10 More TV Villains You Didn't Realise Actually Won
9. David Aceveda - The Shield
The Shield boasts one of the most brilliantly uncompromising endings in TV history, with villain protagonist Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) escaping prison time but being confined to a soul-sucking desk job while alienating all of his friends and family.
There is one lesser antagonist who basically got what they wanted all along, though, and that's police captain-turned-politician David Aceveda (Benito Martinez). From the moment we meet him in the show's very first episode, it's plainly clear that he's an intensely ambitious opportunist, willing to get his hands extremely dirty if it can grant him political leverage. And despite turning a blind eye to so much corruption in his midst, the series finale implies that Aceveda is imminently due to become Mayor.
Between this and Aceveda helping cause the destruction of Vic's Strike Team, it's safe to say that he came off better than every other major character in the show, and seems unlikely to face any blowback for his shameless politicking. Yet the focus is so intently on Vic in the episode's closing scenes that it's easy to forget this.