Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves”

Posted on August 18, 2025 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!

This week, a man kills for his dolls.

Episode 4.16 “Honor Among Thieves?”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on March 4th, 1988)

A serial killer named Paul Delgado (John Bowman and no, we’re not related as far as I know) is killing girls in Miami. He believes that he’s being ordered to kill by his collection of dolls and, when he’s speaking as a doll, he uses a high-pitched voice. He picks women up at carnivals or on the beach and he kills them by injecting them with 100% pure cocaine. He poses their bodies with a doll beside them.

Because of the cocaine connection, homicide detective Jarrell (Dylan Baker) approaches Castillo. Castillo explains that his best men are working deep undercover, trying to take down a drug lord named Palmo (Ramy Zada). That’s right, this is yet another episode where Crockett pretends to be Burnett and Tubbs pretends to be Cooper and somehow, they’re able to get away with it despite the fact that their cover has been blown in almost every previous episode.

Delgado works for Palmo and things get even more complicated when it turns out that Delgado is Crockett and Tubbs’s connection inside Palmo’s operation. When Palmo discovers that Delgado is the killer, he puts Delgado on trial. The jury is made up of other drug dealers. Since Crockett is pretending to be a lawyer, he’s assigned to serve as Delgado’s defense counsel. Palmo tells Crockett that, unless he’s acquitted by the drug dealer jury, he’ll reveal that Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover….

This was a weird episode, It didn’t really work because Delgado was a bit too cartoonish to be taken seriously. Perhaps if the show had just made him a serial killer who killed women with cocaine, it would have worked. But the show had to go the extra step and have him talk to his dolls in a high-pitched voice. As well, this was yet another episode where we were forced to wonder if people in the Miami underworld just don’t communicate with each other. After all the drug lords that have been busted by Crockett and Tubbs, you would think that word would eventually get out about “Burnett” and “Cooper.” I mean, their cover gets blown in nearly every episode. Frank Zappa put a bounty on Crockett’s head in season 2! And yet somehow, Crockett and Tubbs are still able to walk into a drug lord’s mansion, introduce themselves as Burnett and Cooper, and not automatically get shot.

There were some definite problems with this episode but it was weird enough to at least hold one’s attention. As opposed to the episodes with the aliens and the bull semen, this episode didn’t seem like it was trying too hard to be weird. Instead, it just was genuinely weird. It was watchable and, as far as the fourth season of Miami Vice is concerned, that definitely counts as an accomplishment.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.15 “Indian Wars”

Posted on August 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Castillo goes undercover!

Episode 4.15 “Indian Wars”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on February 26th, 1988)

The Vice Squad is trying to take down Colombian drug dealer Acosta (Joe Lala). Acosta does not trust gringos so Crockett can’t pretend to be Burnett this week. Instead, he’s temporarily promoted to head of the Vice Squad while Castillo goes undercover. Castillo explains to his bosses that, as a Latino, he’s the only one who can do it. I’m not sure that I really buy Castillo’s argument. Do you mean to tell me that, in Miami, there’s only one Latino detective working Vice? If that’s true, someone really needs to talk to whoever is in charge of giving the detectives their assignments.

Acosta is soon taken out of the picture and replaced by the even more evil Levec (played by the great character actor, Joe Turkel). Castillo discovers that both Acosta and Levec are being attacked by a paramilitary force that is made up of Native Americans. Tubbs goes undercover as an anthropologist and discovers that the local Indian chief has made a deal with the drug dealers and his son (Patrick Bishop) is not happy about it. However, it turns out that the chief’s son is actually an aspiring drug lord himself and that his whole vigilante act is really just his way of getting rid of the competition.

This was not a bad episode, particularly when compared to some of the other episodes that aired during the fourth season. Joe Turkel made for a great villain and the scenes of the Indians attacking the drug dealers were properly atmospheric. The episode even includes a small homage to the final showdown from Scarface. Philip Michael Thomas was mildly amusing when he pretended to be a nerdy anthropologist. Meanwhile, Don Johnson was barely in this episode at all. This episode was all about Edward James Olmos’s smoldering intensity as Castillo.

