By now, you may have read the Internet jokes about Mr. T and Chuck Norris. I have chosen to adapt that to “The Shield” for everyone’s favorite character – and one I believe fits perfectly into that particular joke scheme – Detective Vic Mackey.

I only have a few so far, and some of them are pilfered from the Mr. T/Chuck Norris ones. Please let me know if you think of any other ones; I will add them to the list.

• Children are afraid of the dark. The dark is afraid of Vic Mackey.

• Vic Mackey and Kojak once had a fistfight in an alley. The result of their fists colliding was the L.A. Ramparts CRASH division.

• Vic Mackey does not play “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” he plays “Rock, Paper, Service Revolver.” Nothing seems to beat Service Revolver.

• The glint from Vic Mackey’s bald head can be seen from space. It will still blind you.

• Vic Mackey once arrested 35 men for separate homicides in one hour. He spent the first 47 minutes having sex with a suspect’s girlfriend.

• Every time a church bell rings, Vic Mackey punches someone in the kidneys.

• When Vic Mackey was born, he slapped the doctor. He then proceeded to sweat the nursing staff for three extra formula bottles a week.

• Detective Ed Green didn’t leave “Law & Order” to film “Rent.” He left because he was more scared of Vic Mackey than he was of AIDS.

That’s a quote from Mackey, about Lem, from “Postpartum,” and I think it has become a source of confusion for a lot of “Shield” bloggers and fans.

I read at least two posts that insinuated Mackey was in on Lem’s death, and that’s something I just can’t believe.

Right after Mackey says that line (if I’m not mistaken), the camera pans over to Shane, who gives him some kind of second look that, upon repeat viewings, appears to be Shane jumping to the conclusion that Vic wants Lem killed.

I, for one, however, do not believe Vic was in on it. I think it was just another example of Shane trying to impress and emulate Vic, only to fail miserably.

Mackey has killed people, yes. He has put them in a position to be killed, yes. But he has never turned on a member of his team (the ORIGINAL team… much as I liked him, Tavon doesn’t count… and Mackey didn’t really TURN on him, they just misled him so that [ahem] Shane’s involvement, along with the money train, would stay under wraps).

There is also the look that Mackey gives Shane just after he’s offed Lem and arrived at the rendezvous location. Again, a lot of people seem to be thinking it was a look of complicit involvement, or a conspiratorial glance.

I think he smelled smoke from the grenade on Shane.

I don’t know a lot about grenades, but when that shit exploded, it made a LOT of smoke, which Shane then walked right through to get his last look at Lem. And while I’m thinking about forensic evidence, he probably left his bootprints and tire tracks at the scene as well.

Again, look at the sheer amount of luck and coincidence that would have had to happen for Lem to get killed in the way it appears: by a Salvadorian grenade tossed by a pissed-off pal of Gujardo’s.

That means some Salvadorians, who HAPPEN to be walking around with at least one armed grenade on them, HAPPEN to spot Lem sitting in a car on an abandoned property, eating a sandwich. They then HAPPEN to get the drop on him, and manage to get a live grenade in his car WITHOUT HIM SEEING THEM and with enough time for them to get away before it blew.

In other words, no f’n way is anyone going to believe this wasn’t an inside job, least of all Vic, who in my estimation, pronounced Shane’s death sentence at the end of “Postpartum.”

Also, don’t forget that the entire situation precipitated in S5 – the heroin in Lem’s car that brought all the IAD pressure in the first place – can be traced back to Shane’s stupidity and Vic-Envy in getting involved with Antwon Mitchell.

This freshly-open position on the Strike Team could be a way for the writers to bring Tavon back into the mix. The LAPD brass has no idea about Shane and Tavon mixing it up, so it wouldn’t be an administrative problem to bring him back. I can’t really imagine his character would WANT to come back, certainly not if it meant working with Shane, but who knows? If Vic is as certain as I THINK he is about Shane offing Lem, he’d welcome the opportunity to set those two against one another. In fact, he might even try to manipulate Tavon into taking revenge on Shane.

Also, what will the Strike Team be missing now that Lem is gone?

For starters, it will be losing its strongest voice of conscience, that’s for sure. Even when he was on board with its shady dealings, Lem usually piped up with “what-if” scenarios and doubts.

In S5, Lem was too busy toeing the IAD/Strike Team line to bring his worries to the team, and Ronnie kind of took over the “devil’s advocate” part. If the writers don’t bring a new fourth member to the team, I’d sure like to see S6 be the year Ronnie really comes into his own and brings some baggage to the table. So far, we don’t know too much about the mysterious Ronald Gardocki, except that he’s allergic to everything (except stainless steel, ha ha ha) and he’s good with computers. There doesn’t seem to be much in his past that would rock the boat on the show, but I suppose that means it’s the perfect opportunity for the writers to inject something that WOULD rock the boat.

Oh yes, and while I’m thinking about it, I’d sure like to see the eventual payoff in this whole Aceveda-Antwon-Juan situation. For me, it boils down to this: Aceveda had someone murdered to cover up his embarrassment. That is arguably worse than Vic shooting Crowley for turning rat.

Arguably.

The point is this: I want to see the Ass Invader get his. Mackey already had an inkling that there was some shady shit going on in S4 (“Why should I look the other way on this whole weird Juan/Antwon/Aceveda triangle?”), and I gotta believe it was gonna be part of his “scorched earth” plan from S5.

AHHHH, I was just watching some of S3 this weekend, and a revelation came to me: WHAT IF Vic and the boys are running some routine case, and happen to find some information that leads to the apartment of Juan Lazano’s girlfriend? And WHAT IF they’re inside the apartment looking for some sort of corroborating evidence, and HAPPEN to stumble across a printed copy of the picture of THE INCIDENT??? Sure, his girl never did anything with it in S4, even after Juan got killed, but who’s to say she isn’t still holding onto it, or tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it?

