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 Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988.  The entire show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Torello discovers some disturbing facts about an old friend.

Episode 1.8 “Old Friends, Dead Ends”

(Dir by Bobby Roth, originally aired on November 4h, 1986)

Luca has bought a controlling interest in a bottling company so that he can borrow from the pension fund and use that money to purchase casinos in Las Vegas.  He’s brought a reluctant Bartoli in as his partner.  The owner of the company is Ted Kehoe (Mark Hutter), who just happens to be an old friend of Mike Torello’s.  When Kehoe’s business partner, Marilyn Stewart (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), becomes suspicious of Kehoe’s arrangement with Luca, Bartoli starts to wonder if it’s really worth it to keep Marilyn and Ted around.

This is especially the case after Bartoli’s attorney, Dee (a youngish Eric Bogosian), informs Bartoli that U.S. Attorney Harry Brietel (Ray Sharkey) is planning on indicting both him and Luca for money laundering.  Looking to end Brietel’s case before it can even get started, Luca murders Marilyn Stewart.  Marilyn’s body is later found by two teenagers and–

HEY, IT’S CHRISTIAN SLATER!

This episode does indeed feature an early performance from Christian Slater.  He pays a teenager who is trying to convince his girlfriend to “do it” when they happen to spot Marilyn’s body floating in the river.  Slater’s girlfriend is played by Kim Walker, who was later co-star with Slater in Heathers.

Torello is not happy.  Well, that’s not a surprise.  Torello is never happy.  But this episode gives him even more reasons than usual to be in a foul mood.  Because of his childhood friendship with Ted Kehoe, Brietel suspects that Torello might be corrupt.  After Marilyn is murdered, Brietel seems more interested in trying to pin the murder on Torello than going after Luca.

As for Ted Kehoe, he tells Luca that he’s done working for him.  Kehoe is going to tell the cops everything!  And what is Luca going to do about it?  This episode ends with Kehoe getting thrown out the window of his penthouse and falling several stories down to his death….

Piece of advice: If you’re going to turn on the mob, don’t tell them ahead of time.

This was a good episode!  Torello’s friendship with Kehoe brought some real stakes the story and, once again, we got to see just how ruthless an adversary Ray Luca truly is.  Luca, Bartoli, and the other mobsters can occasionally seem a bit buffoonish.  This episode reminded us that, in Luca’s case, it’s always a mistake to underestimate him.

As for now, Kehoe is dead and Torello is under suspicion.  I look forward to seeing what happens next week!