Excellent review as always, m'dear.
Having Hawkes featured is awesome, and I think Hill and Harold did a great job establishing a complicated relationship between their characters in such a short time with so much else going on. And it's always nice to learn more about the characters who usually end up in the background. The nod to continuity re: Louie, Sam, Adam's dad and Lindsay's past was long overdue, so I was glad for that - I've long said a single line is better than nothing, and getting a bit of focus on that in the middle of an episode all about dealing with the past certainly fits the bill, so I can't complain there.
Otherwise, I wasn't completely thrilled with the episode. It did have its good points, but there were other things that I wasn't happy with. ("Criminal Justice" was only a few weeks ago? Stella seemed to have a complete non-reaction to Danny's badge being stolen? And don't even get me started on ages and timelines - I get a headache just trying to make sense of it all. Plus even if the actors were great, and the story made sense as written, I'm not totally pleased with the idea of tossing the only minority character in jail - again. But maybe I'm just being overly sensitive with that one.)
Also, I agree with you, Kristine - I really hope they didn't bring Shane back just to have him be a crazy psycho - they could have done that storyline without resurrecting a great character with a lot of potential from several years ago.
