History Main / TheShield

The hyperactive Shakespearian counterpart to the Dickensian ''TheWire'', ''TheShield'' is a fast-paced, tense cop show about a team of police officers working at The Barn, an experimental police precinct in Farmington (a fictional area of Los Angeles). Although Michael Chiklis is the star of the series, the show is mainly an ensemble show, as the series explores the goings-on within the Farmington Precinct, including the various power struggles and interpersonal drama (often with Chiklis's character, corrupt police detective Vic Mackey, in the midst of the chaos and intrigue).

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Pretty much the bulk of seasons six and seven are spent with various saving throws being tossed to bring Shane away from the abyss of fan hatred after [[spoiler: he killed Lem]]. Also, when they redubbed dialogue into one episode clarifying that Shane's black mistress was of legal age, after network executives freaked out over the notion of one of the show's main characters having sex with an underaged girl. Also, Dutch's killing a stray cat is semi-balanced out by him adopting a stray kitten, which is never mentioned again. Averted with the murder of Terry Crowley, as the show was able to resist retroactively making Terry a monster of some kind to make his death at Vic's hands justifiable.

* InfantImmortality: Brutally averted in Season Four and in season seven, with the final fate of [[spoiler: Shane's son]]

* ThePunishment: Vic, for all of his sins and magnificent bastardom and success at manipulating everyone around him, is rewarded by [[spoiler: being given a job as a Federal Law Enforcement Agent, with his supervisor (the one who was bamboozled into giving Vic immunity for his laundry list of sins and said job as an Agent of the US Government) having to neutralize the monster she empowered by giving him a cushy, if not unimportant, desk job for at least three years to keep him off the streets. It's also stated that on top of her own duties, said supervisor will have to devote the next three years of her life, micromanaging Vic in order to make sure he stays neutered as well as bait him into quitting/committing an offense that would void his job contract/immunity deal, since if Vic manages to somehow somehow last in his job for the agreed upon three years, his immunity becomes irrevocable and he can NEVER EVER be held accountable for his crimes.]]

** Also, the fact that Vic Mackey's daughter Cassidy is played by Michael Chiklis's real life daughter Autumn Chicklis.

* TruffautWasRight: Subverted somewhat. While glamorizing the CowboyCop antics of the Strike Team, the show goes about showing their criminal deeds as being utterly unglamorous as far as showing the dark, unattractive side to police corruption with the overall downward spiral of the group. Also, outright subverts the notion of the Strike Team living large on their ill-gotten loot. Outside of Shane purchasing a home for his family, the Strike Team is largely shown having to hide their ill-gotten money or at best, using it to pay for medical bills/specialized therapy for their autistic kids.

* TypeCasting: Subverted; the series helped destroy the public image of Michael Chiklis as the stern but lovable father figure that had been hung around his neck since his early 90s series ''The Commish'' ended.
** It also helped give Anthony Anderson's career new life by showing him being capable of playing dramatic roles. In particular, Anderson personally credits ''The Shield'' for landing his current job on ''Law and Order''.

* PrecisionFStrike: Not quite, as the f-word was not allowed on FX, but when Dutch [[spoiler: drives by Danny's house (after she had spurned his offer to help her study for her Detective's exam), only to see her let Vic in the house, [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean for non-studying purposes]]]], Dutch lets out a perfectly enunciated "You've gotta be shittin' me!".

-->-- '''Vic Mackey''', right before one of his {{Establishing Character Moment}}s.

* ItWasHisSled: Vic shooting Terry Crowley, while a shocking twist when the pilot episode of "The Shield" first aired, has since become one of the most notable aspects of the show when fans talk about the series.

* MagnificentBastard: Antwon Mitchell. Some believe that Vic is, though YourMileageMayVary.
** Vic is the very definition of MagnificentBastard, Antwon not so much.

* MotiveDecay: Vic's desire to protect the Strike Team from the consequences of their crimes in the end turns into Vic protecting himself from the consequences of the Strike Team's crimes.
** Also with Acaveda: his desire to do good for the community via entering the world of politics/purging the LAPD of corrupt elements like Vic go down the toilet once the real life backstabbery of politics hit him in the face with a two-by-four, and Acaveda begins to shed his morals and ethics to get elected.

