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, Luca has to prove himself.

Episode 1.5 “The War”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on October 7th, 1986)

Luca is in trouble.

Last week’s episode ended with Max Goldman on the receiving end of a beating from Noah Ganz’s goons.  Goldman survives and returns with a message.  Ganz is not happy that Luca tried to steal his book.  Bartoli, Weisbord, and Fosse all inform Luca will have to resolve the Ganz situation on his own.

Luca tries to get public defender David Abrams (Stephen Lang) to act as a negotiator for him but David doesn’t want to get involved in the mobster lifestyle that made his father rich.  David just wants to defend the poor and play sax in a jazz club.  When Luca is attacked while driving in Chicago, he realizes that negotiating with Ganz is a dead end.

Instead, he just kills Ganz.  In a bravura sequence, Luca shows up at a hotel and, with the help of sniper, takes down Ganz’s bodyguards.  Then he uses a bomb to take out Ganz while the latter is holding court in an elevator.  A plume of white smoke puffs out of the hotel’s exhaust vent.

Having taken care of the issue, Luca is welcomed back into the family.  Weisbord says, “Call me Mac.”  Fosse (played by Michael Madsen) nods and slowly smokes a cigarette.

Meanwhile, Torello’s wife miscarries.  This is the episode that features the clip of Torello walking down a lonely Chicago street on a rainy night.  (The clip is prominently featured during the show’s opening credits.)  In fact, both Torello and Luca end up spending a good deal of time walking around at night while David Abrams plays his saxophone.  It’s a scene that is so overstylized that it shouldn’t work but somehow, it does.  If nothing else, it reminds us that Crime Story of two dangerously obsessed men on a collision course.

This was a good episode, if just because it showed that Luca can be a clever criminal when he needs to be.  Before this episode, Luca seemed to be clearly outmatched by Torello.  With this episode, Luca proved himself to be Torello’s equal.