History Series / TheShield

* BrokenAesop: The criticism of police brutality and abuse of power is diminished when on several times other police officers ask the Strike Team to help with particularly brutal criminals with the implicit understanding they may need to bend the rules to do that. Time after time, the criminals are shown to be indeed as bad as they are drummed up to be and the Strike Team do succeed in taking them down. This leaves room for the argument that despite everything else they do, the Strike Team ''is'' a necessary evil.

If you’re looking for the professional wrestling stable, you’ll want to look [[Wrestling/TheShield here.]]

* ThePunishment: Vic, for all of his sins and magnificent bastardom and success at manipulating everyone around him, is rewarded by [[spoiler:being given a $60,000 a year 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 last the full three years, his immunity becomes irrevocable and he can '''never ever''' be held accountable for his crimes. On the other hand, they can promptly throw him out. And with his laundry list public knowledge and his old nemesis slated to become the new mayor, his reputation as a Dirty, DirtyCop is also permanent.]]

* PeerPressureMakesYouEvil: The root cause for why Lem is a corrupt cop. Not to mention the catch-all excuse for DracoInLeatherPants Ronnie, as far as fans projecting motive for why Ronnie did evil.

* AssholeVictim / KickTheSonOfABitch: Many of the criminals whom the Strike Team wrongs in some way are even worse (or at least no better) than they are. Special mention goes to Guardo Lima; [[spoiler:he is brutally tortured and killed by Vic, who wrongly believes him responsible for Lem's murder]], but it's hard to mourn him too much, given the horrific crimes he ''has'' committed, as well as his [[spoiler:taunting Vic over Lem's death]].

[[caption-width-right:350: [[BlatantLies Just another day for the LAPD]].[[labelnote:Characters]] From left to right: [[MoralityPet Curtis "Lem" Lemansky]], [[RabidCop Shane Vendrell (kneeling in front)]], [[BunnyEarsLawyer Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach]], [[ByTheBookCop Julien Lowe]], [[AntiHero Vic Mackey]], [[DaChief David Aceveda]], [[TheHeart Claudette Wyms]], [[TeamMom Danielle "Danny" Sofer]]. Not Pictured: [[TheSmartGuy Ronald Everett "Ronnie" Gardocki]], [[HiddenDepths Tina Hanlon]], [[MamaBear Corrine Mackey]], [[BrilliantButLazy Steve Billings]], [[spoiler:[[DecoyProtagonist Terry Crowley]]]][[/labelnote]]]]

A hyperactive Shakespearian counterpart to the Dickensian ''Series/TheWire'', ''The Shield'' follows a team of police officers working at The Barn, an experimental police precinct situated within the fictional UsefulNotes/LosAngeles district of Farmington. Although the show revolves around [[DirtyCop corrupt detective]] [[AntiHero Vic Mackey]] (Creator/MichaelChiklis), it gained a reputation as an ensemble show as the series explored the goings-on within the Farmington Precinct (including the various power struggles and interpersonal drama surrounding Mackey in the midst of the chaos and intrigue).

Other aspects of the show deal with the rank-and-file members of the Farmington Precinct. The most notable of these cast members, detectives [[BunnyEarsLawyer Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach]] and [[TheHeart Claudette Wyms]], deal with non-gang-related instances of rape and murder within the district. They serve as the moral opposite of Vic Mackey and the Strike Team, which leads to tension between the two sides when they work together on related cases (or when Dutch and Claudette have to clean up the inevitable fallout from the Strike Team's corrupt antics while trying to prove Vic's corruption). Several patrol officers--including [[TeamMom Danielle "Danny" Sofer]], her protégé [[ByTheBookCop Julien Lowe]], and rookie cop [[HiddenDepths Tina Hanlon]]--find themselves struggling to advance up the ranks while dealing with the unappreciated job of keeping Farmington safe.

Other characters include police captain-turned-politician [[DaChief David Aceveda]], whose disdain for Vic Mackey and his corrupt antics clash with his political ambitions (and ends up driving him further and further into bed with Vic as the series progresses), and Vic's estranged ex-wife [[MamaBear 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.