* NeverLiveItDown: Though David Rees Snell had a manly beard for the bulk of the series, the actor's season one and two moustache is the facial hair that the character of Ronnie Gardocki is mostly remembered having.
** Same with Dutch murdering a cat towards the end of the third season.
*** Walt Goggins has joked about how his character's casual racism and general psychotic jack-ass nature led many people to ask him if he was really like the jerk he played on TV.
** For all his crimes and actions,Vic Mackey will probably always be the cop who shot another cop in the face

* TheWoobie: Lem and Ronnie. Dutch too, though later episodes subvert this by playing up the notion that most of the officers (including his best friend) treat him like crap because they believe that without constant emotional abuse, Dutch would be an insufferable egomaniac incapable of self-doubt and unwilling to entertain the notion that he might be wrong.
** Shane would qualify as well. He may be an asshole, but there are several moments in the series where you just have to feel for the guy as far as the sheer level of abuse he suffers at the hands Vic Mackey. Not to mention the fact that his entire downward spiral character-arc wise is based upon the fact that Vic Mackey treated him like dogshit when, in the second episode of the series, he went to Vic and admitted feeling regret for the role he played in helping Vic kill Terry.

----

* BluffingTheMurderer: Subverted. In season four and five, Claudette deals with a serial killer that had moved to LA after being put on trial and acquitted of several murders. When he resumes his killing spree in Los Angeles (and murders a woman who looks like Claudette after a particularly tense encounter), Claudette successfully goads a confession out of the murderer by pretending that his sister (whom he hadn't killed and loved) had been murdered. The subversion is that it ultimately comes back to bite her in the ass: having found out that Claudette has lupus (and taking medication that is known in some instances to cause hallucinations), the killer threatens Claudette and the DA by way of exposing Claudette's lupus in court as a means to negate Claudette's testimony. In order to salvage her case, as well as to save Claudette's career (since her superiors have threatened to force her from her job if her lupus becomes an issue in her job performance as a cop), the DA is forced to accept a life sentence plea-bargain, rather than go for the death penalty
* ButtMonkey: Dutch and Ronnie. Also Shane, as far as him being Vic's go-to punching bag whenever things in Vic's life go bad.
* TheCameo: Rapper Andre 3000 of Outkast fame appears as a comic book store owner in one episode. He returns in the finale of Season 7, where this trope becomes [[spoiler: DeathByCameo.]]

The hyperactive, Shakespearian counterpart to the Dickensian ''TheWire'', ''TheShield'' is a fast-paced, tense cop show about a team of police working at The Barn, an experimental police precinct in Farmington, a fictional area of LA. Although Michael Chiklis is the star of the series, the series itself is mainly an ensemble show as the series explores the goings on within the Farmington Precinct and the various power struggles and drama going on within the precinct, often with Chiklis's character, corrupt police detective Vic Mackey, in the midst of the chaos and intrigue.

The central focus of the show is corrupt detective Vic Mackey and the elite anti-gang task force known as "The Strike Team" that he leads. Tasked with the monumental job of keeping the streets of Farmington safe from drug dealers and gang members, Mackey and his subordinates within the close-knitted team generally go about their task with violent efficiency and the occasional act of police corruption. The group creates Faustian deals with the criminal elements within Farmington, giving them free reign to run the drug trade within the city in exchange for bribes, intel on other gang members, and a promise to keep their illegal antics at a reasonable level so as to ensure the illusion of peace within the warzone that is Farmington.

Other aspects of the show deal with the other rank and file members of the Farmington Precinct, most notably detectives Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach and Claudette Wyms, who generally deal with more general crimes of rape and murder within the district. They serve as the moral opposite of Vic Mackey and the Strike Team, leading to much tension between the two sides when they are forced to work together on related cases. Or when Dutch and Claudette are forced to clean up the inevitable fall-out from the Strike Team's corrupt antics, with them knowing Vic was involved somehow in the bloodshed but being unable to find the smoking gun linking him to it. Also featured are several patrol officers, ranging from Danielle "Danny" Sofer, her protege Julian Lowe, and rookie cop Tina Hanlon, who find themselves struggling to advance up the ranks while dealing with the unappreciated job of keeping Farmington safe.

