Miami Vice-Red Tape- After getting tired of halfway sucking, Miami Vice went back to its roots, caught a second wind and did a handful of episodes that were close to Season 1 good. "Red Tape" was one of those episodes. This episode dealt with a bunch of cops getting blown up because someone dropped dime about their whereabouts. Lou Diamond Phillips, who played Bobby Diaz and Viggo Mortensen had the misfortune of following in the footsteps of Miami Vice's doomed cops division.
They all were on an early morning call (roosters were crowing) and wouldn't you know it. Mortensen's character was claimed early on. This didn't sit well with Tubbs. In fact he spent the whole episode with his ass up on his back, getting smart in the mouth, hollering about going back to New York. Go on then, Dammit! Tubbs as a loose cannon is always fun to watch, Philip Michael Thomas got to scream and exactly had dialogue (Tubbs was inexplicably dummied up a bit on Season 3). To modulate this torrent of emotions Sonny (Sonny?) was the voice of reason. In fact when Sonny mentioned Castillo to Tubbs and Rico offered the hilarious, "Who's Castillo?" Ooh snap!
Rico was in a dive bar wearing a nifty windbreaker when he met up with a fed up cop McIntyre, played by Scott Plank. McIntyre was bad to the bone, an unctuous sort who seemed to just find disgruntled cops and helped them to become squealers. Guess who McIntyre's old lady was? A lovely Annette Bening. Anyoo they both were in on this scam and Tubbs was so good with his shenanigans, young Lou Diamond Philips thought ol' Tubbs was on the take.And get this? He was about to kill Tubbs for revenge. Can you get to that?
How this show proceeded was profoundly good-to-great Miami Vice. Turns out Tubbs was undercover, it was all a ruse and they were going to crack down on McIntyre and his cronies. Well not before the music played. This time it was Alan Parsons Project's "Closer to Heaven." Ooh wee, that's a tearjerker. Sonny had to race to save Tubbs from Lou Diamond Phillips and everyone was ready to kill/arrest all criminals. Tons of great scenes here and the saddest fact was that Diaz thought Tubbs was dirty, heavy sigh. And yep, he got shot/killed too.
Notes: For some unknown reason I watched this to chuckle but the opposite happened. Seeing that last scene made me howl like a banshee. I've been committed ever since I saw the episode again. Hi everyone!
Grade ***1/2
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