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!
It’s Torello’s birthday!
Episode 2.6 “Robbery, Armed”
(Dir by James Quinn, originally aired on November 10th, 1987)
While celebrating Torello’s birthday at a Vegas restaurant, Danny has a chance encounter with Stark (Mark Margolis), a Chicago hitman, in the men’s room. Danny and Stark recognize each other. Stark shoots Danny and flees. While Danny fights for his life, Torello and the members of the Task Force pursue Stark and his cronies as they try to pull off the casino heist of the… well, the month, I guess. Seriously, it seems like a casino is always getting heisted on this show.
Eh. This episode. Last week, Luca came back to Vegas and, quite frankly, that’s what I’m interested in. If the story is not centered around Luca and his battle with Torello, I really don’t care. This episode allowed us to see how obsessive Torello is and also how devoted the members of the Task Force are to each other, but that’s nothing new. Torello’s always been one bad day away from just shooting everyone he sees.
At the end of the episode, after Stark has been killed, there’s an interesting moment where Torello mentions that he and Stark share a birthday. And now, one of them is alive and one of them is dead. Detective Walter Clemmons (Paul Butler), the most underused member of the Task Force, says that means that, next year, one of them will have a birthday and one of them won’t. Torello laughs. He likes the sound of that. Torello’s going crazy, by the way.
Finally, Danny survives being shot. Good for him.
This entire episode reminded me of one of those old “Top Ten Wild Police Chases” shows where the cops would be chasing some guy who had nearly run down another cop and the narrator would go, “And when it’s one of their own, these cops aren’t going to stop until they catch their man.” When it’s one of their own, the Organized Crime Task Force goes all out to shoot everyone.
