10 Episodes That Turned Good TV Shows Into Classics

Although it never had the epic, sprawling ambitions of something like The Sopranos or The Wire, there have been few shows as consistently hard-hitting and entertaining as The Shield was over the course of its seven seasons. Almost a decade after the outstanding finale, the gritty cop drama regularly pops up in various "Greatest shows of all time" lists. Why? Because of episodes like "Dominoes Falling".

The second season had been an eventful one for Farmington's Strike Team, with the main arc centring on Vic Mackey and his crew coming across the Armenian Mafia's massive money laundering operation, known as the Money Train. Dirty cops have to pay the bills too, so the boys devise a plan to rob the cash. "Dominoes Falling" sees their daring scheme rattle towards its climax. In classic Shield fashion, the robbery doesn’t quite go smoothly - the suspense is ramped up to almost unbearable levels as mobsters get spooked, bodies pile up and things look bleak for the Strike Team. In the end, the heist pays off, and the episode’s final shot of the men gazing at the obscene amount of money that’s now in their possession sticks long in the memory.

The main plot of this episode would of course have repercussions that echoed through the rest of the show’s run. A recurring theme of The Shield was that of free will - that the characters had the ability to choose how they carried themselves as a cop. Following their actions in “Dominoes Falling”, Vic’s crew had rather narrowed their available choices - which would end in tragedy for them, but resulted in some remarkable television for the viewer.