89 Fun Facts About The Shield

In The Shield's pilot, what does Vic Mackey carry into the interrogation room to beat a suspect with?

A phone book goes in with him after the by-the-book detectives get nowhere; the captain who wants Vic off the force is the one who sends him in, and the missing girl is found alive.

Before creating The Shield, Shawn Ryan wrote for which sunnier Don Johnson cop show?

Nash Bridges needed a hero who always won, but the police ride-alongs Ryan took while writing it showed him far darker things, so he wrote The Shield to get them out of his system.

Which real LAPD scandal loosely inspired The Shield's Strike Team?

Rampart was the show's title until shortly before it aired: after the LAPD protested that FX was cashing in on its scandal, the network renamed the series The Shield.

What is the fictional Los Angeles district where The Shield is set?

Nicknamed 'the Farm', it is rife with gang violence, drug trafficking and prostitution.

On The Shield, the police station known as 'the Barn' was converted from what kind of building?

A church houses the Barn, a precinct so central to the show that the first script was itself titled The Barn before FX settled on The Shield.

What did Michael Chiklis do to his look before auditioning for Vic Mackey, to shed his cuddly image?

Shaved his head: FX's executives knew him as a soft, cuddly TV lead and were reluctant even to see him, so he trained for six months, walked in bald and chewed through the scene.

Besides Vic Mackey, which three detectives make up The Shield's original Strike Team?

Vendrell, Lemansky and Gardocki: the last began as a non-speaking extra in the pilot, played by a friend of the show's creator as a favor, and grew into a full member of the team.

Which Strike Team recruit does Vic Mackey shoot dead in The Shield's pilot episode?

Terry Crowley was a plant sent to expose the team, and actor Reed Diamond was billed as a series regular for the pilot so that viewers would never see his death coming.

Shawn Ryan took The Shield's pilot ending from a twist he wished he had seen in which Al Pacino film?

Donnie Brasco: in the cinema Ryan wished Pacino's mobster would turn and shoot Johnny Depp's undercover agent, having known all along, and years later he gave that ending to Vic Mackey.

In The Shield's pilot, Vic Mackey says good cop and bad cop have left for the day and he is what?

A different kind of cop is what Vic calls himself just before beating the truth out of a suspect to find a missing girl, the scene that told viewers what sort of show this was.

What is the nickname of Detective Wagenbach, the Barn's bookish profiler on The Shield?

Dutch is a play on his first name, Holland; the Barn laughs at its bookish profiler until, in season 1, he alone spots a serial killer and talks him into a confession.

Which comedy actor played against type as drug lord Antwon Mitchell in season 4 of The Shield?

Anthony Anderson was coming off slapstick like Kangaroo Jack and Big Momma's House, and took the role on purpose to show Hollywood the flip side of what he could do.

In season 2 of The Shield, the Strike Team robs the 'money train' of which criminal organization?

The Armenian mob used the money train to ship laundered cash overseas; robbing it made the team rich on paper, but the marked bills and hitmen that followed tore the Strike Team apart.

Which Mexican drug lord forces rival Latino gangs to unite under him early in season 2 of The Shield?

Armadillo pays Vic back for pressing his face to a lit stove by doing the same to one of Vic's own men, a rare time the Strike Team's brutality lands on its own.

On The Shield, what does Lem do with most of the stolen money train cash in season 3?

Burns it: with part of the cash marked and its owners hunting them, Lem decides the money will always bring trouble and torches most of it, and the fight that follows breaks up the Strike Team.

Which federal agency had marked part of the cash from The Shield's money train heist?

The Treasury had marked some of the bills for a federal case, and the team's luck gets worse: the criminals they robbed turn out to have a mole inside the same department.

Which controversial policy does Captain Monica Rawling bring to the Barn in season 4 of The Shield?

Seizing drug dealers' assets was meant to starve the local drug trade, but the seizures proved so unpopular with residents that they split the Barn's own officers.

Which Internal Affairs lieutenant investigates The Shield's Strike Team in season 5?

Jon Kavanaugh starts out by the book, but once Vic humiliates him the hunt turns personal, and the man sent to catch dirty cops ends up breaking the law himself.

Who kills Lem with a grenade at the end of season 5 of The Shield?

