The Shield (Season 5 - 2006)Trailer I have been dreading watching
Season 5 of
The Shield since I started my marathon. Knowing how the season ends, it was kind of hard to come to terms with how they got rid of
Lem. More on that in a bit. With
Glenn Close exiting at the end of
Season 4, they bring in
Forest Whitaker as
Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, whose sole purpose in life is to take down
Vic, Shane, Ronnie and
Lem and the best way to do that is to go through
Lem as he has always been the one that had one foot in and one foot out of being a Good Cop/Bad Cop. Getting
Forest was another huge get for the series and he played 'Ultimate Prick' to a Tee. I seriously hate this f*cker because he is so relentless in his pursuit to turn everyone's life upside down, including family members and was full of glee in doing it. I seriously could not stand the guy, which made sitting through
Season 5 a breeze because it was all delicious to watch. It's a weird thing watching a series like
The Shield where the viewer is asked to sympathize and root for the Bad Guy, which
Mackey is and when
Mackey is threatened by
Kavanaugh, you end up rooting for
Mackey even more.
The entire season is a Cat and Mouse game of
Kavanaugh trying to get
Lem to flip and turn in his guys in a deal and each episode keeps piling it on to great effect. This is only the third time I've seen this season and it's still electric in every way. The first time I saw the season, I just figured that the
Strike Team would eventually come out on top, once again escaping by the skin of their teeth. The
team was able to always stay one step ahead. But it's the
Season Finale were everything comes to a head and not in the way you'd expect. To have Shane be the one to turn on
Lem by killing him, just to save his own ass still makes me sick to this day (thus why I was dredding it). But it's in the way he kills him (by grenade) that just p*sses me off.
Lem was and is without the most popular character ever on the show and it has never felt right in how he went out like that. One of the most tragic on screen death scenes ever. Hell, I STILL curse out
Walt Goggins (Shane) whenever I see him on other shows, especially
Justified. F*ck you Shane!!
Kavanaugh isn't the only prick this season. There is of course
David Aceveda. Well, he has always been a prick, but more so this season since he was working with
Kavanaugh to take down the Strike Team. The final prick is of course
Emolia Melendez (Onahoua Rodriguez) who is
Vic's C.I. and is solely responsible for the sh*t storm the Team is in. As in previous seasons, there wasn't any shortage of stars. I particularly liked
Gina Torres role that
Vic was able to "maximize" to great use against his enemy in
Kavanaugh .
Paula Garcés as newcomer
Officer Tina Hanlon was good too. Easy on the eyes. Yowzza! I highly recommend
Season 5 as a
Buy for sure.