Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.2 “Amen …. Send Money”

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Miami Vice takes an unwelcome detour.

Episode 4.2 “Amen …. Send Money”

(Dir by James Quinn, originally aired on October 2nd, 1987)

This was pretty dumb.

Tubbs, working undercover, busts Leona Proverb (Anita Morris), who just happens to be the wife of Billy Bob Proverb (Brian Dennehy). Billy Bob is a television preacher who continually asks his followers to send him cash so he can live the lifestyle that he says God wants him to live. On paper, this sounds like a great role for Brian Dennehy but this episode’s script lets him (and, for that matter, everyone else in the cast) down. Somehow, the fact that the guy is named Billy Bob Proverb is the least heavy-handed aspect of this episode.

Faye Nell (Jo Anderson), who is one of Billy Bob’s followers, calls Tubbs to the studio and says she has information on what the Proverbs are doing. As soon as Tubbs shows up, Faye tosses herself on him, rips her dress, and starts to yell, “Rape!” Tubbs finds himself being investigated by Internal Affairs while Faye claims that God told her to call Tubbs down to the studio and she even passes a lie detector test.

“I’m being set up by a preacher!” an angered Tubbs says but it turns out that Billy Bob Proverb is not the one behind all of Tubbs’s problems. In fact, Billy Bob is actually sincere, in his own strange way. Instead, the villain turns out to be another television preacher, Mason Mather (James Tolkan). Mather has the ability to make himself go into a coma, which makes it difficult to arrest him.

Before I started watching this season, I read online that season 4 featured some of Miami Vice‘s worst episodes. Amen …. Send Money feels almost like a parody of Miami Vice. The episode itself is meant to be largely comedic and perhaps if this episode had centered on Switek and Zito instead of Crockett and Tubbs, it would have worked. Unfortunately, the show killed off Zito last season so instead, it’s Crockett and Tubbs making odd jokes and rolling their eyes in shock. The thing is, Miami Vice has — up until this episode — been a show about ruthless dealers and the futility of the War on the Drugs. The thing that set Miami Vice apart from other 80s cop shows was that it was thematically dark, the endings were frequently unhappy, and Crockett and Tubbs were always the epitome of cool, no matter what happened. This episode features cartoonish villains and a silly plot and both Crockett and Tubbs come across as being a little …. well, dorky.

(On the plus side, the show does continue its tradition of featuring future stars by giving Ben Stiller a small role as a con artist.)

Oh well. Not every episode can be a great one. Hopefully, next week will be an improvement.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.6 “Shadows In The Dark”

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett loses it!

Episode 3.6 “Shadows In The Dark”

(Dir by Christopher Crowe, originally aired on October 31st, 1986)

Crockett and Tubbs are assigned to work with Lt. Ray Gilmore (Jack Thibeau) in investigating a series of burglaries. The burglar has broken into several houses. Each time, he eats whatever meat is in the house, he draws a picture on the wall, and then he steals a pair of pants. Gilmore is convinced that the burglar is working his way towards doing something even more serious and deadly.

Crockett and Tubbs soon discover that Gilmore is suffering from intense burnout. Years spent getting inside the minds of burglars and working nights have left Gilmore angry and erratic. When Gilmore finally snaps and starts shooting an icebox, Crockett and Tubbs assume that the investigation is over. Instead, Castillo informs them that, with Gilmore now committed to a mental hospital, they will now be in charge of the investigation.

Soon, Crockett finds himself becoming just as obsessed as Gilmore. He starts staying up late. The few instances in which he does sleep, he’s woken up by intense nightmares. Crockett becomes obsessed with the mysterious burglar, to the extent that Castillo and the rest of the Vice Squad start to worry that he’s losing his mind. In the end, Crockett does manage to figure out what house the Shadow (Vincent Caristi) will be targeting next. Both the Shadow and Crockett break into the house at the same time, leaving the homeowner terrified as the two men fight.

“I’m a cop! I’m a cop!” a desperate and wild-eyed Crockett shouts at her while holding up his badge.

This was a dark episode, one that played out more like a mini-horror movie than a typical episode of Miami Vice. (Appropriately, this episode aired on Halloween and was clearly made with the scary season in mind.) While I do think Crockett’s descent into madness happened a bit too quickly, I can’t deny that Don Johnson did a great job as the unhinged Sonny Crockett. When he desperately yelled “I’m a cop!,” it was obvious that he was trying to convince himself as much as the poor woman who owned the house. Though this episode was definitely a showcase for Don Johnson, Edward James Olmos did get plenty of opportunities to employ the Castillo stare as Crockett grew more and more unstable. Finally, Vincent Caristi was truly frightening as the Shadow.

Interestingly enough, the episode’s plot is similar to Manhunter, which came out earlier that year. The episode even features a scene where Crockett, Tubbs, and Gilmore visit a former burglar so that they can get his insights on their current prey. (Manhunter, of course, was the first film to feature Dr. Hannibal Lecter being consulted about a serial killer.) Miami Vice‘s producer and creator, Michael Mann, directed Manhunter and, though he didn’t direct this episode, it’s clear that Shadow In The Dark was meant to be a bit of an homage to the film.

Season three has, so far, been a bit uneven but this was a good and offbeat episode.

Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983, directed by Bob Clark)

Posted on November 4, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

The teens of Angel Beach, Florida are back! They’re still trying to get laid, they’re still playing pranks on each other, and, this time, they’re …. FIGHTING THE KLAN!?

Porky’s II continues with the first Porky’s mix of raunchiness and social commentary. While Pee Wee (Dan Monahan) tries to get back at his friends for spending the whole previous movie making fun of the size of his dick, the other members of the large ensemble cast thwart an attempt by the Klan to keep them from putting on a Shakespearean showcase. The Klan is upset that a Seminole has been cast as Romeo so they burn a cross and do everything they can to sabotage the production. Also trying to keep the show from going on is the hypocritical Rev. Bubba Flavel (Bill Wiley) and Mrs. Balbricker (Nancy Parsons), who both consider Shakespeare’s plays to be obscene. When Wendy (Kaki Hunter) discovers that one of the county commissioners has been lying about supporting the play, she humiliates him in public by pretending to vomit in a fountain and accusing him of impregnating her. It’s slightly funnier than it sounds but just slightly.

The first Porky’s took a stand against anti-Semitism while the second Porky’s takes a stand against censorship and the Klan. That’s actually pretty cool when you consider that both of these films are usually just thought of as being dumb sex comedies. Just like the first film, Porky’s II may be raunchy but it has a conscience. That was due to director Bob Clark, who obviously meant for the Porky’s films to be about more than just T&A.

Unfortunately, Porky’s II is never as funny as the first Porky’s. Too many of the jokes are recycled from the first film and the cast’s habit of laughing at their own “humorous” lines is even more grating the second time around. Even the film’s most famous scene, where Wendy humiliates the duplicitous commissioner, goes on for too long and doesn’t have as much of a payoff as it should. The best scenes in the film are the scenes that were lifted from Hamlet, Romero & Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You wouldn’t expect the ensemble of Porky’s to feature that many Shakespearean actors but apparently it did. Fans of A Christmas Story, which was also directed by Clark and which came out the same year as Porky’s II, will especially want to pay attention to the MacBeth sword fight scene just because the famous holiday leg lamp makes an appearance.

Porky’s II is nowhere near as good or memorable as the first Porky’s but its heart is in the right place. While not as big of a success as the first Porky’s, it still did well enough to lead to Porky’s III, which I’ll review tomorrow.