List of The Shield episodes


The Shield is an American crime drama television created by Shawn Ryan and starring Michael Chiklis. The series premiered on FX on March 12, 2002 and ended on November 25, 2008, totaling 88 episodes over seven seasons, plus one additional mini-episode.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (2002)

Captain David Aceveda, seeking to usurp the current black City Council representative of Farmington by swaying the Latino vote, looks to rid his precinct, The Barn, of corruption, starting with Detective Vic Mackey and the controversial yet effective Strike Team that Mackey leads. Aceveda works with the Justice Department to bring Detective Terry Crowley onto the Strike Team to try to gain evidence to use on Vic. However, Vic is aware of Terry's informing due to his friendship with the Assistant Chief of Police, Ben Gilroy.
When the Strike Team conducts a raid on the residence of Two-Time, a drug dealer, Vic and Strike Team member Detective Shane Vendrell are shot at by Two-Time, who they fire back at and kill. Vic picks up Two-Time's gun off his body and shoots Terry in the face, making it look like Terry was murdered by Two-Time himself. Gilroy assists Vic in covering up the murder, which stops Aceveda's investigation. Things come to a breaking point towards the end of the season when Gilroy's own ambitions threaten both Vic's and Aceveda's futures.
Separately, rookie officer Julien Lowe learns the ropes from his training officer Danielle "Danny" Sofer, while attempting to hide his homosexuality from other officers. Julien witnesses the Strike Team smuggling a portion of a drug bust for their own personal wealth and reports it to Aceveda. When Aceveda begins to investigate Julien's claims, Vic threatens to reveal Julien's homosexuality to the department, causing Julien to back out from his witness statement and leaving Aceveda with nothing to go on.
Partners Detective Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach and Detective Claudette Wyms hunt a serial killer targeting prostitutes while dealing with their own problems in The Barn. Vic, separately, has to deal with the growing rift between him and his wife Corrine. After learning his son Matthew is autistic, Vic uses his illicit police activities to pay for special schooling for him. Due to Vic's reckless behavior, Corrine takes the children and disappears, leaving a note to Vic not to come and find them.

Season 2 (2003)

The Barn discovers that the Mexican drug gangs in Farmington are uniting under a new drug lord, Armadillo Quintero, who is able to evade arrest due to lack of evidence and willing witnesses. Privately, the Strike Team learns that Armadillo has knowledge of some of their illicit activities and fear he will rat them out if he is taken to prison. They attempt to coerce Armadillo to return to Mexico by threatening to "greenlight" Armadillo's brother Navaro. Armadillo responds by having Navaro murdered himself. After Armadillo murders one of Vic's CIs, Vic loses his cool and burns half of Armadillo's face on a stove burner only for Armadillo to later retaliate by doing the same to Ronnie and using his new leverage against the Strike Team.
With the fallout of Gilroy's arrest, Vic and Aceveda find themselves under scrutiny of an independent auditor who is determined to find and expose any corruption in The Barn. As Vic and Aceveda struggle to stay one step ahead, their tactics draw the ire of Claudette, who is determined to arrest Armadillo after he rapes a young girl. Claudette, initially reluctant to take a leadership role, eventually agrees to take over as The Barn's Captain after realizing she can't stay neutral anymore. Meanwhile, Danny kills a Muslim man who threatened her during a confrontation and Julien is unable to corroborate her story. The man's widow threatens to sue the department and creates problems for Danny both professionally and personally.
Shane and Lem convince a small-time criminal to kill Armadillo by passing him a knife after he is arrested and put into the cage by Danny, leading to Danny being fired. Separately, Vic hires a private investigator to search for Corrine and the children, and discovers her seemingly preparing to file for divorce. He moves out of his home and preemptively files first in an attempt to gain a better chance of retaining his parenting rights, but this only serves to widen the distance between him and Corrine.
As the Armadillo case is resolved, the Strike Team learn that the Armenian Mob have a "money train" that passes through Farmington every so often, a means for the mob to launder their illegal funds into untraceable cash. The Strike Team privately plans to rob the money train, knowing that they would be financially secure for a long time should they succeed. The money train heist is successful, while Aceveda wins the city council primary.

