Television Review: Trophy (The Shield, S5X05, 2006)
Trophy (S05E05)
Airdate: 7 February 2006
Written by: Kurt Sutter, Renee Palyo & Tony Soltis
Directed by: Philip G. Atwell
Running Time: 45 minutes
By its fifth season, The Shield had long since schooled its audience to expect the unexpected, most infamously with the earth-shattering killing that closed its pilot. Yet, a curious reversal had occurred: the very mechanics of shock had become institutionalised. The show’s later seasons operated within a firmly established, almost procedural, formula where the walls closed in on Vic Mackey with metronomic regularity. The thrill was no longer in the whether, but in the how—and increasingly, the ‘how’ felt pre-ordained by the rhythms of a 10+ episode order. This created a paradoxical dynamic: the audience knew precisely what not to expect (a premature downfall), making the writers’ red herrings and misdirections feel transparent. It is this central tension between clever construction and predictable serialised television architecture that both elevates and ultimately hobbles the otherwise expertly crafted Season 5 episode, Trophy.
The script, a collaboration between veteran Kurt Sutter and newer writers Renee Palyo and Tony Solties, demonstrates admirable narrative economy. It deftly intertwines the season’s major arc—the IAD investigation led by the obsessive Lt. Kavanaugh—with what begins as a gruesome, standalone procedural. The inciting incident, a woman savagely attacking a man in a hospital car park before dying, is traced back to tainted anti-psychotic drugs flooding Farmington’s impoverished communities. The investigation leads Vic’s Strike Team to two Iranian-American brothers, whose operation has been usurped by the Russian mob under Mikula Popovich (Pasha D. Lychnikoff). In a characteristically brazen move, Vic bypasses the legal system entirely, meeting Popovich to orchestrate a deal: a steady, safe drug supply for the neighbourhood in exchange for a bribe and a cut of the profits. This act of cynical, self-serving pragmatism is pure Mackey, but its true brilliance is as bait.
Unbeknownst to Vic—or so we are meant to believe—this entire negotiation is conducted in the Strike Team’s ‘Clubhouse’, a room Kavanaugh has bugged with a microphone hidden inside a softball trophy. For Kavanaugh the recording is an absolute delight. It confirms his suspicions, revealing Vic’s knowledge that Lem is wired and his retention of the formidable defence attorney Rebecca Doyle. While the attorney-client discussions are inadmissible, the upcoming cash exchange with Popovich promises a prosecutorial boon: a chance to catch Vic red-handed in a spectacular arrest. The episode meticulously tightens the screw, making Vic’s culpability seem inevitable.
When the deal transpires, Vic appears to sink deeper into depravity. He not only accepts the bribe but, as a ‘favour’ to Popovich, executes one of the Iranian brothers in cold blood. Kavanaugh, watching from surveillance, gives the arrest order—only for the ‘slain’ man to rise, the bullets revealed as blanks, the whole tableau an elaborate police sting designed to ensnare the Russian mob. The entire operation was a ruse orchestrated by Vic and Captain Billings. Vic’s calm retrieval of the bugged trophy confirms the masterstroke: he knew all along and used Kavanaugh’s own surveillance to humiliate him publicly by making him wreck a major investigation, and leaving IAD with a colossal egg on its face. This triumph, however, is immediately complicated. Doyle is furious at being used as an unwitting prop, fraying a crucial alliance. Kavanaugh, utterly defeated, retreats to his motel room and demolishes it in a rage, his crusade now transformed from professional duty into violently personal vengeance.
Herein lies the episode’s central flaw, one born of the series’ structural constraints. The narrative logic had been impeccable: the walls were closing in, the incriminating evidence was gathered. By all rights, this should have been a climax. Yet, the audience knows it cannot be. It is merely episode five; the season’s contract demands that the central conflict endure. Therefore, the supposedly stunning twist—that Vic was playing Kavanaugh—feels less like a shock and more like a narrative necessity, a predictable feint to prolong the inevitable. The show teaches us to expect the unexpected, yet the need to sustain the season-long arc makes the actual unexpected (Vic’s arrest) impossible. This undercuts the tension, rendering Kavanaugh’s meticulous planning and subsequent meltdown as ultimately futile steps in a dance whose conclusion is pre-scheduled.
To their credit, the writers use this manipulated turn to sow potent seeds for future drama. Kavanaugh’s humiliation renders him more unhinged and dangerous, a loose cannon. The breach of trust with Doyle creates a new vulnerability for Vic, potentially depriving him of his most capable defender. These are smart, consequential moves that prevent the twist from feeling entirely hollow.
Unfortunately, the episode’s other subplots lack similar heft. The thread involving a Latino immigrant hired by an intimidating woman to dig a grave is resolved with dizzying speed by Claudette, who deduces a motive of sibling rivalry with almost supernatural ease. While it serves to have Claudette confide in Dutch about a new lupus flare-up and allows for Dutch’s charmingly awkward attraction to Officer Tina Hanlon, it functions as forgettable filler, a routine procedural beat in an episode otherwise throbbing with high-stakes serialised drama.
At the end of the day, Trophy is a testament to The Shield’s mature craftsmanship—taut, intelligent, and superbly acted. It manoeuvres its pieces with the precision of a chess master. Yet, the board itself is the problem. The episode’s most clever gambit is executed not to deliver checkmate, but to ensure the game continues for several more paid rounds. It is brilliant television navigating within a formula that had, by this point, become all too expectable.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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