FAQ

In Co-Pilot Captain David Aceveda mentions a work day start from 7 am in the morning, cause Dutch Wagenbach was late on his first arrival. Aceveda elaborated that they indeed start earlier than Dutch did in Sunset. They likely work 10-12 hour rotations.

While Dutch believes it is Vic, and at first we are meant to think so as well, it was actually Claudette!

The exchange between Claudette and Aceveda reveals this. Aceveda suspects it was Claudette, and she tries to brush it off as not really knowing what he was talking about. But as she turns you can see the look on her face trying not to laugh. At the end montage of the episode, we see Claudette arrive at home and she is greeted by a golden retriever.

The Shield can be extremely violent at times. It goes beyond the limits that most TV shows respect. Most of the violence depicted is filmed to look realistic. The Shield pretty much shows everything: murder, rape, torture, police brutallity, in-depth gang and drug related violence and more. The Shield is far worse than shows like CSI for violence, mostly because it shows people (including cops) brutally beating and at times killing people. It also shows the aftermath of rapes, murders and beatings sometimes involving children and the elderly, however most of the time the initial attacks are not shown.

As for language, The Shield contains language that is pretty adult, including many S-words, A-words and others like Damn, Hell and Bitch. The show never says the C-word It also contains many foul sexual terms like cum, fag, jerkoff and several racist slangs.

The Shield can contain graphic sex scenes, but only the rear is shown. It comes VERY close to showing frontal nudity but genitalia is always blocked by an object or obstructed to the viewers eye.

Overall, The Shield isn`t worse than what you'd see on The Sopranos or Dexter but is still fairly graphic.

The show ran from 2002-2008, but the show takes place over a span of three years or so, (as said by Dutch in the final episode.) This is likely because seasons 4, 5, 6 and 7 take place all within a fairly close time slot. (About a year.) Season 5 starts off 6 months after season 4 ends. Season 6 picks up a week or so after Season 5 ended and Season 7 picks up immediately after Season 6 ends.

According to information given in the show the timeline goes something like this:

Co-Pilot >4 months pass >Season 1 > 5 Weeks Pass >Season 2 >1-2 Weeks Pass >Season 3 >6 Months Pass >Season 4 >6 months Pass >Season 5 >1 Week Passes >Season 6/7

There is no actual district anywhere in Los Angeles called Farmington, however many people believe that it is based on South Central which is the gang capital of the world. The Strike-Team is based on Rampart Division's CRASH unit, a corrupt anti-gang unit which, when it existed, had 18 different teams, one for each district.

There are a few different theories as to what district Farmington is based on. It could be South Central, Rampart or it could just be made up as an additional district to avoid further controversy, as the writters knew the show would get if it actually used Rampart.

ICE is a government agency in the United States in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (ICE)

That would depend on your point of view. The most frequent antagonists are the criminals and gang members that appear on the show. However the show is very clever on how it perceives each of it's characters on which of them are actually bad. The strike team members, do an excessive amount of heinous acts, although most people are rooting for them. Other police officers, including Aceveda, Claudette, Dutch and Kavenaugh all try and catch the Strike Team members in criminal acts, portraying them as the antagonists. Although for the most part, when not interacting with the Strike Team, these characters are shown to be protagonists.

Even the Strike Team members are shown to be antagonists from time to time. Vic and Shane are both shown to be very dark characters at different points in the show. Especially in season 7.

There are said to be over 50 street gangs in the Farmington district. The main gangs include: The One-Niners, Spookstreet, The Toros, Torukos, Byz-Lats, Los Profetas, K-Town Killers, Los Mags and other street gangs mentioned but not shown. Also there is the Armenian Mafia which plays a big role in the show at times. Except for seasons 4 and 5.

Three episodes, two of the second season (2.02 & 2.03) and one of the third season (3.05), had to be censored in order to receive a BBFC 15 rating even though the first episode of season one was rated BBFC 18. Also cut episode 5.11 and release of 7.14 Family Meeting Part II that was for UK region release.