Other characters include David Acaveda, police captain turned politician, whose disdain for Vic Mackey and his corrupt antics clash with his political ambitions, which ironically only drives him further and further into bed with Vic as the series progresses. Also in the mix is Vic's estranged ex-wife Corrine, who spends the bulk of the series trying to separate herself and her children from her ex-husband before his crimes destroy their lives.

Like ''TheSopranos'', the show goes to lengths to show that Vic, and to a lesser extent the rest of the Strike Team, have both their good and bad sides. In spite of being a corrupt cop and dangerous man capable of great violence, most of Vic's criminal actions are motivated by the stress of his job (due to the unrealistic pressures placed on him to shut down crime in the district, resulting in Vic having to frame suspects and making deals with various gangs in order to bring in the arrests his superiors demand from him) as well as his desire to provide for his family, of which two of his three children have been diagnosed with autism. There are also some lines he refuses to cross, and he has absolutely zero tolerance for rape, pedophilia and domestic violence. He also shows a great deal of loyalty towards his teammates, often preaching the message of team loyalty to bond the four men into a surrogate family.

For the most part however, Vic's conscience is driven mainly by the influence of Strike Team member Curtis "Lem" Lemansky. Lem serves as the counterpart to Vic's much abused "yes-man" partner, Shane Vendrell. Rounding out the group is the Ronnie Gardocki, a quiet and nerdy police detective whose silent loyalty to Vic balances Lem and Shane's polar opposite personalities.

The series opens with Vic and Shane carrying out the murder of Terry Crowley, a new member of the Strike Team, who Captain David Aceveda had convinced to gather evidence on Vic's corrupt antics in order to rid himself of Mackey and the Strike Team. Though he gets away with the murder, Vic's life starts falling apart: Shane has a nervous breakdown due to the guilt over what they did (a breakdown largely brought about by Vic's refusal to let Shane vent his feelings over what they did with him), his son has been diagnosed with autism and requires expert treatment, and he frames an innocent man of trying to kill Detective Lemansky after Lemansky accidentally fires on the man (leading to him, Lem, and Ronnie having to rob a police vehicle to steal back the gun Vic planted on the man). But these things pale with regard to the revelation that his mentor/patron within the LAPD (Assistant Chief Gilroy) is even more corrupt than he previously imagined. Gilroy triggers a full-scale riot as a result of his manipulation of department resources in areas of the city, leading to deaths all in the name of lowering property values within the city as part of a real estate scheme that Gilroy has cooked up. Meanwhile, Dutch and Claudette investigate a serial killer who (upon being caught) tries his best to destroy Dutch emotionally during a lengthy interrogation, while rookie patrol officer Julian Lowe struggles with his homosexuality, which is used against him by Vic as leverage to silence him after he sees Vic pocketing evidence from a crime scene. In the end, Vic brings down his mentor and talking Shane down from the proverbial edge when he finally snaps over the guilt of Terry's death, but the damage is done. Vic's wife leaves in the middle of the night with the couple's kids, after an encounter with Gilroy makes her realize that her husband is involved in something not on the up and up.

Roughly divided into two arcs: the first arc pits Vic (having arranged for a truce between him and Acaveda) against Claudette versus a ruthless new drug dealer/rapist/murderer Armadillo, who disfigures Strike Team member Ronnie Gardocki (in retaliation for Vic doing the same to him). Though Shane and Lem end up arrange for Armadillo to be killed as payback for what he did to Ronnie, the damage is done as Claudette goes from turning a blind eye to Vic's antics, to wanting to bring him to down for his corrupt antics.

This is followed by a one-off flashback episode, "Co-Pilot", a ContinuitySnarl of an episode that featured how Vic and Shane formed the Strike Team, Acaveda's first encounter with Vic Mackey, and how Dutch and Claudette became partners.

