Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.15 “Torello on Trial”

Posted on August 17, 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!

This week, Luca prepares for Vegas.

Episode 1.15 “Torello On Trial”

(Dir by Gary Sinise, originally aired on January 16th, 1987)

Buh-bye, Chicago!

Seriously, this is a huge episode.

It doesn’t start out as a huge episode. It starts out as just another courtroom drama. Mike Torello has been called by Ray Luca’s defense attorney to testify about the accusations that Frank Homan made against him. By defending himself against Homan’s false claim that Torello was on the take, Torello will also be destroying the credibility of the state’s case against Luca, Phil Bartoli, and Paulie. Torello’s not happy about it. He’s even less happy when U.S. Attorney Brietel’s aggressive cross-examination reveals that Torello actually does have several acquaintances who are connected to the mob. Of course, most of those acquaintances have been killed over the past few episodes. As Brietel puts it, violence tends to follow Torello around.

Fortunately, the next day, David Abrams requests to be allowed to cross-examine Torello. David reveals that Torello was a decorated soldier in Korea. He reveals the Torello has been given regular commendations by the Chicago Police Department. David makes Torello look like a saint.

As a result, the jury decides that Homan is not a credible witness. Luca, Paulie, and Bartoli are all acquitted. Brietel is told that the Justice Department has decided to drop the indictment against Torello. Torello tells Brietel that the blood of anyone killed by Luca will be on his hands. Brietel is not having a good day.

The first 35 minutes or so of this episode were solid but still felt like a standard and slightly predictable episode of Crime Story. It wasn’t until the last 10 minutes or so that this episode really took off.

At a conference held immediately after Luca and company are acquitted, Manny Weisbrod convinces Chicago gangster Dom Tranchita (Joseph Ragno) to agree to invest ten million dollars in Luca’s plan to take over Las Vegas. In return for the money, Manny agrees to allow Dom to continue to deal drugs in Chicago. Luca and Paulie make plans to immediately head to Las Vegas to start their new lives.

The night, before leaving town, Luca drops in on Tranchita and shoots him dead. Then, Luca goes over to Bartoli’s house and kills him as well. We’re reminded that Luca is someone who can kill without hesitation. It doesn’t matter that he and Bartoli worked together. Luca is cleaning up all of the loose ends before he leaves Chicago.

Meanwhile, Torello is invited to a meeting in a hotel. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hallahan (Jann Wenner) tells him that the Justice Department is setting up a national task force to take down Luca and that it’s going to be headquartered in Chicago and Las Vegas. He asks Torello to be in charge of it. Torello says that he has no interest in working with the same Justice Department that tried to throw him in prison. Hallahan reveals that Brietel has been “reassigned to Anchorage” and that David Abrams will be working with Torello. The members of the Major Crimes Unit will be reassigned to the strike force.

There’s only one condition. As much as Torello wants to take Luca down, he’s going to have to wait until he has enough evidence to take down the entire organization with him.

Torello nods. He’s going to Vegas!

It makes sense really. Torello has nothing left in Chicago. He’s divorced, he has no real friends outside of the other members of the Major Crimes Unit. Torello’s only purpose in life is to stop Ray Luca. What choice does Torello have but to follow him to Vegas? Torello is obsessed and, if he had to stay in Chicago while Luca went to Vegas, he would have been miserable. It’s good for the government and good for the show that Torello agreed to take charge of the task force. But, as the episode ends, it’s hard not to feel that it won’t be good for Torello’s mental health.

This turned out to be a great episode, To be honest, I was starting to get a little bit bored with Crime Story. But now, with the story heading in a new direction, I can’t wait to see what happens!

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.12 “Hide and Go Thief”

Posted on July 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Torello finally tracks down Homan.

Episode 1.12 “Hide and Go Thief”

(Dir by Francis Delia, originally aired on December 12th, 1986)

In Chicago, an unnamed gunman (Paul Guilfoyle) has taken a woman (Lorraine Bracco) hostage and has barricaded himself in a hotel room. He wants to get on television and he figures that holding a hostage and firing a machine gun out the window is the best way to do it. The members of the Major Crimes Unit are in the street, ducking behind squad cars whenever the gunman starts firing on them.

It’s definitely a major situation but Torello is more interested in going to Gary, Indiana than exchanging gunfire in Chicago. Frank Homan (Ted Levine), a former member of Luca’s crew, has been discovered working as a cook in a Gary diner. Everyone in Gary knows Frank as “Mike Torello.” The real Torello is determined to arrest Frank and hopefully use him to take down Luca. Torello abandons the hostage situation, drives down to Gary, and captures Homan at work.