Again, it wasn’t a bad episode but it still felt like it was missing something. As with so much of season 4, it felt like the show was just growing through the motions. In this case, it went through those motions with a bit more skill than it did in some of the season’s other installments. This episode didn’t feature any aliens or any bull semen. That made it a definite improvement over at least two season 4 episodes. Still, this episode largely felt like Miami Vice on autopilot.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.14 “Baseballs of Death”

Posted on August 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I saw the title of this week’s episode and I immediately called my sister….

Episode 4.14 “Baseballs of Death”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on February 19th, 1988)

“Watch this with me,” I told Erin, “it’s a baseball episode!”

“It is?” Erin asked.

“Look at the title!”

I was excited. I always like to find things that I can watch with my sister and, as we all know, she loves baseball. She certainly loves baseball more than she loves tv shows about bombs that blow up when you step on them.

Unfortunately, it turned out that this episode was not about baseball. Instead, it featured a bunch of bombs that blow up when you step on them. According to this episode, those bombs are known as baseballs. Sorry, Erin! Honest mistake….

Misleading title aside, this is a really good episode. It features Tony Plana as a Chilean diplomat who is trying to buy a shipment of weapons, including the explosive baseballs. Plana is a chilling villain. In fact, he’s the first villain of season 4 to actually feel dangerous. When we first meet him, he’s coldly executing the girlfriend of a tabloid reporter. Plana’s lack of emotion as he kills and plots to kill feels like a throwback to the soulless sociopaths who made the first season’s rogue gallery. A very young Oliver Platt shows up as an arms dealer and his nerdy confidence adds to some comedy to what is an otherwise fairly grim episode. Just as with Plana’s cold villainy, Platt’s cheerful amorality felt like a throwback to the first season.

Indeed, this entire episode felt like a return to what the show used to be. After a season that’s involved televangelists, bull semen, UFOs, and Crockett getting married to Sheena Easton, it was nice to see an episode that actually felt like an episode of Miami Vice. Director Bill Dule gave this episode a stylish and, at times, almost surrealistic feel. Crockett was back to be a cynic. Castillo stared at the floor and spoke through clenched teeth while Switek actually got to put his phone-tapping skills to good use. In the end, Tony Plana may have been the villain but, in old school Miami Vice style, the majority of the blame was still put on the U.S. government. The episode even ended with an exciting boat chase. All this episode needed was Phil Collins on the soundtrack and it could have passed for something from the first two seasons.

Season 4 has been uneven but this episode felt like classic Vice. Erin thought the episode would have been better with actual baseballs and I agree with her that the title was misleading. That said, this was still an enjoyable throwback to what the show used to be.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.12 “The Cows of October”

Posted on July 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week …. I don’t even know how to describe it.

Episode 4.12 “The Cows Of October”

(Dir by Vince Gillum, originally aired on February 5th, 1988)

A cannister of bull seamen has been stolen from a Miami lab and the feds (represented by Harry Shearer) want it back before it falls into the hands of the Cubans. Switek assists. Izzy shows up to broker the deal. Gerrit Graham plays a shady person who we are told is from Texas. (His accent is more Arizona.) Philip Michael Thomas wears a cowboy hat. Don Johnson is largely absent until the final scene. One gets the feeling that Johnson hated every minute of this episode while Thomas just seemed to be having fun.

This episode was, without a doubt, the stupidest episode of Miami Vice ever filmed. And listen, I will admit that I haven’t seen every episode. I’ve still got a season and a half to go. There seems to be a general online consensus that the final two seasons of Miami Vice were not good at all. I’m sure I have many dumb episodes ahead of me. But I cannot — as much as I try — imagine any episode that could be as a dumb as the Vice Squad abandoning the war on drugs so that they could keep the Cubans from getting their hands on a cannister of bull semen.

