Michael J. Carnevale | 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, it’s Reb Brown vs Don Johnson!

Episode 3.22 “Viking Bikers From Hell”

(Dir by James Quinn, originally aired on April 3rd, 1987)

Biker Reb Gustafson (Reb Brown) has been released in prison, just in time to seek vengeance for the death of his mentor, The Wire. The Wire was killed in a drug deal gone bad so Reb decides to just track down every dealer that The Wire did business with during the final two weeks of his life and kill every one of them. Working with Lascoe (John Matuszak) and Toad (Sonny Landham), Reb cuts a trail of terror through Miami’s underground. Soon, there’s only one name left on the list …. SONNY BURNETT!

At this point, of course, everyone in Miami should know that Sonny Burnett is actually Sonny Crockett. I’ve lost track of how many time Crockett and Tubbs have gotten their undercover identities blown. Usually, the people who figure out that Sonny and Rico are undercover end up dying almost immediately afterwards. But a few of their enemies have survived and it’s odd that they never seem to bother to tell anyone, “Hey, those guys are actually cops.”

This episode of Miami Vice is violent that it verges on self-parody. (I guess that’s to be expected as the script was written by the great John Milius, Milius was credited as “Walter Kurtz.”) Reb Brown is an amusing actor. He never showed much emotion but he always looked believable whenever he was relentlessly tracking down someone that he wanted to kill. Brown is both this episode’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. As played Brown, Reb Gustasfson barely flinches when he gets shot. He’s a relentless killing machine, the terminator on a motorcycle. That does certainly make him an intimidating figure. At the same time, this episode also features Reb Brown doing his signature yelling and, for me, it was hard to watch this episode without thinking about all the close-up, high-pitched screaming that he did in Space Mutiny.

Tubbs ends up in the hospital in this one. An attack by Reb and his biker pals leaves Tubbs with a concussion. Crockett visits the hospital and there’s a scene where he attempts to have a conversation with a heavily drugged Tubbs. Tubbs’s comments make about as much sense as the last words of Dutch Schultz but it’s still kind of nice to see that Crockett actually does care about his partner. The two of them haven’t always seemed particularly happy with having to work together over the course of the third season.

Biker fans will also be happy to note that Kim Coates has a small role in this one. Crockett and Tubbs beat him up in a biker bar while demanding information about Reb. The odd thing here is that Crockett and Tubbs go into the biker bar and make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re actually cops. And all of the bikers in the bar seem to already know that they’re cops. Seriously, were Crockett and Tubbs the two worst undercover cops in history?

This was an enjoyably over-the-top episode. It was a bit silly but, when it comes to Reb Brown, would you want it any other way?

This week …. has Tubbs turned evil?

Episode 3.19 “Red Tape”

(Dir by Gabrielle Beaumont, originally aired on March 13th, 1987)

There’s a turncoat in the Vice Department. Someone is leaking information about search warrants to the bad guys and, as a result, cops are walking straight into booby traps. When a routine search for a low-level thief leads to an explosion that kills one cop (Viggo Mortensen) and leaves Tubbs covered in the man’s blood, Tubbs announces that he’s fed up with all of this and he refuses to take another assignment until the leaker has been caught. Castillo tells Tubbs he can either accept his new assignment or quit. Tubbs says he’s done.

The problem is that all of Tubbs’s money is wrapped up with the department’s credit union and Tubbs can’t withdraw it quickly enough to get back to New York. The usually cool and collected Tubbs throws a fit, getting himself arrested when he starts threatening people at the credit union. Crockett gets him out of jail and Tubbs says their partnership is done. Switek tries to open up about his feelings after Zito’s death. Tubbs says he doesn’t care. What’s going on with Tubbs? He’s acting like a total jerk and he’s also loudly letting everyone know that he’s desperate to get out of Miami and that he needs money quickly….

If you guessed Tubbs was working undercover, you are correct! It’s all an elaborate ruse to get crooked Detective McIntyre (Scott Plank) to approach Tubbs with an offer. (McIntyre’s girlfriend is played by a young actress named Annette Bening) Unfortunately, only Tubbs and Castillo know that Tubbs is still one of the good guys, A hot-headed young detective named Bobby Diaz (Lou Diamond Phillips) thinks that Tubbs really is crooked. Diaz already lost one partner to the leaker. He’s looking for revenge and even while Tubbs and Castillo are planning to take down McIntyre, Bobby is planning to take down Tubbs. In typical Miami Vice fashion, it all leads to shoot out that leaves the bad guys dead but which also leaves Diaz mortally wounded and cursing Tubbs with his dying breath. Tubbs goes from pretending to hate his job to actually hating it.

Seriously, were there ever any unambiguously happy endings on Miami Vice? It seems like nearly every episode ended with Crockett and Tubbs realizing that their latest victory — assuming they were lucky enough to even have one — would prove to pyrrhic. There would always be a new drug boss ready to replace anyone that they took out of the game. There would aways be a new cop willing to betray his colleagues. And there would always be a mountain of red tape, waiting to keep them from making a difference. This episode was dark!

This season seems like it’s been more Tubbs-centric than previous seasons and, as dark as thing got, it was still a little fun to watch Phillip Michael Thomas go totally over the top as the angry Tubbs. The scene in the credit union was one that I’m sure would be enjoyed by anyone who has ever had to deal with red tape. One could argue that Tubbs go so far overboard that the bad guys should have been able to see through his ruse. But, still, this episode was effectively moody and dark. Watching it, it was hard not to feel that Thomas deserved more storylines than he got.

Next week: Crockett falls in love with Melanie Griffith!