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In General
- Bizarrchitecture: As a repossessed church, The Barn retains most of its original design, which definitely was never intended to be a police house. The majority of the corridors leading to the interrogation rooms zigzag which blocks most of the view, while the columns on the ground floor make the desk section feel claustrophobic and disorienting.
- Dysfunction Junction: No individual within the Barn is devoid of issues at best, which makes for a chaotic, barely sustained environment. That's without counting the many instances these problems have bled into their police-work, causing citizens in the area no end of grief.
- Failure Hero: Unlike most cop shows, the series doesn't shy away from showing how throughly ineffectual the Barn is in helping most of its district especially the citizens. Most detectives and patrol officers have a contentious relationship with the everyday man, swerving between protecting those they deem "innocent" while being intolerant toward those they have already pegged as "guilty" or "criminals", a perception not helped by having to deal with genuinely unrepentant criminals, with cop and criminal cynicism in the system forming a Vicious Cycle. Whenever a case pops up that blinds the cops to the truth due to personal bias, their method will almost certainly make the situation worse.
- Punny Name: The nickname "The Barn" comes from its location in Farmington (Farm-Barn word association), its function (keeping the "animals" in control, as Farmington has effectively been declared a war zone in L.A.) and its architecture (a repossessed church, with its conversion into a police station making for a cramped, noisy and improvised aesthetic).
Detectives
Claudette Wyms
"It's good to shake things up once in a while."
Played By: C.C.H. Pounder
Veteran detective partnered with Detective "Dutch" Wagenbach. Though positioned as the conscience of the Barn, she's more than willing to turn a blind eye to Vic's brutality and corruption...at least, at first.
- Action Girl: She doesn't get much chances to show it, but Claudette isn't afraid to fight when it comes down to it. Most notably, she takes down a serial rapist with a well-timed punch to the balls.
- Anti-Hero: She's nowhere near as corrupt as the Strike Team and tends to be a By-the-Book Cop, but she's willing to turn a blind eye to them because they get results.
- Big Good: Eventually becomes this from Season 6 onward.
- Black Boss Lady: After being promoted in Season 6.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: A gender-flipped variant. She's very disapproving of her daughter's new boyfriend and constantly makes it clear. She even goes so far as to interrogate him at one point.
- Broken Pedestal: Downplayed. She was never fond of Vic in the first place, but she was more apathetically resigned to him as long as he seemed to only be bending the law. Once she realizes he's a full-blown Dirty Cop, she dedicates herself to bringing him down.
- By-the-Book Cop: She's one of the few officers in the Barn to never bend or break the law, and she tends to follow the law almost judiciously regardless of the consequences.
- Characterization Marches On: The first season depicts Claudette as cynically resigned to the Strike Team's brutality and the LAPD and city government as a whole's corruption. From Season 2 onwards, she's staunchly against it and suffers from Honor Before Reason.
- Da Chief: Has shades of this after finally becoming the captain.
- Deadpan Snarker: Is especially biting in her final conversations with Vic.
- Death Glare: Claudette is very good at expressing her contempt for people through nothing but a withering glare.
- Everyone Has Standards: She hated Armadillo as much as anyone and acknowledges he's a monster, but she's outraged when he's killed in custody due to the Strike Team's actions because it was still murder.
- Fatal Flaw: Pride, specifically moral pride. She's one of the very few characters in the show to stick with her principles, but it causes her to suffer friction and tension between higher-ups in the LAPD and the justice system that prevent her from doing her job.
- Foil: To Vic. She's just as brilliant, ruthless, and driven as he is, but she's also an honest cop who believes in justice.
- Good Is Not Nice: She's harsh, cold, and blunt, but an honest cop through and through dedicated to doing the right thing.
- The Heart: Of the Dutch-Claudette partnership, she usually pursues a more emotional angle when it comes to dealing with victims and criminals. And for the Barn as a whole, as she's the one who tries the most consistently to follow the law.
- Honor Before Reason: Her battle against the D.A.'s office.
- I Am the Noun: "Don't lecture me about the struggle, son. I am the struggle."
- I Know You Know I Know: She makes sure to let Vic know she's figured out his corruption, even if she can't prove it.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Claudette is often cold, cynical, and self-righteous, but hardly a bad person. She's empathetic towards victims of violent crimes and goes out of her way to comfort them, and she tends the most moral member of the Barn.
- Knight in Sour Armor: She starts off as doing her best to do the right thing, but cynically accepting to the Strike Team's casual brutality and the public's apathy and at times appreciation for it. She's eventually galvanized into action once the Strike Team has Armadillo murdered in custody.
- Mama Bear: She is extremely particular about the men in her daughters' lives. One can argue she is also this to the rest of the Barn.
