It’s Friday! So, you know what that means. Time for some Miami Vice! This week’s episode features a guest star, who everybody knows – Bruce Willis! It looks like this is the first time we had seen Bruce Willis in anything. He had some uncredited parts in a few movies. But, I believe this was his first speaking role. It was a year before Moonlighting came on the air. Let’s get into the episode.

Summary

This episode was directed by David Soul. Paul Michael Glaser had directed part 2 of Calderone’s Return”. Now, both members of Starsky and Hutch have directed a Miami Vice episode This episode was written by Charles R. Leinenweber and Maurice Hurley. This originally aired on November 9, 1984.

I’m getting used to this now. The episode begins with a stakeout. This time, the whole gang is there. Crockett, Tubbs, Switek, Zito, Gina, and Castillo. Well, it’s more of an operation than a stakeout. Crockett is in his car, pretending to be buying grenades from a couple of bad guys. He opens a briefcase, and when they let their guard down, Crockett grabs one of the guys by the arm and speeds off, while the other cops arrive and go after the other guy. That guy has a machine gun, and shoots his way out, narrowly missing Tubbs (who saved a woman from being shot as well). Machine gun guy got away, but they have the guy that Crockett grabbed. Tubbs is not too happy about being shot at by a machine gun. He is beyond angry, and grabs Crockett’s guy in a headlock. He looked and sounded just like an angry Richard Pryor. It made me laugh. Opening theme!

During the interrogation, the guy says that machine gun guy works for somebody called Tony Amato. So, they bug Amato’s house, and do some surveillance from Crockett’s boat. Then they get company in the form of the FBI. One of the agents starts snooping around the boat. Crockett says, “I wouldn’t do that.” The agent didn’t care, until he came across my buddy Elvis. I love how Tubbs cracks up laughing whenever somebody runs into Elvis. The FBI is also after Amato. Apparently, Amato just stole surface-to-air missles, and plans to sell them. So Crockett and Tubbs work with the FBI.

That night, they are keeping an eye on Almato’s house. We see Tony Almato (young Bruce Willis) verbally abusing his wife, then pushed her in a pool.
Tony leaves for a meeting, and while he’s out, his wife, Rita (Katherine Borowitz) makes a call to make a hit on Tony.
The FBI finds out that Tony has a meeting planned with a buyer. Coincidentally, the buyer looks a lot like Tubbs. So, Zito and Switek grab the buyer at the airport, and Tubbs replaces him.

In the meantime, Crockett hears Rita schedule a meeting with a hitman. So, he goes to where the meeting is to take place. He sees the hitman, and tells him to ‘beat it’, before Rita can see him. Then Crockett pretends to be the hitman for a little bit. Rita is second guessing herself, and Crockett tells her that he’s a cop, and they need her help to put Tony away.

Tubbs meets with Tony and a couple of his men, to get a demonstration of the missiles, then negotiate a price. Next, Crockett is watching the house again, where Tony smacked the shit out of Rita. He would have never done that to Maddie! This was all being done to the tune of “Stay With Me” by Teddy Pendergrass. The smooth, romantic sounds seemed kind of out of place in this scene.

Time for the final shootout! Tubbs meets Tony and his men to make the transaction. Meanwhile, Crockett was sneaking around getting into position, when the FBI arrives and goes on the loudspeaker telling the gang to surrender. That initiated the shootout. Tubbs was inside with Tony and one thug. He knocked the thug out and told Tony to freeze, while holding two guns to him. The shootout was pretty quick, but good. Then Crockett called Rita to say that they got Tony. She asked if he was dead. He wasn’t. But, while they were bringing him into the station, they were stopped by the FBI and some mysterious guy. They said that Tony wasn’t going to be charged, and to release him. As they were uncuffing him, Rita arrived, and saw that they were letting him go. Then we have a Law & Order style ending. You know how it goes. The bad guy gets off on a technicality, then is shot outside by a person they victimized. Well, Miami Vice did it first here. We don’t actually see it though. Crockett sees Rita pull out a gun, then screams “No!”, and starts to jump in her direction. But we get a freeze-frame of Crockett screaming, and we hear the gunshot go off. The End.

Music

There were only two featured songs in this episode. But, man were they good ones!

“Stay With Me” by Teddy Pendergrass

“I Don’t Care Anymore” by Phil Collins

Final Thoughts

This was a pretty fun episode. There wasn’t as much action as I would have liked. But, Bruce Willis was awesome. I could see how this would launch his career. The episode went by pretty fast. The action was good at the beginning and at the end, and there were a few very humorous parts. This was another great episode.

Once again, I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode, or on Miami Vice in general.