Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.12 “Phil the Shill”

Posted on April 29, 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 can be purchased on Prime!

The Vice Squad goes after Phil Collins!

Episode 2.11 “Phil the Shill”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on December 13th, 1985)

Switek and Zito call in sick so that they can go to the taping of a silly game show called Rat Race. While Zito sits in the audience, Switek answers trivia questions about Elvis and competes in an obstacle course race with his spacey opponent (Emo Phillips). Hosting the show is the very effusive and very British Phil Mayhew (Phil Collins).

As we already know, Switek knows everything about Elvis. And he’s in better shape than Emo Phillips so, when it comes time for the obstacle course, he reaches and hits his buzzer first. But Switek’s buzzer doesn’t go off. Emo’s buzzer works and Emo proceeds to robotically recite a complex string of Elvis trivia.

To his horror, Switek realizes that the quiz show was fixed!

Switek and Zito decide that they want to take down Phil and reveal his con artist ways. Unfortunately, for them, the rest of the Squad doesn’t care. Crockett, in particular, is annoyed that Switek pretended to be sick to get a night off of work. However, it then turns out that Phil has hooked up with Sarah MacPhail (Kyra Sedgwick), the girlfriend and business partner of Tony Rivers (Michael Margotta), a drug dealer that Crockett has spent months trying to set up.

It’s time to call in Izzy and have him pretend to be an interior decorator so that Phil can be tricked into throwing a party that can be attended by …. SONNY BURNETT AND RICO COOPER! Listen, I know I mention that a lot but I just can’t let it go …. how are Sonny and Rico able to maintain their undercover identities when they’re constantly arresting major drug dealers and taking part in DEA busts? How come it never occurs to the criminals that dealer Sonny Burnett might have something in common with cop Sonny Crockett? Does no one ever notice that Sonny Burnett drives the same car and wears the same white suit as Sonny Crockett?

This was a bit of an odd episode. It was obviously written so that Phil Collins (whose In The Air Tonight set the mood for the entire series) could play Phil Mayhew. And while Phil Collins does not appear to have been an actor of amazing range, he still does a good job as the weaselly Phil Mayhew. The Phil scenes are played for humor while the scenes with Tony Rivers definitely are not. Tony is a violent sociopath who casually kills several people over the course of the episode. Scenes of Switek pouting about the game show feel awkward when combined with scenes of Tony machine gunning two drug dealers. Collins does a good job within his range and Michael Margotta is an energetic villain. However, the best performance in this episode actually comes from Kyra Sedgwick, who does a great job as someone who eventually turns out to be just as ruthless and dangerous her boyfriend.

This is a fast-paced and energetic episode, one that moves quickly enough that the viewer doesn’t really have time to consider the oddness of Phil Mayhew getting involved with the same drug dealer that Crockett happens to be investigating. Personally, I’m always happy when the members of the supporting cast get to do something more than just stand in the background. Switek and Zito are a good team.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.10 “Bought and Paid For”

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, things get bleak.

Episode 2.9 “Bought For Paid For”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on November 29th, 1985)

This is a dark episode.

It opens with Gina’s friend, a Haitian immigrant named Odette (Lynn Whitfield), being attacked and raped in Gina’s apartment. The rapist is easily identified as Nico Arroyo (Joaquim de Almeida), the sociopathic son of a Bolivian general (Tomas Milian) who has been exiled to Miami after a failed coup attempt. Odette used to work as a maid in the general’s Art Deco mansion and Nico is obsessed with her.

Gina is able to convince Odette to testify against Nico but then the general brings Odette’s mother to America and offers her a good deal of money in return for Odette agreeing to testify that the encounter with Nico was consensual. Because her family is poor and desperately needs the money, Odette agrees. With the charges dropped, Nico goes to Odette’s home and kills her.

Gina goes to the general’s mansion and confronts Nico, knowing that it will lead to him trying to attack her in her apartment. When Nico shows up, he’s carrying a switchblade but he drops it as soon as he sees that Gina has a gun. Gina shoots him dead.

Watching this show, one gets the feeling that being a supporting player on Miami Vice could be a thankless task. Switek, Zito, Trudy, and Gina are in every episode but they rarely get to do much. This week Gina gets to have a moment and Saundra Santiago makes the most of it. This episode exists in the shadow of the first season’s Give A Little, Take A Little, in which Gina was raped by Burt Young and, at the end of the episode, shot him dead as well. At one point, when Sonny is arguing that Gina needs to accept that Odette is not going to press charges against Nico, Gina says that he knows why she can’t do that. Later, after Odette dies, Gina fears that, because of her own experience, she may have pushed Odette too hard. In the end, Gina shoots and kills an unarmed man, just as she did in Give A Little, Take A Little. It’s a ruthless move but both of the men were scum who totally deserved it. It’s hard not to appreciate the idea of Gina serving as Miami’s version of Ms. 45.

