CONTINUED SPOILERS

I love The Wire—it is always warring, along with The Shield, for my favorite show spot—but I do think there's a way in which it's too easy to concede the field there.  @avclub-f6f154417c4665861583f9b9c4afafa2:disqus noted above that it's possible to watch The Shield for the straightforward storyline—and I would add to…

Dutch's victory, followed so quickly by his breakdown, is still one of the most quintessential Dutch moments of the show for me, and a perfect example of how nothing on The Shield ever cancels out anything else.  He isn't just destroyed and he isn't just victorious: he's both.  And unlike Vic, he can't…

@avclub-3b4206840686bf0aab3032155dc2042a:disqus , you'd think, but no: they just thought he was "weird."  It possibly included the spoiler, but it was not entirely inspired by it.  Which I thought was weird.

Someone told me once that they didn't like Dutch, and I think my reaction involved a lot of blinking.  I didn't know that was possible, and it was certainly bizarre.

And a duet on "Hungry Like the Wolf."

STILL MORE SPOILERS

Lem is just innately likeable in almost every scene he's in: you must have good taste in friends/acquaintances.

VERY MILD SPOILERS

Can we add L. A. Confidential as one of those movies you have to see if you like The Shield?  And then I'd add A Simple Plan, and I think we already covered No Country for Old Men.

I was worried about Winona from seeing her at the end of the episode, and then as soon as I noticed that we couldn't see the face of the man setting up the glider, who of course turned out to be Picker.  Nice call with the quietly and retrospectively horrifying: "What's his name again?"

I think the early episodes had most of the Strike Team dropping out randomly at some point for an episode.  They were off… doing corruption-y things?  Vic's always there, but I think the others shuffle around for a while as the writers tried to figure out how to use them.

MILD SPOILERS

I need to tell people more often that they're doing the Lord's work.

I can't help but feel that Michael Jace wouldn't have minded playing gay so much if Julien's boyfriend hadn't been the most annoying person in the entire world.

True.  Although I do buy Vic's intense point-making, if only because it's consistent: he seems throughout the series to take seemingly unrelated bits of business and translate them for his own benefit.  He should be nice to Dutch because his daughter think that nice boys aren't worth it; he should forgive Shane…

SPOILERS FOR THE SHIELD AND BREAKING BAD

This is an entirely unworthy comment to this great of a post, but I snorted at the ending of this: isn't this also the same episode in which Vic has to, in essence, explicitly spell out to Shane, "My autistic son is a metaphor for you"?  Their dynamic vacillates between hilarious and heartbreaking even in these early…

Agreed that the Bob beatdown didn't work for me.  While the Tarantino Reservoir Dogs scene it was most reminiscent of combined sunny music and violence, it did it in a way that brought both into sharper relief, whereas here, the tone ended up feeling muddled for me rather than layered.  That said, I support Bob…

I loved all of those shows, but nothing ever destroyed me quite the way The Shield did, so seconded, definitely.  And I can't reply to wallflower below—or I just haven't mastered Disqus yet—but I agree that a huge part of that is how The Shield is the only one that's structured as a tragedy.  Can't wait to hear more…