In a special supplement to the Overthinking It Podcast, Matthew Wrather, Matthew Belinkie, and Peter Fenzel consider the next to last episode of The Shield.
WARNING: Contains spoilers.
Shield Supplement 2
In a special podcast supplement, the Overthinkers tackle the second to last episode of the Shield. WARNING: Contains Spoilers!
2 Comments on “Shield Supplement 2”
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The phrase “off the reservation” didn’t originally relate to tribal sovereignty. It referred to the rambunctious injuns’ leaving the reservation in violation of the orders of their assigned Indian agent. This was considered to be to no good end, since typical off-reservation activities included horse-stealing and settler-killing.
In this instance, I think you can reasonably see Shane as having left Vic’s authority, and he’s really up to no good. So etymology aside, your use of the phrase is apt.
(it was Victor Samuel Mackey)
Awesome! Thanks, Jess!
I thought the whole “reservation” idea was really well illustrated in the scene where the gang members find Shane and take his money in lieu of the bounty on his head. It pointed out that all the stuff the strike team does creates this external enivronment that reaches out to pretty random people and does lots of “splash damage.”
And it showed how relatively useless a lot of Shane’s skills became when he was no longer on the inside defending his fortress, but on the outside trying to make it on his own.
It’s been a pretty Miltonic fall for all of them, as the very characteristics of the world change as their Big Sin of betraying one another poisons their little garden.
Oooh, I sense a post in that somewhere . . .