'The Shield': Over and Out

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As for the show's final episode, Ryan began to conceptualize it right around the time another antihero was ending his run over on HBO in June 2007. Ryan's quick to assure fans, however, that The Sopranos' controversial smash-to-black finale had no influence on how he dealt with Vic or the rest of his dirty Strike Teamers. ''I didn't like it. I thought it was insulting to fans,'' says Ryan of the mobster's exit. ''I don't mind that David Chase didn't kill or arrest Tony. It's his prerogative. It just seemed he knew that people were looking for some kind of satisfaction and either he didn't know how to give it to them or he didn't want to give it to them. To me, a great novel has an ending. The ending can be controversial and not what you can expect. But it should be respectful of what preceded it.''

Sadly, Ryan didn't get a chance to watch his hard work on that last script play out. One day before production was scheduled to begin on the finale last November, the Writers Guild went on strike and Ryan (like many other TV scribes) refused to continue in his executive-producer role. In a somewhat surreal scene, he even walked the picket line outside the Shield studios at the same time his wife, Cathy Cahlin Ryan, was inside filming her final scene as Vic's beleaguered ex-wife, Corrine. ''I wanted to be there for the goodbyes,'' recalls Ryan. ''I wanted to say 'That's a wrap for Jay Karnes.' 'That's a wrap for Michael Chiklis.' That's what I missed more than anything.'' For the cast and crew, saying goodbye without their creative visionary made the entire process awkward and bittersweet. ''It was very strange,'' recalls Clark Johnson (The Wire), who both stars in and directed the final episode. ''We all walked around, the actors too, like we were supposed to be feeling elated and proud, but we were more shell-shocked.'' Adds Chiklis: ''We commiserated about the fact we weren't going to close this thing together. But we were among the lucky ones because our script was delivered with rewrites. So we did our thing and shot it out.''

Which brings us back to that slithery moment in the apartment. Chiklis won't reveal what his alter ego gains by jamming that dude's head into the serpent's mouth, but he warns it won't be the most shocking moment from the 90-minute farewell episode: ''Whatever you imagine, it's going to be worse. You won't know whether to s--- or go blind.'' Even for The Shield, that would be a first.