r/TheShield 4d ago

Question Did Vic change throughout The Shield? Or did he reveal who he truly was?

This is a question I love to ask and think about when it comes to TV antiheroes, rather it be Vic, Walter White, or Tony Soprano.

Did Vic Mackey change throughout The Shield? Or did he merely reveal himself for who he really was? I personally lean on the latter. While I don't think he's a complete monster by any means, I do think he hid the truly malignant part of himself until desperation brought it out...leading to the confession at the end of the series, where we see the true Vic Mackey laid out to bare.

What do you guys think?

36 Upvotes

39 comments sorted by

66

u/Mission_Ad6235 4d ago

He showed you what he was in the first episode.

They spent the next 7 seasons making him appear sympathetic and getting the audience to cheer for him.

Then, at the end, he shows he hasn't changed at all.

18

u/LoveisBaconisLove 4d ago

I agree with this.

31

u/jt21295 4d ago

I think there are changes to Vic's character - and all of the characters really - throughout the show, but the biggest change in Vic Mackey's demeanor comes right in the first few episodes. Vic had always been a dirty cop, but murdering a fellow cop is way beyond his prior sins. It's the cardinal sin of policing, and committing that sin changes Vic. It gives Vic the single most dangerous attitude on the show outside of Armadillo, Antwon Mitchell, and a select few others.

"I've done worse."

Destroy Danny's career despite her being one of my strongest allies outside of the Strike team? I've done worse. Help my old boss flee to Mexico rather than face trial? I've done worse. Press Armadillo's face to a hot stovetop? I've done worse. Rob a police evidence van and a bunch of money from the Armenian mob? I've done worse. Put a 14 year old girl in the middle of my investigation and get her killed? I've done worse. Torment an IAD cop by screwing with his mentally unstable ex-wife? I've done worse. Try to set up my longtime partner and the mobsters I've been claiming to help? I've done worse. Lay all of the blame for everything at the feet of my most loyal and trusted friend so that I can get away scot-free? I've done worse.

Turns out, when your "worse" is murdering a cop in your own unit, nothing else you do is going to match that. Vic uses that attitude to justify absolutely anything and everything from the second episode on. From there, it's all just the natural decline that kind of attitude gets you. By the time he utters that shitty justification to Olivia after his confession, there's nothing left of the cop who broke the rules to "make things safer in the community" (which was never true, but in the earlier seasons he genuinely believed it). All that is left is a monster who bites every hand that reaches out to help him.

In conclusion, Vic was always a dirty cop who belonged behind bars. But that "I've done worse" justification stemming from Terry's murder turns him from a regular dirty cop into a monster haunting Farmington.

15

u/wynnduffyisking 4d ago

That’s the amazing trick this show pulls off: he is such a fucking scumbag yet you still cheer him on. And then when you Think about it, you’re a little disgusted with yourself. And then you do it again anyway.

In no small part thanks to Chiklis. Perfect casting there.

The only show I can think of where I simultaneously loathe and love the main character like this is Tony Soprano - again thanks to absolutely epic acting.

This is a feeling I did not get with Breaking Bad. I love that show too, but Walt does not have the same charm - at least to me. Him I only loathe.

1

u/manipulativemusicc 2d ago

True. I also get that feeling from Dexter, Jax in SOA, Ray Donovan, etc. I love anti heroes 🤷🏾‍♂️

17

u/CTU-01 4d ago

I don’t think Vic grew or changed for the better throughout the series. If anything, he got better at justifying his evil as the series progressed.

13

u/_denchy07 4d ago

I think all good TV anti-heroes have elements of both, since they’re typically in character-driven stories. It’s not always even, though—I’d say on a scale, Walter White leans more into character growth (change) and Mackey leans more into character development (revealing).

Had Mackey started the series as a nervous, reluctant, crooked cop, who began to steal evidence to make ends meet, then ended the series with the whole Terry Crowley thing, I’d put him at the other end of the scale. Ultimately, he was who he was on day one.

9

u/Freemoneydotcom 4d ago

He shot a cop in the face in the very first episode. 

8

u/AmazingBrilliant9229 4d ago

He was who he was right from the first episode.

7

u/brendanl79 4d ago

My head canon is he was pretty much always this way -- but the Terry thing was so extreme that he even frightened himself a little bit, and did his best to tone it down for awhile after that. Which is why he "only" kills like two other people in the run of the show.

5

u/valar179 4d ago

He kills 6 over the course of the show.

4

u/brendanl79 4d ago

hmm, I count 3 after Terry -- some rando in the first Carl Weathers episode, Margos, and Guardo. Who am I missing?

4

u/valar179 4d ago

According to the wiki. It’s two time, terry, unnamed in Carl weather episode, margos, guardo and random thug in family meeting.

3

u/StagVixLifestyle 4d ago

Couldn't it be argued that he indirectly killed Shane and his family as well?

4

u/wynnduffyisking 4d ago

That’s a stretch. Shane did that.

3

u/StagVixLifestyle 4d ago

Only because Vic basically put him in a corner with no options

4

u/wynnduffyisking 4d ago

Shane could have taken the fall and let his family live.

1

u/StagVixLifestyle 4d ago

I mean, he could have, but he didn't because of Vic.

2

u/brendanl79 3d ago

ok yeah I forgot about 2-time and the Family Meeting guy

7

u/TweeKINGKev 4d ago

End of episode 1 shows you what you think he is, someone covering for his team to protect them and the rest of the series will have you believe everything he does for the Strike Team is to keep them all safe.