As I said at the start of this review, this is a dark episode. Nico’s father committed war crimes in Bolivia but now he’s remade himself as a respectable member of Miami society. Nico and his father live in a fabulous mansion and Nico spends his day lounging by the pool. Meanwhile, Odette struggles day-to-day and is essentially sold out by her own mother. (One of the things that gives Nico away as the rapist is the fact that Sonny recognizes the smell of his extremely expensive — and apparently rather pungent — cologne on Odette’s clothes.) Nico feels that he can do whatever he wants to Odette because he’s rich and she’s “bought and paid for.” The system fails and Gina is forced to put her life at risk to get some sort of justice for Odette. This is Miami Vice at its bleakest. The world under all of the glitz and glamour is a dark one.

There is one funny moment though. Gina and Sonny go out to a club with Tubbs and Odette. Sonny watches Tubbs dance with Odette and he starts laughing. And he simply can’t stop. It feels like such a spontaneous moment that I have to wonder if it was scripted or if Don Johnson really did think Philip Michael Thomas was just a terrible dancer.

Next week, a figure from Crockett’s past resurfaces in Miami. Maybe Castillo can give him so advice on how to deal with that.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 2.3 “Whatever Works”

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 1.20 “Nobody Lives Forever”

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sorry, it’s been a busy day and I’m a little bit medicated and, as a result, this review is posting later than expected. Fortunately, this week’s episode is also about someone struggling to keep up with their schedule. Read on!

Episode 1.20 “Nobody Lives Forever”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 29th, 1985)

Nobody lives forever, the title tells us. That’s certainly true in 1980s Miami.

Three teenage punks have gone on a crime spree, killing innocent civilians and criminals alike. The punks (who are played by Frank Military, Michael Carmine, and Lionel Chute) are initially easy to laugh off because of how over the top they are. When they decide to go to the beach and rob a bookie, they start chanting, “Bookie! Bookie!” But, just because they’re ludicrous, that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. From the very first scene, they’re shooting at people and laughing like maniacs. As informant Izzy Moreno puts it, these are three guys who know that “they’re already dead.” They’ve got both the police and the mob (represented by Peter Friedman and a young Giancarlo Esposito) after them. They might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

What else would you expect from three people who drive this car?

Vice is after the teenagers but, for once, Sonny Crockett has got other things on his mind. Sonny is dating a wealthy architect named Brenda (Kim Greist) and he’s spending all of his free time at her mansion. Even when he’s working the streets, Sonny is thinking about Brenda. He misses a chance to capture the three teens because he is too busy talking to Brenda on the phone. Later, Tubbs gets severely beaten up because Brenda allowed Sonny to oversleep and Tubbs had to go on a stakeout alone.

Brenda asks Sonny if it’s true that a cop partnership is like a marriage and this episode certainly suggests it is and an obsessive one at that. All of the members of the Vice Squad get annoyed with Sonny for finding happiness off the grubby streets of Miami. Castillo doesn’t think Sonny is focused. Tubbs thinks that Sonny is losing his edge. Gina is upset that Sonny led her on earlier in the season. Switek and Zito …. well, they’re too busy reading comic books to really care much about Sonny’s problems.

There are several artfully composed shots of Sonny and Brenda floating in her pool and discussing how Sonny can go from having a gun pulled on him to relaxing at home without missing a beat. Don Johnson and Kim Greist had a lot of chemistry and it’s impossible not to feel bad when Sonny realizes that he can either be Brenda’s lover or he can be a cop but he can’t be both.

In the end, the punks end up getting gunned down by Vice and Sonny ends the best relationship he’s ever had. And Tubbs? He sits on the beach and plays his saxophone.

That’s life in Miami.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 1.18 “Made For Each Other”

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, two supporting players get an episode all their own.

Episode 1.18 “Made For Each Other”

(Dir by Rob Cohen, originally aired on March 8th, 1985)

After spending most of the first season as background comedic relief, Detectives Switek (Michael Talbott) and Zito (John Diehl) are at the center of this week’s episode of Miami Vice.

