Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Sorry, it’s been a busy day and I’m a little bit medicated and, as a result, this review is posting later than expected.  Fortunately, this week’s episode is also about someone struggling to keep up with their schedule.  Read on!

Episode 1.20 “Nobody Lives Forever”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 29th, 1985)

Nobody lives forever, the title tells us.  That’s certainly true in 1980s Miami.

Three teenage punks have gone on a crime spree, killing innocent civilians and criminals alike.  The punks (who are played by Frank Military, Michael Carmine, and Lionel Chute) are initially easy to laugh off because of how over the top they are.  When they decide to go to the beach and rob a bookie, they start chanting, “Bookie!  Bookie!”  But, just because they’re ludicrous, that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.  From the very first scene, they’re shooting at people and laughing like maniacs.  As informant Izzy Moreno puts it, these are three guys who know that “they’re already dead.”  They’ve got both the police and the mob (represented by Peter Friedman and a young Giancarlo Esposito) after them.  They might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

What else would you expect from three people who drive this car?

Vice is after the teenagers but, for once, Sonny Crockett has got other things on his mind.  Sonny is dating a wealthy architect named Brenda (Kim Greist) and he’s spending all of his free time at her mansion.  Even when he’s working the streets, Sonny is thinking about Brenda.  He misses a chance to capture the three teens because he is too busy talking to Brenda on the phone.  Later, Tubbs gets severely beaten up because Brenda allowed Sonny to oversleep and Tubbs had to go on a stakeout alone.

Brenda asks Sonny if it’s true that a cop partnership is like a marriage and this episode certainly suggests it is and an obsessive one at that.  All of the members of the Vice Squad get annoyed with Sonny for finding happiness off the grubby streets of Miami.  Castillo doesn’t think Sonny is focused.  Tubbs thinks that Sonny is losing his edge.  Gina is upset that Sonny led her on earlier in the season.  Switek and Zito …. well, they’re too busy reading comic books to really care much about Sonny’s problems.

There are several artfully composed shots of Sonny and Brenda floating in her pool and discussing how Sonny can go from having a gun pulled on him to relaxing at home without missing a beat.  Don Johnson and Kim Greist had a lot of chemistry and it’s impossible not to feel bad when Sonny realizes that he can either be Brenda’s lover or he can be a cop but he can’t be both.

In the end, the punks end up getting gunned down by Vice and Sonny ends the best relationship he’s ever had.  And Tubbs?  He sits on the beach and plays his saxophone.

That’s life in Miami.