Sopranos versus The Shield

I finally figured it out after watching yet another unbelievably great episode of The Shield.  Here’s why The Sopranos is disappointing as it winds down to the end...The Shield is paying off years of setup, just like The Sopranos.  The Shield has a bad guy you love and want to see win, just like The Sopranos.  Both are under suspicion by everyone and are in precarious legal positions and potentially at physical risk for harm.

On The Sopranos I was treated to almost an hour of watching two families camp, and on the The Shield last night Vic Mackey went - alone - into the heart of a gang’s territory, gave up the magazine to his pistol, stood in a rook full of vatos, had a gun put to his head by an over-eager junior gang member, whipped out his own gun and put it to the head of the gang (he still had a round in the chamber, the stoned gangbangers never checked).  Everyone pulled guns and pointed them at Vic.  Vic then calmly explained that he and the leader could walk out, but if anyone shot him, his twitching would blow off the gang leader’s face.  “Either you and I are leaving this room together, or we’re leaving this life together.  Your choice.” The head vato told everyone to lower their guns, then Vic kidnapped him, walked him through maybe 50 to 75 hard-core East L.A. gangbangers to Vic’s truck, Vic reloaded his gun, drove the gang leader out to a main thoroughfare, threatened him while driving at around 50 miles an hour, and when the head Biz-Lat coughed up the info, Vic made him jump out of the moving vehicle and cruised away.

All that was just part of the second act of one episode.

That’s how The Shield rolls - it’s like the entire show is the third act climax and just when you think it can’t build any more, it does.  Meanwhile The Sopranos is all second act.  With this few episode remaining in the entire series, the show should be non-stop excitement and action building to an amazingly emotional and exciting climax.  Instead David Chase is talking us to sleep and he only has eight episodes left.

We shouldn’t be laying any groundwork with only eight episodes left in a six-year run.  All the groundwork - i.e. second act exposition - should have been laid a long time ago.  with eight episodes left we should be in third act mode.  We’re not.  And that is sad.

Posted by JimK at 08:34 PM on April 11, 2007
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