Yeah, it was gratuitous imo, pretentiously so. A mate of mine did finish it but he really struggled with it towards the end. It just seemed entirely unnecessary to go down that path.

The Shield was good because Shawn Ryan was there to temper his "enthusiasm" (shall we say) for the oversaturated violence. I mean, even his character (in only 2 episodes) was overly sick. Just unbelievably so.