Shane Vendrell kills his friend for fear Lem will talk, using a grenade from a Salvadoran drug lord's stock, so Vic hunts down and kills the wrong man before he learns the truth.

What is the title of The Shield's 2008 series finale?

Family Meeting is so often ranked among television's best finales that Shawn Ryan has resisted reviving the show, saying he won't reopen the story unless he can top its ending.

The Shield's ten 2007 episodes were first planned as what?

The rest of the fifth season is how FX first billed them, and season 6 does pick up just after Lem's death with the same Internal Affairs hunt still running.

In season 6 of The Shield, the Internal Affairs lieutenant hunting Vic Mackey is arrested after admitting to what?

Planting evidence: sure that Vic had Lem murdered, he breaks into Vic's house to frame him for it, and confesses only when two Barn detectives pick the too-perfect case apart.

Which uniformed officer joins The Shield's Strike Team in season 6 under Kevin Hiatt?

Julien Lowe began as the rookie who saw the Strike Team steal two bricks of cocaine and reported it, so his arrival on the team five seasons later is a full turnaround.

In The Shield's final season, Vic Mackey trades a cartel bust for immunity and a job with which agency?

ICE hears his full confession and then takes its revenge: the immunity holds, but the job is a long stretch at a desk in a suit and tie, writing reports, with no gun and no street work.

Which Strike Team member does Vic Mackey betray in The Shield's finale, leaving him to be arrested?

Ronnie Gardocki stays loyal to the last because Vic has told him the immunity deal covers them both; he learns the truth only as he is arrested in front of the whole Barn.

How does Shane's story end in The Shield's finale, after his plot against Vic Mackey fails?

Kills himself and his family: a fugitive with no leverage left once Vic has immunity, Shane sees no way out, and the captain later reads his unfinished note aloud to Vic.

What does Vic Mackey's ex-wife Corrine do at the end of The Shield?

Takes the kids into witness protection: she had been helping the police build a case against Vic, and once his immunity wrecks it, the agency that hired him hides his own family from him.

Roughly how much story time do The Shield's seven seasons cover?

Three years is creator Shawn Ryan's own count, and he gave it as the reason one officer's long personal struggle is never resolved: in story time, too little of his life had passed.

Which 2001 film's success reassured Fox that viewers would accept The Shield's corrupt cops after 9/11?

Training Day opened at number one less than a month after the attacks, which showed nervous Fox executives that audiences would still watch a fully drawn, corrupt Los Angeles cop.

Which actor played Shane Vendrell on The Shield before starring in FX's Justified?

Walton Goggins was meant to last one episode of Justified: his villain was written to die in the pilot, but test audiences liked him so much that he stayed for all six seasons.

Before Michael Chiklis auditioned, Shawn Ryan described Vic Mackey as a role for which kind of leading man?

A young Harrison Ford is how Ryan always described the part, so the pacing 'bulldog' who came in to read for it made him reimagine Vic Mackey from scratch.

Which two earlier shows had given Michael Chiklis a 'soft' reputation before The Shield?

The Commish and Daddio cast him as a kindly suburban police commissioner and a stay-at-home dad, about as far from Vic Mackey as a TV lead gets, so FX was at first reluctant even to see him.

Who directed both the pilot and the series finale of The Shield?

Clark Johnson gave the pilot the handheld, floating-camera look the series kept for seven seasons, then pulled off the same double on The Wire, directing its first episode and its last.

A Shield guest director later hired three of its writers for which series?

The Walking Dead took writers Glen Mazzara, Charles Eglee and Adam Fierro from The Shield, whose camera crew guest director Frank Darabont had already borrowed to give his film The Mist its ragged documentary look.

Which playwright directed an episode of The Shield and later made The Unit with Shawn Ryan?

David Mamet drew a notorious one: the season 3 episode in which a detective strangles a cat to learn what a killer feels, which Ryan says left viewers 'repulsed and fascinated'.

James Manos Jr., a consulting producer on The Shield's first two seasons, left to develop which Showtime drama?

Dexter was adapted from Jeff Lindsay's novel by Manos, who wrote its pilot himself; after an Emmy-winning Sopranos script and The Shield, a serial killer was his third antihero in a row.

Which honor did The Shield win for its 2005 season?

A Peabody Award went to the show for a story that, in the judges' words, forces viewers 'into sympathy for villains and disgust at those in authority'.

