The Shield

Haunts

Season 6, Episode 5, Aired 5/1/07

Episode Summary

After being badly beaten, Shane's life spirals even more out of control as his guilt continues to eat away at him and his marriage begins to fall apart. Vic and Ronnie try to learn who was responsible for Shane's attack. Meanwhile, under the new leadership of Kevin Hiatt, Claudette assigns the Strike Team to investigate the San Marcos murders. Dutch and Billings make progress in a serial rapist case.

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9.1

EPISODE RATING: Superb

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Cast & Crew

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Walton Goggins

Detective Shane Vendrell
Michael Jace

Officer Julien Lowe
Michael Chiklis

Detective Vic Mackey

Fan Episode Reviews (7)

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Marking Time

7.5

"Good"

By Janer1, Feb 14, 2011 Report Abuse

I expect to have people disagree with this, but my problems with this episode are pretty much the same as with last week's episode: while the players are still the best ensemble on TV, the writing has settled into a comfort zone, with too much of it having a recycled and predictable feel. The Carl Weathers storyline just confused me, the rapist storyline came off like a tame reworking of other child predator storylines, and the new alignment of the Strike Team just isn't jelling for me - the addition of Hiatt has given it a homogeneity (sp) that even the addition of Julian can't energize. The Julian storyline was very provocative, the "re-orientation" issue was one I had never seen before - and then they just dropped it. The Corinne storyline seems to be concentrating around her work, and it's taking on the "Glenn Close" feel - i.e., she's everywhere - is she an ER nurse, an ICU nurse, a ward nurse? I liked her character and the actress, but she seems to be used as filler a bit too much. The redeeming factor? The final scene - the confession had a real charge - Goggins is a powerful actor, but he really pulled it all out here. And - Antwone Mitchell is coming back, which, IMHO, may be exactly the element this season needs to bring it back to speed.moreless

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A good episode, but enough with the melodrama, already. It's time to bring some resolution to some of the dangling plot threads before the show devolves into formula. Still a must-see ep for Walt Goggin's Emmy-worthy performance.moreless

9.0

"Superb"

By rockin01, Feb 14, 2011 Report Abuse

Magnificent performance by Walton Goggins in an otherwise placeholder episode. This week they went back to the Dutch-solves-a-weirdo-rapist-case formula, which I haven't missed at all. They also brought back Mara and Joe Clark. I love the way The Shield never forgets an old character, but in the past their returns have served to advance the narrative. The subplot with Clark felt forced and unnecessary. I understand bringing Mara in to show the deterioration of Shane's home life, but I have never liked the actress playing her, and she was clearly in over her head in the charged scenes with Walton. That being said, I'll take a slightly subpar episode of The Shield over just about anything else, any day...moreless

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Ronnie shaves his beard. Joe Clark Returns. And Julian can't put down his darn note pad. All this and a battered Shane Vendrell on this weeks episode of The Shield.

9.0

"Superb"

By AlexKrycec, May 02, 2007 Report Abuse

The episode begins with Shane's Intake into Mission Cross. Corine recognizes his swollen face, and soon baby face Ronnie and Vic arrive to see what happened. The two offer to look into who jumped him, and intend on returning the beating.

Vic and Ronnie return to the Barn, where Claudette puls Vic and Kevin aside to officially inform them that they are now on the San Marcos Massacre. She asks them to keep it confidential that if this case doesn't get solved, the barn may be shut down for good.

Dutch and Billings continue into their investigation of the "go home" rapist. When approached by a representitive of a youth shelter, Billings reminds Dutch of his profile, noting that this representitive fits the description. After a search of his house, they pin him as the key suspect. It looks like Dutch and Billings may turn out to be a better team than we thought. David Marciano's acting truly shines after their arrest of the rapist.

Vic and Ronnie peal away from Kevin and Julian to follow up on Shane's beating. Moses comes forward saying that Shane's been dipping in Moses' pie, which might give Vic and co. reason to suspect him. They follow up with Shane's new squeeze who tells them it was her father who attacked Shane.

Meanwhile, Aceveda introduces one of his constituents to Wyms, seeking information on the massacre. Claudette, not pleased with the intrusion, lays into Aceveda for his inconvenience and request for sensitive information.

While Shane's in the hospital, Mara receives Shane's possessions from Corrine. Mara finds condoms among his belongings and demands an answer.

Joe Clark returns and asks Vic for a favor in rmeoving some drug dealers from an apartment complex so he can be paid by the landlord for services. Out of fear for Clark's safety, he joins Joe and his friend in a raid, but is disgusted at what they do.

While the Strike Team tries to make progress on the SMM, they find Hernan, who insists that it was a Mex on Mex hit. The Salvadorans had nothing to do with it. Hernan also corroborates that Guardo was in Mexico when Lem was slain. Vic believes him, telling Ronnie that Hernan's not wrong.

