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, Sonny’s latest girlfriend gets involved in the drug trade.

Episode 2.14 “Yankee Dollar”

(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on January 17th, 1986)

It’s another night in Miami.  Sonny Crockett is looking forward to driving out to the airport and picking up his latest girlfriend, a flight attendant named Sarah (Audrey Matson).  For two years, Sarah has been working the Miami to Bogota to Paris and back route.  She doesn’t make a lot of money but, as is typical for this show, she lives in a small but very nicely furnished house.

Unfortunately, Sarah dies shortly after Sonny picks her up.  She goes into cardiac arrest, the result of a balloon of cocaine bursting inside of her.  It turns out that Sarah was working as a drug mule, all so she could make a quick five grand and buy a used BMW.

Seriously, what are the chances that Sonny Crockett’s girlfriend would turn out to be a drug smuggler?  Maybe she thought she was dating Sonny Burnett.  Or maybe, like so many others on this show, she allowed her desire for the finer things in life — like a BMW — to lead her astray.  This is one of the major themes of Miami Vice.  In a society where conspicuous consumption rules, people will do anything to appear richer than they actually are.

When Sonny and Rico arrest Sarah’s brother, Tim (Clayton Rohner), they discover that he works for a wealthy businessman named Charlie Glide (Ned Eisenberg).  Everyone knows that Charlie Glide (a great name, by the way) is involved in the drug trade but no one has ever been able to pin anything on him.  In the past, Charlie avoided cocaine but he’s now looking to branch out.  Sonny and Rico go undercover to try to bring Charlie down.

Of course, it doesn’t work.  Charlie is smart enough to figure out that Sonny and Rico are trying to set him up.  Even after Crockett and Tubbs drag him down to the police station and Charlie makes a deal for immunity in return for setting up two other drug dealers (Anne Carlisle and Pepe Serna), he still tries to double cross the cops.  And even though the double cross doesn’t quite work, Charlie remains smug in his knowledge that he has immunity.

Except, of course, he doesn’t have immunity from all crimes.  Earlier in the episode, Charlie’s executive assistant, Max Rogo (Austin Pendleton), used Charlie’s gun to execute Tim.  Even though Crockett and Tubbs know that Max is the one who pulled the trigger and that Max is the one who decided to kill Tim, they still arrest Charlie for the murder.  (Max was apparently killed in an earlier shootout so it’s not like he’s around to tell the truth.)  “You changed the rules!” Charlie shouts as he’s dragged away.

This episode is Miami Vice at its most cynical.  Crockett and Tubbs can’t get Charlie for the crime he committed so, instead, they set him up for a crime he didn’t commit.  They did change the rules in that they decided they no longer have to follow them.  The episode is full of characters so desperate for money that they’ll do just about anything, even smuggling a lethal drug in their body.  Crockett can only watch helplessly as Sarah dies and, even as Charlie is taken away, there’s never any doubt that he’ll be replaced by someone else, the drug trade will continue, and more people will die just because they wanted to be able to afford a few extra things.  Crockett and Tubbs are fighting a war that can never be won.  Whatever victories they get ultimately feel hollow.  Arresting Charlie won’t bring Sarah back and it won’t stop more innocent people from dying.  Ned Eisenberg was wonderfully smug as Charlie Glide and Austin Pendleton was appropriately creepy as the always-smiling Max Rogo.  This was a good episode, one that challenged the traditional cop show narrative.  How long can one fight a losing war?