Not in being a bad show, by any means, but by not living up to even 1/2 it's potential. I'll probably do up a post after the whole season is over, but here's some of it in short, and then last night's episode breakdown.

The reason shows like Homicide and The Wire (which we often compare to The Shield, right or wrong) succeeded is because the show also focused on the personal lives of the individuals. In the case of Homicide, I dare say more emphasis was given to how they delt with the job, on and off the clock, more than the job itself. The Shield toys with that, gives us a bit of it, then abandons it to focus on getting Antwoin and crew. True, it may be harder to focus on backstory for so many characters in 13-15 shows, but it can be done better than that. Just look st Julien's storyline. WTF?!? Like I said, I'll break it down more in a seperate post.

Now for last night

So, Antwoin now has deals with Nigerians and the Russians. That's a bit of a stretch. Making him a cold blooded killer and really bad dude was more than enough. This put it a bit over the top for me.

Someone PLEASE tell me what the hell a city councilman does, because Aceveda doesn't seem to do much besides fuck with his old precient, fuck high priced hookers, wear his holloween cop costume and wimper back to his family like everything will be fine. I would rather have the hooker pop back up and wreck his like than the duck sick incident. And even he has to have someone else on teh inside to deal with him, instead of turning to Antwoin. He can't be that damn stupid. Shit, Vic managed to get Armadillo shanked in the cage. It's a convenient way to get Antwoin back in play and write Rawlings out without killing her, but still. Even Acebeda cannot be that stupid.

They wasted too much opportunity with Dutch and Claudette. They could have rode the animosity between then a bit longer. Now it's just like old times, more or less. The only thing Claudette has to do is give Dutch that vexed look every time he does something stuipd. And why the hell is Dutch passing off his work on Danny and Julien? He needed to follow up with the carzy lady. Maybe then he's have got shot in the sholder. Julien should have let her have it.

Strike Team got back together too quick for me. Old friends or not, if someone burnt millions of my dollars, shot one of my witnesses, has a contract put on my head and basically was a dick for months, we won't be joking in the back of any Tahoe any time soon without a beatdown or two.

Did they ever find that body?
Is The Picture out there?
Are Danny and Vic hitting it again, or is it a one show thing?
What is Julien still doing at the barn? And where the hell is his family?
Why isn't Army shot yet?
What happened to the car survelience thing?

These and many other unansered questions will probably remain just that.