Bobby Rodriguez | Through the Shattered Lens

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, a man kills for his dolls.

Episode 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves?”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 4th, 1988)

A serial killer named Paul Delgado (John Bowman and no, we’re not related as far as I know) is killing girls in Miami. He believes that he’s being ordered to kill by his collection of dolls and, when he’s speaking as a doll, he uses a high-pitched voice. He picks women up at carnivals or on the beach and he kills them by injecting them with 100% pure cocaine. He poses their bodies with a doll beside them.

Because of the cocaine connection, homicide detective Jarrell (Dylan Baker) approaches Castillo. Castillo explains that his best men are working deep undercover, trying to take down a drug lord named Palmo (Ramy Zada). That’s right, this is yet another episode where Crockett pretends to be Burnett and Tubbs pretends to be Cooper and somehow, they’re able to get away with it despite the fact that their cover has been blown in almost every previous episode.

Delgado works for Palmo and things get even more complicated when it turns out that Delgado is Crockett and Tubbs’s connection inside Palmo’s operation. When Palmo discovers that Delgado is the killer, he puts Delgado on trial. The jury is made up of other drug dealers. Since Crockett is pretending to be a lawyer, he’s assigned to serve as Delgado’s defense counsel. Palmo tells Crockett that, unless he’s acquitted by the drug dealer jury, he’ll reveal that Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover….

This was a weird episode, It didn’t really work because Delgado was a bit too cartoonish to be taken seriously. Perhaps if the show had just made him a serial killer who killed women with cocaine, it would have worked. But the show had to go the extra step and have him talk to his dolls in a high-pitched voice. As well, this was yet another episode where we were forced to wonder if people in the Miami underworld just don’t communicate with each other. After all the drug lords that have been busted by Crockett and Tubbs, you would think that word would eventually get out about “Burnett” and “Cooper.” I mean, their cover gets blown in nearly every episode. Frank Zappa put a bounty on Crockett’s head in season 2! And yet somehow, Crockett and Tubbs are still able to walk into a drug lord’s mansion, introduce themselves as Burnett and Cooper, and not automatically get shot.

There were some definite problems with this episode but it was weird enough to at least hold one’s attention. As opposed to the episodes with the aliens and the bull semen, this episode didn’t seem like it was trying too hard to be weird. Instead, it just was genuinely weird. It was watchable and, as far as the fourth season of Miami Vice is concerned, that definitely counts as an accomplishment.

This week, another friend of Crockett’s is in trouble!

Episode 3.3 “Killshot”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on October 10th, 1986)

Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover as Burnett and Cooper to take down drug lord Morales (Roger Pretto). Morales is one of the most powerful drug lords in Miami but he’s still not connected enough to know that Burnett and Cooper are undercover cops. I know that I bring this up nearly every time I write about this show but it just baffles me that Crockett and Tubbs are somehow still able to maintain their covers despite the fact that those covers have gotten blown in numerous episodes and Crockett makes no effort to act any differently when he’s pretending to be Burnett. At least Tubbs uses his fake Jamaican accent whenever he’s pretending to be Cooper. Crockett doesn’t even bother to change his suit before pretending to be Burnett.

That said, they’ve somehow managed to keep Morales from discovering that they’re cops. So, Morales instead focuses on manipulating a customs agent, Frank Ariolla (Carlos Cestero). Frank’s brother, Tico (Fernando Allende) is an up-and-coming jai alai player. (That’s the sport, prominently featured in Miami Vice‘s opening credits, in which the players use a wicker to both catch and launch a ball.) However, Tico also has a raging cocaine problem. In fact, the drug often leaves him impotent. When a prostitute suggests that Tico might not be attracted tp women, Tico goes crazy and blacks out. When he wakes up, the prostitute appears to be dead and madam Isabel Batista (Maria Duval) says she’ll protect Tico for a price. Frank has to work as a double agent or Isabel and Morales will send a tape of Tico attacking the prostitute to the police.

(For the record, the prostitute was only pretending to be dead as a part of a plot to frame Tico. But then Isabel had her killed for real.)

Trying to protect his brother, Frank agrees to work for Morales. But when a guilt-stricken Tico makes a mistake during a match that leads to him getting killed when he’s stuck in the head by the ja alai ball, will Crockett and Tubbs be able to stop Frank from taking his own violent vengeance on both Morales and Isabel? As you probably already guessed, this is yet another Miami Vice episode the ends with a freeze frame and an off-screen gunshot as Crockett yells, “No!”

If there’s one thing that has stayed consistent over the first three seasons of Miami Vice, it’s that it does not pay to be a friend of Sonny’s. From Jimmy Smits getting blown up in the pilot to Ira Stone dying last week to Frank throwing his life away to avenge his brother in this week’s episode, anyone who has ever been close to Crockett seems to end up having terrible luck. I’m stunned that Tubbs has managed to survive for as long as he has.

As for this episode, Crockett and Tubbs both seemed to be sidelined in favor of the story of Frank and Tico. It’s always weird when Crockett and Tubbs become supporting characters on their own show. Carlos Cestero and Maria Duval both gave good performances, which is good because it helps to distract from the fact that Morales is a fairly dull villain and Tico is not a particularly compelling character. For the most part, this episode works best as a commercial for ja alai, which looks a hundred times more exciting than most sports. Certainly, its fast action and the constant danger of sudden death makes it the ideal sport for Miami.