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, a man from the past returns to haunt Castillo.

Episode 2.9 “Bushido”

(Dir by Edward James Olmos, originally aired on November 22nd, 1985)

This week’s episode opens with yet another intricately plotted drug bust going awry.  This time, a dealer ends up dead, a DEA Agent ends up knocked out and tied up in a bathroom, and $50,000 goes missing.  Watching the tapes of the bust, Castillo is shocked to spot a familiar face on the scene.  Castillo says that Jack Gretsky (Dean Stockwell) was his partner when he was working for the CIA in Vietnam.  Gretsky has long been thought dead but there he is, on tape and ruining Castillo’s bust.

Realizing that Gretsky was sending him a message, Castillo decides to deal with the situation personally.  After visiting two CIA agents (Jerry Hardin and Tom Bower) who work out of an adult novelty shop, Castillo tracks Gretsky down to a Buddhist temple.  The two of them talk.  Gretsky reveals that he’s married to a Russian woman and that he has a son.  He asks Castillo to watch over them if anything happens to him.  The stoic Castillo agrees and then gives Gretsky a hug.  Castillo says that he has to arrest Gretsky.  Gretsky says he knows and then pulls a machine gun, forcing Castillo to kill him.  The CIA agents are happy to no longer have to deal with Gretsky.

A day later, the coroner’s office calls Vice and says that Gretsky was terminally ill with cancer and probably only had a few days left to live.  When Crockett and Tubbs go to tell Castillo, they find his badge and a note sitting in the office.  Castillo is fulfilling Gretsky’s final wish and protecting his wife (Natasha Schneider) and his son, Marty (Robin Kaputsin).  Castillo sees it as being a part of the samurai code by which he lives his life.  Meanwhile, a rogue CIA agent named Surf (David Rasche, giving a wonderfully unhinged performance) is working with the KGB to track down Gretsky’s family.

Directed by Edward James Olmos, Bushido is a wonderfully odd episode.  With a combination of skewed camera angles and deliberately eccentric performances from Dean Stockwell and David Rasche, this episode plays out with the relentless intensity of a fever dream.  (The opening drug bust even features Zito burying himself in the sand and using a straw to breathe until its time to emerge and knock out one of the bad guys.  It’s weird but it’s great.)  Olmos contrasts Castillo’s trademark stoicism with the more verbose characters played by Stockwell and Rasche and, as a result, Castillo emerges as an honorable man who hides his emotions because he knows that’s the only way to survive in his world.  To fall in love like Jack or to get cocky like Surf can only lead to one’s downfall.

After a few uneven episodes, Bushido is a nice reminder of what Miami Vice was capable of at its best.