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As was the case with Season 6, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how The Shield would wrap up by the end. And having sat on the Season 7 DVD for 6 years, that's a lot of time to come up with some outlandish stuff. So, watching this season has been really fun for me, even if I really didn't have a clue how they were going to tie it all up.

No matter what scenario I came up with, it always ended with Mackey dying. I actually focused solely on him that I totally neglected to factor in what would be come of the Strike Team (Shane and Ronnie). The first 3/4 of the season is what I would call vintage Shield. It's the final 4 episodes that seemed to go a bit off the norm for the series because it's all about Mackey and Ronnie hunting down Shane and Mara to kill them to keep their dirty secret to themselves.

But with EVERYONE pretty much in play, it made for a fascinatiing 4 hours of Cat and Mouse. The thing that makes The Shield so great is in Mackey's ability to always find a way out of the monumental hole he digs for himself and the rest of the Team. And yet, at the 11th hour, Mackey is able to pull himself out and actually succeed beyond the initial set up. But this last job of trying to take down the cartel, by playing both sides including the ICE investigation, with Wyms and Dutch tracking his move, with Mackey's own Ex-Wife setting him up in the process and trying to work an immunity deal for himself is pure gold.

One final thing that had me on the edge of my seat was whether or not Mackey was really going to send Ronnie up the river for HIS crimes. With Mackey being the only one offered an immunity deal, which he signed, I had to believe that this was his FINAL play, one that would actually save Ronnie at the very end. Mackey has always been about loyalty, so I just couldn't for the life of me accept that he would do him wrong like that. In the end, he does leave Ronnie out to hang and what's ironic is that it's Mackey's own testimony that seals his fate given that Shane kills himself.

Speaking of Shane, with everything happening in the last 4 episodes and the noose getting tighter and tighter, I actually saw him taking the cowards way out, which stays true to his character on the show. What I didn't see coming was him taking out Mara, his unborn baby and his son Jackson. That was the shock for me in the last episode.

So, Mackey skates "clean" of all the sh*t he brought down on himself, his family, his friends and his coworkers. In the end, he gets his own 'Hell' when ICE screws him on his deal by taking him off the streets, forcing him to wear a suit and tie, planting him behind a desk to push a pencil in a not so glamorous 9-5 job. To him, THIS is worse than prison as he is all alone and his family in hiding. The final scene does suggest that he goes rogue by quitting his desk job. Maybe a movie could happen? Or maybe not. Anyway, I really liked this season and a step up from the previous season. And the Series Finale was very satisfying as well. Definitely worth a Rent.

Another thing that made Season 7 great was seeing them bring back past characters from the first six seasons. The biggest of course was bringing back Tavon. It was great to see Tavon back for an episode. I had been hoping they would bring him back because I always thought that his and Shane's story was somewhat incomplete in how it "ended". With him back, even for just for an episode, the tension was palpable and I was sitting on pins and needles wondering if Tavon actually knew that Mara had **** him the head with an iron. He did.