- Not So Above It All: While generally cool-headed and professional, she does have her occasional moments when she drops it. Notably, the pilot episode implies that she was the one who put dog crap in Dutch's desk.
- Only Sane Man: The single most down to earth and reasonable person in the Barn. Whereas everyone else is varying degrees of dysfunctional, Claudette is mainly concentrated on doing her job as efficiently as possible without letting her personal issues get in the way.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Dutch. They're very close and deeply loyal to each other, but it's clearly platonic.
- Rage Breaking Point: Throughout the first two seasons, Claudette apathetically tolerates the Strike Team's behavior since she knows the public won't care about their methods and because she's under the belief they aren't seriously breaking the law. However, midway through Season 2 she gradually realizes Vic and the team are corrupt, which eventually causes her to snap when she realizes Aceveda's self-interested covering for them resulted in Armadillo being murdered in custody.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She delivers a crisp but effective one to Vic in "Scar Tissue", letting him know she knows exactly what kind of man he is and what he's done.Claudette: We both know. What happened to Ronnie, that's on you. It's all on you.
- Sassy Black Woman: You kind of have to be this when you deal with eccentrics like Dutch and maniacs like Vic and Shane.
- Secretly Dying: She has lupus, although she doesn't realize that it's become terminal until almost the end of the series.
- Selective Obliviousness: She willingly turns a blind eye to the Strike Team's corruption, mainly due to them being fellow cops even if she doesn't entirely approve of Mackey's methods. She eventually turns in them when she realizes that Mackey is willing to outright break the law to get what he wants.
- The Stoic: Claudette is often calm and not much seems to faze her. Even being attacked by a serial rapist doesn't shake her up too much, albeit mostly because she took him out with a single punch.
- Token Good Cop: She tries to finish important cases without breaking the law. Meanwhile, the Strike Team (save short-term member Kevin) is hopelessly brutal and corrupt, the police administrators are cold-blooded politicos or Knight Templars, most of the other detectives and uniformed cops are bigots, thugs, or jerks, and even some of the other clean and generally honest, professional and/or community-minded cops like Dutch, Tina, Julien, and Danny can occasionally fall into using excessive force or making Politically Incorrect Hero comments.
- Tranquil Fury: When Claudette's angry, she tends to remain just as stoic as she normally is, but she absolutely makes it clear that she's mad as hell.
- True Companions: With Dutch. They will always have each other's back, and while their partnership does go through rough patches they always make up.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Dutch. The two are deeply loyal to each other, but they won't hesitate to snark at each other.
Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach
Played By: Jay Karnes
Detective and partner of Claudette. A brilliant, but socially inept detective who deals with unsavory bad guys. The Rival to Vic Mackey.
- Anti-Hero: In a different vein than most of the cast. Dutch is probably the cleanest of the main cast legally and morally speaking, but he does do a few objectionable things and he's rather arrogant and snide.
- Badass Bookworm: One of the more well-read detectives, and one of the street smart ones as well.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Just ask Sean Taylor. Dutch is a goofy, socially awkward Butt-Monkey, but he's a brilliant detective who is an excellent profiler and is scarily good at interrogations.
- Boring, but Practical: While Vic is more showy with his arrests, Dutch puts in the leg work in order to build cases and catch his suspects. It earns him some ridicule, but he proves to be good at his job.
- Break the Haughty: Vic views Dutch as an arrogant snob, and leads the Barn against him to deflate his ego. While Dutch is definitely egotistical, much of the bullying is unprovoked and he's such a dorky sadsack that it reads more as kicking him while he's down.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Dutch is socially awkward, dorky, and the Barn's resident Butt-Monkey, but he's still a brilliant cop who is very good at what he does.
- Butt-Monkey: Things rarely go right for him. Even his partner and best friend can't help he a jerk to him at times.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Dutch is insecure, blunt, and arrogant, but his heart is in the right place and he's a genuinely good man.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Comes across as awkward and is socially inept, but is an excellent profiler and has a way with words when it comes to catching bad guys.
- Deadpan Snarker: It's the only way he keeps his sanity most of the time.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the quirky, arrogant Great Detective frequently seen in Police Procedurals. In a hyper-masculine environment like the Barn, Dutch finds himself frequently bullied by his colleagues who appreciate brute force more than genuine investigative prowess and view Dutch's awkward personality as a personal slight. Meanwhile, his interest in solving crimes frequently takes the form of Lack of Empathy to the victims.
- Defective Detective: Despite being a brilliant detective, his personal life is often a mess and he struggles with depression and mental instability.
- Dogged Nice Guy: While he goes on a few dates over the course of the series, all his attempts to actively pursue a woman's heart end up failing miserably.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: To say he deserved to have the only somewhat happy ending would be an understatement.