Miami Vice has always been as its best when its been surrealistic, cynical, and gritty. I would argue that Miami Vice really does not need to do comedic episodes. For the first three seasons, nearly every episode ended with an innocent person either dead or forever embittered. At its best, Miami Vice was not a happy show. It was a show where Crockett and Tubbs drove around in the dark, loaded their guns, and Phil Collins sang in the background. When Collins sang, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight,” he was not talking about bull semen. At least, I hope he wasn’t. (Oh, Lord….)

I really don’t know what to make of season 4. Trudy’s going to space. Crockett’s married. The Vice Squad is searching for bull semen. Yet somehow, through it all, Castillo continues to just stare at the floor and speak through gritted teeth. Like seriously, shouldn’t Castillo be concerned about all this weird stuff going on?

I didn’t care much for this episode. Searching for bull semen is a Pacific Blue thing. Miami Vice needs to handle real cases and leave all that other stuff for the bike cops.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.10 “A Rock and a Hard Place”

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sonny goes to Hollywood.

Episode 4.10 “A Rock and a Hard Place”

(Dir by Colin Bucksey, originally aired on January 22nd, 1988)

I guess I am going to have to accept that Miami Vice is no longer a show about two vice cops fighting a losing war against drug traffickers. Instead, it’s now a show about an undercover cop who is married to a world famous rock star, even though it makes absolutely no sense.

In this episode, a tabloid reporter goes to Miami to do some research on this Sonny “Burnett.” He hears a lot of stories about how Sonny Burnett is one of the city’s biggest drug dealers and he writes a story about it. Sonny is upset, though one would think this would actually help him maintain his cover story. Myself, I have to wonder how competent this reporter was. Sonny Crockett has been established as having been a semi-famous college football star (Tubbs recognized him as soon as he met him) but no one ever seems to notice that Sonny Cockett and Sonny Burnett look, sound, and act exactly alike. Considering the number of times that Crockett’s cover has gotten blown and that everyone who has ever done business with Sonny Burnett has ended up either getting arrested and gunned down by the police, you would think there would at least be some speculation about this guy being a cop.

(On a plus note, Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry played in the background while the reporter doing his thing. That’s a song you can’t help but chair dance to.)

The majority of this episode dealt with a corrupt record executive (Tony Hendra) who was looking to get out of paying Sonny’s wife, Caitlin, the money that she was owed for her new album. His solution was to have her assassinated and to make it look like she got caught in the crossfire of one of her husband’s drug deals. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Sonny gunned down the two assassins and then arrested the record executive. “You’re a cop!?” the bad guy said, stunned.

And again, I have to wonder how this is not going to blow Sonny’s cover. Is the press really not going to ask why Caitlin’s criminal husband just arrested the guy releasing her latest album?

This episode had all sorts of plot holes and it asked the audience to suspend their disbelief just a bit too far. But at least it didn’t features Crockett and Tubbs searching for a stolen shipment of bull semen. That’ll be next week’s episode!

(Seriously, I’m not kidding….)

I miss the old Miami Vice. Seriously, the city’s drug business is probably booming because Crockett and Tubbs are wasting their time with all of this season 4 nonsense.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, as the drug epidemic rages out of control, Sonny searches for a serial killer.

Episode 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

(Dir by Don Johnson, originally aired on January 15th, 1988)

What the Hell, Miami Vice?

Seriously, remember when this show was about Crockett and Tubbs going after drug dealers while Phil Collins played in the background? Season 4 feels like a completely different show.

This week’s episode finds Sonny going undercover (*massive eye roll as Sonny does his, “My name is Sonny Burnett” routine for the thousandth time*) and joining a video dating service. The plan is for Sonny to bust prostitutes but instead, he finds himself as the latest client to be targeted by a serial killer.

Sonny goes on dates, never knowing if the woman he’s with is a killer. One woman approaches him with something behind her back. Is it a knife? No, it’s a vibrator! “I can see the headlines now — Undercover cop slugs woman after assault with a sex toy!” Sonny says while wearing a yellow sweater and having a nice grapefruit breakfast at his mansion.