Which film star joined The Shield in season 4 as the Barn's new captain, earning an Emmy nomination?

Glenn Close said 'I don't want to do television' until FX executives and Shawn Ryan came to her apartment; it became her first series role, and FX then built Damages around her.

Which actress won two consecutive Satellite Awards as The Shield's Detective Claudette Wyms?

CCH Pounder played the show's moral center, the detective who works her way up to captain of the Barn and is the one who finally confronts Vic in the finale.

Which Oscar-winning actor played the Internal Affairs lieutenant who hunts Vic Mackey on The Shield?

Forest Whitaker played a man who was right about Vic, and viewers hated him for it; Chiklis recalls him arriving on set dismayed, saying 'They love you and hate me. You're a murderer!'

In January 2003, The Shield beat The Sopranos and The West Wing to which award for best drama series?

A Golden Globe for best drama, with a second for its lead actor the same night, capped the first season of a show that agents had been telling their clients was too small to audition for.

The Shield's 2002 premiere set a ratings record for an original drama on what kind of television?

Basic cable had never had a scripted premiere so big: about 4.8 million viewers, modest by network standards, but enough to turn FX from a rerun channel into a home for dramas such as Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me.

Which future star of Hawaii Five-0 played Kevin Hiatt, brought in to take over The Shield's Strike Team?

Alex O'Loughlin's Hiatt was brought in to replace Vic but ended up leaning on him instead, and after a string of blunders he was reassigned within the season.

The Shield's Strike Team was modelled on a real LAPD anti-gang unit known by which acronym?

CRASH stood for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums; reading about its officers' crimes on one page of his newspaper and falling crime figures on another gave Shawn Ryan the idea for the show.

The Shield's 2007 video game has Vic heading off a war between the Byz-Lats and which gang?

The One-Niners' war with the Byz-Lats fills the gap between the third and fourth seasons, so the game has Vic patching together a Strike Team that had just broken up; critics panned the result.

Who played Olivia Murray, the federal agent who takes Vic Mackey's confession in The Shield's final season?

Laurie Holden's agent signs Vic's immunity before hearing what he has done, then has to sit and listen as he begins with a murdered fellow officer; she spends the finale making him pay for fooling her.

In The Shield's final scene, what does Vic Mackey hear before he takes his gun and walks out?

Police sirens pass the office where he is meant to sit writing reports, and he puts on his jacket and leaves; Shawn Ryan says even he doesn't know where Vic goes next.

Which fellow officer is having an affair with Vic Mackey in season 1 of The Shield?

Danny Sofer's on-again, off-again affair with Vic leaves her with a son, and by the final season she is fighting to keep his father out of the boy's life.

Aceveda dreams of being mayor, but which office does he seek in The Shield's second season?

City council is the first rung: he wins the seat, leaves the Barn for it in season 4, and by the series finale he is at last campaigning for mayor.

Which Fantastic Four hero did the actor behind Vic Mackey play on film while still starring in The Shield?

The Thing was a dream role for Michael Chiklis, a lifelong fan of the comics. He played Ben Grimm in the 2005 film and its 2007 sequel between seasons of the cop drama.

Which condition are two of Vic Mackey's children, Matthew and Megan, diagnosed with on The Shield?

Autism means expensive doctors and therapy for Matthew, and the same for his sister Megan. Vic Mackey's devotion to them sits oddly beside his brutality on the job.

Which chronic illness does Detective Claudette Wyms hide from most of her colleagues for years on The Shield?

Lupus had been with Claudette for 15 years before she admitted it to her partner in season 5. The flare-ups grow worse through the final seasons, just as she takes charge of the Barn.

Which animal does Detective Wagenbach strangle in season 3 of The Shield, curious how killing feels?

A stray cat pays for the detective's curiosity about the minds he profiles. Its wailing had been keeping him awake, but he also wanted to know how taking a life felt.

Which long-running drama did Kurt Sutter create after starting out as a staff writer on The Shield?

Sons of Anarchy kept Sutter on FX, the network that had aired The Shield. He also acted in his biker saga, playing the jailed club member Otto Delaney.

Which Rocky star guest-starred on The Shield as Vic Mackey's disgraced former training officer?

