about twenty seconds worth of civility left in me

I'm of the opinion that the first 11 episodes of Season 2 of Miami Vice are some of the best television ever made... and then episodes 12-18 are largely good TV that simply doesn't hold up to the very high bar the first half of the season leveled. The middle-to-end of S2 "vibes episodes," bookended by two "Sonny makes the moves on a clearly criminal blonde lady with a French accent" episodes seem to almost have bought into Vice's own pop culture hype and forgotten that tight writing and thematic wholeness were a major part of why the entire package was so well received. They're not bad episodes, but their quality is a bit more variable than that of 1-11.

I think generally, they pull things back together a bit with the last few episodes of S2, starting with this one. The Fix is a great episode, as is Payback that follows it (my recollection on Free Verse and Trust Fund Pirates is a bit hazier, and I do have a bone to pick with Sons and Lovers), but the general trend is a positive one.

The Fix opens with Sonny and Rico staking out a... zoo. Apparently a drug deal is going to go down here, and so our intrepid boys lurk in the aviary waiting to bust them. Sonny complains about the birds being loud, but says that he at least appreciates them being in a "natural habitat." Rico's face pauses its current expression, stutters very slightly behind Sonny's back, and then shifts slowly into a wider and wider smile as he says, "Yeah. Kinda like uh, an alligator on a sailboat."

Look at that dopey-ass smile. He is completely smitten and he thinks he's the funniest man on the planet.

The dealer, Ortega, shows up and Stan and Larry spot him first. Stan doesn't like that another small time criminal named Berlioz is there, and he's right-- as the deal goes down, it turns into a shootout. Sonny tries to stop Berlioz, and the other cops chase down the shooter, who tries to hide in the bird enclosure. Rico shoots him and money flies everywhere; Stan opens the door to a car outside of the zoo and a lady is sitting inside. A very badly dubbed, "Ortega... you're a woman!" plays over the scene, because there would be absolutely no way to understand what was going on in this incredibly disjointed scene otherwise. I guess the implication is that the real Ortega sent her lackey into the zoo, but none of that is made clear. I'm curious whether some elucidating part of the scene was truncated or cut in order to fit runtime, or if the writers just assumed the sequence would make sense on screen and then it didn't (and thus they added the overdub.)

After the opening credits, a young Harvey Fierstein (who, it should be noted, was already well known to be openly gay before this episode aired, carrying on the Vice tradition of hiring queer actors and other artists as guest stars) slinks around a a race track after a toweringly tall older Black man (played by retired basketball great Bill Russell, credit here as William F. Russell).

Fierstein (a lawyer named Benedict) tells him that Ortega is likely to get out of prison wink wink because of all her connections wink wink, but for the time being, the older Black man doesn't seem all that interested in anything but The Ponies.

We then get solidly two full minutes of JOCKEYS and RACING and GAMBLING with special guest Bill Russell, but in contrast to say, the two minutes of POLO in Little Prince, it feels fairly zippy and engaging. Partially this is the fun of seeing the old race tracks and wild outfits, and partially it's the use of Gambler by Madonna as the backing track. It's fun and bright and snappy, despite being fairly long.

Beloved Celtic (Massachusetts mentioned!! 🎉) Russell loses a whole bunch of money on both horses and dogs, and then we cut to a courtroom that looks distinctly like a place in which we would see Kirk and Spock arguing with a mystical space god about the nature of humanity.

Tell me this isn't a Star Trek set, seriously

Sonny testifies, and it is revealed that the judge, Roger Ferguson, is none other than rambling gambling man Bill Russell.

The bond is request to be set at $2 million, but the lawyer for Ortega turns out to be one Mr. Benedict, and he argues, Chicago-style, that Ortega is pregnant (and her boyfriend has a back injury??), and her bail gets set at $7k.

A baffled Sonny looks into all of this back at the precinct station, staring into a computer screen. Trudy comes by with a huge stack of papers and says she spent hours copying everything at the County Clerk's office; Sonny, without looking at her, says "it's all here in the computer." Trudy is rightly pissed off about this and leaves after says, very sarcastically, "at least you're grateful."

