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, the Canadians are coming!

Episode 2.15 “One Way Ticket”

(Dir by Craig Bolotin, originally aired on January 24th, 1986)

This week’s episode of Miami Vice opens with one of the most unintentionally hilarious shots that I’ve ever seen.  The action starts at a fancy wedding.  The daughter of District Attorney Richard Langley (Jon DeVries) is getting married.  The cream and the crop of Miami society has turned out.  The camera pans over all of the formally dressed men and women until it finally comes to a stop on Sonny, wearing his white suit, a blue t-shirt, and no socks.  He’s attending the wedding Tubbs, who at least bothered to put on a dress shirt.

Seriously, Sonny …. it’s wedding!  Would it kill you to wear a tie or maybe put on socks to go to a wedding?  And, I know I bring this up every week, but how can Sonny continually convince every bad guy in Miami that he’s a drug dealer named Sonny Burnett when he’s doing stuff like attending the wedding of the District Attorney’s daughter?  Does he think that no one is going to notice that the drug dealer who always wears the same white suit looks and sounds exactly like the cop who is always wearing the same white suit?

That said, I guess it’s good that Sonny and Tubbs are the wedding because, during the reception, a coked-up assassin named Sagot (Lothaire Bluteau) pulls a gun and kills not only Langley but also two bridesmaids who happened to be standing close by.  Sagot manages to escape from the reception but, that night, Zito and Switek track him down to Miami’s hottest French Canadian nightclub, Le Lieu, and arrest him on possession charges.

Sagot is working for a French Canadian drug lord named Faber (Jean-Pierre Matte) and, as with all of Faber’s men, his attorney is Laurence Thurmond (John Heard).  Thurmond was a good friend of Langley’s and it’s obvious from the start that he’s not comfortable with the idea of defending the men who killed him.  Thurmond and Crockett also have a long history together.  Crockett blames Thurmond for getting a case dismissed against someone who shot one of Crockett’s partners, though it sounds like Thurmond was just doing his job and Crockett is actually to blame for not following proper procedure while making his arrest.  (Seriously, due process may be a pain in the ass but Sonny has no excuse for not knowing what’s going to happen when he violates it.)  Crockett continually demands to know how Thurmond can live with himself.  Thurmond, who likes to fly a private plane in his spare time, says that it’s not easy.  Then again, Thurmond can afford his own airplane and a wedding suit so, even if it is difficult to live with himself, at least he’s living well.  (And again, Sonny may not like it but everyone has the right to an attorney.  Again, if you’re sloppy enough to not read someone their rights or to search someone’s house without probable cause, that’s on you and not on the person who pointed it out.)

As much as Crockett would love to spend all of his time harassing Thurmond, he has a case to solve.  He wants to get revenge for Langley’s death.  He also wants to figure out who keeps sending him anonymous tips that are full of information that presumably only a defense attorney would know….

Lothaire Bluteau’s makes for a memorably unhinged villain and all of the evil French Canadians made for a nice change of pace from the show’s usual rogue’s gallery.  That said, this episode was pretty much dominated by John Heard, playing the type of role that he played best.  Heard’s morally conflicted attorney has a lot in common with the morally conflicted police detective that he later played on The Sopranos and Heard’s melancholy performance was a nice contrast to Don Johnson’s intensity.  Full of twists and turns, this episode ended on a perfect note.  In the end, Crockett may still not like Thurmond but he finally understands him.