But Vic's conscience mainly exists thanks to the influence of Strike Team member [[MoralityPet Curtis "Lem" Lemansky]]. Lem serves as the counterpart to Vic's much abused "yes-man" partner, [[RabidCop Shane Vendrell]]. [[TheSmartGuy Ronnie Gardocki]], a quiet and nerdy police detective whose silent loyalty to Vic balances Lem and Shane's polar opposite personalities, rounds out the Strike Team.

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of PoliceProcedural{{s}} revolving around badass CowboyCop{{s}} who break the rules in the name of doing the right thing. Vic and the Strike Team fit this to a T, but it's clear that they're genuinely corrupt and their refusal to follow the law they enforce has made them extremely dangerous. Vic's actions wind up destroying his own career, and it's made increasingly clear that him and Shane's antics are more of a power fantasy than anything genuinely altruistic.

* PerpAndWeapon: Vic pulls this on Margos when he corners him in Goma's house. [[spoiler:Unlike other examples, he shoots Margos on the spot, and then frames the scene to make it look like Margos was about to aim his gun at him.]]

* BrokenAesop: The criticism of police brutality and abuse of power is diminished when on several times other police officers ask the Strike Team to help take out particularly brutal criminals with the implicit understanding they may need to bend the rules to do that. This leaves room for the argument that despite everything else they do, the Strike Team ''is'' a necessary evil.

* TheEveryman: Ronnie Gardocki and Danny Sofer/Tina Hanlon

* FauxActionGirl: Tina (Though she actually learns from her mistakes)

* FirstEpisodeTwist: Vic murders Terry Crowley.
* FiveManBand: Subversion: attempts to add a fifth member to the crew never go well.
** Still got a good four person five man bad with all the spaces filled.
** TheHero: Vic Mackey, leader of the Strike Team and knows the dirty stuff.
** TheLancer: Shane stupidly heads for the jugular, lacks Vic's cool head.
** TheBigGuy[=/=]TheHeart: Lem is the largest on the team and always wields a shotgun, yet is the conscience and liked helping teens with their problems.
** TheSmartGuy: Ronnie who was the team's tech expert.

* FamilyAnnihilator: [[spoiler: Shane kills his family, then himself so that they can never be split up by prison and foster care.]]

* RetiredBadAss: Subverted with Vic's old mentor, played by [[Film/{{Predator}} Carl Weathers]]. Vic is initially eager to ride with him again, but it later turns out that he's using Vic because he was forced out of the LAPD years ago without a pension, and has become a down-on-his-luck loser.

** 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.

* StraightGay: Julien.

* BackgroundMusic: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]; the show features no musical score whatsoever, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness aside from a few scenes in the pilot episode]]. Instead it uses songs by other artists.

** [[RuthlessForeignGangsters Armadillo Quintero]] in Season Two.

** '''Julien:''' [[spoiler:Julien never comes to terms with his homosexuality and is still in his own private, closeted hell. He's still in a sham marriage as well as having his brief "hazard pay" pay raise (given to him to get him to work as the fifth guy on the Strike Team) revoked when Claudette dissolves the Strike Team once and for all. His last major scene is spent looking with sad envy at a happy gay couple. On the other hand, he's successfully trained Tina as a resourceful cop, continuing the MasterApprenticeChain started by Danni, and Claudette implies he could promoted to detective in the future.]]

** '''Danni:''' [[spoiler:She witnesses Shane's suicide and the murder of his family, and in addition will have to deal with Vic's attempts to contact her and his (assumed) child. However, she's at least free from Vic's influence, and is implied to have been promoted to Sargeant rank.]]

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Shane Vendrell, Ronnie Gardocki, Dutch Wagenbach, Tina Hanlon, and Steve Billings.

* InspectorJavert: Jon Kavanaugh (though Vic is ''much more dirty'' than The Javert's usual quarry).

