The Shield - Season 2

The second season of The Shield opens with characters twisted 180 degrees: Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) is at the mercy of others and appears to be powerless over the events that shape his life. Captain David Aceveda (Benito Martinez) enjoys a moment of triumph after he has vanquished a powerful and condescending Assistant Police Chief (John Diehl.)

Detective Danielle "Danny" Sofer (Catherine Dent) fails an exam for promotion and begins to consider detective work instead. Her partner, Officer Julian Lowe (Michael Jace) is trying to solve his sexual crisis once and for all by marrying a woman he just met.

Plots and subplots intertwine in this fast pace follow up to the first season of The Shield.

The most intense strand of plot involves Mackey and his strike force battling with Mexican drug lord Armadillo Quintero (Daniel Pino.) Scenes like those involving stovetop elements glowing orange and the cheek of a victim's face being pressed into them litter the season. Queasiness is never far away when watching The Shield.

But despite some of the Tarantino-esque celebration of depravity, it is a joy to watch most of the characters grow through their struggles. Mackey begins to lose his edge; as his personal life deteriorates, he is put on a drug lord's hit-list and must answer to a tough civilian auditor who is looking to dismantle Mackey's strike force. A prostitute Mackey helps get clean becomes ensnared in informant work and his illegal contacts on the street become more unstable and brazen. The Shield has not seen a Mackey like the Mackey in Season 2; he even helps relocate and protect battered women in one of the more grizzly and depressing episodes in the series.

The strike force crew nearly dissolves as the Assistant Police Chief nearly traps them; and even hard boiled Detective Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder) gets into the action as she sickens of Mackey's renegade style.

Aceveda faces forced resignation as the series builds toward the primary election for his campaign to take a city council seat. Mackey and crew also follow a season long plot as they devise a scheme to hijack a shipment of cash from the Albanian mafia.

The Shield even takes viewers back in time in a flashback episode ("Co-Pilot") that shows Mackey in a suit as a street detective, stunning the viewer accustomed to seeing Mackey in his usual skin gripping muscle shirts.

Not only does the pace of the series speed along quickly with its shifting through multiple plot lines, but the camera work adds to the intensity. In NYPD Blue style, a handheld camera (or camera that gives that effect) is almost universally employed. The shaky result draws the viewer through an intimacy of action that anyone who has shot home video knows. The breakneck pace of the show is matched by the kinetic aesthetic produced by the handheld effect. Quick zooms and sudden turns also contribute to the high energy camera work that gives The Shield such a distinctive feel.

The focus of the show begins to shift inward and more personal in the second season of The Shield. Gone is the clash with the wider community and the riot plot of Season 1. Tensions within the community still exist, but the focus of Season 2 remains inside the police department for the most part.

Following the critically acclaimed and award winning Season 1, the second season of The Shield builds on its success. The writers of The Shield allow their characters to face different challenges that force them to respond and either grow or fade away. Few fade, most grow; the result is a raw, real, unflinching, uncompromising whirlwind of entertaining television.