‘The Shield’ Ending Explained - What Happens to the Strike Team?

Summary

• The Shield, an American crime drama television series, concluded its seven-season run with a finale that left viewers with a mix of emotions.
• In the finale, several key storylines were resolved, and the fates of the main characters were determined.
• Shane Vendrell faced the harshest consequences for his actions. Realizing that his crimes had led to a desperate situation, he took his own life, along with his wife and child's.

Shawn Ryan's The Shield—which starred Michael Chiklis as the head of a corrupt police unit—premiered on FX in 2002 during the height of the Golden Age of Prestige TV. Though it did as much to push the envelope of what a series could portray, it was always considered a cut or two below the shows that were airing on HBO at around the same time, particularly Deadwood, The Sopranos, and The Wire.

The Shield ran for seven seasons, but by the time of its final season, the series had been spinning its wheels plot-wise for quite a while in a state of slow decline. But with an end in sight, the final few episodes provided enough punch to preserve the show's legacy as one of television's most fully realized artistic statements, and its reputation has only increased recently, especially in comparison to The Wire, which also criticized American policing. But without that strong finish, it's not that clear what reputation The Shield would have today.

What Happens in the Final Episodes of 'The Shield'?

The Shield was always primarily the story of Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his Strike Team. Tasked with breaking up street gangs, the Strike Team instead partnered with them to both control and profit off the drug trade in Los Angeles. The show was inspired by a real police corruption scandal inside the similar CRASH anti-gang unit of the LAPD Rampart Division (which implicated dozens of officers), and the show's criticism was so direct that the LAPD threatened to sue if The Shield used any of their branding. For that reason, The Shield was always set in a slightly unreal version of Los Angeles with an unnamed police department in the fictional South L.A. neighborhood of Farmington.

Vic Mackey's corruption was established in the show's pilot, as the audience was led to believe that the show would focus on an investigation into the Strike Team, led by undercover detective, Terry Crawley (Reed Diamond). But in the final moments, Mackey murders Crawley, with the help of Detective Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins). For seven seasons, Mackey dealt with the fallout of this murder, frequently with the vague intention of returning to straight police work once the situation was finally managed. However, he could never quite get all the fires put out, so he was forced to continually make use of his dark side. Over seven seasons, the endless series of narratively-forced choices began to make Vic Mackey seem more like a toy of the fates than a bad person who did bad things. The finale made strong efforts to set the record straight that Mackey was a villain, though.

The Ending of 'The Shield' Decides the Fate of the Strike Team

There were four core members of the Strike Team: Vic, the oily and weak Shane, the well-meaning but in-over-his-head Detective Curtis Lemansky (Kenny Johnson), and the eternally bland Detective Ronnie Gardocki (David Rees Snell). Season 4 of the show ended explosively, with Shane murdering Curtis to prevent him from testifying against the team. When Mackey found out what Shane had done, he vowed revenge on him for breaking the Strike Team's only rule: never turn on each other.

In the finale, Vic breaks his own rules. With an investigation closing in, he makes a deal with ICE, the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency that was still new at the time. Vic gets full immunity for his crimes in exchange for helping to take down a drug kingpin, but his deal doesn't cover Ronnie, and Vic lies to his friend's face in order to help get him taken into custody. The arrest is orchestrated to take place in front of him so that Vic will be forced to confront the results of his betrayal.

Even worse, though, is what happens to Shane. After being iced out by Vic, Shane's failed attempts to follow the pattern of corruption he learned from Vic leads to a series of escalating problems. Forced to go on the run with his pregnant wife and young son, Shane eventually realizes that his crimes have led to a desperate and inescapable situation in which both he and his wife will be jailed, with his children growing up without a family. Faced with this, Shane takes his own life, killing his wife and child, as well. In his note, Shane takes responsibility for what he's done, but also makes it clear that Vic is responsible for first corrupting him.

The Finale of 'The Shield' Is Generous to Aceveda, Dutch and Wyms

Over its run, The Shield struggled to add meaningful new characters and to provide stories for much of the cast that it introduced in the pilot. However, it succeeded wildly in servicing three of prestige TV's best characters: Detectives Claudette Wyms and "Dutch" Wagenbach (CCH Pounder and Jay Karnes, respectively), as well as former police Captain David Aceveda (Benito Martinez), who starts out as a police officer but later leaves for politics. These characters were used to balance out the Strike Force; they were police officers who were not quite as morally corrupt as Vic Mackey, even if they had their flaws. All of them were easier to root for than anyone on the Strike Team, and The Shield preserved a happy-ish ending for all three.

The finale gave audiences a classic Dutch B-plot, as he's framed for murder by Lloyd (Kyle Gallner), the sociopathic son of a woman he's in a bumbling romantic relationship with. Dutch's partner is Claudette Wyms, who's righteous and invulnerable, but while she's one of the coolest TV characters in history, her constant uprightness makes her a little less compelling than Dutch. By the finale, Claudette has been promoted to captain, but she and Dutch get to solve one last case together. The two of them turn the tables on Lloyd; their friendship is confirmed, and Dutch gets a glimmer of romantic hope as the series draws to a conclusion.

Although The Shield finally gave Farmington the captain it deserved in Claudette, the victory is bittersweet, as it's revealed that she's dying. Though it's not quite a happily ever after, the show makes clear that she'll stay in her job as long as her health allows. David Aceveda also looks like he'll succeed in becoming the next mayor of Los Angeles after falsely taking credit for a major drug bust. David has always placed his political ambitions over doing the right thing, but it's still been easy to root for him. This was especially true after he was sexually assaulted in Season 3, with proof of the assault being used against him as political blackmail. By the finale, he has not only destroyed that evidence, but it seems as if he has overcome the psychological damage caused by the assault. He might be a sleaze, but he is our sleaze, and we wish him well.

What Does the Finale of 'The Shield' Mean, Thematically?

Comparing The Shield and The Wire has become quite common over the years. Often, the point is made that while The Wire criticizes the way police departments are run, it still valorizes individual officers, while The Shield is more relentless in portraying the police as little more than a gang. However, there is some obvious truth to all of this. In The Wire, the worst police officers were political game players akin to David Aceveda, and there were no Vic Mackeys. When David Simon, the creator of The Wire, returned to Baltimore to tell the true story of another wildly corrupt "elite police unit" in 2022's We Own This City, it was as if he was admitting that The Shield had been right along.

Still, for many of its seasons, the story The Shield told was of a police officer whom fate would not allow to escape his past sins. Vic Mackey's true nature was obscured by how ruthlessly the plot mechanics kept compelling him to make terrible choices, without forcing him to choose between himself and the one principle he claimed to have: loyalty to his team. The finale does a ton to clear the air, reminding the audience that Vic has been nothing but a force of destruction.

In the show's memorable final scene, Vic, after doing his day's labor for ICE, puts on his gun and badge, heading out into the night as if he's returning to his old ways. The moment is ambiguous, and the show encourages the belief that Vic is going out to finally do real police work because that's what's in his blood. Which is to say that, in those very last moments, the series seems to flinch from its critique. Even so, it seems wildly naive to believe that this time, Vic will get it right, and that even with a clean start, he won't once again end up with bricks of heroin in his car, because the show has finally been honest that he is irredeemably bad.

The Shield is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

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