Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.3 “Whatever Works”

Posted on February 19, 2024 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 is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, we learn how Sonny affords all of those wonderful toys.

Episode 2.3 “Whatever Works”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on October 4th, 1985)

Have you ever wondered how Sonny Crockett afford that nice Ferrari on just a cop’s salary? To be honest, it hadn’t really occurred to me. I just assumed that everyone in the 80s owned a Ferrari. I’ve been more concerned with how Sonny manages to maintain his undercover identity despite the fact that he spends almost all of his time hanging out with his fellow cops. I mean, surely, someone in the Miami underworld has noticed that “Sonny Burnett” sure does seem to have a lot of friends who worked Vice.

Regardless, in this episode, we learn that Sonny doesn’t actually own the Ferrari. Instead, it’s a vehicle that the department loans to Sonny so that he can maintain his cover. Apparently, the Ferrari once belonged to an actual drug dealer. Unfortunately, the Miami Police Department desperately needs to make some money at their next police auction so Maxwell Dierks (Robert Trebor), a weaselly bureaucrat, decides to repossess Sonny’s Ferrari and auction it off.

Sonny spends most of this episode obsessing on his car. While the rest of the Vice Squad laughs at Sonny’s misfortune, local informant Izzy Moreno tries to trick Dierks into giving him the car so that he can return it to Sonny. I hope Sonny appreciates who his true friends are. Anyway, Castillo eventually pulls some strings to save Sonny’s car. Maybe Sonny should have gone to him in the first place but, then again, Castillo is kind of intimidating. He literally never smiles.

While Sonny is obsessing on his car, someone is killing cops and leaving behind Santeria charms. Despite having grown up in Florida and being a veteran vice detective, it appears that Sonny has never before heard of Santeria. However, Castillo and Tubbs know all about it. Castillo is even friends with a Santeria priestess (Eartha Kitt) who explains that the killers did not view the cops as being policemen but instead as being fellow criminals.

It turns out that there’s a group of cops who have been shaking down drug dealers and now, they’re being killed one-by-one. For all the talk of Santeria, the solution to the problem is actually pretty straight forward. The Vice squad tracks down the people doing the killing and, after a shoot-out, the bad guys surrender. And that’s the end of that.

Oh, this episode. It had potential but it just fell flat. The Santeria stuff felt tacked on and it was pretty obvious that the episode’s writers were more interested in Sonny trying to get his car back than in the episode’s main storyline. Even the Eartha Kitt cameo felt a bit perfunctory.

On the plus side, this episode did feature a band singing Bang A Gong in the middle of a bar fight. That was pretty cool. The band was called Power Station and apparently, it was an off-shoot of Duran Duran. What’s interesting is that the members of the band are portrayed as being old friends of Sonny, to the extent that they applaud him as he beats up a bad cop. It brings a real “The name is Dalton” energy to the scene.

This week’s episode was a bit disappointing but next week’s episode is apparently a classic. I look forward to watching and reviewing Out Where The Buses Don’t Run.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.22 “Lombard”

Posted on February 5, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 21st episode of Miami Vice is Evan. It’s regularly listed as being one of the best episodes of the show and it’s not available to stream online. Apparently, this is due to someone referring to another character as being a “faggot.” Yes, it’s a dirty word but I’m an adult and I do think that I could handle hearing the word and figuring out the context of why it was used. Censorship sucks so shame on Prime, Tubi, NBC, and everyone else who is involved in not streaming Evan.

With Evan not available to be viewed, I moved on to the first season finale.

Episode 1.22 “Lombard”

(Dir by John Nicollela, originally aired on May 10th, 1985)

The first season of Miami Vice comes to an end with a rather simple story. Lombard (Dennis Farina) is a crime lord, a first-generation Italian-American whose father lived an honest life and who died poor as a result. Lombard did what he had to do to get ahead and, as a result, he’s now a very rich man who lives on a boat.

He’s also being targeted by both rival gangsters and the law. When Lombard agrees to testify against the Mafia in return for immunity, Crockett and Tubbs are assigned to babysit him until the trial. Crockett and Tubbs are both weary of Lombard but Lombard turns out to be a charming guy with a sense of ethics. He cooks them a big Italian dinner. He entertain them with stories. Crockett and Tubbs start to like the guy, even if guarding him means that they get involved in a few mob shootouts.