Carl Weathers, the films' Apollo Creed, played the part in two episodes. The character taught Mackey to bend the law, then lost his badge and pension over an excessive-force lawsuit.

In season 2 of The Shield, what does Vic Mackey hold a defiant drug lord's face against?

A lit kitchen stove in the man's own house does the damage, after he shrugs off every threat. He later repays the Strike Team by scarring one of its detectives the same way.

Which of Vic Mackey's children on The Shield was played by the lead actor's own child, Autumn Chiklis?

Cassidy, the eldest Mackey child, grows up on screen from 2002 to 2008. By season 6 she is a teenager confronting her father about the ugly stories she has heard.

In The Shield's finale, which assignment does Vic Mackey's immunity deal lock him into for three years?

A desk job as an analyst, with no official power, is the catch in the deal. He must wear a suit and tie, carry no weapon and type up five ten-page reports a week.

Which future Ant-Man co-star joined The Shield in season 4 as Detective Armando 'Army' Renta?

Michael Peña played Army as a soldier back from Iraq who partners a former Strike Team detective. The character leaves the unit rather than take a lie detector test.

Which Atlanta rapper twice played Robert Huggins on The Shield, the second time as a candidate for mayor?

André 3000 of OutKast first played Huggins in the season 3 episode On Tilt, in 2004. He came back to the part four years later for the series finale.

Which supernatural series was Shawn Ryan writing and producing just before he created The Shield?

Angel had Ryan writing for a vampire detective, after an earlier job on an upbeat network cop show. He wrote his corrupt-cop pilot to get those feel-good scripts out of his system.

Which Homicide: Life on the Street actor played the undercover detective Vic Mackey murders in The Shield's pilot?

Reed Diamond had played Detective Mike Kellerman on the Baltimore drama, alongside the man who directed this pilot. Shot in episode one, his character still returned in later flashbacks.

Which Mulholland Drive star played defense attorney Becca Doyle in season 5 of The Shield?

Laura Harring played the lawyer Vic Mackey hires when Internal Affairs closes in. She believes his promise of a fresh start, even after he admits to embezzling.

Which German film star played Diro Kesakhian, young boss of a crime family, in season 6 of The Shield?

Franka Potente played Diro as a devout college student running the family business for her dying father. A cast-out member of the Strike Team moonlights as her enforcer.

Which Titanic actress played Rita, mother of a teenage murder suspect, in The Shield's final season?

Frances Fisher played a mother sure of her son's innocence while Detective Wagenbach, who suspects the boy, befriends her. She vanishes before she can act on her doubts.

Which rapper from the group Onyx played aspiring rap star Kern Little in several seasons of The Shield?

Sticky Fingaz first played Kern in season 1, when Mackey locks him in overnight with a rival rapper to settle their feud. Only Kern comes out in the morning.

Which underhanded Barn detective on The Shield secretly owns the station's vending machines?

Steve Billings buys the machines to turn a profit inside the precinct, which is against department rules. A colleague who finds out uses the secret as leverage over him.

Which assistant chief, Vic Mackey's early protector on The Shield, ends up hiding in Mexico under a new identity?

Ben Gilroy sold the Strike Team to a sceptical chief, then fell after a hit-and-run and a property scam. Mackey arranged his escape, along with a hit man in case he ever came back.

In season 5 of The Shield, a theft of which drug gives Internal Affairs its hold over a Strike Team detective?

Heroin lifted during a raid and never logged becomes the hook for the whole investigation. The charge is a pretext: the lieutenant really wants the team's bigger secrets.

In season 6 of The Shield, what does the department try to force on Vic Mackey, who fights to prove his value?

Early retirement is the brass's quiet way to be rid of Mackey. A younger detective is brought in to take over the Strike Team while he scrambles to make himself indispensable.

FX wanted The Shield, its first drama series, to answer a hit mob saga airing on which rival network?

HBO had The Sopranos, and FX wanted an antihero of its own to set the tone for the channel. The pilot was ordered in March 2001 and filmed that June.

Which season 2 episode of The Shield flashes back to the Barn's very first day, before the series began?

Co-Pilot rewinds to the year the Barn and the Strike Team were formed. It shows Mackey's unit taking shape before the events of the opening episode set its secrets in motion.

Which actor played Detective Holland Wagenbach, the Barn's bookish profiler, in all 88 episodes of The Shield?