** In Season 6, Vic beats Guardo Lima, a gang leader, with a length of chain to find out who killed Lem. But since Shane actually did it, Vic winds unknowingly up torturing (and killing with a bullet to the head afterwords when he got tired of hearing Guardo deny the charge) an innocent, though still evil, man.
* JerkAss: Shane, so very much. Also Vic, when it comes to Dutch. Aceveda becomes one in the later seasons.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Subverted: Tavon and Shane did not get off on the right foot, largely because of Shane's racism and the fact that Vic was taking a liking to Tavon, even though he was also keeping the Strike Team's criminal activities a secret from him. Needless to say, Tavon and Shane ultimately came to blows and an iron to the head thanks to Mara (Shane's girlfriend) and concussion caused car crash later, put Tavon in the hospital with short term amnesia. Shane then begs Vic and Lem (who also became close to Tavon) to lie their asses off to Tavon, telling him that he initiated the fight and accidentally "hit" Mara, which made Tavon agree to not tell anyone about the "fight" and let everyone think that the car crash caused his injuries. Cue season seven, when Tavon shows back up and request that Shane work with him on capturing a bad guy Shane had arrested early in his career. After catching the criminal and the two men getting along well, Tavon drops the bomb on Shane, revealing that he had long ago recovered his memory and put together that Vic and Lem were lying about the fight to cover Shane's ass.

* OutlawCouple: In season 2, Dutch investigates a husband and wife team who are mutilating and killing women; he begins to suspect that the wife may herself be a victim who is being forced to participate in the crimes by her husband. [[spoiler: It turns out he's completely wrong, and if anything the wife is the main instigator.]]

** David Aceveda escapes any punishment for the crimes and amoral things he does and is on course to become mayor of Los Angeles, though he is now wholly corrupt, the very thing he vowed not to become, and may yet face retribution from the Mexican mafia.

* NotBad: An understated one when Shane temporarily poses for a gay prostitute and while not hostile, he's clearly not amused. Until one of the prostitutes turns out to be a fellow automobile geek and they spend the rest of the day talking about cars and tuning.

** At one point, Vic realizes that a fellow officer is wearing a wire for IA. Vic then uses this to record himself "confessing" to the cop that he's not bad, he just actively cultivates a reputation as a corrupt and murderous cop to intimidate gangs and crooks into thinking he's a loose cannon.
** At one point the Strike Team realizes that their clubhouse has been bugged. They all laugh along loudly as Shane tells a long drawn out joke for the benefit of whomever's listening, while at the same time using paper and pen to plan how to move forward.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Played with twice. In season 5, Kavanaugh attempts to frame Mackey for Lem's murder, but eventually confesses and goes to prison himself, but with a clear conscience. Dutch goes through an element of this as well, when he finds a strangled woman but cannot break the suspected killer. He plants some evidence in the man's house, but has a crisis of conscience before reaching the end of the block and goes back to remove it. He redoubles his resolve to do it the right way, and succeeds.

* 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.

* DirtyCop: Aceveda says it all about Vic Mackey: "Mackey's not a cop. He's Al Capone with a badge."
** This applies to the entire Strike Team as well, to varying degrees.

* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: In the first episode, Vic beats up a pedophile who won't say where he's keeping a kidnapped little girl.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: The El Salvadorian gang's usage of ''hand grenades''

* PyrrhicVillainy: [[spoiler:Vic's final fate. He certainly fares better than most of the others. He has a well-paying job in federal law enforcement and full immunity for his sins, but his victory is hollow. Vic has betrayed all of his friends, who are either dead or now rotting in jail. His ex-wife and their children have gone into the Witness Protection Progam far away from him, while his mistress is determined that Vic will have nothing to do with their son, who will inevitably learn all about what a monster their father was. Furthermore, Vic's biggest strengths (his charisma and people skills) have been permanently tarnished, due to the fact that his KarmaHoudini required him to confess to all of his sins and as such; everyone knows now that he murdered a fellow law enforcement officer and betrayed one of his proteges in exchange for said immunity. And while he still has a job in law enforcement, the show portrays it as a three year prison sentence. He's working for people who can't stand the sight of him and intend to make his life such a hell he'll screw up, since the first and slightest violation of any term nullifies the deal. So not only is his new supervisor is going to have a lot of help and support to offset her new duties, none of them have to worry about being held accountable for any mistake he makes.]]