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I actually really liked last night's episode, although I found the Dutch storyline deeply disturbing. (Even though I could see the reveal shot of the girl in the bathroom coming as soon as the camera started to follow the guy inside his apartment, it was still horrible...)
There's often a really, really fucked-up streak of dark humour in the programme, and I've remarked before that it is to American cop shows what Cardiac Arrest was to UK medical dramas. I think the best word is probably hysteria - this sense that everything is going to hell in a handbasket, and the people who in theory are preventing this are at best struggling to contain it and buckling under the pressure, at worst letting it slip by unchallenged or making things worse.
Watching this episode, I was reminded again how Dutch works as The Shield's distorted mirror version of the detective-as-intellectual archetype. In Homicide: Life On The Street you had guys like Munch, Pembleton and Baylis - gusy who you felt had read a book or two, were always expounding on their theories, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, and taking obvious relish in using their intelligence and psychological skills to outfox suspects in the interview room. Dutch is one of them, but come out wrong - or maybe it's the world he operates in that's wrong. For him to misread this case so badly is a screw-up further than we've seen in the past, but I don't see how it's in any way inconsistent to his behaviour last season - just because one of his slightly obsessive theories and hunches turned out right and he caught a major serial killer, doesn't negate the fact that he's blindly arrogant. (Incidentally, that's twice in three episodes there have been horrific consequences as a result of Dutch fucking up - I'm sure we'll see this take a toll.) I have no problem believing that that girl could pull the wool over his eyes - he has real issues with women, and a huge 'white knight' complex - but also, what I thought was clear from this episode is that Dutch enjoys the mindgames of interrogation just a bit too much. He enjoyed what in this case turned out to be a roleplay, with a sexual and specifically power-based subtext. For me that made up for the usual annoying association of BDSM with non-consensual torture, kidnapping and murder (or it may even have been the point - bear in mind that this all came from Dutch's mouth, and with relish, before he got played).
In terms of the Mackie plot: I really liked the sense of diminishing returns - Joe did some bad things, but he claims never to lose any sleep over that, so I doubt he ever shot another cop in the head (and I don't believe for a moment that Mackie would ever tell him about that). There's the sense that Mackie is losing it earlier than his mentor did - at the least, Joe's warning not to turn out like him has come too late. And if Joe's the ghost of cop shows past, then Shane is the future, and what a terrifying prospect that is. As the woman he assaults and threatens to rape says, Shane is pretty much an animal, without even that much in the way of traces of 'good intentions' beyond some kind of loyalty to the pack. And yet the bond between him and Mackie is clearly stronger than we might have thought, and Vic is willing to continue this surrogate father-son relationship and continue passing on the increasingly fucked-up heritage... I thought all that was great stuff. Bad acting? Couldn't see it that often here.
Mind you, I find CSI unwatchable despite really liking the premise and William Petersen, so our tastes may be incompatible, Cholister.
(PS: I'm also completely petrified of what might happen to Vic's family now that they're back home. Once Amadio recovers from his beating, he'll be out for blood, and I think Vic has seriously underestimated him.) |
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