Juan F. Cejas | Through the Shattered Lens

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, Tubbs gets kidnapped and the entire episode is oddly dull. Presumably because it’s the final season and no one was paying attention, the show took a risk and it did not pay off.

Episode 5.13 “The Cell Within”

(Dir by Michael B. Hoggan, originally aired on March 10th, 1989)

Former criminal Jake Manning (John P. Ryan) has apparently reformed himself. As getting busted by Tubbs, Manning spent years in a tiny cell where he read Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. Sponsored by renegade film director Robert Phelps (L.M. Kit Carson), Jake is now a free man and a published author. Tubbs is convinced that Jake has changed his ways and when Jake invites him to a dinner party, Tubbs accepts.

(Crockett is on vacation, spending time with his son. During his brief appearance on the episode, Crockett jokes about what a great book he and Tubbs could write if they were ever arrested. Uhmm …. you were arrested, Crockett. Remember when you were a drug lord? The show appears to have forgotten but I haven’t.)

Anyway, it turns out that Jake has built a prison under his house where he keeps undesirables locked up and every few days, he electrocutes them. He kidnaps Tubbs so that Tubbs can see and hear about Jake’s view of how justice should be meted out. Jake likes to talk and talk and talk and talk.

Ugh, this episode.

I’m honestly surprised that I got through this episode because it was just so mind-numbingly dull. The show attempted to do something different with its format and that’s fine. But Jake was so long-winded and his cartoonish prisoners were such thinly drawn stereotypes that it didn’t take me long to lose interest. I’ve never liked episodes of cop shows that center around hostage situations or kidnappings. It’s hard to build much narrative momentum when no one can really move around. It gets boring to watch and that was certainly the case here. That John P. Ryan spent most of the episode wearing a flowing robe did not help matters. It made him look like a Saruman cosplayer at a Lord of the Rings convention. I probably would have laughed if it all hadn’t been so dull.

As always, it’s interesting to see Tubbs at the center of a story but even the normally smooth Philip Michael Thomas didn’t seem to know what to make of all these nonsense. As I watched Tubbs rather easily fall victim to Jake’s trap, I wondered why Tubbs has suddenly become such a stupid character. I mean, seriously, anyone should have been able to see through Manning’s invitation. For Tubbs, this episode was the equivalent of that time Trudy got kidnapped by the alien who looked like James Brown.

All in all, this was not a good episode. It’s the final season so it makes sense that you’re going to get a few clunkers. Hopefully, next week will be better.

After a two-week hiatus, the retro television reviews are back! Let’s start with Miami Vice.

Episode 4.6 “God’s Work”

(Dir by Jan Eliasberg, originally aired on November 6th, 1987)

Father Ernesto Lupe (Daniel Lugo), an old friend of Castillo’s, runs an AIDS hospice in Miami. When Father Ernesto is shot and murdered, Castillo takes a particular interest in the case.

Was Father Ernesto shot by one of the neighborhood homophobes, the same punks who spend their free time spray-painting obscene graffiti on the front doors of the hospice?

Was Father Ernesto’s death connected to his brother-in-law, notorious drug lord Jorge Cruz (Alfonso Arau)? The Vice Squad has been investigating the Cruz family. Francesco (Franceso Quinn) is the brutish son, the one who enjoys throwing his weight around and who goes out of his way to bully everyone that he meets. Felipe (Esai Morales) is the young son, who has just returned from Miami after making a fortune as a stockbroker in New York. Is Felipe looking to take over the family business?

Actually, Felipe wants nothing to do with the family business. He’s returned to Miami because an ex-boyfriend is a patient at the AIDS hospice and Felipe wanted to spend time with him before he died. And Father Ernesto’s death had nothing to do with drugs. Instead, Jorge shot him because Jorge blamed Ernesto’s sermons, which stressed God’s love above all else, for being responsible for Felipe “becoming” gay. Even after Felipe explains that the sermons had nothing to do with it and that he’s always been gay, Jorge still thinks that he can “cure” his son by making him a part of the family business.

Yikes!

There was a lot going on in this episode. In fact, there was almost too much going on. Between Castillo investigating Ernesto’s death and Tubbs (working undercover) trying to arrest Franceso, this episode sometimes felt a bit overstuffed. It was still an effective episode, though, featuring good performances from Arau, Quinn, Morales, and Edward James Olmos. Castillo actually got to laugh at one point in this episode. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

This episode did remind me — as I think almost every episode does — that Crockett and Tubbs undercover work has never made much sense. Tubbs spends the majority of the first half of the episode pretending to be a criminal looking to make a deal with Francisco. That’s fine. It even allows Tubbs to use his fake Caribbean accent. It’s been a while since we’ve heard that. But then, after Father Ernesto is shot, Tubbs shows up at the crime scene with his badge. Now, seriously, Father Ernesto is Francesco’s uncle. Francesco is a suspect in the murder. Why would Tubbs run the risk of blowing his cover like that? For that matter, why was Vice investigating a homicide?

Even when Vice is good, it often doesn’t make sense.