The question is always this: what’s the greatest American TV series, The Sopranos or The Wire? The answer (the real answer) is The Shield, the thundering, breakneck, perilously dark cop show that began in 2002 and followed the misadventures of corrupt LA detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) – or chased, more like, trying desperately to keep up with Mackey and his Strike Team, very much from the “shoot, steal, and crack skulls first, ask questions later” school of Los Angeles policing.
Created by Shawn Ryan, The Shield was a different kind of cop show from day one. Walton Goggins – who played detective Shane Vendrell, Vic Mackey’s closest friend and partner in crime-fighting (and crime too) – got a hit of reality on the first day of filming, while goofing around with co-stars Chiklis and Kenny Johnson. “I’ll never forget, we were in Downtown Los Angeles,” Goggins tells me. “We were on the streets, kind of f___ing around and saying, ‘Man, this is so great, look at this badge!’ A police officer came up to us. He said, ‘What the f___ are you doing? This isn’t a game. There’s a hit out on a police officer right now. Put that badge back in your pocket and don’t ever forget the story that you’re telling.’ We realised the responsibility we were facing. It set the tone for that day and every day that came after.”
Two decades later, The Shield is alarmingly prescient – toxic masculinity with a badge and a gun. Putting the boots to issues of race, sexual assault and police violence, The Shield would cuff modern sensitives behind the back, give them a good kicking, and plant some heroin in their back pocket for good measure. “It’s just as relevant now as it was then,” says Goggins. “It’s the story about police violence going up and crime going down. What are we willing to accept in the pursuit of our own security in America?”
The show was partly inspired by the LAPD’s Rampart scandal – widespread corruption within an anti-gang unit that ranged from planting evidence and perjury to drugs and bank robbery. Shawn Ryan was also inspired by police ride-alongs he did while writing for the lightweight Don Johnson procedural, Nash Bridges. “I was seeing stuff I knew we couldn’t use on that show!” he says.
Ryan didn’t expect his pilot script to amount to anything – a writing sample that might land him a staff gig one day, perhaps – until Peter Liguori, then president of the cable channel FX, discovered it in a pile of spec scripts.
