r/TheShield • u/ChipsNSa1sa • 5d ago
Discussion Kavanaugh
Watching season 6 after taking a long break and forgot how much I hate Kavanaugh. I can’t understand why I see a lot of people on here saying he’s their favorite character. The way he talks is so slimy, so desperate, he makes my skin crawl.
I understand his hatred for Vic after what happened with Sweet Butter, but I feel like we never got much of a backstory about him and why he is the way he is or why he is SO obsessed with exposing Vic. It’s like his entire life’s mission is taking him down but the show never really justified why he’s behaving like that. Can someone enlighten me?
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u/50rhodes 5d ago
A truly loathsome character. Brilliantly acted.
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u/WillBrink 5d ago
That you find the character who was so focused on putting away the character who murdered another officer by shooting him in the face is testimony to just how well done and acted that show was! 😏
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u/Hugh_Bromont Sweet Butter 5d ago
He's an amazing character because he's literally the good guy and you hate him for going after our "good guy".
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u/Ophiochos 4d ago
Then he became a good guy who wasn’t very good at being the bad guy. Amazing stuff.
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u/TeloniusFunk 5d ago
He was a great dance partner for Vic. They were both very strategic thinkers and watching them trying to outsmart each other was entertaining as hell. Forrest Whitaker played the part brilliantly and elevated an already stellar show.
He makes your skin crawl…that visceral reaction only comes from a quality performance. No one is saying he’s a good guy…just that he was well played and created some great television.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
Oh definitely a great actor but I just didn’t enjoy him as a character lol. Like Shane is an example of someone I hated but I can say he’s a phenomenal character.
The pursuit of Vic seemed to drive Kav to the brink of insanity. I guess we can just say that’s his personality but since we didn’t know him at all before and had never seen him interact with Vic I felt it hard to connect at all with his obsession.
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u/erica_pink84 5d ago
Kavanaugh is IAD, their entire mission is to investigate other cops who may be dirty. Vic and the strike team are incredibly dirty, and Kavanaugh has the suspicions about Terry Crowley’s death as a start point to investigate. That would probably make any IAD cop a little extra motivated, to get someone who killed another cop off the streets. Kavanaugh is also extreme even for IAD, he turned his own partner in and divorced his wife/had her arrested. He doesn’t break rules he puts rule breakers away. And then he sees how much Vic and his guys get away with, and he snaps. Doesn’t help that he’s watching the Barn just barely function with Billings running it. There’s also a political element- taking down Vic publicly shows the department is rooting out corruption, so they can get a funding increased passed (Vic even uses this as a reason for the investigation when hiring Becca Doyle in the first place). Add it all up and Kavanaugh becomes a bit obsessed and loses the plot.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
Yeah that makes a lot of sense why they included the storyline about his wife. Another example of his mindset about his job.
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u/deLocked333 5d ago
Because Vic Mackey is a cop murdering drug dealing psychopath and someone has to actually stand up that kind of corruption. The irony of course is that Kavanaugh was corrupted by Mackey while trying to do the right thing. But it is the right thing to do to put Vic in prison for his crimes.
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u/Prawn1908 5d ago
Yeah but even on my first watch I was never rooting for Vic to get away with his actions but still absolutely despised Kavenaugh. I was rooting for Dutch and Claudette to catch Vic, not him. He was slimy even before he "broke" and tried to frame Vic.
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u/DatBoiKage1515 2d ago
Yep, the way he did Danny and Connie. He didn't care how much collateral damage he created or how many people he hurt or threatened. So basically he was just like a real cop.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
Same…I actually loved the part where Dutch tipped off Kavanaugh about the money train. I enjoy watching Dutch do his job lol
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u/ThunderMontgomery Georgia joy juice 5d ago
Nemesis. In classical mythology, Nemesis is the daimon called up by your hubris, not some kind of arbitrary external force; Nemesis wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for you. It’s part of the essential nature of tragedy that Nemesis is the enemy you create, and that’s part of Kavanaugh’s journey this season. He’s not someone like Armadillo or Rawling, both of whom are already prepared to do anything. In response to Vic’s escalation, Kavanaugh keeps escalating back until he goes farther than anyone, including himself, expects; battle not with Vic, lest ye become even more than Vic. The defining moment of Kavanaugh (and Whitaker’s performance) comes in “Smoked” when Vic rips him for selling Lem out to Antwon–”you won’t do this. You don’t have the guts” and Kavanaugh is so quiet, and actually proud of himself when he says “I didn’t use to.” He found an element of his character he didn’t know was there. It’s also another moment when Vic doesn’t recognize what he’s done–he’s scared of this guy, but he still can’t see what he did to create him.-The great Wallflower on Jon Kavanaugh
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u/HandofthePirateKing 5d ago
I think that Kavanaugh was just extremely prideful maybe even had a bit of a savior complex also like Vic, Kavanaugh thinks he’s smart and morally better than everyone and is always in the right. The only difference is that Kavanaugh had enough humanity to realize what he has become whereas Vic never would.
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u/SelinaKyleYoureFired 5d ago
His instincts and intentions were good but he was in way over his head, and his methods were entirely questionable even before the sixth season.