The second half of the season focuses on the growing tension between Claudette and Vic, as the Strike Team begin to covertly take down a money-laundering exchange (aka "money train") being run by the Armenian mob and keep its contents for themselves. Elsewhere, Dutch and Patrol Officer Sofer deal with professional problems due to a series of screw-ups both individually suffer during the first half of the series and Julian (having "cured" himself of his homosexuality, marries a single mother he meets only to be outed by an ex-lover. Also, the Strike Team take on a new fifth member, a black detective named Tavon who is oblivious to the Strike Team's corrupt nature. In the end, Vic is able to get a cease-fire from Claudette after Vic and Tavon help catch the man who murdered Claudette's estranged ex-husband. But the cease fire maybe just be temporary when Claudette reveals that she's been selected to replace Acaveda as Captain as their superior prepares to leave office in the event of his election to the Los Angeles city council. The group carry out the Money Train heist, though their moment of triumph is quickly replaced by growing dread and fear. Stealing the money was the easy part, keeping their possession of the money a secret, let alone surviving the coming shitstorm of the Armenians looking for those who stole it, is the hard part.

The aftermath of the money train heist starts to tear the Strike Team apart, as the group try and stay on the straight and narrow to avoid suspicion for the robbery, when Dutch and Claudette stumble upon the aftermath of the robbery, with the Feds on their heels as well. Elsewhere, Vic's stranglehold over the Strike Team begins to slip when Shane's relationship with a real estate agent named Mara. Mara and Vic instantly take a disliking to each other, creating much tension between Vic and Shane especially when Mara discovers their involvement in the Money Train Heist. Making things worse is Mara's unexpected pregnancy, leading to the two eloping and creating a schism between Vic and Shane, as Shane's new family leads to Shane seeking independence from Vic and the Strike Team. Things further go sideways with the revelation that the money train loot is half marked bills (due to the Feds investigating the Armenian mob) renders half the money radioactive, even as the Armenians begin sending a ruthless hitman into the city, to find the men responsible for the robbery. In the end, Lem (suffering from ulcers and guilt stricken after be forced to cover up Shane's assault on Tavon over Vic taking a liking to the new guy, which led to Tavon being removed from the team due to his injuries) burns the remaining money, in a fit of madness as he proclaims it to be the only way they'll ever be able to stop any further inquiries into who stole the money. Shane's greed however, refuses to let him go along with Vic and Ronnie's attempt to move on with Lem, leading to Lem putting in for a transfer to a new precinct and Shane proclaiming that he doesn't need Vic and putting in for reassignment as well, as the two men finally have it out.

Elsewhere, Acaveda is sexually assaulted at gunpoint as a side-effect of one of Vic's corrupt schemes involving trying to cover up his involvement with the Money Train Heist. Acaveda takes dramatic steps to get revenge on his attackers, killing one and blackmailing the other with threats against his family in the event he ever talks about what he did. Claudette and Dutch separate as Claudette prepares to take over as Captain, leading to both detectives falling apart as Claudette becomes drunk with power while Dutch ends up killing a cat after being goaded by a rapist/murderer he spends the bulk of the season chasing after, over how he doesn't truly know how the criminal mind works. They end up back working together, just in time for Claudette to commit political suicide when she uncovers corruption within the city's public defender's office, leading to nearly several dozen convictions being overturned as a result of her whistle-blowing.

Meanwhile, Julian Lowe (also separated from his partner Danny Sofer), finds himself being torn between the forces of evil (Vic and Julian's new amoral partner Tommy) and good (Danny) as Julian becomes more and more aggressive in his job as a cop in order to compensate for being outed the previous season. Things go sideways though when Tommy is implicated in the murder of his ex-wife and son; Vic seeks to get Julian to help him kill the guy who did the actual murders so that Tommy can claim deniability, while Danny seeks to keep Julian from being drawn into Vic's world of corruption and nihilism. In the end, Julian refuses to kill the man (which to his shock, ends up causing him to gain Vic's respect), Tommy ends up killing himself rather than go to prison, and Danny and Julian are once again paired up.