A reminder: Sonny can be a huge fucking dick sometimes, especially to women

He and Rico compare a bunch of cases and come to the realization that Ferguson has done this a lot recently-- to the point that a contact in Homicide let Rico know he's known as "let 'em run Ferguson."

I'm dying at the transition here during this conversation

Rico just warps like 10 inches closer to Sonny like he's trying to breathe the air directly out of his mouth

What is personal space? No one knows

It's also notable that this is happening while Sonny points out how this is super fucked up about Ferguson because he is immensely beloved (like, could run for mayor beloved) and yet came from "nothing." The words that come out of his mouth are that Ferguson, and I quote, "lived in a combat zone and got a b-ball scholarship;" somehow Rico ignores this bit of borderline racial insensitivity and utter tragic unhipness and continues to stare at Sonny like he's made of diamonds.

They talk to Castillo, letting him know they think they've got a corrupt judge; Castillo agrees to look into it, but he adjusts his tie and looks exceptionally uncomfortable. Castillo is an extremely moral man, but he is usually unsurprised by corruption within the system; judicial corruption-- and what they'll have to do to confront it-- appears to be the line, for him.

Berlioz is willing to make a deal, and he actually specifically says he is taking the police at their word in this one particularly circumstance because his lawyer might be involved with the corrupt judge, and he knows if he involves him in any way it's going to tip him off. This may in fact be the only good reason to waive your right to a lawyer I've ever heard of?

And then we get a really interesting little conversation between Sonny and Rico.

Sonny says of Ferguson going bad that it erodes "what little faith you have left in the system," which is a both an understandable response and also, uh, oh, uh oh, Sonny, oh no, you still have three more seasons of this, bud, yikes.

Rico, who you may recall was, moments ago, staring at Sonny's lips from 4 inches away, responds to this with, "Hey, come on, man, me and you, we're still cool, right?" He then immediately invites Sonny out for drinks to fix the problem.

...

Sonny very much did not say anything about Rico, here. He just said that his faith in the system has been shaken. But Rico takes it personally. It seems like Rico is worried they're on the rocks: he knows that Sonny's ability to be with him (whether you mean that as a partner or a partner) is tied to his ability to remain faithful to their profession. He's worried that Sonny will leave him (as he eventually does, both in terms of pursuing a series of Marriage-Serious relationships with women in S3 & 4, and then leaving the profession-- Rico's worry is not misplaced). This conversation, coming off a long string of episodes across early-to-mid Season 2 where they're super in sync, followed by a bunch where Sonny seems increasingly disillusioned, and then French Twist where he appears to be purposefully performing self harm by sleeping with Danielle, feels really pointed. Rico knows Sonny is heading for collapse, because he's seen the way he's been behaving over the last few weeks. So he tries to be unfailingly chipper about it, and essentially invites him on a date.

I don't think Sonny gets any of this subtext; his mind is completely on work, not their partnership. However, even with his thoughts elsewhere, he gives Rico a little affirmative nod when he's asked if they're "cool."

Rico watches him very carefully and closely as they leave.

Hey.

Uh.

Um.

The losing team is fed to the Sun, aren't they

But more seriously, Rico is so out of place at this basketball game, especially in a fucking suit. Sonny says something about college sports never getting out of your system, and Rico is kind of like : ) well. There's cheerleaders. : )

This is not carefully put together, retro-chic, future law school student Rico's scene. The only time we really ever hear him talk about sports is when he reveals he used to watch Sonny's games on TV, and he generally doesn't seem to be all that interested in so-called "working class" entertainments or fashions. We know very little of Rico's actual background; we know he lived in the Bronx, and we know he and his brother both became cops, but that's about it. While neither of those things mean definitively that he's from a less affluent background, they do support the idea. On the other hand, a lot of his behavior (his sartorial choices, his tendency towards light or non-alcoholic drinking, his vegetarianism, his interest in classic cars, etc.) feels almost upwardly reaching, like he's trying to build a identity for himself that is "worth" more than that of a New York beat cop. Rico exists in a sort of class limbo, and it's exposed here, in this temple to Good Old Fashioned American Sports. Sonny belongs here. Rico does not.

