The Shield is so gritty that if it were a fictional cop, it would be Vic Mackey, star of the hit-series The Shield. If that makes no sense to you because you've never seen The Shield, then you're in the right place. On September 9th Vic Mackey is bringing his unique brand of face-smashing justice to Showcase for the seventh and final season of the show. It's rumoured to be the most shocking finale since The Sopranos abruptly went off the air, but if you're not familiar with the show you'll be sitting there going...
"Man, this Vic Mackey dude is bad as hell, but I have no clue what anyone is talking about or doing or thinking about or acting like that for."
This is where The Ultimate Insiders Guide to the Shield comes in. Think of it as a crib sheet for the first 6 seasons of the show, where you'll learn all you need to know to have your mind blown by season 7. There are significant spoilers ahead, but unless you want to watch 60+ hours of The Shield in the next two weeks you'd better start snacking this info like a fat kid snacks foods that make fat kids fat.
WHO YOU NEED TO KNOW
There are other people in the show but these are the important ones. If The Shield were high school, these would be the cool kids:
THE STRIKE TEAM
Vic Mackey (played by Michael Chiklis): Leader of the Strike Team, Vic Mackey is above the law. Divorced father of three children, two of whom are autistic. Loves his family, and rationalizes much of his corrupt activity as a way of providing for them. His paternal instincts extend to the street, where he is known to be extremely benevolent towards a number of addicts, prostitutes, tramps, scally-wags, vagabonds and reputed ne'er-do-wells. Will have sex with anything that moves.
Shane Vendrell (played by Walton Goggins): Mackey's right hand man, Shane is a little too into the street-justice thing and has to be constantly reigned in. He has a wife that he isn't even close to faithful to, and a young boy named Jackson. Though he's always the first to do something stupid, he has terrible guilt issues that plague him throughout the show.
Ronnie Gardocki (played by David Rees Snell): The Strike Team member we know virtually nothing about, aside from the fact that he has a hard time talking to women. Seriously, that's it.
Curtis "Lem" Lemanski (played by Kenny Johnson): Sweet, sweet Lem. So misunderstood. If only they could have believed you, things could have turned out so differently. There is a major spoiler about Lem in the season 5 recap.
THE BRASS
Captain David Aceveda (played by Benito Martinez): Aceveda is the Wile E.Coyote to Vic's Road Runner, constantly trying to bust him on his criminal dealings and getting foiled at every turn by Mackey's quick thinking and liberal use of 500 lb. ACME anvils.
THE DETECTIVES
Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach (played by Jay Karnes): Crackerjack detective and lovable nerd. Dutch likes Tina, like, more than a friend.
Claudette Wymms (played by CCH Pounder): Crafty old vet, and long-time partner of Mr. Dutch Wagenbach. More importantly, CCH Pounder is the coolest name in television history.
THE OFFICERS
Julien Lowe (played by Michael Jace): Deeply religious and often appalled by the underhanded tactics of the Strike Team. Julien acts as the voice of morality and reason in the show's darker moments. He is also very tall.
Danielle "Danny" Sofer (played by Catherine Dent): Danny is Vic's mistress, an arrangement that Vic's wife Corrine finds out about halfway through season 5. She calls Danny a whore and tells her her unborn baby is a bastard. Awwwwwkwaaaaaard.
Tina Hanlon (played by Paula Garces): Rookie officer and resident hottie. She's not what you would describe as a "good" police officer, but keeps getting bailed out because every guy in the station wants to make out with her.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Six seasons in 1,000 words? If the whole world was this concise, you'd be at home in bed by now.
SEASON ONE
Welcome to the Barn, bitches! Season 1 serves as an introduction to the Farmington division of the LAPD, the experimental unit that works out of a converted church known as The Barn. The fictional Farmington (aka The Farm) is a drug-addled, gang-infested wasteland, circumstances that push the cops to extremes in efforts to keep the peace. The Barn's number one badass is Mr. Vic Mackey, a dude who doesn't just bend the rules, he makes kaka on them three times a day. Vic heads up the Strike Team, a four-man wrecking crew based on the LAPD's real-life CRASH team. The Strike Team works its own hours and is free to do whatever it wants all the time, which means severe beatings for suspects, coerced confessions, manipulation of the local drug game for personal gain, and the occasional homicide. But they're the good guys. Sort of.
