In this week’s issue of TIME, a look back at The Shield and very-spoiler-light look ahead to its final two episodes, including some themes I’ve been writing about here:
The show’s themes and Chiklis’ brooding, minotaur-like physicality invite comparison with that Urtext of male antiheroes, The Sopranos. But our relationship with Mackey is more complicated–and self-implicating–than ours was with Tony Soprano. Tony was roguish and funny; we even rooted for him against other Mob bosses. But we had more distance from him because he was a criminal and a sociopath, beyond redemption and beyond our experience.
Vic Mackey may not be one of us either. But he is one of ours.