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, Crockett goes undercover as a Neo-Nazi.

Episode 5.16 “Victim of Circumstances”

(Dir by Colin Bucksey, originally aired on May 5th, 1989)

When a Miami coffeeshop is the scene of a violent shooting that leaves several dealers and the coffeeshop’s owner dead, Crockett and Tubbs assume that it’s just another part of an ongoing drug war.  However, when it’s discovered that the owner of the coffeeshop was a Holocaust survivor who was scheduled to testify against a former guard named Hans Kozak (William Hickey), Crockett comes to suspect that the hit was ordered by a Neo-Nazi group.  Crockett and Switek go undercover to infiltrate the group but it turns out that the killer was actually Helen Jackson (Karen Black), a reporter who is the daughter of Hans Kozak and who is trying to kill everyone who can testify against her father.  Crockett and Tubbs manage to capture Helen but Helen is subsequently gunned down by Angelo Alvarez (John Leguizamo), the brother of one the dealers who was killed at the coffeeshop.

This was an interesting episode.  On the one hand, it was based in reality.  In the days following World War II, several concentration camp commandants were put on trial and executed for war crimes but the Allies were so busy going after the people in charge that there were several guards, doctors, and other personnel who were able to escape justice and who immigrated elsewhere.  Quite a few went to South America.  Several turned up in the Middle East.  And there were many who ended up in America.  It wasn’t until decades after the war that people started to get serious about tracking down and putting on trial the camp personnel who were often as brutal as the people giving the orders.  By the time many of them started going on trial, they were elderly and often frail, like Hans Kozak.  And, just as in this episode, there were many Neo-Nazi groups who protested the trials and sometimes tried to help the accused escape justice.

On the other hand, this episode played out in such a surreal manner that it often felt rather dream-like, with Hans Kozak being haunted by nightmares and the Neo-Nazis themselves meeting in ceremonies that felt as if they could have been lifted from one of Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films.  Karen Black plays her role with such wild-eyed intensity that the revelation that she was the killer isn’t really that much of a surprise.  As for William Hickey, he doesn’t so much chew the scenery as he treats it like a buffet.  This was one of those episodes that felt like it could spin off into space at any given moment.  If James Brown had returned as the alien who abducted Trudy, I would not have been surprised.

This episode was definitely watchable and Stefan Gierasch gave a strong performance as the Nazi hunter who was determined to track down Hans Kozak.  There was nothing subtle about it but it’s still one of the more memorable episodes of the show’s final season.

Speaking of final season, next week will feature Crockett and Tubbs in their final adventure.  And then, we’ll look at the four “lost” episodes, which aired in syndication after the show’s network run ended.  And then, we’ll done with Miami …. for now.

(No one is every truly done with Miami.)