With the Strike Team disbanded and Acaveda elected to the city council, new arrival Monica Rawlings (Glenn Close) takes over the Captain slot and begins implementing the controversial policy of asset forfeiture towards criminals. Her belief that seizing property bought with drug money will scare the masses away from the drug trade as a viable means of making money doesn't win her much favor with the public or her superiors.

Rawlings' arrival coincides with the return of drug baron Antwon Mitchell to the Farmington District, who seeks to unite all of the gangs in the city under his control. Mitchell also has brokered an alliance with Shane, putting him at odds with Vic and Ronnie. Reuniting with Lem, the three seek to find a way to neutralize Shane, in fear that when Shane inevitably screws up, that he will narc out the Strike Team in order to save his own ass. When Shane is unable to warn Mitchell of a raid on one of his major drug labs, Mitchell murders a young girl with Shane's police firearm in order to frame him for her murder and permanently bind him to his employment as punishment. Vic ultimately is able to free Shane from this predicament, though in the process, unknowingly sets into motion a series of events which ends with Lem being caught stealing drugs from a drug dealer by a police informant, who's handler alerts IAD that they finally have one of the Strike Team members dead to rights for police corruption. Things get worse, when Mitchell orders the murder of two patrol officers and ultimately selling out his new allies, the El Salvadorian drug cartel, get immunity for ordering the officers killed. Ultimately, Monica is able to get Mitchell's immunity revoked and him arrested for the murders, at the cost of her job as she is removed from duty and forced into early retirement.

Internal Affairs Lt. Jon Kavanaugh (Forest Whitaker) attempts to get Lem to turn against the Strike Team, after the events of season four end with him being caught dead to rights for police corruption. Kavanaugh and Vic engage in a brutal game of psychological warfare as Kavanaugh drives Vic's ex-wife Corrine to seek help from Dutch Wagenbach to deal with the possibility of Kavanaugh arresting her as her husband's accomplice. When Vic figures out Kavanaugh's weakness (his mentally ill ex-wife), Kavanaugh snaps and arrest Lem,and before you know it, Lem is forced to go on the run and [[spoiler:is killed by Shane, after Acaveda lies to Vic that Lem was ready to testify against him. Oblivious to Shane killing Lem]], Vic vows brutal revenge against his murderer.

Elsewhere, slacker detective Steve Billings' disastrous tenure as Captain forces TPTB to finally promote Claudette (who is revealed to have lupus after taking a massive fall down a flight of stairs) to the job. Meanwhile rookie Tina Hanlon joins the precinct, attracting the attention of Dutch, who seeks to mold her into a proper police officer. But most important, Vic finds out that in two months time, when he reaches his 15th year as a police officer, that he will be forcibly retired from his job as his sins have finally came home to roost internally within the LAPD.

Vic captures, tortures, and ultimately murders El Salvadorian gangster Guardo Lima, who Vic thinks killed Lem. However, when Vic learns the truth about [[spoiler: Shane killing Lem, the Strike Team implodes as Shane begins taking drastic action to ensure Vic and Ronnie are unable to hurt him or his family.]] This includes [[spoiler:informing the Armenians that Vic was involved in the Money Train heist, forcing Shane deeper into trouble as he realizes that Vic's family will be killed as part of the Armenians mob's revenge against Vic. Shane saves Vic's family (by kidnapping Corrine and Vic's oldest child, Cassidy, at gunpoint in order to move them to a safe place), and in the process, he becomes bound to the Armenian mob as a virtual slave.]]

