It’s back.

• Oh, the sound of rubber gloves snapping on all down the hallway…I am neither hot nor bothered (they call it a teaser for a reason, y’all), and that’s a first.

You’re gonna have to show me what that good God gave you right now.

• It’s Vic and Mitchell, and they usually have great chemistry, but…something’s off here. Mackey’s his usual scary self, particularly in closeup, but when the camera pulls back it doesn’t look like he believes his own accusations. And I guess at this point, he doesn’t. He’s casting around for anyone who’s ever wronged him, and that’s a long fucking list, don’t get me wrong…but what happens when every name is crossed off?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my final encore. Making the great Vic Mackey think I’m everyone and everywhere.

• Mitchell has a speech here that I’m really hard-pressed not to just quote in its entirety.

Y’know, chasing ghosts hasn’t done you any favors…I didn’t off your boy. Wish I did, and so do you. Cause if you’re coming after me for this, that means you lost your last clue.

• THAT LOOKS LIKE A MICKEY MOUSE SILHOUETTE ON SHANE’S SHIRT. This does not surprise me in the slightest.
• Oh, man, a Cassidy mention. Must we? I don’t care for Vic’s spawn.

Just put this in the rearview mirror.

• I don’t know about this reveal, with Vic and Ronnie and the grenade count. I actually watched this scene about five times and it’s taken almost an hour for me to decide that I just don’t know. It’s stupid of me to expect a big Moment of revelation from The Shield, and that’s not how my expectations roll, but it’s SHANE, for fuck’s sake, and I’d expect a little something more earth-shattering than this slow burn and build, however masterfully constructed.
• Hyatt hitting on Shane’s woman = LOL, but…dude. Don’t.
• Did I just hear “Someone gave her an OJ shave?” Is that what I just heard?
• All right, normally, the whole Dutch and Tina subplot doesn’t creep me out because it’s so farfetched and Dutch is so bumbling that I tend to just laugh my way through the scenes, but his tone of voice on “You belong here” was downright skee-zay.
• Guardo’s girl Nadia, back again. Still digging her moves.

We are not gonna accuse Mackey of murder and be wrong, again.

• Here’s something to point out about the PTA mom Vic’s questioning: He’s working her over big time. And she may be protesting–but she ain’t running.
• All right. It was stupid and contrived and utterly high school, but that one moment with Dutch-and-Hyatt-and-Tina-and-Danny, all high school through the glass? That was fucking delightful. Just that one shot.
• I hate Cassidy. I mentioned that, right? Where the hell did this subplot come from?

That’s a lot to get between.

Now’s the time to be takin’ notes.

• And here it is. Lee is Vic’s son. It never wasn’t going to be his, but it’s curious that they chose to open it up for examination this week. We couldn’t have had some of these reveals the last three weeks?
• You kind of lose it in the jerkiness of the zooms and motion, but when The Shield does long tracking shots, like Vic and Hyatt’s run up to the balcony, they are done very well.
• Hyatt’s wide-eyed affirmation that it is, indeed, a .45 that almost blows him in half provides the hour’s second giggle.
• Oh, man. “Vests aren’t gonna be worth shit.” Are they gonna kill Hyatt? They aren’t, right? He’s the only new Strike Teamer I haven’t loathed completely.
• Yeah, Dutch, put a camera on Vic. He’ll never suspect that. Nor will he come straight in and throw it back in your face with that jovial menace we’ve all come to adore.

Well, it’s all true. But that’s not how history has to read.

• Nice scene between Vic and the dead girl’s dad. Same song, seventeenth verse. Could’ve been overdone, was note-perfect.
• AWESOME look from Claudette at the end of the interrogation there, just thrown over her shoulder at Vic.
• Oh. Kavanaugh’s last report. There’s something…something about the pause here. Whatever’s in there, it’s Big and Bad.
• Oh, Dutch. Are you aware you have just called Hyatt “Kev”?

Why, so you can still have it to hang over my head?
Yeah, that’s right.

• CASSIDY. Get your HAIR out of your FACE and talk like a HUMAN BEING.
• Oh, holy hell, they know. Ronnie knows, and I can’t believe how cool he’s playing it. What was in that report?
• The light on Michael Chiklis as he’s delivering the expositionary speech here at the end is ruining me. It’s hitting all his planes just right. Just beautiful.
• Is it gonna be “So why’d you do it?” Is it gonna be that simple? Oh, no. It’s even better:

…which means…you pocketed a grenade before Aceveda even lied to us…

Kavanaugh wrote another report.

• There’s no menace here from Vic, no threat, not at this moment, but the heft of his grief is so powerful I’m back on my heels without truly knowing how I got there.
• “I KNOW”??? Don’t you say I KNOW, Shane. DO NOT YOU DARE.

You killed him because he was scared. He was strong and you were a coward.

• Duck and cover, Shane, you fucking invertebrate liar. That lightning’s coming for you.
• I’m trying to write dryly about a scene that’s leaving me shaking. There’s a direction here I honestly never considered: That Vic’s no better than Shane, morally, just because Shane killed a friend. But then Shane says he killed Lem so Vic could sleep at night believing he would have spared him, and that’s where I lose it. It’s a crafty line, Shane, and even an interesting sentiment. Am I buying it for a goddamn second? I am not.

You don’t get to do what you did for free.

• The train whistles in the background sound for all the world like tolling bells.

And then there were two.