However, when it comes time to testify, Lombard refuses. Under the immunity deal, he’s no longer qualified to plead the fifth but Lombard does just that. Repeatedly, he pleads the fifth and, as a result, he gets enough contempt citations that he’s probably looking at least a decade in jail, regardless of the fact that he didn’t admit to any of the major crimes that he committed.

Sonny and Tubbs are impressed. Lombard may be a criminal but he has a sense of honor. He doesn’t snitch. He’s not a rat. Of course, that doesn’t make a difference to the criminals who apparently gun him down in the episode’s final ambiguous freeze frame.

The story was simple and, to be honest, it wasn’t anything that Miami Vice hadn’t already done. But the episode works, because of Dennis Farina’s charismatic performance as Lombard and John Nicolella’s stylish and moody direction. The first season of Miami Vice ends much as it began, with ambiguity and defeat. Lombard scores a moral victory but is gunned down minutes afterwards. Crockett and Tubbs keep Lombard alive just long enough for him to double-cross the authorities. In the end, the ruthless gangster turns out to have more honor than the people prosecuting him and Crockett and Tubbs are again forced to consider that there’s not a lot of difference between them and the people that they’re chasing.

Next week …. it’s time for Season 2!

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.13 “Milk Run”

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett and Tubbs fail to observe movie line etiquette.

Episode 1.13 “Milk Run”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)

At Miami International Airport, Tubbs is sweating buckets (one thing I do appreciate about Miami Vice is that it captures that Yankees never seem to get used to Southern humidity) while Crockett watches and smiles at a woman in a miniskirt. Not surprisingly, ZZ Tops’s Legs is playing on the soundtrack. Having good legs is definitely a plus in life. They’ve certainly helped me out.

Anyway, Crockett and Tubbs notice that two teenagers have just paid for a ticket to Colombia in cash. Crockett and Tubbs confront them in the airport cafeteria, causing both Louis Martinez (Evan Handler) and his friend, Eddie Rivers (Al Shannon), to make a run for it. They manage to outrun both Crockett and Tubbs. Louis and Eddie may not be as streetwise or experienced as the two cops but they’re definitely a lot younger and a lot quicker.

Louis is enthusiastic about Eddie flying down to Colombia and smuggling cocaine-filled statues into the United States. Eddie is more nervous about it and keeps saying that he wishes he could just go home and pretend like they never agreed to help this week’s villains, the Moya cousins.

Not surprisingly, at least to anyone who has watched this show, Crockett and Tubbs just happen to be investigating a drug warehouse that belongs to the Moyas. After the warehouse blows up, they discover a locker full of the statues and they also find out that the Moyas are into Santeria. This leads to a scene where they attempt to interrogate one of their informants (played by Rainbow Harvest), a Santeria high priestess who works at a “punk rock movie theater.” (Don’t ask me, I didn’t write the episode.) While Crockett keeps bothering her at work, Tubbs has a tense conversation with her boyfriend, who is played by a youngish Eric Bogosian!

The two stories eventually link back up. Eddie flies to Colombia but he and Louis are arrested by Crockett and Tubbs as soon as he returns to America. While Louis continues to play tough, Eddie talks about how he wishes that he could just go back home and not get involved in any of this. Crockett promises Eddie that he’ll make sure he gets home safely. Can you guess who ends up getting gunned down the cartel at the end of the episode?

Milk Run was an episode about which I had mixed feelings. At first, it was hard for me to have much sympathy for either Louis or Eddie. But, at the same time, I also had a hard time having much sympathy for Crockett and Tubbs. Whether they were holding up a line to interrogate a ticket agent at the airport or holding up the line to interrogate the Santeria priestess at the movie theater, they ended up holding up a lot of lines and that’s a pet peeve of mine. But, by the end of this episode, I felt sorry for Eddie and the dark conclusion drove home the episode’s point. There’s no way to escape your decisions. Of course, by this point, we pretty much know what’s going to happen whenever Crockett promises to keep someone safe but that didn’t make the ending any less effective.

This was an okay episode. The ending was powerful and it featured a strong supporting turn from John Kapelos in the role of a sleazy attorney. In the end, the message was clear. Don’t get involved with a shady business unless you’re totally prepared to deal with the consequences.