- Foil: To Shane. They're both detectives with off-putting personalities, a history with abusive parents, express bigoted views, and serve as The Lancer to their partner. However, Dutch is by-the-book and tries his best never to cross the line, while Shane is an out-and-out Dirty Cop.
- Freudian Excuse: Dutch had a bad childhood with a cold, unloving father. It's heavily implied this ingrained his numerous insecurities and his desperate need to be respected by his colleagues.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While apologizing to Danny for publicly giving her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he initially starts to cite his terrible childhood only to dismiss it and calls himself out for trying to use it as an excuse.
- Guile Hero: The man's brain and profiling skills are just some of the reasons he catches some of the smarter criminals on the show.
- Hero of Another Story: In a typical police procedural he'd be the quirky Great Detective protagonist and Vic would be the Dirty Cop Big Bad. Dutch's stories do make up multiple subplots, but the focus for the most part is on the Strike Team's exploits.
- Heroic BSoD: Dutch is absolutely horrified after watching child porn as part of an interrogation, especially since he had previously been callous towards the victims' plight.
- Innocently Insensitive: Dutch has a bad tendency to inadvertently come off as self-absorbed and callous to others because of his lack of social skills.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Dutch is fairly arrogant and tends to view himself as above his colleagues, but he's deeply insecure and has low self-esteem.
- It's Personal: Dutch's investigation into Sean Taylor becomes much more emotionally motivated after Taylor murders a young child prostitute.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dutch is arrogant, self-centered, blunt, and socially awkward, but he's got a good heart and is a very loyal friend.
- Kick the Dog: Strangling the cat. Played less as a moment of establishing villainy, though, and more as a symptom of Dutch's mental turmoil at the time.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Dutch is a paranoid cynic who constantly believes the worst in human nature, but he's still genuinely dedicated towards seeing justice done and works hard to make up for his own mistakesDutch: We're animals... nothing more. And ya know what? I'm learning to be OK with that.
- Lack of Empathy: Dutch occasionally gets so into his hyper-fixation on serial killers that he forgets that people have actually been killed and that it isn't just a fun pastime for him.
- The Lancer: To Claudette after she becomes Chief.
- Manipulative Bastard: A rare heroic example given his penchant for getting criminal suspects to confess during interrogation either by appealing to their vanity or exploiting their insecurities.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In "Cherrypoppers", he's clearly guilt-ridden once he realizes how much of a Lack of Empathy he's been showing to "Sally Struthers", a child prostitute who was Sean Taylor's latest victim.
- No-Respect Guy: He's a brilliant detective well-versed in book smarts and street smarts, but he's constantly bullied and picked on by his colleagues, especially Mackey, who goes as far as leaving dog shit inside of his desk. Even Claudette sometimes get in on being a jerk to him.
- No Social Skills: Dutch struggles in social situations, often coming across as overly blunt and callous even when he's not trying to be or misreading social cues. He's also terrible at talking to women, and can rarely do so without stammering or stumbling over himself.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His wife was a alcoholic so Dutch got her involved with an AA program only for her to cheat on him with her sponsor
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Occasionally shows some bigoted tendencies, although these pop up often due to insensitiveness and exasperation rather than malice.
- When trying (and failing) to get information on a package for Margos Dezerian, he snaps and yells: "If I sound superior, it's because I'm American and you're Greek".
- Deconstructed in season 4, as this gets him in trouble with Rawlings when he makes an islamophobic comment.
- The Profiler: He fancies himself one and his theories do tend to be rather useful, as proven in season 1 when he carries on a lengthy interrogation with a serial killer.
- Properly Paranoid: His mistrust of Vic is very, very justified. He's also frequently suspicious of everyone involved in whatever case he's investigating, which more often than not turns out to be right. It's whenever Dutch isn't paranoid that he winds up screwing up.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Claudette. The two are extremely close and always have the other's back, but they're clearly just friends.
- Rage Breaking Point: Things go wrong for him even moreso than usual throughout "Cherrypoppers". His work station is destroyed by a flood, he's forced to watch child porn as part of an interrogation, he loses seven hours worth of his investigation into a serial killer because of an idiot trying to prank his friend, and Aceveda decides to abruptly stop the manhunt Dutch was leading to catch said killer. When Danny asks him to help her study for her sergeant's exam after she had previously blown him off to go on a date with Vic, Dutch loses it and gives her a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- After Danny inadvertently pushes him past the Rage Breaking Point after a particularly bad day, Dutch loses it and gives her a vicious one,
Dutch: Sure. Why don't we do that right now? I'll just drop my pissant serial killer thing just to help you study. Because what you want always comes first, doesn't it, Danny? Comes before me, comes before EVERYBODY ELSE HERE! Even comes before a dead thirteen year-old girl who we're all supposed to forget about come tomorrow! So grab your books! Let's find a nice quiet spot. We'll study for that test right now.- He gives a cutting one to Sean Taylor.