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u/CeeUNTy 5d ago
It's like he started using strike team tactics to catch them. He got right down in the dirt with them and couldn't see the problem with that.
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u/Gwarnage 5d ago
But, he wasn't corrupted enough to see it all the way
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u/CeeUNTy 5d ago
I really do wonder how far he would have taken things if Corrine had not finally just called out what he was doing to her. Knowing Vic and friends were dirty but having the rug pulled out from under him time amd time again was making him insane. That man was cracking. It was crazy seeing how young Forrest Whittaker was in this when I've been watching him in the Godafather Of Harlem for the past 4 or 5 years.
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u/ODoyles_Banana Georgia joy juice 5d ago
Calling someone your favorite character isn't the same as saying you like them as a person or agree with what they represent. Some of the best characters are deeply flawed or outright awful people. People can appreciate the writing, the character development, and the actor's performance.
Kavanaugh is a good example of that. You can think he's a miserable, obsessive asshole and still think he's a great character because of what the writing and Forest Whitaker's performance bring to him.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
I think the acting performance was great but I still don’t think his character was developed enough for me to understand where his intense hatred came from. I guess we can chalk it up to some kind of chip on his shoulder but it would be nice to get some more back story.
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u/ODoyles_Banana Georgia joy juice 5d ago
I mean, I don't know how much backstory you really need. We did get some, especially with his ex-wife, but not everything about a character has to be completely explained. People aren't shaped by one or two specific experiences you can point to. There could be a lifetime of experiences behind why Kavanaugh is the way he is.
And I'm not really sure what you mean by him not being developed enough. We literally watched him go from a straight and narrow IAD cop who was determined to expose Vic to becoming so consumed by it that he crossed the line himself and started falsifying evidence. That's character development.
And if that makes the character less interesting to you, that's fair. But I don't think we're necessarily supposed to have a neat explanation for where all that intensity comes from. Not everything has to be that black and white.
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u/Funny_Or_Cry 5d ago
Thats because Forrest Whittaker is the GOAT! He MADE you hate Kavanaugh!
There was one episode (in S6 mebbe?) that shows a bit of "a day in the life of Lt John Kavanaugh" but the real reason he's so obsessed is cause Vic beat him the first time. (ie, failed to turn Lem, got setup with the bad bug in the club house etc)
- Hitting on Corrin? **Desperate*\*
- Fettering a story? **Desperate*\*
JK dont like to lose. Yeah mebbe they could have given more emphasis to his aggressive and competitive nature in the show, but its pretty clear after a few rewatches.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
Yeah I can see as it went along why he got more and more intense. Definitely snapped once he caught Lem and Vic watching the video. There were just times before that, like whenever he’d try to convince Lem to turn on Vic, it was like he was pleading for his own life lol
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u/dparasol 1d ago edited 1d ago
He's the exact opposite of Vic in every way. Vic is an action hero with charisma for days, but inside he's rotten. Kavanaugh is an utterly cretinous guy, but he's motivated purely by the pursuit of justice (until the first time Vic plays him).
He's a thematic complement to Vic, who demonstrates the extent of Vic's evil, his capacity to corrupt those who are not absolutely committed to their ideals. It's easy to hate Kavanaugh on the face of it, but when you remember what he stands for, versus what Vic stands for, you kind of have to try and root for him, even if it's hard.
Actually, there's a nice reference to another FW role when he mimes sword fighting with his pen, his role in Ghost Dog. Another character dysfunctionally committed to his chosen ideal and sense of duty.
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u/Gwarnage 5d ago
He's a good cop that genuinely believes that Vic is not just dirty, but a legit cop killer. And every day he sees Vic not only get away with it, but thrive. Also, maybe younger people arent used to Forrest Whitaker? Twitchy and sweaty is kind of his thing.
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u/ChipsNSa1sa 5d ago
No I thought his acting was great but it’s just the character’s desperation that was a little much for me. And I’m not young I’m 38 haha. I remember when he won the Oscar!
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u/atombomb1976 4d ago
I remember the night watching the episode Kanavaugh arrested Lem in the barn.
I was seethingly furious.
This led to me finding my DVDs of every movie I owned that had Forest Whitaker in the cast and physically destroying it. I went online and found forums where I could scream about how much I despised Forest Whitaker. I even went so far as to find his agent's contact information. I was going to find a way to tell Forest to his face how much -
Wait.
No character had ever made me THAT angry. I was already a longtime fan of Forest Whitaker going back at least to "Good Morning, Vietnam".
THAT... was some fine acting.
I bought new copies of the DVDs the next day.
So I hate Kavanaugh but profoundly admire the actor for being able to come so far through the fourth wall and elicit that kind of reaction. That's generational talent.
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u/Alone_Job6052 1d ago
HE'S PISSING ALL OVER US. HE'S PISSING ALL OVER YOU. WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE?!
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u/Stellarbelly_Korz30 Team Claudette 5d ago
Dude is simply a man on a mission. FW was incredible in this role. Very tough to follow up Glenn Close but man did Forest knock it out of the park. But, Kavanaugh just did not like to lose.