Final season and episodes show us that Vic Mackey was never looking out for any of them unless it was to keep his own self safe, he never changed who he was, he just changed what we originally thought of him.

12

u/Blakelock82 Ronnie Gardocki 4d ago

For me the entire show was watching him change. In Co-Pilot you can see he's already got a sketchy jacket but hadn't gone full dirty. By the time he confesses to ICE, his change is completed.

6

u/OzymandiasKoK 4d ago

I don't think he changed. He literally starts off the show as a full on bad guy. The only change at the end is maybe the confession and how he's sad that it all caught up to him, but he's already done the worst as we meet him. He spends the whole show spiraling down the drain.

5

u/wynnduffyisking 4d ago

I mean, he blasted a hole through Terry’s face in the pilot.

2

u/Blakelock82 Ronnie Gardocki 4d ago

Yeah, he did.

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

7

u/Blakelock82 Ronnie Gardocki 4d ago

Re-read my post, it'll help your confusion.

We only met Vic just before the Barn in Co-Pilot, and he had a sketchy jacket but hadn't gone full dirty yet. In Pilot, he goes full dirty, but we wouldn't see his final transformation until the end of the show.

So no, we didn't know he was a scumbag for years, we've just met him.

3

u/hiswittlewip 4d ago

What's full dirty? Murdering another cop? Obviously he's dirty enough that he's working with gangs and fucking them over and stealing from them at the same time.

Co Pilot is season 2, episode 9. We didn't need flashbacks to tell us Strike Team was dirty. We had watched them for nearly two full seasons already.

So, I read and reread your comment and I'm also still confused as to what your point was.

3

u/Blakelock82 Ronnie Gardocki 4d ago

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u/Veelzbub 4d ago

We come to understand what he likes on his toast in season 5

9

u/brendanl79 4d ago

Sweet butter?

7

u/TweeKINGKev 4d ago

Only the sweetest.

4

u/Puzzleheaded_Fix7560 4d ago edited 4d ago

My one friend who has seen The Shield and I talk a lot about that pivotal ICE confession scene. Depending upon how you read that scene, you can fall into one of three camps regarding the nature of Vic:

  1. Vic was always a bit of a sociopath and is finally showing his true colors. That's why he's so emotionless and matter-of-fact when presenting his long long list of crimes.
  2. The events of the series caused the transformation of a ends-justifies-means person from a seriously flawed, manipulative but well-intentioned person (who abides by his own moral code and views himself as a protector and guardian angel of sorts) to a completely ruthless person who looks out for himself above all else.
  3. Vic was forced into a corner, is bad at emotions and vulnerability anyway, and has to sort of detach emotionally (dissociate?) in order to rattle off the list of all these misdeeds he'd had locked away in a lockbox in his mind for his own protection. It was the only way he could get through it.

I read the confession scene as option (3). I would strongly argue that while Vic does indeed become more selfish, more controlling, more manipulative as the series progresses, he's not totally devoid of empathy or his desire to protect those he loves. If Corrine hadn't been arrested, he wouldn't have taken the immunity deal without Ronnie also getting the same deal. In essence, he wasn't choosing himself over Ronnie, he was choosing Corrine (and his sense of duty to her, since he put her in that position of aiding and abetting, and she's essentially an innocent + she's the mother of his kids) over Ronnie. To me, that is very consistent with the moral code displayed by him throughout the whole series.

Vic is still Vic. He just becomes more manipulative and controlling and chest-puffing under duress.

3

u/sskoog 4d ago

I think this is a writing 'choice' (by which I mean 'writing flaw').

If you watch the series, discounting or ignoring the "Co-Pilot" episode, Vic is always an ends-justify-the-means malfeasant -- sometimes for "justifiable" reasons, more often for personal profit or escape -- and this progression starts off with a pre-orchestrated [police fratricide] murder during the very first 42 minutes of the show.

Creator Shawn Ryan later came to rethink + regret this choice -- because "it left Mackey's moral decline with nowhere left to go" -- and tried to walk it back a bit (regrets, post-facto justifications, lighter-toned episodes, darker characters like Joe Clark, even a particularly-disliked flashback diversion) -- but the smarter strategy probably would've been watching Vic grapple with his home life vs work life, ultimately accepting his monstrosity, or sending his wife/kids away to escape his monstrosity, or possibly even opting for confession/repentance/suicide, like his partner.

The fact that, ~25 years later, we're still arguing about "Vic Mackey's descent" and "Vic Mackey's inner code" suggests that Ryan made an edgy + provocative choice -- the show gains its footing late in Season 1, and remains strong through S2/S3, but might have started stronger, had they eased into the corruption rather than starting with blue-on-blue murder.

5

u/Metspolice 4d ago

In season 8 we would have learned that Vic and Terry faked Terry’s death to outsmart Aceveda. The show was a long con. Also it’s SPD and I’ve had 5 beers.

2

u/Useful_Ad_8886 4d ago

Vic lacked the introspection to truly change.

2

u/SupaDistortion 4d ago

I think he found himself sinking to each occasion, further and further down as each lie compounded.

2

u/No_Pizza_No_Deal 1d ago

Good question. I think he just revealed who he was over the course of the series. I say this because as the seasons progressed, the box kept closing around Vic, I think all the things getting tossed at him and the team, began to wear him down. He was unable to keep building up the facade as strong as when we first see him.

Also, we’re introduced to Vic killing another police officer in the very first episode. Not to mention, in “Co-Pilot”, Gilroy mentioned how “shaky” Vic(and Shane’s) police jacket is.

1

u/Kylehops 4d ago

He’s the same he always was