It's the end of the line for Vic Mackey. Shield Wraps Production

[Mr. Television]

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....ield-wrap.html

'The Shield' wraps up for good
Monday marks the final day of shooting – ever – on the FX series "The Shield."

Last Friday the cast and crew of the show, which premiered in 2002, had their last day of shooting at Prospect Studios in Los Angeles, where the run-down set for the Barn is located. On Monday, a few more location scenes are being filmed.

And that will be that for Vic Mackey and company.

Creator Shawn Ryan said in a widely circulated open letter a couple of weeks ago that he would not be going to the “Shield” set while the WGA was on strike, nor would he oversee other production duties for that program or for “The Unit,” the CBS series he executive produces with David Mamet.

In an e-mail last week, Ryan, a Joliet native, confirmed that he would not be around for the last day of shooting on the “Shield” set. “I haven't gone to set or on the lot since we struck and I don't intend to, so it looks like I'll be on the outside when ‘The Shield’ finally wraps,” Ryan said in a brief note.

“It’s pretty strange” not to have Ryan around for the show’s final days, David Rees Snell (who plays detective Ronnie Gardocki) said in a phone call last Thursday. “I pine for the weirdness that would have been the regular last episode.”

Snell said the table read of the finale script functioned as a wrap party of sorts for the cast of “The Shield.” (By the way, FX hasn't said when the final season of "The Shield" will air, only that it will begin its last run in 2008. There are a few clues about some things that happen in the final season here.)

The table read, a common TV ritual in which the cast gathers to read a script out loud, “was a day or two before the strike started. Over the course of the season, we had just focused on getting the work done, but that day got pretty emotional,” Snell said.

“It was the last time he addressed all of us and all of us were there as a family, as a group,” said Snell, who noted that the only cast member absent that day was Walton Goggins, who was shooting a Spike Lee movie in Italy (but who still will be in the final season of the show). “It makes that day that much more poignant.”

“The idea that Shawn’s not there to put his baby to bed is really hard, just knowing what it means to him,” Snell said.

“It ends so strongly – it puts an exclamation point on the show,” Snell noted of the show’s series finale. Then the actor had to go: He was off to picket with writers outside the studio.

[Zebra 3]

The final season premieres Sept. 2.