The episode closes with Shane returning home after snorting a few lines of cocaine and hitting the Oxycodone. He begs Mara to take him back, but she's sick of his rationalizing his actions based on Lem's death. After several requests to be taken back, he pulls his gun and says he can't take it anymore and confesses to murdering Lem. The scene ends with Mara taking him back, holding him in her arms.

There are several revaltions (maybe not to all of us) that have been illustrated in this episode. The first being that Kevin may not be too different from Vic. Kevin tells Julian that the method of the Strike Team is to present your boss with the picture, not a puzzle piece. Vic seemed to have an admiration in his methods. The second major revalation is that Vic knows Guardo did not kill Lem. More and more, Guardo is painted as being in Mexico through more eyewitness accounts.

The third revalation is that Shane is abusing drugs. This, along with his already unstable mindset, will surely lead to his demise. Finally, in riding along with Joe clark, Vic may have seen his future. I'm 100% certain that playing vigilante ex-cop is not what Vic has in mind to get by for the rest of his life. Something needs to change for him and fast.

Until next week Shield fans...moreless

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While the start and most of this episode seemed slow, things do pick up (spoilers)

9.5

"Superb"

By blknge, May 02, 2007 Report Abuse

While the episode started off with you know case after case and everbody's got their hands full it does get good. Shane's beating did seem to feel a little random but it does help at the same time. The wife who has been out of the picture for sometime comes back, I do feel like every character that ever came into the show that most of them should always come around and appear to always become affected by the events going on. I hope they do some more with Vic's kids, I feel like I don't know them enough and they only became important when it came to that autisim illness and their care. Vic's old partner makes a return and I loved that I missed him a lot since season 2 and I thought he could have really done a lot for the show. As I watched this episode I get the feeling that he's really messed up and will go to Vic to get a job done because he can rely on him so much, that other guy running with him is sure messed up though and thank you Vic for punching him out.

Shane is really messed up now and they better take this further. Now that his confession has been said it's only a matter of time before the guys use Shane's wife to get the details on Lem's murder. My predications are that he's going to try to take the route they gave Lem, run away. He's going to get away if he knows that Vic knows. Great episode makes me really wish another episode was going to play after the end credits.moreless

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At the halfway of Season 6, and it doesn't disappoint. Walton Goggins once again proves that he's the best actor on the show, hands down.

9.5

"Superb"

By Figgnuts, May 02, 2007 Report Abuse

Wow. Wow wow wow.

This episode takes the emotional intensity of the first three episodes of this season, mixed it with the classic Shield formula, and came out with this little gem.

They really did a number on Shane this time, didn't they? I think this may be the most brutal physical violence we've ever seen against a main cast member. Sure, we had Julien and Ronnie in Season 2, but I would argue that this is worse. Hood Rat's dad was looking to kill. I suppose it's not too far of a stretch to suggest that Shane's physical appearance matches his emotional (or, if you prefer, spiritual) mindset now. His entire being is in turmoil - he can't move without feeling pain and he can't seem to reconcile what he did with himself, and now his entire world is starting to crumble around him. He risked his marriage and his family on a fling to ease his pain, and because of it he was nearly beaten to death. At once, Shane wants to be absolved of his crime and feels that he doesn't deserve to be. This is why he begs Vic and Ronnie not to go after Hood Rat's dad; it's not out of any kind of respect he has for the girl or her father, it's because he feels he DESERVED the beating that he got.

I liked the return of Joe, Vic's training officer, in this episode. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I didn't quite get the emotional beat of this story right away - to be honest, I thought that Joe was setting Vic up somehow. But when I stopped to think about it for a bit, I realize that Vic is on the verge of being in the position we saw Joe in in Season 2's "Partners" - abandoned by the city he dutifully (if illegally) served, barely scraping by with no contact with his family. Vic looks at Joe, and sees what his old mentor has become - a man who will torture two more-or-less innocent people just for a few duckets - and he sees what could very easily lie in store for him in the future. It's powerful, and its power mostly comes from its subtlety.

Those are the biggies for me this week. I also liked the Dutch/Billings story this week, because it's classic Shield and it's also pretty awesome that we see Billings get the drop on Dutch for once. It looks like everything comes to a head next week. Can't wait.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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Trivia
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Notes
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- This marks the 3rd time Michael Chiklis has directed an episode of "The Shield", the first being "Slipknot" in Season 3 and "Rap Payback" in Season 5. Edit
- International Airdates: Australia: March 3, 2008 on Network 10 Czech Republic: October 2, 2008 on AXN Finland: October 1, 2009 on Nelonen Edit
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