Julian is promoted to the Strike Team, along with squeaky clean new leader Kevin Hyatt, who is ultimately fired from the team when Claudette realizes that she'd rather have a corrupt Vic Mackey to bring in the arrest numbers she needs to placate her bosses instead of a by-the-books guy like Hyatt, whose way of doing things doesn't produce the instant results Claudette needs to keep the Barn from being shut down by the LAPD. Meanwhile, Dutch's investigation of a house filled with dismembered body parts leads to the revelation that a major Mexican Drug Cartel has begun infiltrating Los Angeles, tying into Vic's discovery that Acaveda's new ally in his pursuit of being elected mayor of Los Angeles is part of the stealth invasion. Acaveda's new benefactor offers Vic photographic proof of Acaveda being sexually assaulted, intending for Mackey to use it to bribe Acaveda to save his job in exchange for Vic keeping his mouth shut about what he knows about the Cartel's plot. This backfires, as Vic and Acaveda instead decide to put aside their rivalry to stop the Cartel, leading to them obtaining a box contain the Cartel's blackmail files, that implicate countless prominent businessmen and political figures in Southern California.

Vic makes one last play to wipe the slate clean by arranging a gang war between the Mexicans and the Armenians, with [[spoiler:Shane's death tossed into the mix as well. However, Shane survives the hit on his life, leading to him trying (and failing) to kill Ronnie and Vic. Shane becomes a wanted fugitive, forcing Vic to give up his badge to try and get revenge while at the same time trying to bring down the Mexican Drug Cartel. Vic eventually switches gears and attempts to convince a naive federal agent to provide him a job as a federal agent within ICE as a "thank you" for his help bringing down the Cartel, forcing Ronnie to stay by his side even as Ronnie attempts to salvage his own career and find a way to avoid jail time.]] Elsewhere, Dutch befriends a woman whose teenage son who pulls off a perfect murder. Fearing that the teen was a sociopath who could one day become a serial killer, Dutch attempts to get the mother to help him arrest her child for his crime. Everything converges with [[spoiler: Vic driving Shane to kill himself and his family while pulling off a KarmaHoudini: unable to get a deal for immunity for both Ronnie and himself, he sacrifices Ronnie to save himself, and confesses every single crime he and the Strike Team committed over the course of the show's events. Vic ends up making the arrests he needs to bring down the Cartel and ensure his immunity, but the victory is hollow; his crimes are now exposed to everyone, his ex-wife has filed for a restraining order against him, she and her children enter Witness Protection, and the "naive" ICE agent he believes he bamboozled has forced him to work desk duty for the duration of his "probation" period to fully ensure his immunity from prosecution. Vic ends up without a family, without a real career, without the power and influence he held while he worked the streets, and without a chance of ever getting that power back.]]

* Retcon: In Season 1, it's mentioned that Vic's daughter Cassidy is 7. A few seasons later (4 or 5), it's mentioned that she is now 11. But in Season 5, it's acknowledged that it's only been two years since Terry was killed in the first episode.

* HollywoodHacking: In the series 2 episode "Homewreckers". Ronnie, upon being presented with a laptop (which wasn't connected to the internet), comments that the user "didn't firewall her backdoor", and that he can "route around her password by setting the operations post back to default" - although this whole section was PlayedForLaughs anyway, given the guy he was working with was from Police Information Systems (or PIS, as everyone constantly points out).

** Vic Mackey at the end of season one when his family leaves him. Subverted in the series finale however, as Vic (upon realizing that Claudette has decided to settle for watching Vic Mackey break down under the guilt of the [[spoiler: murder-murder-suicide of the Vendrell family]], responds by breaking the closed circuit camera Claudette was using to watch said breakdown.

** TheBigGuy[=/=]TheHeart: Lem is the largest on the team and always wields a shotgun, yet is the conscious and liked helping teens with their problems.

** And of course, the Strike Team was inspired by the horrific Rampart scandal involving the LAPD's [[FunWithAcronyms C.R.A.S.H. unit.]]

