The Top 10 Everything of 2008

2. The Shield, "Family Meeting"

The final season of The Shield stripped down corrupt cop Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) by peeling off his every support — his police job, his former partners in crime and crime-fighting and his family — forcing him, and us, to confront the enormity of the deeds behind his rationalizations. The price of his actions came horribly due in the moving series finale, when his family went into witness protection without him, he secured a Federal immunity deal that sent his most loyal friend to prison and — heartbreakingly — his one-time protégé Shane (Walton Goggins), on the run from the law, took his own life and that of his young son and pregnant wife. Mackey ended the show in a living hell, chained to a desk job and utterly alone. This is how you end a series.
(FX)

Connect to this TIME Story