What do “Nash Bridges” and “Donnie Brasco” have in common? Apart from being acclaimed crime dramas that feature cops, they both inspired the pilot episode of “The Shield.” Prior to making the show, Shawn Ryan and Glen Mazzara worked as writers on “Nash Bridges.” While the beloved FX series is much grittier than their old cop show, they were inspired by one of its musical cuts while conceiving “The Shield” pilot.
“They put the Kid Rock song [‘Bawitdaba’] over this teaser — and it worked,” Mazzara told Entertainment Weekly. “Don [Johnson] loved it and said, ‘That’s what I’m talking about! That feels like the old days, like ‘Miami Vice.’ And so then that song got stuck in Shawn’s head as he was writing ‘The Shield’ and became the famous ending of the pilot.”
“The Shield” episode ends with the crooked cop Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) shooting detective Terry Crowley (Reed Diamond) — one of his colleagues — during a drug raid. Rock’s nu-metal anthem accompanies the mayhem before the end credits roll. That said, the scene wouldn’t exist if Ryan hadn’t watched “Donnie Brasco” beforehand.
Donnie Brasco inspired The Shield pilot’s big death
Vic Mackey shoots Terry Crowley to stop him from exposing his Strike Team’s illegal activities after realizing the detective is onto them, reflecting an idea Ryan had while watching “Donnie Brasco,” in which the mobster realizes the man he trusted was an undercover FBI agent. Ryan has said he wishes the events in Mike Newell’s movie had played out that way, which ultimately inspired the pilot’s shocking moment.
“Two-thirds of the way through, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be the most bada** thing if [Al] Pacino just turned around and shot him in the face?’ And you realize, ‘Oh s***, he knew this whole time that this guy was onto him,” Ryan told Entertainment Weekly. “That idea stuck with me for a long time, and I never did anything with it until I got to ‘The Shield’ pilot.”
The pilot episode of “The Shield” remains a defining moment in a series often regarded as an underrated prestige television drama.