Search - The Shield: Season Six on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 4/9/2022...

Gritty cops and robbers at their best with some cops acting like robbers at times. A must a see!

The end is near...

N. Durham | Philadelphia, PA | 06/06/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The sixth season of FX's The Shield can be considered the penultimate season of the gritty crime drama. Beginning with the aftermath of Lem's (Kenny Johnson) death, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) swears vengeance, unbeknownst to him that his partner Shane (Walton Goggins) is responsible. In the meantime, Vic faces a forced retirement, more so when younger, possibly brasher detective Kevin Hiatt (Moonlight's Alex O'Loughlin) is brought onto the Strike Team as Vic's successor. With Kavanaugh (Forest Whitaker) still lurking in the shadows and still trying to bring Vic down once and for all, things reach a boiling point as Vic comes closer and closer to learning the truth, and the reprecussions that come and are going to come in the upcoming final season. Other plot developments of this season include Claudette (CCH Pounder) adjusting to an illness, Dutch (Jay Karnes) in developments that you won't see coming, Aceveda (Benito Martinez) once again forming an uneasy alliance with Vic, and Shane offering his services to the daughter of an Armenian mob boss (Franka Potente) which he comes to regret. While the sixth season of The Shield offers nothing that hasn't been done on the show before, it is still an ever-compelling television experience that you can't get on network TV. The main cast is still good, and while Forest Whitaker doesn't stick around nearly as long as he did on the previous season, both he and Franka Potente provide for wonderful guest stars. All in all, when watching this season of The Shield, one can tell that the end is indeed near, and what develops next may very well prove that this series will go out with quite a bang."

A step sideways, not back

Patrick G. Varine | Georgetown, Delaware | 07/07/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have to agree somewhat with a previous reviewer in that it seems the writers found out about halfway through writing S6 that there was going to be an S7, because while the first five or six episodes really start to ratchet things up, the back half sort of continually slows down, to the point where the season-ender really seems to "kill you with quiet," to paraphrase another review I'd read.

Additionally, a lot of people may feel that the "big crime" plotline involving a dozen or so hacked-up bodies, an undercover agent and several shady Hispanic figures, was a little too complicated to follow. I didn't think so, but I can see where that might come from.

That said, where that story eventually goes sets up a FANTASTIC plotline for the final season. However, I did find myself waiting for a lot of reckoning between different characters that never came, which reinforces my belief that maybe things were on track for S6 to cap the series, then S7 got a green light, and all of a sudden the writers had to buy a little time.

Regardless, with the notable exception of 'The Wire,' 'The Shield' is still the best, most engaging cop show on TV."

The Shield doesn't step aside, it steps up

~LEON~ | UK | 08/22/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For all its hard-edges and testosterone-fuelled machismo, The Shield never fails to paint its principal characters as touchingly human, even if the moments are few and far between that we get to glimpse these more tender parts, and this is one of the elements of its success at being the most emotionally cathartic, intense, adrenaline-rush on the telly.

The Shield, in my albeit humble opinion, is the single best product ever recorded to celluloid with the intention of playing it back for entertainment purposes: bar nothing. It's the best thing that's ever graced my TV screen, and makes other top-drawer productions look pedestrian and even lame by comparison.

Season six is full-throttle, pedal to the metal in the style we've become accustomed to, but due to events leading up to the start of the season, the protagonists seem to be in the full throes of a ravaging tornado this season, even more than others.

Walt Goggins serves up the convincing intensity of a man who, already mentally questionable at the best of times, is fully unravelling and on a collision course with his own life and the lives of all the others around him as he becomes hopelessly suicidal and insanely reckless on a lone-ranger syle rampage that King Kong would be proud of.

Mackey is on top of his game, keeping a hundred balls in the air at once, making the tough decisions as always, but somehow, this season, you can sense that he is only human and there are things out there that are capable of crushing his game-plan, which has always been a success up to this point and is one of the most admirable things about the man.

The new guy steps up to the vacant spot on the Strike Team with the intention of replacing Mackey as the team leader, and the storyline revolving around his time at the Barn is a worthy one.

The early episode "Baptism by Fire", where Mackey goes "off the grid" to kidnap a Byz Lat gang-boss from his East LA ghetto stronghold, is one of the most insanely edgey and pumped-up things I have ever seen. Only The Shield can crank the intensity up to these levels, leaving all other movies and TV serials in the dust. The tension this programme can create is just unbelievable, it almost gets to the point where you need a hit of The Shield, you're no longer just watching it.

All in all, season six is superb. It juggles all the relevant parts and people in just the right way, and keeps on turning up the volume, even from points where you don't think it can anymore. It's insane. Season seven I have no doubt will be even crazier. I can't speak highly enough of this TV series, the quality of its creative and technical production and anyone and everyone who is and was involved in making it. There's never been anything else like it, it's a total trail-blazer that keeps getting better as each season goes past. Full marks 100% if 5 stars isn't good enough for ya."