R.I.P. The Shield

An era is over. The last episode of FX’s “The Shield” aired last night, and it closed the book on one of the best television shows of all-time.

The series premiered March 12, 2002. At the time I had never heard of it, but a bunch of my friends were going to one of their houses to watch it, and so I followed along. Not knowing at all what it was about, I was blown away (if you’ll pardon the pun) when, at the end of that first episode, the lead character Vic Mackey shot another cop in the face to stop him from informing on Vic’s strike team’s illegal activities. At that point, I was hooked.

For the next seven years, I watched every episode religiously. For the first two seasons, I watched every episode in its first airing with my then-girlfriend. We had broken up before season 2, but continued to watch it together. By season 3, we rarely talked anymore. That didn’t stop me from watching it with the same passion, though.

At some point along the line, my wife started watching it with me, which made it even better for me. This is the first time I’ve ever watched a show every week when it was on for the entire run of the show, and so, while being excited for the final season, I was also a little sad.

One thing the show excelled at was keeping things interesting and continually surprising me. So, when it came time for the last few episodes, I honestly didn’t know where they were going to go. *SPOILER ALERT* In the last episode, Vic’s former best friend and partner-turned worst enemy, Shane Vendrell poisoned his pregnant wife and 4-year-old (or so) son before shooting himself in the head just as the police arrived to arrest him. The series ended with Vic starting his new job with the ICE department, in which he was forced to sit at a desk and do reports for the rest of his 3-year contract with them, or else he risked being thrown in jail for the crimes he confessed to and was given immunity for.

The ending with Vic ending up a “regular guy” with a “regular 9-5 job” reminds me of “Goodfellas”. Vic goes from being on the streets, dealing with drug dealers and addicts, pimps, prostitutes and all sorts of corruption to sitting at a regular desk five days a week, putting his name on his lunch when he puts it in the fridge. It ends with him having plenty of time during his boring life to ponder what he’s done and how he got there.

It was a satisfying end to a great show. I am actually a little sad today, and I will miss it. I’m just glad it ended on a high note.