With the Vice Squad trying to make a case against criminal fence John Costeleda (Johnny “Vatos” Hernandez), Switek and Zito recruit two informants — Noogie (Charlie Barnett) and Izzy (Martin Ferrero) — and send them in undercover to get close to Costeleda’s lieutenant, an electronic store owner named “Bonzo” Barry Gold (Mark Linn-Baker). For once, it’s Zito and Switek who are pushing ethical boundaries to take down the bad guy though, notably, they never get quite as angsty about it as either Crockett or Tubbs. If Crockett and Tubbs are secretly aware that they’re fighting a losing war against crime, Switek and Zito are a bit more earnest in their outlook.

This episode also takes a look at Switek and Zito’s life outside of Vice. Zito likes to take care of fish and is something of an eccentric. Switek is dating Darlene (Ellen Greene), who used to date Zito. Switek is also a big fan of Elvis, though Darlene has tossed almost all of his Elvis stuff out of the apartment and instead replaced it with pictures of Princess Diana and baby Harry. (Prince Harry’s father is not seen in any of the pictures. Neither is the future King Charles III.) When Zito’s house explodes due to a gas leak, he moves in with Switek and Darlene. Darlene is not particularly happy about that and, by the end of the episode, Switek has decided that his partner is more important to him than his girlfriend. As the title says, Switek and Zito are made for each other.

I like the fact that Miami Vice would occasionally allow people other than Crockett and Tubbs to headline an episode. After all, the show is called Miami Vice and there’s more to the Vice Squad than just Crockett’s houseboat and Tubbs’s fake Jamaican accent. Michael Talbott and especially John Diehl are both likable in their roles, with Diehl in particular making Zito into the type of strange guy who you can’t help but love. That said, this episode was a bit too silly for its own good. It would have been interesting to see Zito and Switek go after the type of criminals that Crockett and Tubbs regularly went after but instead, Costeleda was too much of a buffoon to really be a serious threat. The emphasis here was on comedy but Miami Vice works better as a serious show with funny moments than as a funny show with serious moments.

It was nice to see that Zito and Switek were made for each other but, otherwise, this episode never worked as well as one might hope.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.9 “The Great McCarthy”

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week is all about boats!

Episode 1.9 “The Great McCarthy”

(Dir by Georg Stanford Brown, originally aired on November 16th, 1984)

The people behind Miami Vice really liked speedboats.

That’s the best explanation that I come up with for The Great McCarthy, an episode in which the majority of the running time is taken up by scenes of people racing boats. Even after Crockett, Tubbs, and Zito (John Diehl, getting to do more than usual) figure out how Louis McCarthy (William Gray Espy) is using his boats to smuggle drugs into Miami, their main concern remains winning the race that they’ve entered.

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. After a run a grim and dark episodes, The Great McCarthy was a nice change of pace, a reminder that it’s okay to have a little bit of fun. For the most part, this was a light and airy episode, featuring scenes of boats skimming across the ocean while Born To Be Wild plays on the soundtrack. This episode also featured a very 80s party scene and not one but two weaselly informants!

The first informant was Izzy Moreno (Martin Ferrero), a talkative thief who, it turned out, had done some work for Louis McCarthy. The second informant was Dale Gifford (Charles McCaughan), a crooked accountant who is helping to launder money for not just Louis but also Louis’s girlfriend, Vanessa (Maria McDonald). Izzy will apparently be returning in the future. Gifford will not as he ended up getting shot in the back of the head. Crockett and Tubbs originally assumed McCarthy was the killer but, as Izzy reveals towards the end of the episode, it was actually Vanessa.

By this time, of course, Vanessa has already moved on from McCarthy and is now sleeping with Tubbs. Crockett warns Tubbs that he’s getting in too deep with Vanessa but Tubbs replies that he’s got it all under control, almost as if he doesn’t remember that almost the exact same thing happened when they went down to the Bahamas to take out Calderone. When the police show up to arrest Vanessa, Tubbs insists on doing it himself. “I have to,” he tells her. He’s a cop, after all.

Okay, so that ending was a little bit downbeat but, for the most part, this was just a fun episode of Miami Vice, one that didn’t require too much thought and which kept the existential dread to a minimum. Probably the best scene in the episode didn’t even involve McCarthy or Vanessa but instead centered around Gina and Trudy arresting a philosophy professor who sold cocaine on the side. (The professor was played by Richard Liberty, who also appeared in George Romero’s The Crazies and Day of the Dead.) Gina and especially Trudy have been underused on this show so it was nice to finally see them getting to do their jobs and proving themselves to be just as effective as Tubbs and Crockett.

I do have to admit that I’m still kind of confused as to how Crockett is managing to maintain his cover as a criminal when almost every other petty criminal in Miami knows that he’s actually a cop. If Izzy could figure it out, why not Louis McCarthy? Perhaps McCarthy wasn’t so great after all.