Dutch: It's pathetic.
Sean Taylor: What is?
Dutch: How typical you are. Soon as you're caught, you try to be special.
Sean: I killed twenty-two people. Well, twenty-three if you wanna count the hunting accident back in Rockford. I'm special alright.
Dutch: If you're so special, how come a lowly civil servant like me just caught you? - Secret-Keeper: Keeps Claudette's lupus secret from the rest of the Barn.
- Secretly Selfish: Dutch's investigation into Sean Taylor is initially motivated mostly by his desire to play out his fantasies of being an FBI agent than any desire to see justice done. This admittedly changes into genuine altruism after he realizes how callous he had been towards Taylor's victims.
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Downplayed. Dutch implicitly comes from a middle-upper class background, and while he's fairly street smart, he's oblivious to aspects of the job that are second hand to his colleagues (i.e. knowing Spanish, among other things).
- The Smart Guy: He's much smarter than Vic and could easily take him down, which Vic is very aware of.
- True Companions: With Claudette.
- Underestimating Badassery: His social ineptness means that the rest of the Barn often forget what a brilliant detective he is, best demonstrated during his handling of the Sean Taylor case.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Claudette. They'll always have each other's back, but the two are more than happy to playfully snark at each other.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: He became a cop to impress his cold, distant father.
- What You Are in the Dark:
- When dealing with a rapist who won't confess but who he knows is guilty, Dutch decides at Vic's advice to plant evidence in his home to frame the man. However, as he drives away from planting it, he has a change of heart and grabs the evidence before anyone can see it.
- He nearly kisses Danny in "Scar Tissue" when she moves in for a kiss, with no one else around to see it. However, Dutch turns her down after a second so he can remain faithful to his girlfriend.
Steve Billings
"I think a profiler would call that a pattern of shitting where you eat."
Played By: David Marciano
A veteran cop who is five years away from retiring and dead set on doing as little as possible until then, in order to ensure he sees the day of his retirement.
- Berserk Button: Could rival even Vic's and Lem's love for kids. He doesn't like to see them harmed.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He's a veteran detective with skills that rival Dutch. However, with only 5 years left before retirement, he's not particularly inclined to try very hard on cases.
- Cowboy Cop: When he's roused to action, he thinks nothing of planting evidence to get his man.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Usually won't raise a finger to help, unless it's a case of child abuse, in which case he will move heaven and earth to see that justice is done.
- Dirty Coward: Oscillates between this and Lovable Coward.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Does not take losing his temporary captaincy well during Season 5, claiming the lower crime stats are due to his leadership. However, Claudette points out the lower stats have more to do with less people calling 911 because of poor response times.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: His leadership style in Season 5 is to let Vic and the Strike Team have free reign around Farmington.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's lazy and complacent, but he means well and when he's properly motivated, he proves to be quite good at his job. Though he is occasionally prone to bending the rules to get results.
- Kicked Upstairs: Subverted. When the brass realize what a disaster he is as captain, they broom him right quick.
- Lovable Coward: Oscillates between this and Dirty Coward.
- Never My Fault: He is outraged that he might actually lose his job for filing a bogus lawsuit against the city.
- Playing Sick: After breaking up a fight between Vic and Kavanaugh and hitting his head on a desk, he sues the city for a laundry list of imaginary ailments related to the injury.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: When he briefly became captain.
- The Slacker: Despite being a veteran cop, he's all but checked out by the time we meet him in the series and just wants to ride out the rest of his career while doing the bare minimum.
Captains
David Aceveda
"Mackey's not a cop. He's Al Capone with a badge."
Played By: Benito Martinez
The politically ambitious police captain of the Barn and ultimately an influential member of the Los Angeles City Council. Despite being Vic Mackey's archnemesis and by extension the main antagonist of Season 1, he and Mackey become begrudging allies in later seasons.
- Ambition Is Evil: Starting around season 4, although he showed shades of this as far back as the pilot, willing to let Vic employ his brutal methods on a pedophile holding a little girl hostage, in order to get results.
- Anti-Hero: A pragmatic example in the first three seasons prior to becoming an outright villain. He wants the Strike Team taken down or at the very least to spout a damper on their rampant brutality, but he also wants to protect his political career and will make moral compromises to do so.