Finally, some good news for the real Mike Torello, right? Well, not quite. After Homan is arrested, U.S. Attorney Harry Brietel (Ray Sharkey) takes custody of him. Brietel has political ambitions and taking down gangster Manny Weisbord would be a good way for him to make a name for himself. When Homan is interrogated by Brietel, Homan lies. He says that he’s never heard of Manny Weisbord. But, Homan says, he has information that will take down Luca, Phil Bartoli, and a crooked cop. In exchange for a light sentence and entry into the witness protection program, Homan is willing to testify that Mike Torello is on the take. Brietel is intrigued. Fighting police corruption is guaranteed to generate even better press than taking down an actual mobster.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Torello rejoins the MCU at the hostage situation. (Apparently, the gunman has been awake and firing out of his hotel window for two and a half days straight. One gets the feeling that perhaps it’s wise not to give too much thought to the logistics of this episode’s timeline.) In a well-shot, slow-motion scene, Torello and his men storm the hotel room and shoot the gunman dead. The hostage survives.

Significantly, neither the gunman nor the hostage are given names in this episode. Indeed, Paul Guilfoyle is credited as playing “Deranged Gunman.” That’s because the gunman and the hostage are really only there to show just how obsessed Torello has become with Luca. When it comes to destroying Luca and his fledgling criminal empire, all else can wait, even saving an innocent woman from an armed lunatic.

I usually don’t enjoy watching anything that involves a hostage situation because it always seems to lead to the same predictable narrative beats. Fortunately, this episode avoided most of the usual cliches by making the gunman a total nutcase who never stopped firing his weapon. The scene where Torello and his men storm the hotel room was stylish enough to verge on being surreal. As for the Homan plotline, both Ted Levine and Ray Sharkey provided strong performances and I’m looking forward to seeing how Luca and Torello react to being betrayed by the same guy.

All in all, this was a good episode.

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.8 “Old Friends, Dead Ends”

Posted on June 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Torello discovers some disturbing facts about an old friend.

Episode 1.8 “Old Friends, Dead Ends”

(Dir by Bobby Roth, originally aired on November 4h, 1986)

Luca has bought a controlling interest in a bottling company so that he can borrow from the pension fund and use that money to purchase casinos in Las Vegas. He’s brought a reluctant Bartoli in as his partner. The owner of the company is Ted Kehoe (Mark Hutter), who just happens to be an old friend of Mike Torello’s. When Kehoe’s business partner, Marilyn Stewart (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), becomes suspicious of Kehoe’s arrangement with Luca, Bartoli starts to wonder if it’s really worth it to keep Marilyn and Ted around.

This is especially the case after Bartoli’s attorney, Dee (a youngish Eric Bogosian), informs Bartoli that U.S. Attorney Harry Brietel (Ray Sharkey) is planning on indicting both him and Luca for money laundering. Looking to end Brietel’s case before it can even get started, Luca murders Marilyn Stewart. Marilyn’s body is later found by two teenagers and–

HEY, IT’S CHRISTIAN SLATER!

This episode does indeed feature an early performance from Christian Slater. He pays a teenager who is trying to convince his girlfriend to “do it” when they happen to spot Marilyn’s body floating in the river. Slater’s girlfriend is played by Kim Walker, who was later co-star with Slater in Heathers.

Torello is not happy. Well, that’s not a surprise. Torello is never happy. But this episode gives him even more reasons than usual to be in a foul mood. Because of his childhood friendship with Ted Kehoe, Brietel suspects that Torello might be corrupt. After Marilyn is murdered, Brietel seems more interested in trying to pin the murder on Torello than going after Luca.

As for Ted Kehoe, he tells Luca that he’s done working for him. Kehoe is going to tell the cops everything! And what is Luca going to do about it? This episode ends with Kehoe getting thrown out the window of his penthouse and falling several stories down to his death….

Piece of advice: If you’re going to turn on the mob, don’t tell them ahead of time.

This was a good episode! Torello’s friendship with Kehoe brought some real stakes the story and, once again, we got to see just how ruthless an adversary Ray Luca truly is. Luca, Bartoli, and the other mobsters can occasionally seem a bit buffoonish. This episode reminded us that, in Luca’s case, it’s always a mistake to underestimate him.

As for now, Kehoe is dead and Torello is under suspicion. I look forward to seeing what happens next week!

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.7 “Pursuit of a Wanted Felon”

Posted on June 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Torello marriage falls apart.

Episode 1.7 “Pursuit of a Wanted Felon”

(Dir by Aaron Lipstadt, originally aired on October 28th, 1986)

Last week, a recently acquitted man named Hector (Ving Rhames) was arrested after murdering his landlord. Torello, Danny, and David Abrams were all upset.

This week, they’ve all moved on. Sorry, Ving Rhames, you were only a one-episode guest star.

