Xavier Barquet | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

The 100th episode of Miami Vice finds Crockett and Tubbs pursuing separate stories.

Episode 5.10 “To Have And To Hold”

(Dir by Eugene Corr, originally aired on February 10th, 1989)

When Sonny learns that his now-teenage son (Clayton Barclay Jones) is acting out at school, he hops on a plane and flies to wherever it is that his ex-wife (Belinda Montgomery) and her new husband (Parris Buckner) are supposed to be living now. Sonny discovers that his ex-wife is pregnant and that his son is having a hard time adjusting to the idea of being an older brother. He also doesn’t get along with his stepfather. Sonny and his son watch the original, Boris Karloff-starring Frankenstein in a movie theater and have a discussion about family.

(Sonny’s son says that he relates to the Monster because the Monster doesn’t mean to kill people but he does. Today, that would probably lead to the kid getting suspended from school and sent to a boot camp. In 1989, though, that just meant the kid was feeling misunderstood.)

With Crockett gone, it falls to Tubbs — using his “Cooper” persona and his fake Jamaican accent — to investigate who is responsible for killing a just-married drug kingpin. Tubbs meets the kingpin’s ruthless son (Miguel Ferrer, looking intense) and he also falls in love with the kingpin’s widow (Elpidia Carrillo). Tubbs is in love and thinking of leaving Vice? Needless to say, the widow is dead by the end of the episode.

This episode concludes with Tubbs and Crockett fishing on Crockett’s boat. They’re both feeling disillusioned. Crockett is still in love with his ex-wife. Tubbs is realizing that he’ll probably never find happiness as long as he’s working undercover in Miami. It’s a bit of a bittersweet ending. Neither Crockett nor Tubbs seems to be particularly happy. Miami Vice was always at its best when it ended on a down note.

This episode managed to give Crockett and Tubbs an equal amount of screentime and both Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas gave good performances. Unfortunately, the divided format of the episode meant that both stories ended up feeling a bit rushed and incomplete. The ending was effective and Miguel Ferrer gave a typically strong performance but otherwise, this was a pretty uneven episode.

This week, another friend of Crockett’s is in trouble!

Episode 3.3 “Killshot”

(Dir by Leon Ichaso, originally aired on October 10th, 1986)

Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover as Burnett and Cooper to take down drug lord Morales (Roger Pretto). Morales is one of the most powerful drug lords in Miami but he’s still not connected enough to know that Burnett and Cooper are undercover cops. I know that I bring this up nearly every time I write about this show but it just baffles me that Crockett and Tubbs are somehow still able to maintain their covers despite the fact that those covers have gotten blown in numerous episodes and Crockett makes no effort to act any differently when he’s pretending to be Burnett. At least Tubbs uses his fake Jamaican accent whenever he’s pretending to be Cooper. Crockett doesn’t even bother to change his suit before pretending to be Burnett.

That said, they’ve somehow managed to keep Morales from discovering that they’re cops. So, Morales instead focuses on manipulating a customs agent, Frank Ariolla (Carlos Cestero). Frank’s brother, Tico (Fernando Allende) is an up-and-coming jai alai player. (That’s the sport, prominently featured in Miami Vice‘s opening credits, in which the players use a wicker to both catch and launch a ball.) However, Tico also has a raging cocaine problem. In fact, the drug often leaves him impotent. When a prostitute suggests that Tico might not be attracted tp women, Tico goes crazy and blacks out. When he wakes up, the prostitute appears to be dead and madam Isabel Batista (Maria Duval) says she’ll protect Tico for a price. Frank has to work as a double agent or Isabel and Morales will send a tape of Tico attacking the prostitute to the police.

(For the record, the prostitute was only pretending to be dead as a part of a plot to frame Tico. But then Isabel had her killed for real.)

Trying to protect his brother, Frank agrees to work for Morales. But when a guilt-stricken Tico makes a mistake during a match that leads to him getting killed when he’s stuck in the head by the ja alai ball, will Crockett and Tubbs be able to stop Frank from taking his own violent vengeance on both Morales and Isabel? As you probably already guessed, this is yet another Miami Vice episode the ends with a freeze frame and an off-screen gunshot as Crockett yells, “No!”

If there’s one thing that has stayed consistent over the first three seasons of Miami Vice, it’s that it does not pay to be a friend of Sonny’s. From Jimmy Smits getting blown up in the pilot to Ira Stone dying last week to Frank throwing his life away to avenge his brother in this week’s episode, anyone who has ever been close to Crockett seems to end up having terrible luck. I’m stunned that Tubbs has managed to survive for as long as he has.

As for this episode, Crockett and Tubbs both seemed to be sidelined in favor of the story of Frank and Tico. It’s always weird when Crockett and Tubbs become supporting characters on their own show. Carlos Cestero and Maria Duval both gave good performances, which is good because it helps to distract from the fact that Morales is a fairly dull villain and Tico is not a particularly compelling character. For the most part, this episode works best as a commercial for ja alai, which looks a hundred times more exciting than most sports. Certainly, its fast action and the constant danger of sudden death makes it the ideal sport for Miami.