Season 7, Episode 1 "Coefficient of Drag"
Air date: 9-2-2008
When I was
young I was invincible
I found myself not thinking twice
I never thought about no future
It's just a roll of the dice
But the day may come when you've got something to lose
And just when you think you're done paying dues
You say to yourself "Dear, God What have I Done?"
And hope its not to late cause tomorrow may never come
Then he walks in his front door to find his wife hogtied and Vic and Ronnie waiting to beat him down - and we're off to the races! That look of sexy terror on Mara's hogtied face as Vic exits was a classic opening cut image, cutting directly into the theme song and credits, holding that look as the emotional focus for a minute through the credit sequence.
In this opening salvo of the final season, the Strike Team crosses one of the last thresholds as Ronnie Gardocki absolutely flatly assassinates Zadofian, the Armenian hit man who had been sent to kill Vic's family. Ronnie had implicitly went along with setting up a banger to whack Armadillo back a couple of years. It was only on a second viewing that I got the point that this assassination was a careful setup. He didn't just get mad and say 'screw it.' Ronnie had to do it, because this guy's blood was in Vic's house. Thus they made sure that Vic was absolutely in the Barn with Captain Wyms. Notice the little smile of satisfaction on his face as he walks away after hearing the report of shots fired at Edgemont.
But like with so many things in Farmington, it's hard to hold that real hard against Ronnie. This guy was out to kill Vic's children. Just quickly putting a couple of slugs in him might seem merciful, or at least it would to somebody from my neck of the woods. Of course, Shane with the chopping of the feet later made it more gruesome, but that didn't mean anything to Zadofian by that point. Note how Vic and Ronnie got Shane to admit to chopping off the feet, but wouldn't admit to doing the killing - so Shane definitely knew they were lying to him.
But things in Farmington have deteriorated so much that whacking the feet off a corpse seems somewhat tame. The central escalation at this point was that some of Pezuela's Mexican gang marked newly claimed territory in blood by dragging a couple of rival Salvadorans around the block. Watching Vic and Claudette walk along that trail, they're stepping over severed body parts, which wasn't nearly as gross as a full on view of the mutilated corpses - which didn't that much really seem to affect any of the cops.
Dutchman as ever constantly struggles with the simplest things related to girls. He managed to embarass himself with Danny, more or less apologizing or just making needless awkward talk about their little kiss in the last season finale, a couple of days ago in their timeline. But he's got his moments. Now hot little Tina is seeing him as desirable. She apparently accidentally made the setup while physically wrestling with paperwork, asking Dutch "Can you fill my box?" That might have been an accident, but she distinctly took ownership of it with the knowing follow up comment about how well he'd packed her box.
Steve Billings is The Shield's comic gift that keeps on giving. He's not a holy fool, but just a notably contemptible plain old run of the mill venal fool. Still, he has his moments - when he feels properly motivated. It was one of those good moments that screwed his game. But his BS lawsuit claiming disability from bumping his head on the desk during a Mackey-Kavanaugh brawl was excellent. Billings milked this business for all he was worth with the sunglasses and the therapeutic need for sushi.
But of course it was just a thing of beauty to watch how Dutch played him, getting him to help solve an old murder and prove that he wasn't disabled as he was claiming in his cheesy lawsuit that the city had been ready to settle. He figured out that Billings had been publicly humiliated by the prosecutor at the original time of the case for screwing it up. So Dutch brings her down, and makes up a couple of good cracks that he tells Billings she's saying. Got Billings motivated to interrogate the witness and prove the prosecutor wrong. "I'm sure those fat white guards in Double D block already have a cum stained cot with your name on it." So he solved the case, but disproved his own lawsuit by the video and witnesses of his skillful interrogation. Instead of retiring on a fat city settlement, he gets NOTHING and has to go back to work. Interrogating the murderer's fiance was one of Billings' finer moments. And the checkmate on the lawsuit was one of Dutch's more satisfying moments.
There was a big raid scene that was nominally on the Mexican gang storyline, but not really connected in the drama. It was something of a stand alone scene which serves multiple simultaneous purposes in a manner that displays the beauty of the writing. It was a good visceral scene, some good shooting action in the midst of the all the complicated plot dramas. Cops under fire! Just the simplest classic style Vic Mackey move pays the whole scene off. Seeing Ronnie and the guys inside under fire, late arriving Vic phones Ronnie that he's going to "create a diversion" and then immediately does so by absolutely driving through the front windows directly into the office where the bad guys with machine guns are firing. That was very visceral and fun, and a perfect little simple Mackey macho move. Plus, notice how the humor of that moment made Ronnie laugh, and broke the weird emotions and "distant stare" that were bearing down on him after assassinating the Armenian.
Says Mara to Corrine after comparing notes on their experiences being kidnapped and manhandled by each other's husbands "Maybe we need to step in so that somebody doesn't get hurt." Yeah, the wives jumping into ugly gang wars that they know nothing about. That'll end up good.
So Vic's got two main problems: the Armenian mob ready to kill his family, and Pezuela's Mexican mob murdering and blackmailing their way into political power and real estate. So naturally the move is to play them against one another. He got Shane to convince the Armenian head Resian that his intra-gang rival Diro has gone in cahoots with the Mexicans. Meanwhile, Vic sets Pezuela up to think the Armenians are moving in on his turf, and that Resian's getting all his precious blackmail files - which of course Vic and Aceveda have put away. Plus, he got Pezuela convinced enough that he might need Vic's help with the Armenians to motivate Pezuela to spend the money and influence to put back the vote on Vic's forced retirement for a month.
This looks like it's moving in the right direction. "The sooner they bleed out, the sooner my family's safe." Put the Mexicans and Armenians to killing one another - best for Vic and the world at large. In the last line of the episode, Vic says "We just sit back and watch the gang war." You KNOW it ain't going to be that easy.
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