Meanwhile, cocaine is flooding Miami, the crack epidemic is spiraling out of control, there are communist taking over Central America, Fidel Castro is still alive, there’s a lot of going on out there and apparently it’s being ignored so Sonny can be used as serial killer bait — hey Vice Squad, why don’t you let the homicide detective deal with the murders while you get back to what you’re supposed to be doing?

Caitlin, Sonny’s wife, worries. Oh, how she worries. Her best friend tells her that she’s knew what she was getting into when she married a cop. If Sonny is trying to maintain his undercover identity, should Caitlin be telling people that she married a cop? Shouldn’t she be like, “I’m married to drug dealer! His name’s Burnett and he just looks like that guy who used to play college football?” That Sheena Easton was not a professional actress is pretty obvious in this episode. When she previously appeared, she was a singer playing a singer and that brought some authenticity to her performance. Now, she’s having to pretend to be the worried wife of a cop and her acting limitations are much more easier to see.

The killer is eventually revealed to be a woman (played by David Bowie’s future wife, Iman) with multiple personalities. When she feels threatened, she turns into her brother and uses a knife to castrate the men from the dating service. Will Sonny survive? Yes, he does.

Don Johnson directed this episode and usually, when a cast member directs an episode of their show, their character tends to take a background role so they can concentrate on directing. Not our Don! This episode is so much about Sonny that the rest of the Vice Squad is barely in it.

This episode really made me miss the subtlety of Brian Dennehy playing a televangelist or James Brown kidnapping people for aliens. Get it together, Miami!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.9 “The Rising Sun of Death”

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Yakuza invades Miami.

Episode 4.9 “The Rising Sun of Death”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on May 27th, 1988)

Castillo is concerned. The murder of an American businessman leads him to suspect that the Yakuza has come to Miami and it turns out that he’s right. Riochi Tanaka (James Hong), a World War II war criminal-turned-mobster, is trying to take over the Miami underworld. While corrupt Homicide Detective Haskell (R. Lee Ermey) tries to convince everyone that the Yakuza is just a myth, Castillo teams up with Japanese detective Kenji Fujitsu (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to takes down Tanaka and his right-hand man, Agawa (Danny Kamekoa). Needless to say, this leads to a fight with samurai swords, a lot of talk of honor, and a seppuku to close the case.

This episode hit every Yakuza cliche and the plot itself felt as if it had been put together at the last minute. (This is one of those episodes where every plot hole is dismissed as being a cultural difference.) We’re expected to believe that Tanaka could outsmart the Allies during World War II but he couldn’t outsmart the Miami Vice Squad. As well, of the major Japanese characters, only one was played by Japanese actor. Danny Kamekoa is a Hawaiian while James Hong is of Chinese descent.

That said, this episode was shot and filmed with a lot of style and it found an excuse to play Billy Idol’s Flesh For Fantasy during one of the early scenes. There’s something to be said for that. Neither Crockett nor Tubbs really did much in this episode but we did get to see Crockett house hunting with Cailtin. It’s mentioned that everyone thinks that Caitlin’s new husband is named Sonny Burnett instead of Sonny Cockett. That’s fine …. except for the fact that Sonny Crockett has previously been established as a bit of a minor celebrity, a college football star who would have gone on to the NFL if he hadn’t injured his knee. Every time this show tries to convince me that Crockett has fooled everyone into thinking he’s Sonny Burnett, it just further convinces me that there’s no way Crockett and Tubbs should still be doing undercover assignments.

This episode was stylish but empty but, considering some of the other episodes that have aired during this season, at least it was entertaining.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.7 “Missing Hours”

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s the most infamous episode of Miami Vice ever!

Episode 4.7 “Missing Hours”

(Dir by Ate De Jong, originally aired on November 13th, 1987)

This is an episode that I had been waiting for years to see. From the moment I decided to review Miami Vice, I started to read about and hear about this seventh episode of the four season. This was the episode was supposedly so bad that many people consider it to be the point that Miami Vice “jumped the shark.” This is the episode were James Brown plays a white-suited singer named Lou de Long, who has going from performing songs to giving lectures about UFOs. (James Brown is essentially playing himself, right down to the presence of I Feel Good on the soundtrack.) This is the episode where Trudy disappears for 12 hours and then returns with no firm memories of where she was. This is the episode where even Crockett and Tubbs see a UFO. Even though his appearance here does not receive as much attention as much a James Brown’s, Chris Rock made his television debut as a nerdy technician named Carson who was into UFOs. Carson mentions getting his information for “computer bulleting boards” and everyone looks at him as if he’s speaking Esperanto.

