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, Gina’s in trouble again!

Episode 4.19 “Blood & Roses”

(Dir by George Mendeluk, originally aired on April 1st, 1988)

Frank Mosca (Stanley Tucci) is back!

In case you’ve forgotten, Mosca was the villain from the fourth season premiere, Contempt of Court.  That episode ended with Mosca getting away with everything.  This episode finds him killing a rival drug lord (Michael Wincott) and trying to kill Crockett.  Because Mosca knows who Crockett and Tubbs are, it falls on Gina to go undercover.  This becomes yet another episode where Gina starts to fall for the bad guy and ends up having sex with the target of a Vice investigation.  As often happens with these type of episodes, Gina ends up shooting Mosca to keep him from shooting Sonny.  Mosca’s body plummets down an air shaft and it’s hard not to notice that Stanley Tucci has suddenly become a mannequin with painted hair.

Stanley Tucci gave a magnetic performance as the charismatic but evil Frank Mosca.  Watching Tucci, it’s easy to see why the show brought him but Mosca was such a memorable character that it’s shame that he was given a standard Miami Vice death scene.  Mosca deserved to go out with a bit more style.  Saundra Santiago gave a good performance as Gina but it’s hard not to notice that every time she’s at the center of an episode, it’s pretty much the same basic plot.  As a character, Gina deserved better than to constantly be used as a sex toy by every bad guy she went undercover to investigate.

Watching this episode, I found myself wondering if the show’s writers remembered that Crockett was supposed to be married.  Between his jealousy over Gina getting close to Mosco and a scene where he and Gina shared a brief but intense kiss, it was hard not to notice that Crockett didn’t seem to be thinking about his wife.  Perhaps this episode was originally meant to air earlier in the season, before Crockett’s somewhat improbable wedding.  Who knows?  It’s been a while since anyone asked Crockett about Caitlin.  Maybe they got a quickie divorce offscreen.

This episode was typical of season 4.  It was well-made but everything just felt a bit too familiar. to be effective.