"The Shield" Finale

No doubt about it. This was one of the great final episodes (ironically entitled "Family Meeting").

Shane's suicide (and murder and laying out of his wife and son), Ronnie going down with only a mild apology from Vic, Claudette's revelation to Dutch that she is dying, Vic's family witness-protected--all wonderful (aka appalling/brilliant/unexpected). But bureaucratizing Vic (who had made a deal with ICE to make him unprosecutable for all his innumerable crimes)--damning him to a suit and a cubicle and the endless writing of meaningless reports: a pure stroke of genius.

Several reviewers praised The Shield finale for avoiding the indeciperhableness of the final episode of The Sopranos. And yet . . . "Family Meetings'" final moment--Vic pulling a gun out of his dark desk drawer and heading off puprosely screen right--was entirely enigmatic: is Mackey going to kill himself, slaughter those who have wronged him (Aceveda, Wyms, Corrine, Olivia, among others), become a vigilante? We simply do not know Vic's future, any more than we know if Tony, Carmela, and AJ will leave Holsten's dead or alive, nor should we. Endings need not cross every "T" or dot every "I."