Ode to Antiheroes

I have finally caught up with The Shield (7th & Final Season) and Dexter (3rd Season). Here are my impressions.

Dexter--The first two seasons of Dexter were incredible. Where shows like The Shield and The Sopranos had antiheroes who also had a warmer side when it came to family, Dexter the serial killer didn't really have a warmer side, and yet you still somehow always rooted for him. The first two seasons of Dexter played incredibly well, with intricate season-long story arcs that had insanely intense climaxes. Season 3 didn't live up to that standard, though. I still love the show, but the series-long arc was so implausible and the show fell into my biggest pet peeve in dramatic television--often the characters had to do something out of character in order to move the plot forward. That drives me crazy! Still, some of the moments shared between series star Michael C. Hall and Jimmy Smits were insanely great. So, overall a series well worth watching and a season that was good but not as good as its predecessors.

The Shield--The final season of this landmark show did not disappoint. The main protagonist is such an amazing antihero. Every season, heck almost every show, included some impossibly desperate situation for its dirty cop protagonist Vic Mackey (played brilliantly by Michael Chiklis), and yet he always managed to leverage his way out of the jam he and his team were in. In the final season, does the tangle of lies and deceptions finally catch up with Mackey and his crew? I won't give any spoilers, but this show did not disappoint. The last five minutes was perfectly played out, incredibly with barely any spoken dialog from Chiklis. David Chase could have taken some script notes from Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield) when drafting the final season of the Sopranos. Those last three Shield episodes were amongst the most intensely suspenseful that I have ever witnessed from a TV series.

Next on my antihero playlist-- Weeds. I have never watched an episode, but I'm itching to start. As a fan of Chiklis, I'm also wondering if I should look into catching him with hair in The Commish. Either or both of those series will take a while to watch especially with Lost starting next month, so don't go looking for my impressions anytime soon.