The Shield S01E01: Pilot Review

The Shield S01E01: Pilot Review

Medium: Television

Release date: 3/12/2002

Review date: 9/19/2024

Score: 8/10

A pretty riveting pilot from start to finish - I don't feel like any minute was really wasted. The basis of the series, that Mackey is a crooked L.A. cop who is known at the precinct and kind of despised but found too useful in the moment when a "really bad cop" is needed that he's kept around and allowed to operate with carte blanche, is established pretty clearly and efficiently, with the episode managing to save one final twist of just how bad of a cop Mackey is until the end (which I appreciated, as I was finding Mackey to come across a little too sympathetic in the rest of the episode, brutal violence aside). I did think the B plot involving the pedophiles felt a little much in terms of creating moral grayness around Mackey's behavior, specifically in him beating one of the suspects in custody to get the location of a locked up, kidnapped girl - seemed like an easy out to be like "Aw geez guys, I don't know if crooked cops are really that bad, they beat up a pedophile and saved a kid, c'mon." But then Mackey shooting the undercover fed at the end of the episode kind of kills any of that notion, so maybe that was the point. The show was very well acted across the board, I thought both of the detectives were fun and could see them bouncing off Mackey and his people pretty well as the series progresses. Speaking of Mackey's crew, I was delighted to see a younger Walton Goggins as his second in command, always great to see him in a project. Overall, very exciting stuff.