Thank you, writers of The Shield. Before this week I'd never seen your show, but they don't allow us to change the station on the televisions at the gym anymore so this Monday I got to enjoy an entire episode. The story was modestly engaging, and I was excited to see Glenn Close has found meaningful work again. The story was this: two rival gangs in Los Angeles were immersed in a war that new police chief Glenn Close was determined to stop. She ordered the cops under her command to put pressure wherever they could in order to find out information about why the war was occurring. As the cops got to the heart of the issue, they discovered that the war was over a woman who had left the gang leader on one side for a banger on the other side. 'Well what do you know about that,' I said. 'Just like the Trojan War.' Of course, I thought this was merely an amusing coincidence until near the end of the episode, when the Helen character announced that one of the leaders of the gang had been tied to the back of a truck and dragged around the block several times. 'Ah yes,' I thought. 'There's no question now. This is The Iliad, and that guy getting dragged around the block was supposed to be Hector.'

I love it! It was a little goofy, sure, but I totally applaud their ambition. And at least it was subtle. They didn't ram the reference down our throats. If it had been Law & Order, the writers would have had a character come out and say: "Hey, this is just like the Trojan War! Let me tell you the story in tedious detail as if you'd never had a high school history class!" And then McCoy and his assistant du jour would have engaged in some acerbic banter about 'defense attorneys bearing gifts,' or something stupid like that. At least the writers of The Shield have more respect for us than that.

Maybe the writers had hope that the viewers would get the reference because of that recent film, Sparta. No wait! It was Troy, wasn't it? Morty? Yes, Morty's telling me it was Troy. I mean, it seems reasonable to imagine that after this blockbuster film came out, people would be more aware that there is a famous epic poem called The Iliad and that it was written by a character from The Simpsons. But you never know. This is America, after all. So in the interest of uncovering the truth, I sent an interviewer into the field to find out. Here's a small portion of the video transcript.

Interviewer: What do you remember about the film Troy?

Average Joe: It had Tyler Durden in it and that guy from The Hulk.

Average Jane: You mean Brad Pitt! I read that he has a thing about having his feet exposed and that for a long time he refused to wear sandals during the filming.

Interviewer: You'd imagine he'd at least have to have his heel exposed. Heh heh heh.

Average Joe: Why is that?

Average Jane: What?

Interviewer: Well, he played Achilles, didn't he?

Average Joe: Umm...I thought they were saying "a killer" the whole time.

Average Jane: All I know is I got whiplash turning my head between him and Orlando. See my Mrs. Orlando Bloom handbag? I got it on sale.

Average Fido (with a voice like Brian from The Family Guy): My owners are illiterate. You'd better try that couple over there—the ones prattling on about Swedenborg.

Anyway, I love it when movies and television shows borrow themes and stories from literature. And the more ham-fisted, the better. Watching some of these things, you can almost see the screenwriter laboring away in a studio apartment somewhere, bemoaning the sort of doggerel he is forced to write in order to scrape by, and thinking to himself, "By God, I'm going to add some dignity to this scatalogical abomination! I'm going to add a mention of King Lear! Or a Christ reference!" So then we get things like Saffron Burrows' ridiculously melodramatic act of sacrifice at the end of Deep Blue Sea, which is hilarious and wonderful. For some reason, uncovering these gems in unexpected places is even more satisfying than any of the more "serious" treatments of the classics (anything directed by the self-righteous Kenneth Branaugh, for example). I'm still waiting for the futuristic, zombies-on-a-spaceship rendering of Macbeth, starring Bruce Campbell.

So again, thank you to writers of The Shield for giving me the opportunity to recognize a literary reference. As a former English major, this is really all I'm qualified to do.