Smoked (S05E09)
Airdate: 7 March 2006
Written by: Sarah Fain, Elizabeth Craft & Glen Mazzara Directed by: Dean White
Running Time: 45 minutes
Season Five of The Shield delivered some of television’s most electrifying moments, largely because its narrative engine finally began closing its walls around Vic Mackey and his Strike Team. This mounting pressure was crystallised by the introduction of Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, portrayed with ferocious intensity by Forest Whitaker, who emerged as Vic’s most formidable and psychologically astute adversary. Yet, much like Kavanaugh himself, Season Five occasionally had a habit of overplaying its hand, pushing compelling tension into moments of strained melodrama. A prime example of this is Smoked (Season 5, Episode 9), a fundamentally solid episode that nonetheless stumbles with a narrative misstep so jarring it threatens to undermine the gritty realism the series had so painstakingly built. The episode functions as a necessary, if occasionally mechanical, bridge to the season’s explosive finale, but it is let down by one profoundly ill-considered scene.
The plot deals directly with the fallout from Kavanaugh’s rash, Gordian-knot-cutting decision to finally make his move against the Strike Team by incarcerating Lem. The situation for Lem is dire; remanded in custody, he is surrounded by criminals, many of whom he helped put away, and the shadow of a corrupt deal between Kavanaugh and imprisoned gang lord Antwon Mitchell looms large. Mitchell’s desire to see Lem transferred to his prison for execution adds a layer of visceral dread. Vic, ever the loyal commander, vows to bail Lem out within twenty-four hours. Kavanaugh, however, has anticipated this. He freezes the assets of every Strike Team member and their immediate families, cutting off all legitimate avenues for the $100,000 cash bond. This financial stranglehold exacerbates existing fractures, most notably pressuring Corrine into a furious confrontation with the pregnant Danny Sofer over her affair with Vic. Forced into a corner, Vic must now rely on his deep, illicit knowledge of the streets to shake down the requisite funds.
The solution arrives with a conveniently timed case: the discovery of Artemis Cooke’s body in a dumpster. The official story of Cooke being an organ courier to Canada is immediately suspect to Vic’s practised ear. He deduces, with characteristic swiftness, that Cooke was actually smuggling high-potency cannabis from Vancouver for a dealer named Dijon Reynolds (Montae Russell) and was murdered during a robbery. Seeing an opportunity, Vic offers to retrieve the stolen cash and drugs in exchange for a “finder’s fee.” The investigation leads to Cooke’s own stepson, the pot-smoking Jaden Reed (Ricky T. Chaney), whose admission of the murder—motivated by anger over being fired—feels like a neat, almost too-convenient resolution. The real tension comes from a race against time as Shane and Ronnie retrieve the bag of cash just moments before Detectives Claudette Wyms and Dutch Wagenbach can arrest Jaden, who is found passed out atop the money. It is a classic Shield manoeuvre: the team exploits police procedure for personal gain, with old associate Smitty posting the bail and the cash destined to be laundered through a legitimate front. This subplot is efficiently executed, reinforcing Vic’s resourcefulness and the team’s precarious, parasitic relationship with the very justice system they are meant to uphold.
Parallel to this, the political machinations continue. Kavanaugh appears to have mended fences with Councilman—and now Reserve Officer—David Aceveda. Displeased with the Internal Affairs investigation’s direction, Aceveda resigns his commission and launches a council probe into the IAD itself. In a masterful scene of political jujitsu, Vic visits Aceveda. Sensing the bad blood between the councilman and the lieutenant, Vic offers a stark, pragmatic choice: if Aceveda helps bring Vic down, the ensuing scandal will obliterate Aceveda’s own political aspirations; conversely, being “nice” to Vic offers a clearer path to the mayor’s office. It is a brilliant reminder of the show’s understanding of power as a currency, traded in threats and mutual vulnerabilities.
A secondary, almost satirical subplot involves the profoundly incompetent Officer Tina Hanlon. Her career seems terminally doomed after she draws her service weapon on a misidentified undercover officer. However, in a darkly comic twist, Dutch's discovery of a secret camera in the women’s locker room—which captured compromising photos of Hanlon—inverts the power dynamic. The cowardly Billings, who had camera installed allegedly over petty thefts, is now compromised, and offers to not only preserve her job but fast-track her advancement in exchange for her silence. Dutch’s subsequent offer to mentor her adds a layer of tragic irony to the Barn’s endemic corruption.
Written by Sarah Fain, Elizabeth Craft, and Glen Mazzara, Smoked is a textbook example of a formulaic yet solid episode. It dutifully advances the season’s overarching plot, tightening the screws on the Strike Team and laying crucial groundwork for the final two episodes, which promise an explosive conclusion. No new thematic ground is broken: Billings confirms his cowardice, Aceveda his political opportunism, Kavanaugh his relentlessness, and Vic his willingness to sacrifice anything for his team—and his own survival. It is a well-oiled piece of narrative machinery.
However, one glaring detail nearly derails the entire enterprise. In a bid to intimidate Shane and Vic, Kavanaugh stages a meticulous reconstruction of Terry Crowley’s murder. The scene’s tension is palpable until Kavanaugh produces Crowley’s brother, Drew (Christopher May), a San Diego PD officer, to witness the proceedings. Not only does Drew declare himself utterly convinced of Vic’s guilt, but he then launches into a bizarre, biblical tirade, promising Old Testament-style retribution. This moment is not merely theatrical; it is tonally inappropriate, a jarring descent into soap-operatic revelation. It represents a rare but significant narrative sloppiness for The Shield. The sudden arrival of a previously minor character—played by a different actor in his sole Season 1 appearance—feels like a cheap retcon, a desperate attempt to inject personal stakes that the episode, and Kavanaugh’s formidable presence, did not require. It undermines the gritty, procedural realism that gives the show its power, substituting it for a contrived, melodramatic flourish. It is the moment where ‘Smoked’ overplays its hand, reminding the audience that even the greatest of adversaries can be poorly served by writers reaching for an emotional crescendo that rings fundamentally false. The episode succeeds in moving the pieces into place for the endgame, but this misstep leaves a stain on an otherwise competent instalment, a warning that even in a series as ruthlessly intelligent as The Shield, the pull of convenient drama is a constant threat to its core integrity.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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