Put yourself in the place of a “Shield” writer, and just try to IMAGINE the vast world of possibilities that this opens up. The scene (I’m envisioning it in my head right now, how sad is that?) between Mackey and Aceveda practically writes itself:

MACKEY: Councilman. Glad to see you. I just wanted to clear up this whole Juan-Antwon-You thing.

ACEVEDA: I’m not aware of anything that needs clearing up.

MACKEY: Ah, I disagree (holds up a COPY of the photo, because you KNOW he’d have had Ronnie make like six MILLION copies, just to be safe). I mean, the picture’s a little blurry, but that sure looks like the Right Honorable City Councilman David Aceveda blowin’ an armed felon.

ACEVEDA: (snatches it) Give that to me. (starts to tear it up)

MACKEY: Go ahead. I already have plenty of copies of my own.

ACEVEDA: You don’t have any proof that’s me, the picture’s all blurry.

MACKEY: Yeah, well, the six’o’clock news and the LA Times might not have such a high standard of proof.

ACEVEDA: Goddammit, what do you want?

There are so many ways that this could go. Mackey could make the Ass Invader put an end to his forced retirement; he could use it to try and get out from under IAD’s microscope; he could not show it to Aceveda at all, drop it to Kavanaugh and hang Juan’s murder on his former boss (let’s not forget, the Ass Invader basically ordered that hit on Juan, even though Antwon thought it was an off-the-books quid pro quo for the DEA)!!!

I guess the point is, this would be a great way to solve some of the Strike Team’s problems AND for Mackey to get even with the former captain who submarined him at the beginning of S4.

OR – maybe the greatest possibility of them all – I could maybe see Mackey and Aceveda making one final devil’s deal: Mackey keeps quiet about the picture, and Aceveda finds a way to dispose of Shane.

Ruminate on THAT one…

Hmmmm... a couple posts ago, I was talking about Officer Hoffman, the black undercover cop that Tina pissed off near the end of S5. Initially, I thought some shit might go down with Hoff and Tina, or she might accidentally get someone killed. It still might happen, but...

It just occurred to me that the Strike Team is now down one member. If the writers are going to follow through with this Salvadoran grenade storyline, they're going to need to add someone to the team...

What about Officer Hoffman?

It would work well in a couple of ways: well for the background and story, because from what we've seen in Hoff's few appearances, Vic and the boys know and trust him. It works well for Vic because bringing another black man to the Strike Team -- especially considering what happened the last time they tried that -- will help drive a wedge between Shane and the rest of the team.

Just a thought...

… boooy, there are a lot of new ways things could go in Season 6 (I’m just going to start calling it that, since “Season Five Extended” is just too much to write)…

For one thing, I’ll be very interested to see the payoff of several different storylines that have arced over more than one season so far:

1) the Dutchman’s suspicions that the Strike Team heisted the Armenian money train – it sure seems unlikely, barring the reappearance of Armen Sholikian (the advance man who got into an accident in front of Shane and Lem), who is really the only Armenian still alive who could reasonably tie any of them to the robbery (oh yeah, and he also got a good look at Ronnie driving the garbage truck just before the heist). Also, I get a sense that while Dutch is the charge-ahead, damn-the-torpedoes type, Billings may be less-than-ready to go head-to-head with the Strike Team.

2) Captain Wyms – I never thought I’d actually get to write that title. I have to believe that she’ll have an even harder time than Capt. Rawling (Glenn Close) getting along with the Ass Invader (Aceveda). He and Rawling simply disagreed over policy, but he and Wyms disagreed on EVERYTHING… which makes me wonder, will they finally find ONE thing to agree on in Vic? If he had both of them gunning for him (not that it hasn’t been that way in the past, but Wyms wasn’t captain then), it might get pretty dicey.

3) Of course, that brings up another issue: how COULD they come after Mackey now (“they” being anyone, Wyms, the Ass Invader or Kavanaugh)? Lem was the last weak link in the Crowley case, and he’s gone. Shane’s not going to turn on Vic, and (far as we know) Ronnie is still in the dark about what actually happened. Vic appears to be clear, at least in terms of the money train and Crowley’s murder. I can see Kavanaugh getting The Final Embarassment when he tries to hang Lem’s murder on Vic, to no avail.

4) Which brings us to Kavanaugh. Clearly, he’s comin’ back next year. Forest Whitaker created a character that was too good to simply wash out of the series. But, if does come back, what will he do? How much crazier can he go? Will he, as he suggested to Corinne, “take this fight to Mackey?” He tried at the end of S5, and appeared to be on the bottom when Vic was pulled off him. It will be interesting to see how much power the department will give him, now that his suspicions at least APPEAR to be panning out?

What is becoming even more interesting is that this coming season will present one of the larger dilemmas to have occurred throughout the course of “The Shield.” … Mackey and company, who appear to be in the clear, will have to be on their BEST behavior. At the same time, they will be forced to deal with one of the WORST things that has happened to them (Lem’s death), and it happened at the hands of a fellow member.

So here we are, in arguably the final season, and Vic will have another good reason to kill a cop (not that there’s EVER a GOOD reason, but I’d make the argument that executing a cop-killer, even if he is a fellow officer, is more righteous than offing a department snitch who might squeal on your dirty dealings).

As I mentioned previously, though, I could very easily see Vic convincing Ronnie to do the dirty deed, getting caught, and leaving Mackey, easily the dirtiest of the bunch (Shane cuts a close second, but HE didn’t shoot Crowley), getting away clean.

The only alternative, in my eyes, is Mackey’s death, and I just don’t even want to think about that.