here: Looking to get Shane his money, Vic brokers a deal between a high-level black gang and Beltran’s Mexican muscle. The negotiations seem like a lost cause, since the dealers trust their suppliers. Even the presence of Beltran’s men outside the house doesn’t sway them. But Vic spins a tale about their ruthlessness that would make Keyser Soze jealous. He walks away with $ 200,000.00, only half of which he plans to give to Beltran.

    Beltran, however, sends an escort along with Vic to make sure the money gets back to him. Vic makes up a story about needing gas, during which time he stashes Shane’s half of the money and makes a frantic call to Ronnie for the pickup. During those two scenes, Vic loses confidence during the negotiation, returns his swagger by the end of that scene, then flies into sheer panic. Chiklis plys every turn for all they are worth.

    Meanwhile, Ronnie is distracted by the investigation into the killing of a local sports hero. After a red herring about shaving points, Julien finds out that the recruiter approached another kid in the same neighborhood the previous year. He was not accepted and was subsequently killed. That boy’s mother fired into the recruiter’s van, not knowing that the new recruit was inside. Nice work throughout by Michael Jace as Julien, who also has to prove his loyalty to Claudette after serving time on the Strike Team.

    As Corinne asks for relocation as part of her deal, she waits for the cash drop from Vic. Ronnie makes the drop, and Shane never shows to collect. Ronnie is also charged by Vic to intercept Shane’s communiqué to Claudette. He tries to get Billings to do his work, but hey, it’s Billings. He finally does intercept the envelope, but when he opens it, he sees a large note reading, “Punked!”

    On Mara’s suggestion, Shane tries to rob a real estate office. When he gets there, he needs to pull Mara and Jackson in so Mara can open the safe. They make off with cashier’s checks, but Shane is shortchanged when he tries to sell them off. Returning to the car, he laments to Mara that they have no friends left.

    It’s hard to imagine the two final episodes being any kind of a letdown. I keep thinking about the movie Silver Streak that ended with a high-speed train crashing through a Chicago railway station. That’s the kind of impact I’m waiting for in the remaining episodes.

    So there’s my two cents…What do you think? Drop them in the comments or drop me a line at: tom@thetwocents.com .

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  2. Michael Chiklis is one of best character in this show and play very good role in this show.he won the award by it's own preference.he also play very good role in The Shield Last Episode.Gr8 storyline and characters in this episode.Good to the Last Drop.

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