Benoit murder influences "Shield" series finale

Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com


This past Tuesday night, the FX channel aired the series finale of "The Shield," which was an American-police drama series known for its controversial portrayal of corrupt police officers and was originally advertised as "Rampart," which was a reference to the true life Rampart Division police scandal, which the shows Strike Team was loosely based upon.

Anyway, during the finale, there was a scene that struck a cord with professional wrestling fans and that was because the scene was based on the real-life murder/suicide case of Chris Benoit and his family.

In the scene that aired, one of the main characters, Shane Vendrell, killed himself and his family in to order to prevent any of them from suffering because of the hole Vendrell dug himself into throughout the series.

Ultimately, Vendrell overdoses his pregnant wife and son with painkillers that were placed in their drinks and places them on a bed with flowers and toys in their hands. The bodies lay peacefully on the bed with their hands on their chest, which is eerily reminiscent of the real life Benoit murder-suicide incident and then, Vendrell kills himself with a gun.

The creator of the show, Shawn Ryan, said the original script called for Vendrell to get caught by police but told the writers to make the scene similar to what Benoit did last summer.

I'm sorry but I think Ryan should have just stuck with the original script mainly because a lot of viewers were waiting for the corrupt officers to get what was coming to them. I know television shows do something like this all the time where the creator gets inspiration from real-life events but this one was in bad taste, mainly because two innocent people lost their lives for no reason.

I am surprised no one has stepped up and mentioned anything about this, considering how every major news outlet had their teeth sunk into the case last summer when it was revealed Benoit killed his family and then himself.

I know Ryan is going to claim creative license and all that stuff but he should have exercised better judgment. But, what can anyone do who has a complaint? The show is over and not coming back so I guess Ryan was smart and saved a controversial topic for the end.

Here is the scene courtesy of YouTube user "wivvangelist."