- Badass Bureaucrat: Despite being a bureaucrat who primarily involves himself with public relations and soliciting support from LA power brokers, he is no less competent in the field than the police officers under his command.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He takes great pains to present himself as an altruistic public servant who adheres to the rule of law. As the story progresses, he is increasingly revealed to be a ruthless careerist who has no qualms manipulating others and abusing his authority to satisfy his lust for power.
- Break the Haughty: His rape midway through Season 3 throws most of his life into disarray. He eventually bounces back, and hard.
- Da Chief: In the first three seasons. He's the head of the Barn, but spends most of his time struggling to bend Vic Mackey to his will.
- Deadpan Snarker: Especially when Vic is the subject, Aceveda is prone to making sarcastic remarks.
- Drunk with Power: While initially sincere in his efforts to run The Barn and make Farmington a better place, his ambition and lust for power eventually supersedes his desire for justice. By season 4, he's all but dispensed with his more noble qualities and becomes yet another power hungry politician.
- Enemy Mine: With Lanie Kellis monitoring the Barn for any sign of misconduct in Season 2, Aceveda makes a deal with Vic to put aside their mutual rivalry so long as Vic puts an end to his corrupt activities, hoping Vic's high statistics will help make Lanie back off.
- Everyone Has Standards: While he does essentially give Vic carte blanche to go after Armadillo during their Enemy Mine in Season 2, Aceveda draws the line at letting Vic actually break the law. He absolutely loses it when Vic illegally uses a teenager for a sting operation and temporarily takes him off the case.
- Fair Cop: Given his lofty political ambitions, he makes a point of supplementing his attractive appearance by being meticulously well-groomed and maintaining an impressive physique. This is acknowledged in-universe given that Vic Mackey often refers to him derisively as a "pretty boy" publicity hound and the vampish con-artist, Deena shamelessly flirts with him every time she sees him (albeit while trying to persuade him to reduce charges against her).
- Fatal Flaw: Pride. It ultimately serves as the catalyst for his transformation into a villain.
- A Father to His Men: During his tenure as Captain in the first 3 seasons. Despite being frequently condescending towards most of his employees and having no qualms using them as pawns to advance his interests, he exhibits genuine concern for his officers' well-being and goes to great lengths to look out for them.
- Good Is Not Nice: During the first 3 seasons before becoming corrupted by his ambition. While he genuinely wants to improve the quality of life for Farmington's population, he is also vain, calculating and a covert sexual sadist.
- Happily Married: The Acevedas go through some serious problems, but they're still an example. However, given that his wife is just as ambitious and calculating as he is, it's unclear after Season 3 what extent their relationship's longevity is due to their genuine affection for one another as opposed to political expediency.
- Hero Antagonist: In Season 1. While it is made apparent early on that he is ambitious and self-centered, his status as an antagonist arises solely from his opposition to the criminal practices of the series' corrupt protagonist, Vic Mackey. It is only in later seasons as he increasingly aids and abets Vic's activities to advance his career that he truly becomes villainous.
- Humiliation Conga: In Season 3 from "Mum" onwards.
- Hypocrite:
- He moralizes constantly about Mackey's corruption, yet he frequently allows him to engage in his brutal tactics if it benefits him.
- He frequently criticizes the often racist behavior of the officers under him even if he's willing to back them up, but during his brief time serving as a patrolman as part of a publicity stunt he takes a young black boy's bike under the assumption it was stolen. The kid rightfully calls him out on it when Aceveda returns it, and he's appropriately ashamed. He still decides to put off writing the report, however.
- Ignored Epiphany: Even after realizing how terrible of an idea it was to ally with Vic, he still decides to keep covering for him while weathering the fallout of Lanie's report for the sake of keeping his job.
- Internal Reformist: Subverted. He frequently spins himself as one at the beginning of the series to his constituents and his desire for internal reform motivates his pursuit of Mackey, but it becomes increasingly clear Aceveda cares about his optics more than genuine systemic reform.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Aceveda is an arrogant, hypocritical careerist, but he genuinely wants to improve life in Farmington and he is trying to put away a corrupt cop even if it's motivated more by his political ambitions than anything else.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When trying to get Lem to make a deal he tells him that if the positions were reversed Vic would not be so loyal. Ultimately Vic proves this correct when he throws Ronnie under the bus. He also offers to get the team's prison sentence reduced to 1 year which as he points out isn't too bad of a punishment when taking into account all the crimes the team has commited.
- Karma Houdini: His reward for his role in passively (and sometimes actively) abetting Vic's crimes throughout the series? He's almost certain to be the next mayor of L.A.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Aceveda is a cynical careerist who is very attuned to the shady tactics it takes to get ahead in politics, but he still tries to do the right thing most of the time even if much of it is done for optics as much as it is altruism. However, as the series goes on, he steadily prioritizes his ambitions over his own morality.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's no better than Vic in this department.
