Miami Vice: Whatever Works

Picture it, Septober 1985. You've seen the "New York Movie" "Prodigal Son" and it's a little too bloated and overdone. "Whatever Works" brings "Miami Vice" back to a hour-long format and regular episodic programming. And guess what? It's not that great either. Right off, this appeared as an insanely stuffed story with enough plot for two episodes. Really, this could have made up half of Season 5. A bunch of weird voodoo folks called the Santeria were killing up folks. Among the targets were beat cops and drug dealers. Interesting.

That's not to say there wasn't any time for laughs. In fact, there's an annoying subplot about Crockett getting his Ferrari Spyder towed away due to his divorce proceeding. Oh Caroline! There's a geek vs. cool guy fight when a sweaty accountant is Sonny's nemesis in this sickening plot twist. To make matters worse, Sonny had to ride shotgun in Rico's Cadillac. Fun... Enough of that pure B.S. The majority of "Whatever Works" deals with the lowly cops and them vowing revenge (revengey.)

The cops were totally drab, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for these cops there in their cheap clothes, totally not as cool as our Crockett and Tubbs. Thankfully Crockett finally squared off with a bunch of them in some seedy nightclub. He cracked wise to one of them and they all jumped him. Tubbs interrupted his jackhammer robot dancing to help Crockett in this fight. Guess who was playing at this bar? Yep, the Power Station. Sadly, for fans of music, this was the Lowered Expectations edition of the band meaning Robert Palmer had left them to tour behind Windjammer, Aeroplane, Riptide, whatever that crappy album was called. In his place was one Michael Des Barres. You know Don and Des Barres went back to the silent era doing god knows what together. The guys did a version of "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" sounded so awful.

Miss Eartha Kitts

 Back at the police station...Castillo got a lot of work in this episode. Why not? It was weird and spooky, that's totally Marty. Eartha Kitt made an appearance as a character best described as a college lady voodoo woman, burning incense and talking fooshness. Castillo wasn't finished meeting up with weirdos, he had a date with a drug dealer that involved a way too long stare down, face-paint and bongo music. And to make matters worse, Marty showed up to this meeting in "regular clothes." It's enough to traumatize anyone.




This episode winded up just like it was supposed to. The revenge bent cops got dusted off, Eartha Kitt's character disappeared in a puff of smoke and Crockett got his car back. Yippee! There's a pic of Edward James Olmos relaxing off set.

The Good: John Nicolla directed this so it looks good. Sadly the writing wasn't there.

The Bad: A lot. Izzy Moreno made another appearance. For some reason Izzy became a little annoying during this season. I think it was because he was carrying the crazy load because Charles Barnett (Nug Man) was having "some problems."

Grade ***