Note: Due to some complaints from a certain sector of our illustrious readership, I will no longer use curse words. Instead, you will observe these rather amusing symbols commonly seen in comics and the like.
It’s a hallmark of great television shows that there be at least a few “Oh %@&$!” moments, scenes that knock the wind right out of you. Usually a death or rape of a character will do, but usually I prefer a good plot twist, something to throw the viewer off. Irony is the best kind of “Oh %@&$!” moment there is, and the following shows have had more than I can assemble. So here they are in no particular order:
BIG SPOILER ALERT!!!
1) The Shield - “Mum"
Imagine you’re police captain David Aceveda, recently elected to city council, a job you’ve fought for your whole career. You’ve made it your mission to clean up the city, take on corruption, and all that other do-gooder crap. Than a guy like Vic Mackey comes along to %@&$ with your program and things get sidetracked a little. Not a whole lot, but enough to make your job a lot tougher. Than imagine you get raped by psycho gangbanger with a missing tooth in a drug house in the worst section of Los Angeles. Wait, what?
Was my setup not enough to explain that twist? Reading that paragraph back to myself, I realized that there’s just no way to explain the rape of Aceveda to someone unfamiliar to the series without them thinking just how horrible this show is. Exploitive might come to mind when you explain it to them. Still, to fans of The Shield, you know just what I’m talking about. Right in the middle of season three comes the most shocking moment of the series, more shocking than Vic killing fellow cop Terry Crowley, more shocking than Vic burning half of Armadillo’s face off on a kitchen stove. Aceveda was sort of the golden boy of The Shield, always so self-righteous in his crusade against Mackey, but a coward underneath. To see him brought literally down to his knees was almost like a punishment from the gods, or the writers anyway. Get too cocky and ahead of yourself and see what it’ll cost you. Well, it cost Aceveda big time. Actor Benito Martinez was a revelation in that role, transforming himself from dogged crusader to rape-victim in denial brilliantly. Definitely the biggest “Oh %@&$” moment in television history.
2) The Wire - “Clarifications”
The death of a major character on any series shouldn’t be some random act. The Wire knew this. You don’t just get rid of someone like Stringer Bell without there being some rationale to it. I remember how Oz would kill off just about any character for the sake of killing them. Maybe it was a sly commentary on the meaninglessness of life in the prison system, whatever. It was a BS way of getting rid of actors if you ask me. The Wire, however, would work its way up to the death, planting little clues here and there to suggest the how and why a particular character like Bell would get got. But the murder of Omar Little was a twist on that premise. From the very beginning of this stick up artist’s career on the show, the sword of Damacles dangled closely over his head. You were never sure when he’d get his, but you were sure he’d get it. Omar was only supposed to last seven episodes according to the show’s producers, but he managed to last all the way up until season five, his swan song at the hands of an eight-year old boy.
Why a kid? Why not Marlo or one of his cronies whom Omar had been warring with since season four. Was this some commentary on the violence that plagues inner city communities, and the nihilism that infects young children in those neighbourhoods? A critique on the easy access to guns in America perhaps? No, I don’t think it was any of the above. I think Simon and co. were %@&$ with us. The Wire was never about giving the audience what it wanted, and what I and most people wanted to see was The Showdown, a face off between Marlo and Omar. We came close to it a few episodes earlier in that apartment shootout that nearly cost Omar his life there and than, but his escape out the window and miraculous survival made me think they were setting us up for a death match between the show’s two most badass characters. And with Omar on a rampage like never before, I was sure he’d catch up to Marlo sooner or later. Instead, he would be taken out by one shot to the dome by a kid whose balls hadn’t even dropped yet. Talk about “Oh %@&$!”
3) Oz - “Works of Mercy”
For a series that perfected the “Oh %@&$!” moment, and than ran it into the ground, I’d say season four’s arc focusing on Beecher’s kidnapped children provided the most heart-wrenching scene of any series since Homicide’s Every Mother’s Son episode – the death of Beecher’s child, off-screen, represented only by a small hand on an X-ray machine and Beecher’s shrieking cries in the dark. This horrific moment really changed the tone of the show for me personally, and the character of Vern Schillinger in particular. Had the series saw fit to end sometime after that it would have been a near-perfect experience.
4) The Sopranos - “Employee of the Month”
The brilliance of The Sopranos was in never knowing when a character would meet his or her’s near-certain fate. You always figured Ralph or Ritchie would get theirs eventually, but the writers knew how and when to drop the bombshell on us, usually by starting off with humour to keep us off their trail. But when it came to the rape of Dr. Melfi, the show’s conscience, the one you would never expect to be victim or perpetrator of the kind of violence her client Tony Soprano so readily inflicted on his enemies, you couldn’t help but cry with her as she was viciously violated by some creep in a parking garage.
What were the show’s producers thinking when they introduced this tragedy into the show? I hate rape scenes on principle because I think they’re inherently exploitative, but something about this one told me the intent wasn’t to show violence for the sake of violence. The series always got flack for its portrayal of Italian-Americans as violent mafia goons, but Melfi’s character was the balance to all that, a symbol of the hard-working, law-abiding Italian-American. Her violent assault, however, put a question mark over that image, as she was contemplating using her mob boss client to exact revenge on the pervert that attacked her. No doubt we all have that part of our conscience that wants to exact vengeance on the person or persons who’ve injured us, but so few of us have the opportunity or means to do it. So really, the test Melfi is put through is a test on all of us. And rather than let her character take the morally dubious path, she stands up to the urge that we all want her to act on with one simple word: “no.”
5) Lost - "Through the Looking Glass”
I know most fans of Lost were beginning to lose patience with the show’s complex mystery and whether or not the Oceanic survivors would ever get off that damn island, so in season three’s finale, the writers threw us a curve ball. Flipping the show’s familiar flashback subplot on its head in the last scene by showing Jack reunited with Kate in Los Angeles was priceless. I got such a giddy feeling when she showed up. Finally, I thought, we’re on to something here. As Jack pleaded with her to return to the island, I felt like the series had reinvented itself, and in many ways it did, by giving us a new reason to watch, and raising our expectations about how the show would finally end.
6) Battlestar Galactica - "Revelations"
The revelation over the identity of the final five was meh, as was Saul’s wife Ellen being the fifth and final Cylon. The real “Oh %@&$!” moment came at the end of season 4.0, with the crew of Galactica and their new Cylon allies finding earth. Oh wait, earth’s just a nuclear wasteland? Ah %@&$!
Yeah, turns out that Starbuck… not such a great scout after all. While she wasn’t exactly the harbinger of doom we were led to believe, she managed to steer these guys a bit off course. But their arrival on dead earth was still my favourite moment in the entire series, simply because it ripped the happy ending idea I’d firmly believed the show was leading up to. Had it ended than, it would have been perfect. Sadly, it would go on for ten more episodes, leading right to that BS happy ending I’d predicted earlier.
Marlo's reaction to Omar's escape was the best: "that's some spiderman shit right there"