Prime Video: One of the best detective series of the 2000s comes to the platform

Prime Video: One of the best detective series of the 2000s comes to the platform

Today it has fallen into relative obscurity, but in the early 2000s it was still one of the most popular series by the public. Aired from 2002 to 2008, The Shield depicts the daily lives of the Shock Intervention Squad in the Los Angeles slum of Farmington.

The members of the “Strike Team” under the leadership of the charismatic Vic Mackay use the most questionable methods to put local criminals behind bars. Do not hesitate to use their influence to satisfy their own interests, using racketeering or intimidation methods.

A new genre of detective series, The Shield breaks with the genre’s traditional Manichaeism, which generally pits lawmen against the worst types of criminals beyond all suspicion. Here, good and evil are diluted concepts in the service of each character’s ambitions and intentions.

Cops vs. Crooks

Whether it’s the personal interests of the members of the Strike Team, the political ambitions of Captain David Aceveda, or the counter-investigations conducted by Internal Affairs (Forest Whitaker in seasons 5 and 6)… life is never easy in Farmington!

The first episode ends with a completely unexpected turn of events. And it confirms that the series we are watching has absolutely nothing to do with traditional police programs. From then on begins a real descent into hell and a series of spirals that sooner or later will mark the end of Strike Team.

Shot with a hand-held camera, almost like a mockumentary, the series uses shocking dialogue in the service of protagonists with complex and nuanced personalities. Added to this was high-class casting led by Michael Chiklis, who also won several Golden Globes for Best Actor.

Alongside him is a very talented supporting cast, including CCH Pounder as the tough and incorruptible inspector, Walton Goggins as Vic Mack’s right-hand man driven by violent impulses, and Benito Martinez as a police captain whose political ambitions are threatened. with the despicable blackmail to which he is subjected.

Often superseded by The Wire in the minds of moviegoers, The Shield was nevertheless heavily involved in the new golden age of American TV series in the early 2000s. His antihero heralded the emergence of characters as nuanced on television as Walter White on Breaking Bad. Or Don Draper in Mad Men.

The arrival of season seven of The Shield this Friday, December 15th will undoubtedly bring this flagship series back to the fore, and keep in mind that more than twenty years after its inception, the program has not lost its potency.

You can watch The Shield in its entirety (season seven, 88 episodes) now on Prime Video.

Discover the list of series currently available on the platform!

Source: Allocine

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