Well, waaaaay too much has happened already for me to run it down right now, but let's just hit a few of the major points:

- How 'bout Shane laying the guilt trip on everyone ELSE? Pretty sly, but if next week's previews are any indication, he's coming apart at the seams. I'm curious to see who he's making his confession to. I'd love for it to be Mara, as much as I dislike her character. I'm curious as to what she would do with that information...?

- Kavannaugh went out like a real chump. I mean, I understand that this isn't his game, but trying to make Emolia lie was too much.

- Detective Hiatt seems to be fitting in pretty well. Of course, Shane doesn't like him, but find me a new Strike Teamer that he DID like. It would be interesting to see him be the one that pushes for Vic; Vic certainly seemed to catch his eye with his play on the Niners' street boss, Moses.

***A QUICK SEGUE: Gujardo Lima's murder was the first time in a long time that there's been an outright execution where one or more Strike Teamers were involved (I'm not counting Lem). The last one was Margos Dezirian, at the end of the third season. Vic was on a mission, though, and I have to agree with a fellow blogger from Morethings.com, you'd think Mackey would be a little more thorough in his investigation. Thinking back, I'm not even sure Gujardo ever even SAW Lem, so how would they know a) he was a cop, b) he was on the Strike Team and c) that he would be at some out-of-the-way shut-down garage? I'm also very interested to see what Vic's going to think when he finds out he murdered Gujardo for no reason, and Shane let it happen because he's an ashamed guilty f*ck.***

I mentioned the above because, up to then and since, Vic really has seemed to be on the up-and-up: no street-skimming, no going off the grid. He keeps getting reminded of his impending retirement, and if he wants to keep his job, he's going to HAVE to be squeaky clean.

Personally, I see him being integral to the solving of the dozen-murder La Raza Oanaca (Juanaca? I have no idea) Salvadoran gang massacre, and maybe that will be the moment when Hiatt starts to think, 'Hey, maybe I DO need this guy around for the next season, if I don't die before it's over' (ha ha ha).

Wyms got a little frosty tonight, just straight lying to Vic's face about the appeals panel reviewing his case. I'm thinking the combination of him finding out about that and perhaps making some deal with Aceveda where if he solves the case, he gets a REAL appeals review.

AND JULIEN ON THE STRIKE TEAM?!?!?! He's a beast, so he can DEFinitely roll with them. Cletus Van Damme don't like him no ho-mo-sexuals, but Julien seems to have moved past his past, and it ain't up to Cletus, anyway.

Lots of possibilities... I love it.

Big ups to Forest Whitaker, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor last night for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 'The Last King of Scotland.'

I was wondering whether or not his Academy ego-stroke would carry over to Big John Kavannaugh in the new season of 'The Shield,' but then I realized I'm an idiot, and most, if not all of the new episodes are probably already in the can.

However, it certainly won't hurt the show's ratings to have a Best Actor Oscar winner in the cast. My guess is F/X is going to feature Forest a lot more prominently in the new 'Shield' bumps.

INTRIGUING POSSIBILITY: Is there a way for Vic to PROVE to Kavannaugh that he was totally NOT involved in Lem's death (this is assuming he wasn't, which is my belief as of this moment... he made a lot of inferences about Lem ('...the truth is, this could be goodbye...") that could be construed as planting the seed in the feeble mind of Cletus Van Damme, but I really don't think Vic meant for him to blast him to Kingdom Come with a grenade (by the way, if even a FRAGMENT of that grenade was still intact inside Lem's car, it's got ol' Cletus's police-file prints ALL OVER IT). Anyway, if Vic can prove to Kav that he wasn't involved, it would be something to see them join forces in trying to root out whoever DID do it. Cletus would have to go along with the investigation but try and steer it away from himself.

QUESTION: Is the new Strike Teamer a plant by Capt. Goody-Two-Shoes (Wyms)? We all know how well it worked out LAST time the Barn's captain tried to sneak a mole into the Strike Team, but this time there's no one higher up on the food chain to warn Vic about it. However, since revenging Lem's death is about as righteous a cause as the Strike Team will have taken up in their years together, maybe they won't be cutting corners and stashin' cash. Well, at least not stashin' cash.

MORE QUESTIONS:

- Danny's had the baby... is she going to be back on the road with Julien (BY THE WAY, quick trivia note for all you Movie Game nuts: Michael Jace [Julien] played the leader of the Black Panthers in 'Forrest Gump'... talk about a change in character!)

- Where does Tina's character go after her nuclear meltdown upon seeing Lem dead? I consistently maintained that she was going to get someone killed because of her foolishness last season, and it never happened. Fuckit. I'm stickin' to my guns. Wyms, Billings and Dutch are going to regret keeping her on.

I'm already counting down the days until April 3, when the new season of 'The Shield' premieres. AT LAST! Courtney Cox, you were alright in the Boss's 'Dancin' in the Dark' video back in the day, and you were even pretty hot in 'Ace Ventura.'

'Dirt?' Not so much.

Big respect to F/X for being the most daring network on mainstream cable, but they should have saved 'Dirt' for the summer, and started up the new 'Shield' episodes in January. After what I consider to be a pretty sappy ending to the latest 'Nip/Tuck' season, they needed a boost. I don't know what kind of ratings 'Dirt' is getting, but I'M not watching it, and I don't know anyone who is.

