The TV Series
Fridge Horror
- Ronnie Gardocki's final fate in The Shield: granted, he was a willing participant in police corruption, but his culpability pales in comparison to Vic and Shane's actions. Especially since, under California's laws for death penalty cases, Ronnie can (in theory) be executed for the murder of Terry Crowley, even though Vic and Shane BOTH went out of their ways to make damn sure Ronnie wasn't allowed in the planning out and execution of the murder.
- Isn't it also possible that Vic will have to testify against Ronnie, providing more detail into certain things he mentioned on the tape? I mean, it's not like there's a whole lot of actual evidence for Ronnie's involvement in these actions besides what Vic said on the tape. Ronnie wasn't making mistakes like Vic/Shane, so he'll probably try to anchor himself to a lawyer. That means if the prosecution REALLY wants to make sure cases stick to him, they might have to use Vic.
- The fates of everyone even tangentially involved in Vic's immunity deal fall into this territory. The best case scenario for Vic is that he finishes out his immunity deal because Olivia couldn't get him to violate it. After that, he'll no doubt be fired and have nowhere to go in law enforcement. However, the press could get wind of the deal somehow and an epic shit storm could rain down on ICE and The Barn in the form of appealed convictions and public scrutiny. Hell, even if Olivia got Ronnie to privately tell her his story and they get Vic on something he forgot, this Press Armageddon could still happen when the news of Vic being charged breaks. Also, Olivia herself will probably be fired and blacklisted for making this deal happen in the first place, big bust or not.
- Even so, Olivia's fellows might be willing to put in a good word for her, for their own reasons.
Fridge Brilliance
- In the Grand Finale, Vic's final fate by itself was a trope mine. A Humiliation Conga of Meaningless Villain Victory ending in an Ironic Hell where the Attention Whore-cum-Control Freak who thought he would have been a Karma Houdini, is Kicked Upstairs to a Soul-Crushing Desk Job, with no possibility of Loophole Abuse, all because Evil Cannot Comprehend Good (he Didn't Think This Through).
- The name for the penultimate episode of the final season is "Possible Kill Screen", after a moment in The King of Kong where a player is close to getting a Kill Screen - a score so high the game glitches out and resets - in Donkey Kong. Another guy walks around saying "Possible kill screen" to gather people around to see. This choice for a name, while strange at first, makes total sense in two ways:
- In the show: Vic beat the biggest high-stakes game of his life by playing it just right and getting immunity for ALL his crimes. Fine print aside, It's like a reset button.
- Outside the show: Up until he's in the room about to confess, there is a "will he, won't he" anxiety in the viewer, wondering if he really is about to confess everything and betray Ronnie. Also, aside from that: Vic's confession wasn't just shocking to viewers; it was such a shock to the dynamic of the show that there was almost nowhere to go afterward. The main driving force of the show - the Strike Team and their pursuits to get out of the hole they dug for themselves - was dead, and one could be forgiven for not being on Vic's side anymore after the confession. The show itself "glitched out" with what Vic did.
The Wrestling Stable
Fridge Brilliance
- When Seth Rollins destroyed The Shield, his assault on the other two members began with a chair shot to Roman Reigns' back. The symbolism is wonderful: The best (if not the only) way to successfully attack a shield, and those who wield it, is from behind.
- The military-style jackets each Shield member wears reflects their personality in some way. Seth Rollins wears a parachute jacket, because he's the high-flyer. Roman Reigns wears a bulletproof-vest, because he's the powerhouse. And Dean Ambrose wears a flak jacket, perhaps hinting he's the leader/brains behind the outfit.
- Ambrose ditching most of his protective gear shows elements of his Ax-Crazy, devil-may-care attitude.
- Likewise, their entrance also reflects their respective personalities as well. They enter through the crowd as a unit, but when they reach the barricade: Seth Rollins gracefully flips over it and rolls through (he's the team's acrobat), Ambrose quickly and hastily leaps over it with odd, erratic body language (the eccentric wild card), and Reigns steps over the barricade slowly (reflecting his relatively calm, methodical demeanor).
- They've started wearing pretty cool looking face masks since Wrestlemania 30. Maybe it has something to do with them turning Face?