- Moral Myopia: For the first three seasons, he expresses a sincere desire to serve the public by cleaning up crime in Farmington and rooting out corruption within its police department. However, this doesn't stop him from callously manipulating those around him to achieve this end nor prioritizing the interests of Farmington's Latino citizens over the rest of its population. By Season 4, he's pretty much discarded all pretense of morality in favor of advancing his own fortunes.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He realizes what a mistake he's made by allying with Vic after Shane and Lem have Armadillo killed in his cell. It unfortunately becomes an Ignored Epiphany as he continues to protect Vic so he can mantain his reputation and ascend to higher positions.Aceveda: I've made a mistake.
Claudette: You're just now realizing that? - Out of Focus: To varying degrees in Seasons 4, 5, and 6.
- The Peter Principle: Inverted. Aceveda is competent in his role as Captain, but when he's forced to temporarily work a patrolman's beat as part of a publicity stunt he proves staggeringly out of his depth. He admittedly takes it in good humor.
- Pragmatic Hero: Aceveda is well-aware of when to pick his battles, and he frequently tries to dissuade the officers under him from pursuing investigations if they're draining too much time and manpower or are downright self-destructive. He's also perfectly willing to callously manipulate his employees if it can net him an advantage on Vic and Gilroy.
- Rape as Drama: His rape and subsequent PTSD in Season 3 is portrayed gut-wrenchingly tragically, and continues to impact him throughout the series.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: A mild, comedic variant happens when he's supposed to write a report of the work he did while serving a patrolman's beat as part of a publicity stunt. Since it turned into a humiliating fiasco, Aceveda decides to put off making the mandatory end-of-the-day report to the Captain (I.e. himself).Aceveda: I'll let myself slide.
- Strawman Political: Aceveda is a Take That! to politicians who spout liberal ideals only for the sake of votes. He frequently promotes ideas of police accountability and systemic reform, but never acts on the chance to actually enact them and allies with Vic whenever it proves useful for his ambitions. He's still portrayed as a complex and sympathetic figure, but his hypocrisy is depicted as one of his greatest character flaws.
- Tautological Templar: Increasingly so as he let his sense of ambitions get to his head.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: He gains a big one in Season 4, when his mental problems and political position make him feel above everyone else.
Monica Rawling
"A drug dealer uses a car to distribute drugs, we're gonna seize that vehicle. A gang sells crack out of their back room, we're gonna take that home."
Played By: Glenn Close
Replacement captain for the Farmington District after Aceveda left following his election to city council.
- Arch-Enemy: To Antwon Mitchell.
- Berserk Button: Negligent social workers. Also fellow cops being murdered really pisses her off.
- Big Good: Of Season 4.
- Doomed Moral Victor: She doesn't die, but she does sacrifice her career to win.
- Honor Before Reason: She probably could have kept her job if she had picked the Mitchell fight over the Social Services fight (or vice versa), but she just had to do both at the same time.
- Knight Templar: A somewhat heroic version. Her pursuit of Carl and Scooby's killers leads her to take the leash off Vic, and even try a couple of extreme moves of her own.
- Mama Bear: Protective of her fellow officers, especially after two of them are murdered on orders of Antwon Mitchell.
- Small Role, Big Impact: She only appeared for one season, but the IAD investigation she initiates ultimately destroys the Strike Team.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Her seizure program rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but she was putting money into the community.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Her desire to clean up Farmington is a genuine one, but her tendency to step on toes and not play the political game is ultimately what screws her over by the end of Season 4.
Benjamin "Ben" Gilroy
"Don't act like you're better than me. What things have you done? What've you done, then covered those things up?"
Played By: John Diehl
The Assistant Chief of Police, Vic's political muscle within the department, and the man who created the Barn and formed the Strike Team.
- The Alcoholic: Has been flagged for five DUIs, but promptly buries them. He ultimately ends up dying of cirrhosis.
- Arc Villain: At the end of Season 1, he briefly eclipses Aceveda as the main antagonist.
- Asshole Victim: He's so crooked and pathetic that not even his wife cares after he dies. The only person who's moved by this is Vic.
- Beard of Sorrow: After his arrest in Season 1, he develops a Perma-Stubble. After his body arrives in the morgue, it is revealed that it grew into a full-blown beard during his Mexican exile.
- Bus Crash: After being smuggled out of the country by a coyote in Season 2, his next appearance in Season 4 has him show up as a corpse, having died of cirrhosis.
- Butt-Monkey: He spends most of the first season having to desperately cover up Vic's actions and generally coming off as a Nervous Wreck. While his Evil Plan makes him into a threat at the end of the season, his failure destroys his life in spectacular fashion and he spends his last appearance having a drunken meltdown.