This is the episode that is frequently cited as being the worst in Miami Vice history and really, who am I to disagree?

It pains me to say that. I really wanted to like this episode, just because it is so strange and and I’ve always been a bit of a contrarian at heart but …. no, this episode really doesn’t work. The sad truth of the matter is that, for all of his other talents, James Brown was a lousy actor and, with the exception of Michael Talbott and Philip Michael Thomas (who both appear to be having fun), the regular cast gives performance that suggest they all knew this episode was a bad idea. Miami Vice was at its best when it was a cynical and downbeat show about the futility of the war on drugs. There’s really no reason for Miami Vice to ever do a science fiction-themed episode. Somehow, this is the second such episode to air during the fourth season.

Of course, the episode’s most unforgivable sin is that it ends with Trudy waking up in bed. Not only is that ending a cop out but it’s also pretty rude to anyone who was actually trying to follow the plot or who was actually worried about whether or not Trudy had been brainwashed by the aliens. Perhaps if this had been a Halloween episode, all of this could have been excused but apparently, this episode aired in the middle of November.

Poor Trudy. Seriously, Olivia Brown didn’t really get many episode built around her character. It’s a shame that, when they gave her one, it was this one. Next week on Miami Vice, who knows? I’m on vacation. We’ll see what happens!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.6 “God’s Work”

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.5 “Child’s Play”

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Sonny is too quick to fire his gun.

Episode 4.5 “Child’s Play”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on October 30th, 1987)

This is a dark, dark episode.

While breaking up what appears to be a case of domestic violence between Annette McAllister (Danitra Vance) and Walker Monroe (Ving Rhames), Sonny thinks that he spots someone holding a gun in the next room. Sonny fires through the wall, hitting a 13 year-old boy who Annette claims is her son, Jeffrey. While Jeffrey McCallister lies in a coma, a guilt-ridden Sonny starts to think about his ex-wife and their son, Billy. They live upstate and it’s been a while since Sonny visited. When Sonny does visit, he learns that his ex-wife’s fiancé wants to adopt Billy after the wedding.

Meanwhile, back in Miami, it turns out that there is no Jeffrey McAllister and that the boy who Sonny shot was actually a child soldier, recruited into a gang at an early age so that he couldn’t be sent to prison if arrested. It turns out that Walker and Annette are both involved in a gunrunning operation that is headed up by Holliday (Isaac Hayes). It all leads to one of those patented Miami Vice-style action sequences where Crockett, more or less, allows Walker to fall to his death. Sonny is definitely not in a good mood for the majority of this episode.

Child’s Play could have just as easily been titled The Don Johnson Emmy Submission Episode. This episode revolves entirely around Crockett and his feelings of guilt over shooting a child and also his fear of losing his son. Johnson does a pretty good job in this episode. Over the course of season 3 and the first few episodes of season 4, it really has sometimes seemed as if Crockett was losing his edge. This episode presents us with the return of self-destructive, end-of-his-rope Sonny and not even Johnson’s mullet can distract from the drama.

Thematically, this episode is pretty bleak. We never really learn much about the kid who was shot by Crockett, other than that he has a pretty sizable criminal record for a 13 year-old. By the end of the episode, he’s woken up from his coma but, assuming that he is capable of leaving the hospital, he’s still wanted on several murder charges. The kid basically has no future, even if he does make it to adulthood. Meanwhile, Sonny’s son is growing up without his father and, when Sonny does visit him, there’s really not much of a connection between the two of them.

In other words, everyone’s doomed. This was not a happy episode but, then again, Miami Vice was rarely a happy show.