Anyway, I've yet to see the 15-minute extended promo/flashback that's been talked about on so many sites/blogs, but I can only imagine it'll leave me salivating.

What do I want to see?

- Shane GET HIS. Oh yeah. It BEST be comin'.

- The Final Insane Act of The Dutchman. I really can't imagine what is going to happen in the last chapter of the long, strange saga that is Det. Holland Waggenbach (I've never actually SEEN his name in print... GawdDAMN, what a weird name; I'd love to know which writer came up with that), but I can't wait to see what it is.

- Claudette to realize that the right way isn't always the RIGHT way. Now that she's at the top, she may finally see that it may just be impossible to separate politics from the job, and that lesser-of-two-evil decisions come with the territory.

- Whether the new Strike Teamer (the actor, not his character) can keep pace with the high-caliber, total-synergy interaction of the original team members.

- WHAT THE *$&! IS UP WITH MACKEY'S FORCED RETIREMENT? SHOULDN'T THAT BE COMING UP FAIRLY SOON? Lem isn't the only one who was taking one for the badge. Mackey was being served up -- well, he certainly earned it, but -- as a sketchy-jacket case.

- More actors from 'Oz.' This will never happen, but Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje (Adebisi) would make an AWESOME L.A. gang leader, a Tookie Williams-type, but he'd have to drop the African accent, and that's what gave his character on 'Oz' that second level of scariness. Although Anthony Anderson's Antwon Mitchell can be among the most frightening villains too, at times.

- This sounds really morbid, but I'd really like to see Vic as the only person who makes it out alive, of the team. I've mentioned this before... he has that habit of near-unconsciously manipulating people to his own ends, and I could see him turning Ronnie on Shane or maneuvering some sort of incident between them and the new Strike Teamer.... what I'm getting at is it we're probably all expecting Mackey to die at the end of this series, and I think it would be equally shattering to see him all alone, divorced, the team he assembled all dead -- if not by his hand, largely in ways that can be followed back to his actions -- gun in his hand and no one to kill; no longer a cop and with barely anything to show for it.

Fade to black.

C'MOOOOOOOOOOOOOON APRIL MUTHA&%$!IN' 3RD!!!!!

Det. Curtis Lemansky...

Born 1963...

Died March 21, 2006...

Cause of Death...

Cut to flashes of the Ass Invader, Kavanaugh, the Dutchman, Mackey, and finally, pan over to He Who Is Responsible... Cletus Van Dizzamme.

Jebus Criminy, I can't wait until 2007...

I realize that these are just previews, but whoever is responsible for them is a genius. The previews for the fourth season (which pop up out of the blue on the S3 DVD, before the main menu loads) were equally impressive, and all they consisted of were quick shots of the main characters looking fidgety and nervous. And it was brilliant. It practically made me want to skip the third season (not really).

Regardless, with now-confirmed whispers of Kavanaugh's return, as well as a new Strike Teamer -- although, much to my chagrin, it's not going to be my guess, Det. Hoffman, who has appeared several times in the series and who appears to know Vic pretty well. It's going to be some Aussie white guy, but whatever. I'm sure things will be ratcheted up as always, and I'll be on the edge of the futon for 43 straight minutes.

GodDAMN, but the payoff of the Lem storyline is going to tear the Barn apart. How will Capt. Wyms react when/if she finds out who did it? What if the re-formed Strike Team starts hitting on all cylinders again? Would Vic allow a good friend's murder (at the hands of another friend) to be covered up in order to get back into the LAPD brass' good graces again? WTF is up with his forced retirement?!?!?!

SHAWN RYAN, I BESEECH THEE!!! ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS AND PRESENT US WITH MANY MORE, TO BE ANSWERED IN SEASON 6!!!!

I was watching some of S5 yesterday, when Kav first told Lem that they had swapped out the heroin from his car, and something occurred to me, something that could have changed the course of the whole season:

Lem had a pretty reasonable explanation for the heroin. Allow me to expound...

In S4, Vic told Rawling that he and the boys were working behind her back for two days trying "to figure out how to get Shane out from under Antwon without losing his careeeeeeer." Basically, she knew they were looking for Angie's body to help Shane.

Surely the LAPD brass -- or at the very least, a jury -- would understand them trying to clear a fellow officer who was set up to be framed, even if it did involve an unorthodox step or two (i.e. taking the junk as collateral).

Emolia even heard Lem say that it was about "the dead girl's body," so her testimony, which was supposed to seal his fate, could have maybe even worked FOR him.

Although he still didn't log it into evidence, so he could have still been on the hook for that.

All I'm saying is that they had a plausible -- well, not just plausible, TRUTHFUL -- explanation that would have, at the very least, kept the intent to distribute charge from sticking, and take away quite a bit of Kav's leverage on Lem.

However, let's be honest. This is an entertainment show, not real life, and for it to have played out that way would have been very boring compared to how it DID play out; but one thing "Shield" writers seem to pride themselves on is realism, and it seems like the boys should have at least considered this as an option at some point. It's REALLY hard to believe that Becca didn't suggest that he just come clean.

Just a thought...