Everyone has rules. Some of us don’t kiss on the first date. Some of us need a kiss on the first date, and some of us don’t tell if whether we’ve had that kiss on the first date or not. In television and film, characters are built around the rules writers and directors set for them. If a character breaks one of these rules, the audience will most likely be taken out of the film and not take the character seriously. This is true for every television show.
If Clark Kent in Smallville suddenly killed a criminal we would no longer believe in that character because he has made a drastic shift within his set of rules. I say all this, because I’m about 5 episodes in to The Shield season 1 and I have no idea what Vic Mackey’s rules are. This episode, entitled Cherrypopper, however definitely defines those rules clearly.
The episode’s main plot deals with Dutch taking control of the precinct in order to find a serial killer with a penchant for killing young prostitutes. No serial killer is found, but in his search to find the killer, we do get insight on what makes Vic Mackey tick. Here are some things we find out:
Vic Mackey Loves the Kids:
Mackey will never hurt a child, and he obviously has a soft spot for them. We’ve seen this before in episode one when Mackey urges a crackhead to take the kids in the crackhouse somewhere safe, and we also have seen this when a child was ran over by a gang banger in Dawg Days. In this episode Mackey uncovers an underground sex club called “Cherrypoppers”, in which young preteen Asian girls are raped in front of onlookers and a video camera. We can see in Mackey’s face that he has compassion for these young girls, and he even makes it his personal duty to care for one of the rape victims during the duration of the episode.
There’s a great scene between Mackey and Dutch where Dutch shows frustration with Mackey for uncovering the underground sex club on “his time” rather than trying to find the serial killer. It’s an important scene, because at that moment Mackey seems to have more humanity than his straight-laced counterpart Dutch. Mackey may like to get a little action on the side, but he definitely wants to make a difference and catch criminals too. It is in this scene that Dutch looks more like a person trying to get recognition off cracking a case than a person that actually cares about the people in the case he’s solving. Again, the question of motives and results comes up. Does Dutch’s motives matter, if in the end he actually catches his serial killer? It’s up to the audience to decide.
Vic Mackey Doesn’t Hit Women:
Vic Mackey might punch a drug dealer in the privates, but he would never hit a woman, even if she were a murderer. We get to see this when one of Mackie’s prostitute-junkie informants kills a john after he starts to act “funny”. She calls on to Mackey because she considers him a friend, and believes he will understand her plight. In a previous episode the prostitute was raped and cut by “semen-man”. The ordeal left her traumatized in an “Aileen Wuornos” kind of way. When Mackey gets to the scene of the crime he tells her his “hands are tide” and that he has to call in the murder. He is this close to calling in the murder until she begs him to help her, telling him that she would lose her son if she goes to jail. They concoct a plan to make it look like self-defense, but the plan will only work if she has the bruises to prove it. Mackey knows he has to hit her in order to make it look as if the john assaulted her, and we can see that he cannot bring himself to do it. Mackey cannot hit a woman.
We can make a clear comparison between women and children and say that Mackey cannot hurt anyone who is inherently innocent. We are told that women and children are gentle creatures and are harmless. This assumption is false, but Mackey seems to buy in to it. Mackey definitely wants to protect those who are innocent, and it is his need to protect the innocent that makes him hate those who are criminals. Mackey is disgusted by those who break the law, and considers them to be less than human and therefore deserve to be mistreated and exploited. It is this kind of reasoning that allows Mackey to kill and blackmail criminals with no sense of remorse.
Vic Mackey Looks Out for His Own:
Vic definitely cares about his fellow officers. He believes that the police force is a brotherhood and that all officers need to look out for each other. When Mackey feels betrayed by his brotherhood, he takes it personal, which is why he killed Terry. Terry was a rat, and Vic couldn’t stomach the idea of a rat being in his circle. Vic Mackey definitely shows his sense of camaraderie when he has a conversation with Dutch at the end of the episode. Dutch is unsuccessful in his search for the serial killer and begins to beat himself up and lash out on everyone for it. It isn’t until Mackey gives him a pat on the back that he realizes that it’s ok that he didn’t catch the killer. Throughout the entire season Mackey and Dutch have been bumping heads, so to show these two having a moment together really gives us some insight on Mackey’s psyche. He may bust your chops here and there, but if your one of his then you’re family. No if ands or buts about it.
In Other News:
Officer Lowe continues his quest for justice despite Aceveda’s advice to “let it go.” Officer Lowe is definitely an annoying individual. I’m having a hard time dealing with my hatred for rats, which I had no idea I had before watching this show. And to think, I thought I was a stand up citizen.
Dutch’s obsession with finding Sallie’s murderer will most likely haunt him in future episodes. I’ll be covering this in more details if it begins to develop in later episodes.
Episode Rating: 4.5
Viewing Time: 2:00 pm. Laptop. Alone.
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