Shield Question

[buddhamike]

I'm through the first two seasons of The Shield, and I'm wondering: was I ever supposed to feel sympathy for Corrine? Or did they mean to make me hate her the whole time? I'm just wondering if I'm prejudiced from seeing the last season first, but she's nothing but a whining shrew and I hate her with every fiber of my being.

Comments

[gloomchen]

Her character is REALLY hard to sympathize with because the audience is supposed to be torn between whether or not Vic is bad or good. So when his good intentions are focused on, it makes Corrine look like a heartless bitch. It's only when a person takes a step outside and looks at Corrine through her eyes that her behavior actually does make sense. For as much as Vic swears that everything he does is for his family, he most often puts his own family in jeopardy in the process.

[buddhamike]

If that's the case then maybe the problem's the actress. Because even stepping outside the situation I can't feel any sympathy for her. She whined about getting Matthew into that special school but then questioned Vic how he got him in or how he's paying for it. She urged him to take the Strike Team job, knowing it would mean he'd have to work longer hours, then bitched about him never being home. She made him move out of his own home three weeks after he was shot on the job. She completely overreacted over the Gilroy thing when she took the kids and ran. And then, to top it all off, she changed the locks on the house, and when Vic broke the window to get in because he was worried about Matthew she files domestic abuse charges against him? Has him arrested at his own precinct? I'm sorry, but I'm really struggling to see her side of things.

[gloomchen]

I think Corrine is very much of the mind that she married a cop. She can't handle the idea of her husband NOT being law-abiding, so when his bullshit from jacking around on the streets starts leaking into his home life, she just kinda spazzed out. That theme actually recurs throughout the series, so if nothing else, she stays very true to form. You haven't hit the worst of it that brought her to the point where she was in the final season though.

She's kind of the personification of Nagging Reality that keeps screwing up the ideals that Vic finds in his twisted own morality. He's doing fucked up/crooked shit and he knows it, and he feels he can justify it with a million and one reasons/excuses, and there's Corrine being very much, "you're breaking the law and you're endangering your children" over and over and over again.

She was never my favorite character though :)

[kromadas]

Part of it is the actress. There were many rumors running around that Chicklis wanted her removed from the show after the first season. Of course that wasn't happening since she is married to creator Shawn Ryan.

[hardygrrlx]

Corinne's just trying to protect her children.

Mara, on the other hand, is a raging cuntpunch.

[buddhamike]

And that's the other thing I'm wondering about. Because from starting with the final season, I'm in love with Mara. Especially contrasting her with Corrine. But I know everyone who watched the show from the start hates her. So I'm wondering if I'll come to hate her as well, or knowing how she stood by her man through thick and thin will make me overlook her less endearing qualities.

[hardygrrlx]

how she stood by her man through thick and thin will make me overlook her less endearing qualities.

Of course she stood by him, being the impetus for a lot of his troubles. Plus she does not let Shane make decisions on his own and I do realize that is Shane's issue as well.

Mara thinks she is a lot smarter than she actually is - and that leads to her downfall more than once.

[kromadas]

You will hate her in the first season she's on the show. You'll know why.