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, the one hand doesn’t know what the other one is doing.  That’s life in Miami.,

Episode 3.21 “Knock Knock …. Who’s There?”

(Dir by Tony Wharmby, originally aired on March 27th, 1987)

An drug buy that Crockett and Tubbs (as Burnett and Cooper) set up with Esteban Montoyo (a miscast Ian McShane), falls apart when a group of DEA agents show up.  Or, at least, they say that they’re DEA agents.  Oddly, they just take the money and the drugs and then leave, saying that Miami metro will take care of the rest.

It quickly becomes apparent that the DEA agents were fake but Crockett and Tubbs have no way to confirm that because the DEA refuses to share any information about their activities with the Vice Squad.  Even though the DEA and detectives are all after the same people and are supposedly soldiers in the same war, they don’t trust each other and they don’t share information.  Meanwhile, Internal Affairs is convinced that Crockett and Tubbs stole the money and the drugs for themselves and are determined to prove it.  Apparently, it doesn’t matter that Crockett and Tubbs have killed a variety of different drug lords over the past three seasons.  No one in Miami trusts anyone!

As for the fake DEA busts, they’re being set up by an agent named Linda Colby (Elizabeth Ashley).  Linda’s husband (Jimmie Ray Weeks) is a former agent who is now in a wheelchair and who is a friend of Crockett’s.  Their son is in the hospital, fighting for his life.  Linda’s crimes are helping her to pay for his treatment.  It’s not greed that motivates her, or at least greed isn’t the only thing.  She’s also motivated by love.

Of course, in the end, she still gets shot during a showdown between Crockett, Tubbs, and Montoya.  Unlike the majority of Miami Vice‘s guest stars, Linda survives being shot.  But, as she’s lying on the stretcher, Crockett has to arrest her.  Linda says that Crockett would have done the same thing for his son.  With tears in his eyes, Crockett proceeds to recite Linda’s Miranda rights.  Though Crockett doesn’t say it, he knows that she’s right but he’s also a cop and he has no choice but to arrest her.  Now, her son will no longer receive medical treatment and his mother is going to be in jail.  Wow, Miami Vice, depressing much?

Of course, happy endings were a rarity on Miami Vice.  That was one of the show’s strengths.  No one ever got a truly happy ending.  Every drug lord that Crockett and Tubbs took down would be replaced by someone else.  Anyone who ever tried to help usually fell victim to a bullet.  People like Linda did things for desperate reasons and paid the price, all in the service of an unwinnable war.

This episode was uneven.  Ian McShane was not a particularly interesting villain and Crockett getting his cover blown happens so frequently that it’s no longer a shock.  But that final scene definitely packed a punch.  Never have the Miranda rights sounded so hollow.

Next week …. it’s Crockett and Tubbs vs. a motorcycle gang!  We’ll see what happens.  It can’t be any more depressing than this episode.