- Crime After Crime: In the last two episodes of Season 1, he commits a variety of crimes, ranging from blackmail to obstruction to murder, in order to cover up his involvement in a hit and run and the real estate fraud he's working in Farmington.
- Dirty Cop: If a hit-and-run, multiple DUI's, killing a witness, and a real estate scam don't convince you he's this, nothing will.
- Evil Former Friend: Well, Eviler. Vic's no saint, but what motivates him to go after Gilroy is the discovery that Gilroy has deliberately decreased police effectiveness in Farmington so he could profit off of a real estate scam and indirectly caused countless deaths as a result.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Subverted. He's technically Vic's boss, but Vic is clearly the one calling the shots.
- Hannibal Lecture: Near the end of season 1, he explains his actions to Vic as nothing he wouldn't have done himself and calls him out for his hypocrisy at pretending he's any better than Gilroy.
- Humiliation Conga: He's robbed of most of his real estate money by Sedona, forced to serve as a mole by the DA's office to prove Vic's corruption, spends most of his time doing so having a drunken meltdown, and is finally tricked into paying his own hit-man and forced to hide out in Mexico with limited funds despite him and Vic both knowing he'll almost certainly die there.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Throughout the first season, Gilroy comes off more as an enabler to Vic than anything else and the least dangerous of the two. The final two episodes reveal he's the center of a massive real estate scam to sell property in Farmington and he's indirectly killed countless civilians to see it through. Even Vic is disgusted with him for that and turns on him.
- Killer Cop: Guns down Jesus Rosales in order to keep him quiet.
- Manipulative Bastard: Uses police resources to bring down value in the Grove, then uses his mistress to buy up the property and sell it for a sizable profit.
- Nervous Wreck: He's perpetually fretting over whether Vic's latest scheme or Aceveda's investigation could ruin his career.
- "Not So Different" Remark: He frequently points out to Vic that there's no real moral difference between them, calling him out for acting like he has the moral high ground. And in his final appearance, Gilroy points out he's very much a cautionary tale of what could happen to Vic if he lets his greed consume him. Which it ultimately does.Gilroy: I got greedy, and I lost everything. There's a lesson there.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: He comes off as a harried politician very much out of his depth in dealing with Vic and not much of a threat in his own. The season finale reveals he's deliberately increased crime in Farmington as part of a massive real estate scam, something that unites Aceveda and Vic against him.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: Vic forces him to flee to Mexico under threat of death, in spite of Gilroy's protests that thanks to his lack of funds he'll probably wind up dying.
- Shadow Archetype: He represents what Vic could become should his greed get the better of him; a pathetic, drunken failure who lost everything and everyone he had.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Gilroy is a fairly minor presence throughout Season 1 and only really comes into focus during the season finale, but his political pull is what keeps Mackey from facing consequences for his actions. His fall from grace
- Smug Snake: In Season 1, he tries to use Vic Mackey and David Aceveda as pawns in his real estate scheme but gets outsmarted by both of them.
- Villainous Friendship: He was close with Vic for many years and provided him with protection for his crimes. He also seeems honestly apologetitc about having to rescind that protection. Vic for his part decides to help Gilroy escape his hit and run charge even after Gilroy abandoned him. This likely plays a part in Vic deciding to spare his life at the end of season 1 and Shane even says they should just kill Ben when Vic smuggles him out of the country in season 2.
- Villainous Breakdown: Goes from being the Big Bad of Season 1 to a broken, pathetic fugitive and pawn of the DA's office when he reappears in "Coyotes".
Officers
Danny Sofer
"Welcome to the life."
Played By: Catherine Dent
An LAPD officer working at the Barn, she is Julien Lowe's training officer, and an on-off lover of Vic Mackey.
- Action Girl: It's sort of requirement when fighting street crime as an LAPD officer.
- Action Mom: After having her child, she's still just as willing to go out in the field and battle perps if they come after her.
- Butt-Monkey: Crap keeps happening to her.
- Broken Pedestal: Loses much respect for Vic when he doesn't help her escape the blame for Armadillo's murder.
- Cool Big Sis: Has shades of this when she mentors Julien for the first two seasons. She's supportive of his sexuality and mental instability, and gives him at times Brutally Honest advice about his life choices.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Always had the attitude, especially when she gives harsh lectures to Tina.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Danny is gruff and is harsh on rookie cops, but she's repeatedly shown to be a fairly nice person is almost always kind and understanding to her fellow cops. Perhaps too understanding, as it results in her turning a blind eye to the Strike Team's corruption.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: She makes several Islamophobic insults toward a Middle Eastern man. It blows up in her face when she shoots the man after he draws a gun, and is promptly threatened with a lawsuit by the man's widow using her remarks against her.
