The Shield - "Le Remplacant"

If you're questioning the title, then let me start of by asking "Ain't technology grand?" If you read my 24 recap, then you already know that I am recapping my shows via Slingbox from jolly old England. But wait, that doesn't explain the french! Well, even odder than setting the record for longest distance recap, this time, with the help of Recapist's scheduling feature, I am performing the most convoluted, longest distance, multi-language, pirated from the internet recap. In fact, I am writing this at 08:00 GMT on Monday morning from Cambridge, which is midnight Sunday night at home in Los Angeles, and recapping an episode of The Shield that won't air in the US until 10pm Eastern on Tuesday (which is now for you), which is still almost forty-eight hours away (from me now), but that I downloaded through bittorrent which was apparently aired in Quebec, complete with credits and subtitles in French, and that I watched back on Friday, April 20th before I even left the country. And now you're reading this through the Recapist scheduler at 10pm EST on Tuesday. Got it? No? Well, I'm confused as well and I'm the one that did it. In fact, I also have had the one for next Tuesday on my laptop since last Friday, but that's even more confusing. Anyways, on to the episode.

It's a little weird to see in the credits with this delightful pirated copy "avec - Michael Chiklis... et CCH Pounder". As far as I know though, the content of the episode is the same, save for strangely subtitled writing that appears on screen, but please by all means, scream at me in the comments section below if there is something strange that I missed, that the French Canadians aren't allow to see. We begin in the middle of a siege at "Wings and Things". Most of the Barn has shown up. Nobody knows anything except that automatic shots have been fired inside. Mackey is quickly introduced to Kevin Hiatt, his younger, buffer, taller and presumably more honest replacement. The Strike Team doesn't take new guys on easily and Kevin gets sidelined as the rush the building. Inside, the danger is over, but there are bodies everywhere you look. They find who they think is the shooter, but he's already dead with a bullet to the stomach. They find one guy on his feet, but he can't put his hands up, because Hiatt already has him pinned down... with Lem's shotgun. Outside, official introductions are passed around. None of the Strike Team wants this guy, but at least Ronnie is willing to shake the guy's hand. Hiatt tries to be as respectful as he can be to Lem's memory, but he knows he's not wanted.

Back at the Barn, everyone knows that things are going to erupt as it was One-Niners that were shot up this morning and they'll be looking for payback. Oh, Farmington. If only you were real, so I could buy real estate within your borders. Apparently, Hiatt is going to expand and build his own Strike Team, but rather than replace Shane and Ronnie, Claudette would like to see two teams under Hiatt. She's set up a panel to review Mackey's record and if they're convinced that they need him, she may be able to keep him on. Mackey wouldn't be in charge, which might go a long way to making Aceveda happy. Moments later, we learn that the entire thing is a lie. Wyms lied to Mackey simply to keep him from working the angles. In three weeks, he's gone. Period. Hiatt is going to have to keep an eye on Mackey, but he wants to start putting together his own team immediately, to get the numbers a little more in his favor.

Mrs. Ex-Mackey shows up with a wackadoo story about a dream she had. They were all at a barbeque at a cliff and Lem was there. He got real furious when the burgers were made wrong. Then Mackey told him that the burgers were okay. Then Lem gets really calm. He steps off a cliff and disappears into a haze. She thinks that it was Lem trying to talk to her. To tell her it was all going to be okay. To tell the guys that it's all going to be okay. But their faces tell us what we already know; it's not going to be okay.

Mexican metal music. Titles.

Later, Shane is taking the Lem dream a little too seriously. But Mackey is just trying to go with it. He jumps into an interrogation of the surviving suspect from "Wings and Things" and gets a taste of how Hiatt likes to do things. He tells him how crappy it is in Farmington with all the different gangs and ethnic groups of thugs going at it all in the same square mile. Farmington is only a square mile? Damn, no wonder they've got so many problems. The survivor is wearing some altered One-Niner ink. Either they're starting a new faction, or he wants out, both of which mean the One-Niners are going to pop him. Hiatt is trying to be "good cop" and tells the guy to picture him with a puppy. Okay. The guy wants out of the One-Niners and he's worried about somebody called Cervantes, Vantes for short. He's the leader of the revolution, trying to make the One-Niners see that they're being oppressed in their gangbanging lifestyle. The meeting at "Wings and Things" was supposed to be the guys that wanted out settling up with the One-Niners, but of course the Niners started shooting. Apparently, Vantes was put away by Mackey awhile back, but he read, learned and cleaned up. He wanted to help others get out of the game, but the meeting was just a set up to take out all the guys that wanted to be free of the gang. The plan is to get Vantes and the remaining guys off the street and let them clean up. They set out to find the head of the One-Niners to get him to let up a bit.

