TV: The Shield Season 4 Premiere (spoilers)

It's good to have it back! The Shield's fourth-season debut showed that this program still has as much kick as ever. As the show begins, everything's in disarray: the Strike Team's broken up, with only Vic and Ronnie remaining at the Barn -- Lemonhead's with the Youth Authority, and Shane's in Vice, as is only appropriate; Dutch and Claudette are in the doghouse with the D.A.'s office; Capt. Aceveda is halfway out the door to the City Council; and Glenn Close as Capt. Rawling is on her way in. (And what's going on with Danny's Detective training? Did she give up on that last season? I can't remember -- it's been a while.)

I've gotten so used to the intensity of Chiklis as Vic Mackey that it doesn't even register anymore how everyone else in the cast plays up to that same level... until Glenn Close puts them all into sharp contrast with her cool, soft-spoken performance. A little too cool, maybe; I expect we'll be seeing her kick it up a notch in weeks to come. But even with her quiet presence in this first episode, you can still tell she's going to be a match for Vic.

I loved the confrontation between Vic and Aceveda. Aceveda torpedoed Vic's hopes at a promotion to leading a city-wide task force, and he did it with pleasure. "Did you really think I wouldn't have the last word?" he says. It's not the last word yet; he might have put a knife in Vic's back, but as long as Vic's still alive, I don't think anyone but him gets the last word.

Anthony Anderson was also good in what appears will be a recurring role, as gang leader turned motivational speaker (and secretly still a gang leader) Antwon. It's a little hard to take seriously someone who's played second fiddle to a marsupial, but Anderson was strong and believable in his scenes. When he's got a hall full of current and ex-gangbangers chanting, "RESPECT! RESPECT!" -- man, that was a powerful moment.

Great beginning to the episode -- I loved Vic's defense of the rookie cop's shooting of the vicious dog: "He was reaching!" Complete with gun planted by the dog's paw. Dark humor, but if you're watching this show, then it probably cracked you up as much as it did me.

And great ending, too. Right at the end of the episode, I found myself suddenly realizing, hey, we haven't seen Shane yet! And who should Vic find ransacking the home of his freshly-murdered informant but good ol' Shane himself. Who shot the informant? Vic wants to know. "You want to sniff my gun?" Shane replies. Turns out Shane's looking for the dead man's PDA -- because it had Shane's name on it. Did Shane kill him? Is he working for Antwon? Man, who would've thought Vic had been a good influence on Shane all this time? Shane's turning more criminal than Vic ever was. I like it!

Not that Vic's going soft. His takedown of the child-beater was just as brutal as we've come to expect from him. Even more brutal are the murders that Dutch and Claudette investigate -- drowning a whole family in the bathtub, one by one, while the others watch, knowing they're next. There've been some bad deaths on this show, but that scenario really got to me. Just the thought of it is chilling.

I can't wait to see if Dutch turns on Claudette for sinking both their careers with her stand against the D.A., I can't wait to see what Shane's been up to, and I'd really like to see more of Danny -- her scenes training to make Detective with Dutch last year were great. All in all -- a fine start to the new season.