- Secret-Keeper: For a while, she was the only co-worker to know that Julien was gay.
- Team Mom: Becomes this in Season 5.
- Undying Loyalty: Always protects other cops even when their behavior is unethical.
Julien Lowe
"Went knocking, half the people weren't answering their door, the other half were sleeping."
Played By: Michael Jace
An LAPD officer working at the Barn under Danny Sofer's tutelage. He is a devoted Christian who is also struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality.
- Armored Closet Gay: He keeps his sexuality hidden both out of self-hatred and fear of how his co-workers would react. A series of traumas just leads to him doubling further down on his denial, leaving him locked in a loveless marriage.
- Audience Surrogate: In the first season, Julien's status as a rookie allows much of the internal workings of the Barn and Farmington as a whole to be established.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Often. The best example is when he is up in arms after a church is searched, even though it turned out to be a front for heroin distribution.
- Berserk Button: Hurt Danny and Julien will kick your ass.
- By-the-Book Cop: Being a zealous Christian, this was to be expected. He is scrupulously by the book, which causes friction with both Danny and Vic since his honest reporting on their conduct puts their jobs at risk.
- Cure Your Gays: Julien undergoes conversion therapy, declares himself "cured" and marries a woman. He is still married and closeted at the end of the show, though he does not seem happy.
- Gayngst: And how! His homosexuality placed him at great odds with his devout Christian beliefs, even to the point that he chose not to wear his vest to a bust, hoping the perp would kill him.
- The Heart: He tends to be the most moral member of the Barn and the one who actually cares about the welfare of Farmington's residents in contrast to Vic and Rawling's Knight Templar "ends justify the means"-mentality and Aceveda's political spinelessness.
- Honor Before Reason: Even though he knows it would make him a pariah to the department, he rats on Mackey and the Strike Team for stealing drugs from a crime scene.
- Naïve Newcomer: Julien is initially unaware of a lot of the internal politics at the Barn and is disgusted at a lot of the LAPD's double standards, mainly the blue wall of silence
. - Nice Guy: Julien is a principled, good-natured man who is almost always polite and amiable. Of course, there are exceptions to this which normally pop up due to his Gayngst.
- Out of Focus: He becomes less of a focus of the show after he declares himself cured of his gayness.
- Straight Gay: Julien is as stoic as they come and a zealous Christian, but he's still gay.
- The Stool Pigeon: In season 1, he volunteers to be this after witnessing the Strike Team stealing 2 keys of cocaine, knowing what kind of heat it will bring. He is eventually convinced otherwise. And by convinced, we mean blackmailed.
- You Are What You Hate: He got very violent with a transgender prostitute and it's outright stated that it was because of his own homosexuality.
Tina Hanlon
Played By: Paula Garces
A new recruit assigned to serve as Julien's partner. Her going from vain pretty girl to competent cop was a major storyline for the later seasons of the show.
- Fair Cop: Oh, so much.
- Hidden Depths: Is not as vapid as she seems and capable of some good ideas out on the field.
Tommy Hisk
Played By: Matt Gerald
Julien's new partner following Danny's brief termination.
- Anti-Villain: Type II.
Ray Carlson
Played By: Matt Corboy
A virulently homophobic LAPD officer.
- Commuting on a Bus: After being fired, he still reappears every now and then. First when Julien breaks his arm as revenge, and then as a private investigator that Vic hires.
- Dirty Cop: He leads Julian and Paul in savagely beating a transgender woman for biting Danny, and later he and Paul do the same to Julien after they're fired for harassing him.
- Jerkass: He's a massively homophobic, immature asshole who spends much of his time harassing LGBTQU+ people.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Julien breaks his arm in retaliation for Ray beating him within an inch of his,life at the end of Season 2.
- Manchild: Carlson acts more like a frat boy than a trained police officer, to an even greater degree than Vic.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's massively homophobic, and leads a harassment campaign against Julien after finding out he's gay. When Ray and Paul are fired for it by Aceveda, they promptly subject Julien to a beating out of spite.
Paul Jackson
Played By: Frank Grillo
Ray Carlson's partner.
- Dirty Cop: He joins Ray and Julien's "blanket party" for a transgender woman, and later helps Ray inflict the same thing on Julien.
- Jerkass: He's just as much of a homophobic jerk as his partner and eagerly helps his harassment campaign against Julien.
- Karma Houdini: Unlike Ray, he gets away scot-free for beating Julien.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's as homophobic as Ray and he's very willing to get violent against LGBTQU+ people.
- Put on a Bus: He disappears from the series after being fired by Aceveda for his homophobia.
- Satellite Character: He gets much less characterization than Ray, and mainly exists to serve as his right-hand.