- Many complain about the fact that Ambrose didn't defend his US title nearly enough during his reign. But remember, they were part of The Authority since roughly August 2013 until April 2014. The Authority have protected them. The only reason why Rollins and Reigns lost their titles was because Cody Rhodes and Goldust was put in match against them with the title on the line. It was suppose to be a punishment for the Rhodes brothers with the titles dangling in front of them like a "Ha, you can't have this." This was the stated reason, by Triple H, for a 20 man Battle Royal which ended Ambrose's reign when Sheamus won by lastly eliminating Ambrose. Also, Genre Savvy talents would know that, even if they managed to get a match against Ambrose, the other two would interfere and either cost them the match directly or attack and get Ambrose DQed - which, of course, means that Ambrose would keep his title unless someone with booking power specifically stated that Ambrose could lose it by DQ. Naturally, few, if any, US Title matches had this stipulation while Ambrose was holding the championship.
- The Shield attacked Kane, instead of following his orders to attack Jerry Lawler. When questioned, Seth Rollins said they did what was "Best for business." Considering Kane wanted them to attack a 63 year old heartattack victim in a gang beat down, they did exactly what they said; if they had gone through with it, the board of directors wouldn't be happy & the sponsors would be pissed. And on a meta level, a full Heel–Face Turn for the Shield at their hottest point would spawn another viable line of merchandising for the company, which would literally be best for business.
- Even though WWE will not use this explanation, given its adoration of the three month rule, there is a logical reason for Seth Rollins breaking up the Shield. Remember, the group's original purpose was the keep the WWE Universe from getting what it wanted. If Seth Rollins is indeed the architect of The Shield, it would make sense for him to break away from it when the fans got firmly behind the group.
- Dean Ambrose's assertion that The Shield weren't The Nexus or the NWO in their very first interview seems like just a pithy thing to say... until you compare The Shield's trajectory with what happened with those first two stables. The Nexus and NWO have several things in common, both being rogue stables whose initial objectives blurred the lines between Kayfabe and reality, both sort of 'taking over' as the main angle of the show... both more or less failed the same way as well. Revolving door lineups and overemphasis on established talent over truly building new stars soured both stables. Both factions eventually split as well (with the splinter faction donning black and red, for extra coincidence). No doubt many people were worried about the eventual fate of the Shield members... in short, this line by Ambrose may have been WWE's way of delivering the message: "Don't worry - we promise we won't screw this up."
- Furthermore, the "shield from injustice" closing from Ambrose that resulted in the name of the group foreshadows the equal power of leadership between the three members. When Ambrose first repeated "We're a shield from injustice" and then start getting the idea about the name, he turned to Rollins and Reigns (moreso Rollins, since Reigns was being The Stoic) before repeating the line again to see how they would react. Rollins was taken aback as though realizing Dean was onto something, while Reigns slowly tilted his head in approval, before Ambrose turned back to Cole and declared "We are The Shield." Ambrose was the first of the three to be featured as a front-runner during their run, but his silently consulting the others showed that he was not acting as their boss, and sure enough, all three would have their time in the sun both during and after the group's run.
- The boys won their respective first World Title by pinning each other; Seth won his first by pinning Roman, Roman won his first by pinning Dean, Dean won his first by pinning Seth.
Fridge Horror
- It's been said that backstage officials are looking at Reigns and Ambrose as the next top face and heel respectively. Which would mean, in effect, Reigns is meant to be the next John Cena. Ambrose was always a little bit crazy and unorthodox, but the betrayal by Seth Rollins seems to have well and truly snapped him. His threats against Rollins the next time he speaks are some of the more dark and sinister things you'll ever hear come out of the mouth of a face, and (just as Rollins predicted) the cracks in his already thin veneer of sanity are starting to show. The overall story bears alarming similarity to another guy who snapped due to a betrayal and went on to become a psychotic villain...
- What if (speaking strictly on a Kayfabe level, of course) The Shield's merciless beatdown of The Undertaker almost a month after Wrestlemania 29 (Keep in mind that his match with Triple H left both parties hardly able to stand, and Undertaker hasn't appeared on WWE programming post-Wrestlemania - let alone wrestled a match - in years), led directly to his not being as recovered as he would normally be for his match with Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 30...?
- Dean Ambrose has shown obvious effects from Seth Rollins' betrayal of the Shield. Curiously enough, though, Roman Reigns keeps plugging away as he always has, with more or less the same outfit, same ring entrance, same (read: The Shield's) entrance music, and same objectives. Of course, Roman's depicted as calm and collected and Ambrose is... well, a bit off, and has had problems with Rollins in the past, so these respective reactions should be expected, right? But what if Reigns is holding more tightly to his routine not as a show of his own strength, but as a coping mechanism against the emotional trauma of being betrayed by a guy he thought was his best friend?
