(S06E04) To say the Strike Team experienced a shakeup in tonight's episode would be an understatement to say the least.

Claudette once again shows her brilliance by leading Vic along into thinking he's got a chance to stick around at The Barn. Somewhat surprisingly it works like a charm. Vic chums right up to his new replacement of all people, and Julien being added to the team is met with no fuss. Vic is one well-behaved little puppy.

(S06E02) As I was watching this episode I couldn't help but think how ironic it was how Kavanaugh went out of his way to make Mackey look sloppy, when I think Kavanaugh was being the sloppy one all along. How long could he keep up that charade? How long could he keep Amoya under his control and not looking incredibly suspicious?

Meanwhile, as Kavanaugh continues his witch hunt against Mackey (it does feel like a witch hunt, doesn't it?), Vic continued a witch hunt of his own. Though Vic was into being the judge and jury, Kavanaugh was just playing judge.

Jonathan mentioned a few weeks ago that Bud TV would be debuting a sort of "bridge episode" of The Shield. The 15-minute short is now available for viewing on the site, and after viewing it I'd say it plays a lot more like the first fifteen minutes of the new season premiere.

For those who are sad to see Lem gone from the series, this short video will only make you hate what Shane did with even more passion. Read on for a short rundown of what goes on in the video (image to the right is a little teaser for you).

One of the things I love about this show is the play on words of its title: The Shield. A shield means protection. In particular, the shield a police officer carries, his badge, is protection. Take the shield away and you're just another citizen. When you're accused of wrongdoing, you've got nothing to hide behind, and there is no backup.

There are those things that make this show hard to watch, such as what happened to ex-Strike Teamer Tavon a while back, to Terry in season one and then, of course, what happened tonight. When you've invested this much into The Shield like I have, scenes like that are hard to take.

Usually I'd go on about all sorts of things that happened in an episode of this show: the interaction between Dutch and Billings, Danny's baby. But not tonight.