Retro Television Review: Crime Story 2.5 “Shockwaves”

Posted on November 2, 2026 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 Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!

Ray Luca is back!

Episode 2.5 “Shockwaves”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on November 3rd, 1987)

With Ray Luca apparently dead, Las Vegas appears to have settled down. Max and Steve Kordo are running what’s left of Luca’s criminal empire. David Abrams is happily playing his saxophone. Ray’s ex-wife has a new blonde stud in her bed. Torello and Danny are spending their days drinking at their favorite club. The only problem is that Luca isn’t dead. As we’ve seen over the past few episodes, he and Pauli somehow survived getting caught in the middle of an atomic bomb test. After spending a few months in Mexico, Ray decides to come back to Vegas.

And because Ray and Pauli did some work for the government while they were hiding out, they’re now considered to be assets. Torello and David Abrams are informed that Ray has immunity for his previous crimes and that the Crime Task Force is to stay away from him. When Torello and his men fail to do this, they’re slapped with a restraining order. David resigns in anger.

As for the rest of Vegas, they each react in their own way to Luca’s return. Luca’s wife kicks her current boytoy out of the house and welcomes back Ray. Manny orders Max to set aside his anger and to work with Luca because Luca brings in a lot of money. Steve Kordo pretends to be happy about Luca’s return and then promptly calls Kansas City and requests that a “hitter” be sent to Vegas.

And David—well, David goes nuts (again) and breaks into Luca’s house with the intent of killing him. Fortunately, Torello and his men show up in time to grab David. David gets off one shot but takes out a lamp instead of Luca. Luca smugly thanks Torello for saving his life. Torello replies that he only did it to protect Abrams.

This was a busy episode but it was a necessary one. The heart of this series has always been Luca and Torello’s private war, so Luca was going to have to return to Vegas at some point. There are only so many episodes the show can do about Torello dealing with random villains-of-the-week. Luca has returned and, in this episode, Tony Denison did a great job of playing Luca as someone who knows that he’s untouchable and is pretty smug about it.

While it may deny reality to suggest that Luca and Pauli could survive an atomic blast, it’s not too far-fetched that they would become government assets. This show is set in the early 60s, at roughly the same time that the CIA was teaming up with the Mafia to try to take out Fidel Castro. If they had succeeded, the world would have been spared a lot of misery. But, at the same time, the world wouldn’t have gotten Brian De Palma’s version of Scarface.

You have to take the good with the bad.

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 2.4 “Atomic Fallout”

Posted on October 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a major player returns! Actually, two major players….

Episode 2.4 “Atomic Fallout”

(Dir by Bill Duke, originally aired on October 27th, 1987)

Two new members of the Task Force, who were assigned to keep an eye on Max Goldman, are discovered dead and burned to a crisp at a landing strip in the desert. At the same time, a scientist who is suspected of being a serial killer disappears from Las Vegas just as Torello is on the verge of arresting him.

Torello immediately assumes that the two things are connected. Unfortunately, the Atomic Energy Commission wants Torello to back off on his investigation of Dr. Gantman (George Bartenieff), the scientist-turned-serial killer. Gantman is working on a special project for the government. Torello and the Task Force head to Mexico to capture him anyway.

Torello isn’t the only Vegas resident in Mexico. Manny Weisbord is visiting Mexican crime boss Jorge Senterro (Ismael “East” Carlo). Two old friends of Manny’s are currently living with Senterro, and I bet you can already guess who they are.

That’s right! LUCA AND PAULI LIVE!

Despite having found themselves on a nuclear testing site at exactly the wrong time, Pauli and Luca survived. Pauli appears to be no worse for the experience. Luca, meanwhile, has only recently had his bandages removed. His back is scarred. Weisbord watches as Luca receives a shot from a very large hypodermic needle held by a chain-smoking doctor. Luca has survived, but he’s changed. He’s no longer content with building a national crime syndicate. Luca tells Manny that he’s planning on going international.

Weisbord is impressed with Luca’s ambition. However, he’s considerably less happy to learn that Luca and Senterro have teamed up to smuggle heroin into the United States. Weisbord has always been opposed to getting involved in the drug trade. Luca used to be opposed as well, but, as he explains it, drugs are where the money is going to be in the future. When Weisbord says that dealing drugs will cause the Justice Department to come after him, Luca says that he’s being protected by the U.S. government. The implication is obvious. The time of honorable crime bosses like Manny Weisbord has come to an end. Luca is the future.