The major plotline of S1 follows Captain Aceveda's futile attempts to bring down the Strike Team. He assigns a mole named Terry Crowley to the Strike Team to keep an eye on Vic, and Vic responds by shooting Crowley in the face, about three inches below said eye. We also learn of the awkward but productive partnership of Claudette and Dutch, and Julien's ongoing struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality and the religious contradictions it presents. Near the end of the season he is pressured into participating in a ritual beating known as a "blanket party" on an AIDS-infected transvestite prostitute. And we're just getting warmed up, folks!
SEASON TWO
YOU: Season 2, whatcha gonna do?
SEASON TWO: I'm glad you asked. While my primary focus is on a twisted, child-raping drug lord named Armadillo, I also document the moral decay of Vic and the Strike Team as they make designs on a retirement-scale cash grab on the Armenian Mob. Known as the Money Train, the heist goes down in the season finale, and goes about as badly as possible. Left with a dying Armenian mobster on their hands, the Strike Team has a fit of conscience and lets him live, a loose end that will come back to haunt them. After coming out, Julien complains about being harassed by his colleagues, which gets two of them fired. They return the favour by throwing Julien a blanket party of his own.
YOU: Dude, harsh.
SEASON TWO: You asked.
SEASON THREE
Super-detectives Dutch and Claudette start working the Money Train case, which puts considerable heat on Vic and his lovable band of miscreants . Their lives are further complicated when they learn that the money they stole had been marked in an ongoing government investigation. With the vengeful Armenian mob closing in on the Strike Team, Lem takes action and burns most of the cash, causing a Vic flip-out and the disbanding of the Strike Team in the season finale.
Will the Strike Team get back together? Will those mischievous Armenians catch up to Vic and the boys? Find out next time on...
SEASON FOUR OF THE SHIELD
Taking over as Captain, Monica Rawling (Glenn Close) is what the kids these days would call "old-school." She sees real value in Vic's hardnosed sensibilities, and actually gives him more power within the Barn. The season follows Rawling and Mackey's pursuit of drug-kingpin-posing-as-community-activist Antwon Mitchell. Mitchell's a slippery sum-bitch, and Shane, in a display of tremendously poor risk-management skills, starts doing business with him. In the end the Strike Team reunites and brings Antwon down, but Shane's terrible decision making foreshadows something supremely stupid that he pulls in S5.
In other news: The new captain becomes the old captain, as Rawling is ousted over a dispute with the DEA; Claudette is passed over for the position, due to her spat with the DA.
SEASON FIVE
"Open your goddamned eyes to who we are."
- Curtis "Lem" Lemanski
S5 is when el shito hits el fano, which is a Spanish-themed euphemism for "when the shit hits the fan." Enter Forrest Whitaker as Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, an Internal Affairs detective with a raging conviction-boner for Vic Mackey. In an attempt to turn the Strike Team on itself, he peels Lem off on a trumped-up drug charge and threatens him with jail time if he doesn't testify that Vic killed Terry Crowley (S1). When Vic learns of Kavanaugh's intentions, he nails the Lieutenant's ex-wife, because that's the type of thing Vic Mackey likes to do. With Lem on the run, Aceveda feeds the Team a bullshit story about Lem starting to talk, which causes Shane to go coco-loco and blow Lem up with a grenade. Vic and Ronnie don't know that Shane did it, but it still wasn't a very nice thing to do.
In other news: We learn that Claudette has had lupus for 15 years, and she is finally promoted to Captain. Danny is pregnant throughout S5, with everyone at the Barn placing bets on whom the father could be. It turns out to be Vic's. Of course.
SEASON SIX
Beginning immediately after the events of S5, we find Mr. Mackey freaking out over Lem's death. He decides a gent named Guardo is responsible, tracks him down and totally murders his ass. Vic then discovers Guardo wasn't responsible and flips out all over again. Meanwhile Shane is cracking under the pressure of his dirty little secret, and finally 'fesses up to Vic about killing Lem. Vic tells Shane to hit the bricks, threatening to kill him if he ever sees him again.
Concerned about he and his wife's safety, Shane threatens to blow the lid on all the Strike Team's misdeeds if Vic makes a move. He then cosies up with the Armenian Mob, telling them about the Money Train robbery (S2) and pinning it on Vic, whetting the Armenians appetite for revenge. Scared that the Armenians will connect him to the Money Train and come for him as well, he does what he can to neutralize the situation, with mixed results.
In other news: Julien gets moved to the Strike Team; Vic is getting pushed into retirement, and is forced to train his replacement, a lunatic named Hiatt who could out-crazy Mackey any day of the week.
SEASON SEVEN
Tuesday, September 9th. 10pm ET/PT. Only on Showcase.