* BrokenBase: Ronnie's facial hair, as far as fans divided between the beard and the mustache.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: An old man gets robbed by his grandson, whose accomplice ''nails'' the old guy's feet to the floor due to his constant walking back and forth. When the police arrive after the burglary and removes the nails from the guy's feet so he can move, the old guy grabs a nearby gun from a desk drawer and shoots himself in the head right in front of the cops. Vic's confession scene in the show's penultimate episode also qualifies. After horrifying the ICE agent he's been working for with the laundry list of murders and crimes he's committed over the years - selling out his accomplice/last remaining MoralityPet Ronnie to get full immunity in the process - Vic is reminded that protocol dictates he can't tell Ronnie that he implicated him, or his immunity deal is shot and his confession can be used against him in court. Rather than suddenly panicking at the implications that he can not warn Ronnie to skip town as a means to have his immunity and protect his friend, Vic doesn't show a single sign of remorse. Instead, he tells the agent matter-of-factly that he'll outright lie to Ronnie in order to keep him in play until his arrest, then tells her that he's done much worse things before. Earlier in the series, Vic gets roped into helping Dutch find a serial killer who killed an underaged prostitute; he eventually tracks the victim down to a theater where live underage sex shows are put on. While Vic has to watch a young girl be brutally raped on stage in front of him, he finds himself sitting next to a pedophile who is masturbating right there in the open.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Ronnie and Lem; both were not part of the show's original pitch, but quickly became two of the more popular characters on the show

* LeaveThePlotThreadsHanging: The finale left many unresolved questions.
** Ronnie's ultimate fate as far as which of his many sins he'll ultimately be charged with in court.
** The shitstorm that Vic's confession/immunity deal and Ronnie's arrest will have upon not only the LAPD as far as overturned convictions, but also Acaveda's political ambitions, given that the finale ends with Acaveda on cloud nine as far as the predicted favorite to win the mayoral election, with Ronnie's arrest, Shane's murder-murder-suicide, and the subsequent shitstorm with Vic's scamming ICE for immunity for murdering a cop having yet to make the evening paper/news.
** Danny's attempt to keep Vic out of her and her son's life.
** Dutch's relationship with both Danny and Tina
*** Lem's relationship with a woman named Tigra, who's brother Lem shot after mistaking him for another gang member in season one is another dropped plotline.

* YouHaveOutLivedYourUsefulness: Vic's betrayal of Ronnie, though in this case Ronnie is given a fate worse than death of being sent to prison as opposed to simply being killed off by Vic.
** I don't think this really applies, as Vic was previously shown fighting like hell to get Ronnie the same immunity deal Vic got, and only betrayed him in the end because he thought his wife was going to prison. In fact Vic even agonizes over the betrayal.
*** On the other hand, Vic did not do much to even lift a finger to help Ronnie once he betrayed him. You would have thought, when Vic was scrambling to get Acaveda to convince ICE to arrange for back-up for Vic and Ronnie when they finally found the massive drug shipment the Cartel was moving into LA, that he would also push to get Ronnie, at the very least full-on immunity too, on account of the fact that Ronnie being arrested on corruption charges would FUBAR the fed's case against the cartel. Not to mention the implications that Ronnie being arrested would effectively doom Acaveda's political career, due to said trial exposing his relationship with Vic "I shot a fellow cop in the head" Mackey. Oh and the whole issue of Vic, immeadiately finding the time to go to a computer, scan the Strike Team photo he carried with him, to photoshop Ronnie out of the photo, and print up a new copy of it for his wallet. Which kind of shows you that even after it becomes apparent that betrayed his last remaining friend for nothing, that Vic didn't have any real regret over it and had already filed Ronnie's very existence under his very own DisContinuity.

** Subverted with Tina, whose initial incompetence is balanced with an ability to improvise and survive countless close calls when the Strike Team use her as an undercover operative during several operations.

* RealityEnsues: Subverted; the series finale avoids all mention of the nightmare that Vic's immunity deal/confession and Ronnie being arrested will unleash upon the criminal justice system as far as all of the convictions that will be overturned due to the Strike Team's corruption being exposed. For context, when the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal Rampart Scandal]] was exposed (the basis for the show), it resulted in 106 voided convictions and over $125 million in civil claims paid out by the city. And the Strike Team was far worse.
** Played straight when Wagenbach and Wyms discover that a city Public Defender was a drug addict. Revealing that she was on drugs would open up virtually her entire backlog of clients to appeal for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistance_of_counsel Ineffective Assistance of Counsel]] relief. Dutch warns Claudette not to do it, but she does anyway, and the resulting fallout turns almost the entire LAPD against her.