While Luca is talking to Weisbord, Torello and his men are tracking down Dr. Gantman. They find him in a small safehouse, protected by Mexican soldiers. After a gunfight with the soldiers (and one has to wonder how that’s not going to become a diplomatic incident), Torello bursts in on Gantman just as he’s about to murder another woman. Torello guns the scientist down, and whatever information Gantman may have had about what the U.S. government is doing in Mexico dies with him.

In the episode’s final scene, Lt. Col. Milton Dance (Richard Zobel) meets with Luca and Pauli. Luca mentions that he heard about Gantman’s death and asks who was responsible. Dance replies that it was no one that Luca would know. Dance then hands Luca and Pauli their passports so that they can return to the United States.

This episode was a true treat for those of us who are interested in conspiracy theories. Dr. Gantman brought to mind the Nazi rocket scientists who were recruited by the CIA after World War II and who eventually ended up working for NASA. Luca working for the government would be implausible if not for the fact that the CIA and the Mafia actually did work together in the early ’60s to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. This episode was full of atomic imagery. When Luca talked about surviving the nuclear test, there was a quick flashback to a mushroom cloud rising over the desert. Torello and his men enjoy hanging out at a bar decorated with neon signs of mushroom clouds. A picture of a mushroom cloud was prominently displayed in Gantman’s house. This episode was all about atomic-age paranoia.

Best of all, Luca and Pauli are back. The first few episodes of the second season suffered because Torello himself seemed directionless without Luca to pursue. With this episode, we know that Luca is returning. Torello might not know it, but we know it.

And I can’t wait to see what happens!

Insomnia File No. 8: From the Hip (dir by Bob Clark)

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you discovered that you couldn’t get any sleep around two in the morning, you could have turned to Showtime and watched the 1987 film, From The Hip.

In From the Hip, Judd Nelson plays a character named Robin Weathers. Of course, his nickname is Stormy. Robin has just graduated from law school and is working at a prestigious law firm. He’s ambitious, he’s outspoken, and he’s totally frustrated. As his co-workers (played, quite well, by David Alan Grier and Dan Monahan) continually remind him, nobody gets to try a case during their first year out of law school. They advise him to be patient and to wait his turn.

However, a man who is capable of being patient would not be nicknamed Stormy. It just wouldn’t make any sense. So, Stormy Weathers schemes his way into the courtroom. One morning, he intentionally withholds information from the senior partners, going out of his way to keep them from realizing that a trial is scheduled to begin that afternoon. When senior partner Craig Duncan (Darren McGavin) discovers what Stormy has done, he fires him and makes sure that he never get hired at another law firm … oh wait. No, he doesn’t because that would make too much sense. Instead, he allows Stormy to try the case because, at this point, Stormy is the only one who knows anything about it.

The case is a simple assault case that involves two bankers and should be resolved easily but Stormy manages to drag it out for several days and his flamboyant style catches the attention of the media. The other partners in the law firm — who are all old and boring — want to fire Stormy but Stormy’s client says that, if Stormy is fired, he’ll take his business and his money elsewhere. Stormy becomes a minor celebrity but — in a rather clever little twist — it turns out that he and the prosecuting attorney are old friends from law school and they conspired to make each other look good.

Anyway, Stormy is now so famous that he gets assigned to defend a college professor, named Benoit (John Hurt), who has been accused of murder. When it quickly becomes obvious that Benoit is not only guilty but will probably murder again, Stormy is forced to choose between ambition and morality…

When my friend Evelyn and I first started to watch From the Hip last night, I really thought I was going to hate it. The hot pink neon credits screamed, “Bad 80s movie!” and, because I happen to know quite a few lawyers, I tend to be a 100 times more critical of movies about lawyers than I am when it comes to movies about, say, homicidal fishermen.

And, honestly, From The Hip is a heavily flawed film. Judd Nelson is miscast and the scenes with his politically conscious girlfriend (Elizabeth Perkins) are painfully shallow and reek of limousine liberalism. But, if you can get through the weak opening, the film itself is watchable and enjoyable in a dumb sort of way. John Hurt does a great job as a sociopath and, miscast as he may be, it’s still fun to watch Nelson go insane in court.

From The Hip is not a great film but, in its way, it’s an enjoyable little time capsule. Believe it or not, there was a time when Judd Nelson starred in a movies that were actually released in theaters.