On the street, Julian and the newly sergeanted Danny pick up a guy who's raping a barely conscious girl in an alleyway. Dutch and Billings pick up the case, with some awkward and inappropriate comments from Billings. The girl is a runaway and has left her fourth foster home two months ago. Dutch learns after the fact that CuteCop has transferred out of the department. Something to do with the new ad campaign that the city is running featuring her and her CuteCopness.

The newly formed Strike Team hits up the One-Niner leader for information and Shane's worried about talking to him in front of Hiatt. Because he killed Kern. Which I barely remember at this point. Farmington is full of the Strike Team's cons and lies. Mackey tells Shane to get with the program, because he has a shot at keeping his job. Note Ronnie playing with the puppies. There's no way that Ronnie ends up anywhere but free and clear on this series. Hell, he doesn't even know about Terry Crowley's murder. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with Ronnie and Dutch teaming up to take down Mackey before this show finishes its run. The One-Niner king keeps quiet, but Shane's got a beef with his predilection for "tweener pussy" (Basic Cable Immunity). I completely fail at this point to recognize the girl as Shane's alleyway delight from a few episodes ago.

At the hospital, Dutch and Billings follow up on the raped runaway. She's been used eight ways to Sunday and has had the phrase "go home" carved into her belly. Or "rente a la maison" as my French subtitle tells me. Why does Quebec feel the need to subtitle on screen lettering when the entire episode is in English without subtitles? Strange country that, what with their healthcare for everyone and lack of pollution. Dutch and Billings work over the rapist about his actions and the meaning of "go home," but he doesn't know anything. As far as he knows, he paid her for a "good bang". He didn't "rape" her and he certainly didn't carve on her.

At Vantes's mother's house, Mackey and Hiatt have to stand strong to Niners doing a cruiseby. They've been doing it all day, acting tough, and Mama's worried about Vantes hiding from both the Niners and the police. But she's not giving up his location. Elsewhere, Shane gets protective of his underage prostitute. He doesn't like the Niner chief touching her. He's being protective and gets information on Angelo, the Niner lieutenant. At this point, I'm completely unclear if Shane actually feels for this girl or is simply using her for some information. At the Barn, Claudette wants the team to bring in Vantes because she wants to send a positive message to anyone that wants out of a gang. Ronnie and Mackey give Hiatt some hassle about his interrogation techniques. They are all having a laugh when Shane rolls up, pissed off that they can chuckle when Lem is still dead. The guilt is going to eat this guy alive. There's no way that he's going to move on and eventually it's just going to consume him. Mackey follows Shane outside, where he's crying. Mackey's putting everything on the appeals panel and needs Shane to help him get Hiatt on his side. Shane is still hung up on the Lem dream though. Mackey just wants to focus on saving who they can today. Vantes calls Mackey up and tells him to stop looking for him.

Elsewhere, Aceveda again proves that he's still on the series. At a construction project, some businessman tells Aceveda he needs to do more about the dead illegals in San Marcos. Solving these murders would go a long way towards making Farmington believe that the police do really care about them.

At the Barn, Dutch shows Billings and Claudette a tape of a previous victim that seems to match the profile of their current rape victim. After stumbling in on Danny pumping a little breast milk, they review the tape. The victim proclaims the same sort of thing. A Latin guy drugged her, held her prisoner and kept saying things like "go home". Back then, Dutch and Claudette didn't buy her story. The cutting is an escalation of the rapist and Dutch worries that he'll go further next time.

Mackey rolls back up on the One-Niners and threatens them with jail time unless they come clean about the ambush. The chief asks to talk to Mackey alone. He makes a deal that if Vantes dies, he'll let the other ones go. If he does this, Mackey's boys stay off his crew for awhile. He agrees to pull the orders on the others right away. Mackey tells Hiatt that he took the deal... at least as far as the One-Niners know.

