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 can be purchased on Prime!

This week, season 3 comes to a close with a threat from the past!

Episode 3.24 “Heroes of the Revolution”

(Dir by Gabrielle Beaumont, originally aired on May 8th, 1987)

The Vice Squad is investigating Orrestes Pedrosa (Shawn Elliott), a former Fidel Castro henchman who has since come to Miami and is now trying to set himself up a major drug supplier.  There’s also a mysterious German named Klaus Herzog (Jeroen Krabbe) who appears to be following Pedrosa around Miami.

After getting wounded in a nearly-successful drive-by shooting, Herzog breaks into Gina’s apartment and introduces himself as the ex-boyfriend of Gina’s mother.  He goes to explain that Pedrosa was also in love with Gina’s mother and that he killed her when Gina was just a baby.  Pedrosa is still obsessed with Gina’s mother so Herzog suggests that Gina should get a job singing at a club.  Pedrosa will come out of hiding to see her and Herzog will get his chance for revenge.

Gina agrees, even though it means violating every rule in the Vice book.  The end result is that we get a lot of scenes of Saundra Santiago singing and eventually, she shoots Pedrosa dead when he attempts to shoot Herzog.

It’s an interesting choice for a season finale.  Crockett and Tubbs are barely present in this episode, allowing Gina to finally have center stage.  (Interestingly enough, the third season opened with a Gina episode as well.)  Saundra Santiago was often underused by the show so it’s always good to see her getting a chance to do something other than telling Sonny that he got a call.  She and the wonderful Jeroen Krabbe have an interesting chemistry in this episode.  Pedrosa isn’t the only one who is still in love with Gina’s mother.

On the one hand, I was happy that Miami Vice finally featured a villainous communist.  Politically, Miami Vice tends to be so left-wing that it sometimes verges on parody so a villainous Castroite was a change of pace.  But then Krabbe’s character introduced himself by saying, “I am a communist.”  It was as if the show had to make sure we understood that it was still on the side of Marx.  It felt kind of silly, to be honest.

Anyway, the third season ended on a fairly good note.  Neither Don Johnson nor Philip Michael Thomas really seemed that invested in their characters for much of the third season so it’s been nice to see Michael Talbott, Saundra Santiago, and Olivia Brown each get an opportunity to show off what they could do when given the opportunity.  This was an uneven season but it had its share of good episodes.  I’m still struggling to deal with the death of Larry Zito.

Next week, we begin season 4!