Season 3 (2004)

In the aftermath of the money train heist, the Strike Team resolves to lie low and avoid any controversy but quickly find themselves marginalized and lacking vital information. When some of the money from the heist is revealed to be marked for a federal case, the Team struggles to stay ahead of Dutch, who begins to suspect Vic. The Armenian mob sends hitman Margos Dezerian to find the money and kill anyone suspected of involvement in the robbery. As both Margos and the investigation close in on the Strike Team, a fearful Lem burns a majority of the money in a desperate attempt to protect the Team, ultimately leading to a confrontation which causes the group to disband.
Claudette is promised a promotion to Captain and maintains a supervising role while Aceveda prepares to move on to the city council. However, a defense attorney is killed, and the ensuing investigation leads Claudette and Dutch to discover that the victim had been a heavy drug user for the past three years. Claudette, determined to ensure justice, investigates further, losing favor with the D.A. and Barn coworkers after she reopens the attorney's closed cases against orders and resulting in her being denied the promotion to Captain.
Shane enters a serious relationship with a woman named Mara and eventually proposes to her when she reveals her pregnancy. Mara encourages Shane to be more independent from Vic, even after discovering the money from the heist. This conflict between Vic and Shane soon becomes personal, leaving a deep rift between the two.
Dutch opens a case of a serial rapist and finds himself becoming more obsessed than usual without Claudette's backing. Julien, having suffering a beating from his coworkers after being outed as gay, has toughened considerably, leading Claudette to feel alarmed that he may wash out. Danny makes a deal with Aceveda to be reinstated provided she give him pertinent information about other officers.

Season 4 (2005)

takes over the role as Farmington's new captain, and implements federal asset forfeiture laws to seize any property tied to drug dealing, using the money to fund the department and give back to the community. This soon becomes controversial among The Barn, particularly Julien, and members of the Farmington community. After the Strike Team's disbandment, Shane works in Vice with new partner Armando "Army" Renta. The pair enter into a dangerous situation when trying to control major drug lord Antwon Mitchell, who blackmails them and coerces Shane into accepting an order to kill Vic. The police are outraged after two officers are kidnapped and subsequently found murdered. In the end, the Strike Team is re-formed and manages to put Antwon in prison. Rawling eventually loses her position over a dispute with the DEA.
Meanwhile, Dutch and Claudette are "blacklisted" as detectives because of the latter's refusal to apologize to the D.A. after her reopening the cases of the murdered defense attorney resulted in many of the prosecutor's cases being overturned. Dutch attempts to resolve the situation by making a back-room deal with the D.A. to keep an eye on Claudette and do favors for the office in return for breaking back into action. Ultimately, this causes a rift between the partners, culminating in a confrontation where Claudette rebukes Dutch for making the deal.

Season 5 (2006)

Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh begins an investigation into Vic and the Strike Team. Previously, Lem had stolen heroin as leverage for information on the disappearance of a young girl he was close to. Emolia Melendez, an informant, witnessed the theft and reported it to IAD. Finding the heroin gave IAD sufficient evidence to arrest Lem, but Kavanaugh, suspecting that Vic murdered Terry Crowley, informs Lem of his theory and coerces Lem into wearing a wire to get evidence on the Strike Team. Lem is able to warn Vic that he is wired and Mackey uses it against Kavanaugh to embarrass him and IAD.
Kavanaugh responds by moving his investigation into the Barn, causing anxiety for everyone inside. Applying pressure to the team in any way he can, Kavanaugh finds out about Mackey's share of the money train haul after interrogating Corrine. Kavanaugh's mentally ill wife Sadie comes into play when she falsely accuses a man of raping her. Vic and Lem view a personal conversation between Kavanaugh and Sadie from the interrogation room camera, which Kavanaugh quickly realizes is turned on. He rushes out in a rage, and Vic and Lem quickly exit the security monitor room, but Kavanaugh sees them and arrests Lem on the spot.
Kavanaugh freezes the Strike Team's assets but Vic manages to secure bail money for Lem and assists in providing safe passage for him to leave the country. However, Shane worries Lem will turn. Kavanaugh orders Aceveda to lie to Vic and say that Lem had revealed the Strike Team's involvement in the robbery of the Armenian money train. Shane falls for the deception and murders Lem with a hand grenade. After Lem's body is discovered, Vic vows to find the killer.
Other plots include Dutch discovering Claudette has lupus and Claudette's subsequently reaching her physical breaking point after finally getting a serial killer from their past to confess. Steve Billings functions as the interim "jellyfish yes-man" Captain of the Barn while Danny deals with pregnancy and refuses to divulge the baby's father, who is eventually revealed to be Vic. Julien trains Tina, a beautiful but incompetent rookie officer, and at long last Claudette gets her opportunity for promotion to captain of the Barn, which she accepts on the sole condition that she gets to run the Barn her way.
;"Wins and Losses"
This 15-minute mini-episode was produced between the fifth and sixth seasons, and initially released to various websites in February 2007 as a promotion for season six. It was later made available on the Season 5 DVD set.