My fave parts (that immediatly pop into my head, anyway) are:
- Season 1 ender when Vic comes home to an empty houe and has a breakdown
- EVERYTHING with Antwon Mitchell (I still, to this day, cannot believe that a guy who is such a goofy MF'er in everything else he does, managed to be, BY FAR, the most frightening bad guy in all 7 Seasons of The Shield), but especially the scene where Shane thinks he's gonna get busted, and figures his only chance is getting Antwon to attack him so Shane has to shoot him "in self defense". So Shane goes into the interrogation room, does this whole speech about Antwon's son being nothing but a "N-word other-F-word" (oh god I love political correctness!!) who's going to wind up "with a back full of shiv and an ass full of cum". That whole speech was amazing writing, but that last line was un-frickin-believable!
- I posted this before (in my single positive review of an episode) (hey, in my defense I only did one negative one, so it's not like I was spending years dissing shows, LOL!), right after I saw the episode because it blew me away. The episode where Kavanaugh's ex is "raped", and he realizes she's lying, and even though she's offering him EVERYTHING he's wanted for who know's how long (ie - for his ex to come back to him), he puts his job first. The camerawork with the "classic romantic ultra-closeup", where their lips are millimeteres apart, she's acting like they're going to kiss and everything will be fine; meanwhile he's in that same position, wanting to kiss her and take her back SO desperately you can see him fighting with himself, but he winds up rejecting her and charging her with a crime. *THEN* the shot hits the fan when he realizes he's being watched by Vic and Lem, and from then on it's all out war against the strike team - throwing Lem in jail with everyone else, offering the team up to Antwon (which Kavanaugh KNOWS will result in the strike team getting killed)....just, WOW!
-> There's also a couple of amazing scenes in the "Third last" and "Second last" eps of the Season. Kavanaugh losing it when he finds out Lem's getting a deal, and the main target (Vic, of course) is walking away free. Even though all the viewers are like "Haha, screw you Kavanaugh, Vic beat you!"...everything Kavanaugh is saying to the Chief is true! Vic DID kill a cop, he DID have sex with Kavanaugh's ex to make the investigation seem like a personal vendetta, he DOES torture suspects, deal drugs, etc. Yet the WHOLE TIME were laughing at Kavanaugh and cheering for Vic's "win". The final scene of the penultimate episode of the season, where they're sending Lem off, at dawn, to hide to the tune of Smashing Pumpkin's "Disarm" was also a beautifully shot scene evoking MEGA emotion without words.
- The scene where Vic "confesses" everything to ICE, especially the part where he's trying to drop all the barriers and admit the "first crime" (Terry's shooting)...woah. Talk about saying a million words with just your facial expressions, OMG!!
Like I said, that's what pops into my head, even though there's probably a million more. Unfortunatly, I can't rightly judge the final episode because some NOT NICE GUY posted online this one sentence RIGHT before I was going to watch the final ep:
**SPOILERS**
"That's it? Shane kills himself, Ronnie goes to jail, and Vic is ICE's errand boy for 3 years? What a letdown!". Maybe, maybe not... but I'll never be able to judge for myself because I found out ALL the surprise endings before I watched the friggin thing. People can be not nice sometimes!
-ak