Jay Karnes was there from the pilot to the finale, and also voiced the detective in the 2007 video game. His character's needling rivalry with Vic Mackey runs through the whole series.

Which actor played David Aceveda, the Barn's politically ambitious first captain, on The Shield?

Benito Martinez played Aceveda as a politician in a police uniform. The captain distrusts the Strike Team's methods yet banks its arrests, because they help his run for office.

Kenny Johnson, a Strike Team regular on The Shield, later starred in which CBS police drama produced by Shawn Ryan?

S.W.A.T. cast Johnson as Officer Dominique Luca from 2017 to 2024, with Ryan as an executive producer. The reboot drew on a 2003 film and a 1970s series of the same name.

In season 6 of The Shield, Vic Mackey kills a drug lord of which nationality over a friend's murder?

Salvadoran boss Guardo Lima is beaten and shot after giving a false lead, but he had nothing to do with the killing. His body is then burned to keep his fate a mystery.

Which Netflix conspiracy thriller did Shawn Ryan create two decades after launching The Shield?

The Night Agent is based on a Matthew Quirk novel about a junior FBI man on night duty at the White House. It took Ryan from street cops to a mole hunt at the top of government.

In The Shield's final season, what is Detective Wagenbach certain that a teenage suspect will grow up to be?

A serial killer in the making is how the profiler reads the boy, who he thinks staged a burglary at home in order to shoot the intruder. The case is his last obsession of the series.

Shawn Ryan pictured The Shield as a tougher successor to Homicide and which other edgy 1990s cop drama?

NYPD Blue also supplied a veteran: its writer Kevin Arkadie was a co-executive producer on The Shield's first season. Ryan asked how much further such a show could go off the big networks.

Which fast-food chain pulled its ads from The Shield in 2002 after a parents' watchdog group campaigned against it?

Burger King left along with Office Depot, New Balance and the owner of KFC and Taco Bell. FX shrugged, saying new sponsors had come in to replace the handful that opted out.

In season 3 of The Shield, which household object fells Strike Team newcomer Tavon Garris during a brawl?

An iron swung at his head by a teammate's wife leaves Tavon dazed and bleeding. He drives off, wrecks his van against a parked car and ends up in a coma.

Which rookie patrol officer on The Shield becomes the object of Detective Wagenbach's crush in season 6?

Tina Hanlon arrives in season 5 as a trainee whose mistakes nearly get her fired. She speaks fluent Spanish, so the Barn often uses her as an interpreter.

Which single-season FX private-eye series reunited Shawn Ryan with Ted Griffin, a one-time writer for The Shield?

Terriers was created by Griffin, with Ryan beside him as a fellow executive producer. Griffin's link to the cop drama was a single script years earlier.

Which undercover unit, led by Waylon Burke, is moved into the Strike Team's own room in season 3 of The Shield?

The Decoy Squad arrives to serve at the Barn under Claudette Wyms, and a half-friendly rivalry with Vic Mackey follows. Its leader later asks for a transfer out after a wiretap blunder endangers a teammate.

David Marciano, a Barn detective on The Shield, earlier played an American cop partnered with a Mountie in which series?

Due South cast Marciano as Detective Ray Vecchio from 1994. About a decade later he turned up at the Barn as a far more underhanded sort of detective.

Which penultimate episode of The Shield contains Vic Mackey's full confession to all of his crimes?

Possible Kill Screen has Mackey list everything, murders included, once his immunity is in place. To keep the deal he only has to help bring down a cartel boss.

Which cartel boss must Vic Mackey help capture to seal his immunity deal in The Shield's final season?

Guillermo Beltran arrives to judge how the cartel's move into Mackey's district is going. Mackey lets himself be groomed for a place in the organisation in order to reach him.

Which comics publisher released The Shield: Spotlight, a five-issue series about a murdered journalist, in 2004?

IDW Publishing put out the series, written by Jeff Mariotte and drawn by Jean Diaz. Its plot puts the Barn under media scrutiny while the Strike Team chases a payday in stolen art.

Which executive producer and regular director of The Shield died during production of the sixth season?

Scott Brazil directed 11 episodes and had worked with Shawn Ryan since an earlier cop show. He died in April 2006, aged 50, from complications of ALS and Lyme disease.