Re: The Shield: Season Seven
I haven't posted until now because honestly, I'm still processing this episode. (Also I want to go back and watch it again, a little more analytically, without the "what's-going-to-happen-next" suspense of the first viewing.) But I do have a couple of brief comments in response to some of the other posts:
Quote:
| But regarding Vic - there's a lot of debate as to what the final shot in the series means. For me, Vic taking his gun home with him at the end of the night didn't signify him running. It seemed like it was the only vestage he had left of his former life and he was going to cling to it out of desperation. |
I don't think that shot had anything whatsoever to do with Vic
taking the gun home with him. Of course he took it home with him. That's what cops
do. They don't leave their guns in their desk drawers at work overnight.
To me it was obvious that Vic was debating whether or not he should simply eat the gun and end it all right then and there. In the end he decided not to, because he's Vic F***ing Mackey and no matter how far down he falls he still believes he can claw his way back up. I don't know if he's fooling himself or not, I just think that's what
he believes. But I also think he seriously considered the possibility of just sticking the gun in his mouth, ending his pain and leaving the mess for Olivia to clean up in the morning. In a strange way I wonder if Shane didn't help save Vic. Maybe at the last minute Vic flashed on that picture of Shane and decided he couldn't take the coward's way out like he did.
Speaking of Shane, I seem to be in the minority that was
not surprised by his fate. After I posted my speculation about the contents of the finale, where I said I thought Shane and Mara would both die, I kept thinking about how that might happen and finally thought about a number of real cases where a suspect who felt he had nowhere to go killed his family as well as himself to "spare them" the consequences of his acts. Especially given that Mara's killing of the woman in the previous episode ended any chance of her avoiding prison, Shane had only Jackson and his unborn daughter to "save".
So I mentally added, "Humanely executes Mara and Jackson before offing himself" to my list - although at that point I still thought he was more likely to a Kamikaze run at the barn in one final attempt to get Mackey before going out in a blaze of glory. Suicide by cop rather than simple suicide, although the latter was always a possibility.
I think Vic's taunts may have goaded him into action, but Shane's own situation (and increasingly fragile mental state) made the outcome one of the logical possibilities in any case. Even without Vic's contribution I think Shane might have reached that point on his own.
Regards,
Joe
