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 and company search Chicago for a serial killer.
Episode 1.2 “Final Transmission”
(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on September 19th, 1986)
Mike Torello and the members of the MCU would really like to go after Luca and his crew but, unfortunately, there’s a serial killer on the loose in Chicago. Realizing that the MCU is going to be tied up trying to track down Ray Pernell (John Snyder) before he kills again, Luca orders his crew to commit even more robberies. Luca explains to a crestfallen Paulie that Luca will no longer be taking part in the robberies. Luca is the boss and the boss doesn’t get his hands dirty. Instead, Luca spends most of this episode meeting with Murray Weisbord’s man in Chicago, Max Goldman (Andrew Dice Clay).
This was an odd episode. On the one hand, the show went out of its way to recreate Chicago in the early 60s. The soundtrack was early rock and roll. The cars all had tailfins. The suits, the cigarettes, Luca’s haircut, all of the details screamed 1960s. But then the episode revolved around a serial killer who thought his mother was addressing him through the television and who looked and dressed like a late 70s punk rocker. I assume that Ray Pernell was based on Richard Speck, the notorious Chicago serial killer who, in 1966, murdered 8 student nurses. Like Speck, Pernell had an identifying tattoo and both men were traced through the National Maritime Union. That said, Pernell just seemed so out-of-place, with his sleeveless shirt and his punkish haircut that he just didn’t seem to belong in the world of Crime Story.
That said, I will give this episode some credit. In the pilot, Luca often seemed like a clueless punk. In this episode, he quickly realized that the MCU would be too busy hunting for Pernell to devote much time to him and he took advantage of that fact. Luca’s not quite as dumb as he sometimes seems. This episode also showed that he was capable of thinking ahead. When he suspects that someone is listening in on his conversation with Goldman, he resists the temptation to burst into the room next door with his gun drawn. (If he had, he would have run straight into Torello and Danny.) This episode shows that Luca is learning and growing. He not the buffoonish hothead that Torello originally assumed him to be. In fact, he’s even more dangerous.
This episode ends with Pernell somehow (it’s not really clear how) taking an entire television news broadcast hostage. Torello takes him down as the cameras roll and the entire city of Chicago watches. It’s not a bad ending but it just doesn’t feel right for the show. It’s a Miami Vice ending. This is Crime Story!
