It took a while, but I finally wrapped up Season 4. Ironically, the season wasn't as strong as I remembered.

The season starts with the Strike Team being broken up after Vic and Shane's fight at the end of season 3. Lem's working with juvenile offenders, Shane's in vice and Vic and Ronnie are still at the Barn working the garage sting. New captain Monica Rawlings shakes things up with a property seizure program and throws gasoline on the fire by putting Vic in charge. Amazingly, Vic plays it straight (for the most part), but gets mixed up in trying to keep an out-of-control Shane out of trouble. That proves almost impossible with Shane working for Farmington's Most Wanted drug lord, Antoine Mitchell. Mitchell almost buries Shane for good, but Vic, once again, saves his ass. Aceveda goes through his own shell shock of his sexual assault, and eventually has to cover his ass by offering Mitchell (who may or may not have had something to do with the deaths of two cops) up to the DEA, who will give him immunity.

Once again, an association with Vic burns everyone but Vic, but the Strike Team ends up back together by season's end, but a screw-up by Lem puts them in the Internal Affairs crosshairs.

Highlights: Anthony Anderson as Antoine Mitchell. Just like with Armadillo, the show has some of the best bad guys and then the stories end with a poof instead of a bang. Maybe that was meant to echo real life. Glenn Close as Monica Rawlings could have been a disaster and tapered off at the end, but I liked the performance. Dutch whooping Billings' ass also was pretty good stuff. Also, a lot less Corrine and Mara in this season. The writers set so much up for future episodes and seasons that you can catch in hindsight when watching the show for a second time.

Lowlights:
Shane, Shane and Shane. Dude was such a fuckup and Army was a pretty damn bad foil for him as well. This could be the writers spinning the character out of control, but Shane has always been too schizophrenic a character at times to be taken seriously. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Walton Goggins put in some good ass performances during the course of the show, but this had to be his weakest season. As a contrast, it was Kenneth Johnson's strongest as Lem. It makes Lem's fate even more tragic.

Overall grade: B

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