At the Barn, they're in search of the runaway, but are momentarily distracted by the new posters featuring CuteCop. Danny's annoyed and Billings takes an opportunity to rib Dutch. They head back down to the hospital to talk to their newly awakened rape victim. On the road, Julian and Danny are enroute, sirens blaring, while Danny tries to speak clumsy Spanish to her nanny. They find one of Vantes's boys dead on the hood of a rolling car. Julian stops the vehicle. At the Barn, Mackie chats up the Angelo, the One-Niner lieutenant, who claims he can't call off the hit because he didn't push the button to begin with. Mackey arrives at the scene with dead boy and they realize that the One-Niners weren't planning on keeping their end of their dirty deal anyway. They bring the boy from "Wings and Things" and shove his face in the crime scene of his dead boy. They convince him that he has to help them find Vantes to save his friends' lives. He says the only one that would know is Vantes's cousin. Mackey and company pick up the guy and Hiatt shows a little willingness to bend the rules himself, kicking a door in with no warrant. This is how it begins. Remember, all of them were good honest cops at one point.

At the hospital, Billings and Dutch try to get some information out of the rape victim, but Dutch is extremely clumsy with young women. Billings volunteers to question her as he's a "wonderful father", but as Dutch points out it's only two weekends a month. In the hallway, Dutch makes small talk with Mrs. Ex-Mackey and she learns for the first time that Mackey is going to be retired. This of course doesn't sit well with her in the least.

At the Barn, Aceveda pays a visit and tells Claudette that the dead Mexicans are back on her plate. He thinks Hiatt might be perfect for the case because of his INS experience. Did anyone else realize that machete was a Spanish word? Or does Aceveda just overpronounce everything? Claudette is obviously annoyed as Aceveda promised that he wouldn't interfere. He points out that putting these murders in the win column would do a lot to boost her position, but as I know from season two of The Wire, a dozen unsolved murders isn't something that anyone wants.

The Strike Team wires up the boy from "Wings and Things" and throw him in the cage to get Vantes location off his cousin. Claudette pulls Hiatt aside and gives him a jacket to review for his new Strike Team. Hiatt is obviously impressed with the way Mackey played the One-Niners. He thinks that Mackey's reputation may have more to do with the image that Vic cultivates on the street rather than with reality. But Claudette doesn't buy it. She knows that Vic is on his best behavior because he believes that it is in his best interest.

Dutch tries to call up CuteCop and gives Billings the profile on their rapist. Billings likes it old school and thinks profiles are crap. He knows that Dutch was shooting out of his league with CuteCop and was taking advantage just like their rapist but using career advancement instead of GHB. Dutch obviously is offended, but he does have a record of preying on vulnerable women. Their previous rape victim arrives and is obviously annoyed. Her mother beat her because she believed that she was lying. The detectives try to apologize and question the victim further. She now remembers that she was held in a little girl's room from "a long time ago" with a bunch of whack white boy posters, which Billings correctly identifies as 98 Degrees. The girl confirms from the police sketch that they're looking for the same guy.

Mackey is sad in the Strike Team room. He's received a package of books that Lem sent to himself, intending for the guys to deliver to him in prison. He was intending to go do his time for the boys, hole up and just do some reading. They all feel terrible. Mackey decides that since Vantes is a big reader, he's going to find him and his boys, save them from the One-Niners and give him the books to read somewhere safe. Corinne shows up to give Vic hell for lying about the retirement. Vic tries to reassure her that it probably won't even happen. He promises that he'll work it out one way or the other. She doesn't want herself or the kids to be responsible for things that Vic does. They get a location on Vantes and head off to find him.

Inside, Danny laments her breast milk situation and Julian struggles to keep his thoughts about her bastard baby to himself. She apologizes for jumping on him, but he tells her that it still beats riding with CuteCop. Claudette arrives to tell Julian that she's recommended him for Hiatt's Strike Team. Julian is of course wary of it, but he agrees.

The Strike Team rolls up on Vantes location and finds him bleeding out from a gunshot wound from this morning. They're so afraid of the Niners that he wouldn't let them take him to the hospital. The Strike Team moves him in a desperate attempt to save his life. Shane and Vic struggle to keep Vantes awake as they speed through traffic. Mackey is not going to let this boy die. They hurry into the emergency room and Mackey goes crazy trying to get Corinne's attention. But Vantes dies in the lobby. Claudette walks in just in time to see Mackey start to cry. Mackey put all of his feelings about Lem onto this boy and with his death they come spilling out. Mackey puts his hand through a wall and starts to demolish the hospital waiting room. Vic is out of control, smashing furniture and cracking a window. When he catches his breath, he looks up to see Claudette and Hiatt. He knows he's gone too far. He leaves without speaking to anyone.

NEXT WEEK: I'm not sure, since these pirated copies don't bother with coming attractions.