The Shield and the Most Disturbing Fictional Moments Ever

Last night's "The Shield" re-established the show as the flat out best program on television. Not that it ever truly lost the top spot...like Manny Ramirez, even its slumps are shallow and short lived. This year with the Strike Team members either blown apart by Honduran hand grenades (Lemansky), at war with each other (Shane vs. Vic and Ronnie) or days away from forced retirement (Vic), the show hasn't been bringing its "A" game. But like Manny, when it comes out of the slump, it comes out with a fury.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, "The Shield" brought back the plot thread of Capt. Aceveda's oral rape. The whole business had seemingly been put to bed at least three seasons ago, but I always had the sneaking suspicion it would be back. Now with the season finale next week, a picture of the coerced BJ in question has surfaced and it looks like the only thing that can save Mackey's career. One "job" saving another, if you will.

I nominate that scene as THE most disturbing movie/TV moment of all time. Seriously, even though it was fictional, I couldn't sleep the night I watched it. It was so horrible, I won't even post the video, I'll just link to it, as if that will save me from the horrible memory.

Here are the rest of my Disturbing Fictional Moment Top (Bottom) 10. FHM did a similar list last year. I think it was "Horrifying Moments" or something like that. But the No. 1 was Kathy Bates climbing into a hot tub in "About Schmidt." We care about our audience too much to pull a lame stunt like that.

10. "Singin' in the Rain" from A Clockwork Orange. Alex and his droogs out for a bit of the old ultraviolence. Not even the husband's shirt justifies that kind of treatment.

9. Annie prattles on and makes everything all oogy. Misery. The movie that put "hobbling" into Webster's dictionary. I've heard in the book, it's even worse, though I can't imagine how.

8. "Is it safe?" from Marathon Man. Laurence Olivier drills Dustin Hoffman's teeth to get information Hoffman doesn't have. Responsible for more lack of dental care than the House of Windsor. The only thing more horrible than watching an actual marathon.

7. Linda Blair's Lazy Susan head from The Exorcist. And then Satan says to Regan "Watch your back."

6. "BITE THE CURB!!!" from American History X. What they had in mind when they coined the term "fate worse than death."

5. Take out guy delivers a Family Size Box o' Gwynyth Head, Se7en. Made even more disturbing when it's done by William Shatner.

4. "It's a boy!" from Alien. The crew of the Nostromo couldn't have seen this coming because they never ate at Buzzy's Roast Beef.

3. "Squeal like a pig" from Deliverance. To this day there is no archetype that freaks me out as much as "The Scary Hillbilly."

2. Hannibal Lecter escapes in Silence of the Lambs. As disturbing as the whole movie was, watching him get away wearing a cop's severed face made you want to sit home, suck your thumb and watch "House on Pooh Corner."