David is pursuing his relationship with Suzanne Terry (Pam Grier). At a cocktail party, Detective Walter Clemmons (Paul Butler), the black member of the Crime Squad, approaches Suzanne and warns her that she shouldn’t be pursuing a relationship with “that white boy.” Seriously, this is the first time that Walter’s gotten any real dialogue since the show began and it’s basically to tell Suzanne not to pursue an interracial relationship. “We’re only seven years out from integration,” Clemmons says, an awkward piece of dialogue that is meant to remind viewers that this show takes place in 1963. The show actually deserves some credit for being realistic about how many people would have viewed David and Suzanne’s budding romance in 1963. I just find it interesting that the show’s only regular black character is the one who is shown objecting while all of the white Chicago cops don’t have a problem with it. Who knew the Chicago police force was so progressive in the early 60s?

(I really want to like Stephen Lang’s performance as David but something feels off about it. It’s not a bad performance. I stand by my earlier praise. It’s just that David is such a caricature of an early 60s liberal that it is sometimes hard for me to tell if his character is supposed to be satirical or not. In episodes like this, where David is portrayed as being a cool hipster, Lang can seem a bit stiff and miscast. He’s much better when he’s giving an emotional speech in court.)

Luca continues to prove himself indispensable to Manny Weisbrod. In this episode, he blows up a union leader who doesn’t want to take orders from the mob.

Finally, Mike and Julia Torello split up in this episode. It’s not really a shock. Mike Torello is extremely intense and obsessed with his job. He’s tightly wound, to the point where he seems like he might just randomly shoot someone at any given moment. An attempt to take a relaxing vacation with Julie is a disaster. (The motel is tacky. The service is mediocre. Mike spends the entire time threatening the staff and complaining.) As soon as Torello returns to Chicago, he hops on a plane for Cleveland in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Frank Holman. When Torello returns home, he finds that Julie is preparing to go out with another man.

“You are not going to watch my TV,” Torello says, before grabbing the TV and leaving the apartment with it.

Does that scene sounds familiar? That’s probably because Michael Mann later reused the scene, almost word-for-word, in Heat. It’s a good scene. It’s certainly the most memorable moment in this episode.

Otherwise, this episode felt a bit bland. Torello’s doomed marriage isn’t really that interesting and I actually kind of got annoyed with David and Suzanne going to a cocktail party when they really should have been trying to get Hector out of prison. I laughed at Torello’s irritation at the hotel and his line about the TV. Those were the highlights. The rest of this installment was forgettable.

Retro Television Review: Crime Story 1.4 “St. Louis Book of Blues”

Posted on May 18, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, everyone’s going to Missouri. Can you blame them?

Episode 1,4 “St. Louis Book of Blues”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on September 30th, 1986)

After Ray Luca discovers that his henchman, Frank Holman (Ted Levine), has been compromised by Torello, he decides to deal with the situation by sending Holman down to St. Louis. A gangster named Ganz (Raymond Serra) has a home in St. Louis and, according to Ganz’s associate Johnny Fosse (Michael Madsen, doing his slow-talking, cigarette-smoking Madsen thing), there is a book in Ganz’s shelf that contains the name of every bookie, coach, and sports-fixer in America. Ray, who is hoping to start up his own nationwide gambling syndicate, wants that book.

Far be it for me to question Ray Luca’s strategy but it does seem strange that his response to one of his people screwing up is to give that person an even more important job to do. I get that Ray is trying to be a manager now and, as a result, he no longer personally robs anyone but Frank really does seem like the last person he should trust to pull this off.

And, to no one’s surprise, Frank doesn’t pull it off. Torello and his men follow him all the way to St. Louis. They not only arrest him but they also get their hands on Ganz’s book. They do this despite the operation nearly being ruined by an ambitious and publicity-hungry sheriff named Hartman (Allen Swfit).

Unfortunately, when Frank offers to inform on the entire “St. Louis mob,” Hartman releases him from jail. Frank promptly flees town. When he calls Ray, Ray orders him to stay out of Chicago and instead to go to Cleveland. Frank replies that if he has to choose between Hell or Cleveland …. he’ll go to Cleveland. Good thinking, Frank!

(Actually, I’ve never been to Cleveland so I don’t know if it’s really good thinking. Wasn’t Dennis Kucinich from Cleveland?)

As this episode ends, Ganz is ready to declare war on Luca and it appears that Max Goldman might be the first victim. The funny thing about Max is that he’s played by a young Andrew Dice Clay and, in every scene in which he appears, Clay’s facial expressions are totally and completely over-the-top, as if Clay was determined to make sure that no one forgot he was in the scene. I hope that Max survives, just for the sake of entertainment,

This episode returned to the idea of Torelllo being dangerously and tightly wound. Before he followed Frank to St. Louis, he nearly firebombed a furniture store because the owner hadn’t delivered the table that he had ordered. Torello was talked out of doing so by his fellow cops but the store owner still got the message. The table arrived at Torello’s apartment. Of course, it was the wrong table. That made me laugh. People have no idea how close Torello is to snapping and killing everyone around him.

This was a good episode. It was interesting to see a young Ted Levine, not to mention a young Michael Madsen as well. The corrupt and incompetent sheriff was identified as being a Democrat. I appreciated that. I’m looking forward to seeing where this show is going.