The second half of season five and all of Season six began the showcase of Walton Goggins' pure skill as Shane. There was a documentary that went with Season 5 that explained Shane as a character and how he was a mirror image of Vic, who was a coward in his own right, but had the courage to make hard decisions that would come back to bite him, Shane thought he was like Vic, but was ultimately out for himself. He also lacked the stomach to do the things that truly needed to be done until season seven, but he was too much of a fuckup to be able to truly pull it off and cover his ass. However, Goggins' performance stands right up there with the best dramatic performances I've ever seen on television and definitely one of, if not the best overall performance on the show. And with that said, here's the review of Season Six:

Summary:
Vic and the team spend the season hunting Lem's killer, who they believe is Guardo, but is actually Shane. Shane's guilt over the murder leads him to become increasingly paranoid and self destructive, illustrated in his affair with the barely legal squeeze of the new head of the 1-9ers that ends up with him getting his ass beat and in the hospital at the end of his rope. Meanwhile, Vic executes a scheme to lure Guardo out of hiding, only to discover (after he's tortured and killed the poor guy) that he had nothing to do with Lem's death. All the while, Claudette moves to keep Vic quiet while his replacement, Hiatt is getting his feet wet with the team and boning Tina, Dutch's crush.

When Shane admits he killed Lem and why, Vic issues an ultimatum that leads Shane to compile a "confession" of Strike Team "sins" as leverage to save his own ass from Vic's wrath. Vic eventually uses his newfound connection with Cruz Pezuela to leverage himself into keeping his job. Problem is Aceveda is also wrapped up with Pezuela, who is supporting his campaign for mayor. Pezuela gives Vic a copy of the long thought destroyed pic of Aceveda's sexual assault, which Vic gives to Aceveda in exchange for his trust and leads that give Vic possession of a box of intel Pezuela has gathered to secure his power in Farmington...

I'm tired just writing all that. For the shortest season of the show (only 10 episodes), they sure managed to cram a ton of storylines into it.

Highlights:
The planting of the seeds that would lead to the ultimate fate of Vic, Shane, Ronnie and their families...well Vic and Shane's anyway. The contempt/respect relationship between Dutch and Billings. Another web of intrigue that keeps you guessing until the end of the season, and then gets you excited for what's to follow. Paula Garces' expanded role as Tina, which upped the sexy quotient in the show, but still couldn't come close to the pure crazysexiness of Gina Torres in two damn episodes. Oh well, they tried. I think this is the only season of the show where Vic wasn't getting laid every five minutes. I guess he finally got too busy to get some. This is the same guy who successfully took down an Armenian hitman that couldn't be tracked by the federal government and still found time to screw two different women in the span of a few days. And that ain't even counting Danny. Less Corrine this season made me very happy.

Lowlights:
I guess Kavanaugh's desperation was evident at the end of season five, but with everything we knew about the guy, it just seems like he'd be more apt to shoot Vic himself than try and frame him. Then again, the way the situation was resolved was satisfactorily enough. The season was too short. A couple more episodes dealing with Shane's desperation and guilt might have made it more powerful. Everything came to a head with that a little too quickly. Mara began coming to the forefront. I've written about this before, but I genuinely hate that character.

Overall grade: A
<----My debut album cover


Finally...The Blog of the Sith: http://shef1556.blogspot.com/