The framing of the pair of them sitting together in the stands is fantastic-- they are filmed from behind another row of spectators:

...and everyone but the pair of them is screaming or cheering or jumping around as Sonny and Rico talk together in a quiet little personal bubble.

The majority of people in the stands are in yellow, royal blue, and white; Sonny manages to blend in with his white sports jacket, but Rico is distinctly out of place in his slate-blue/grey suit with his carnation pink tie-- you can see in his expression that he's not exceptionally comfortable here.

When they first sit down, we get a tiny, besotted, sweet, sly little smile from Rico at Sonny, just for a few frames, almost entirely obscured behind the cheering girls, which is a jewel of a moment and a metaphor so on the nose I am sure it was an accident.

Then, Rico spends the rest of the scene looking around and taking the crowd in, and then looking back to Sonny as if for confirmation, like he's really not sure of what to do in this situation.

When they start talking, he has to make it about Sonny, because that's his way in to the world of sports-- he doesn't seem to care much about the game, but we know he followed Sonny's career to some extent back in the day. He asks Sonny, "You ever get a standing ovation?"; his tone is more gentle than ribbing. Sonny initially looks surprised and almost irritated at this question, turns away, and then you see the light bulb turn on, and he pivots away from having to discuss his actual personal experience as an athlete (a dream we know was shattered many times over). He pulls his "I'm a naughty boy" face-- the one where we see his teeth briefly, his cheeks dimple, and his eyes glitter-- and he says, "Not since I got rid of my water bed."

FLIRTS.

You two are in PUBLIC you shameless FLIRTS.

Also while I'm sure the written intention here is "he did such a good job at sex with a water bed that women got up and clapped about it," but like, "a standing ovation" is relatively common slang for an erection, so it's hard not to read this as Sonny blatantly bringing up the idea of getting it on with a dude.

FLIIIIIIRTS.

We get another relatively long montage sequence, this one of basketball, but as with the gambling, it's well done-- the cuts to the crowd, the continued reaffirmation of everyone matching but Rico, the increasingly tense music, and then Ferguson disappearing in the crowd-- I like it! It's a good bit of direction and cinematography.

The song that plays over the montage is p:Machinery by Propaganda, which seems to be about conformity and faceless industrialization, but the chorus, with its repeated refrain of "Another hope feeds another dream" and "A secret wish, the marrying of lies," tracks beautifully with Ferguson ruining his son's basketball career in service of his own goals, and the secret double life he's been leading up until this point.

I completely forgot that Michael "Kramer" Richards is in this episode as a drug kingpin; he is cheerfully, garrulously threatening, and points out that Ferguson hasn't even begun to pay off the principal of his debt and that he is going to have to have his son throw the playoffs to have any hope of getting enough money to do so.

Also good lord Russell is tall

The squad decides they need to bug Benedict's office. Very briefly and vaguely wrapping up another plot thread, Rico asks about Berlioz's reward, and Castillo says it's taken care of, and we don't really hear any more than that.

Gina and Trudy are on bugging duty; I absolutely adore Trudy's like... Pink Ladies Phone Repair outfit, and Gina just standing super awkwardly like : ) I am a security guard : ) I am guarding : ) You can tell I am guarding because I have my thumbs tucked into my belt : )

Benedict comes back early but the girls manage to get the phone bugged. Berlioz comes in to "hire" Benedict and is very squirrelly and moist about it, which makes Stan very nervous. Benedict seems a little gun shy, but eventually appears to buy it.

Also what is going on with Benedict's little statue guy

"Help, I have no arms and someone has attempted (very poorly) to make me into a bunch of microscope slides, also they scribbled all over me like a Doodle Bear"

Ferguson pulls up to the school in a car that makes him look like he has the approximate proportions of Slenderman:

(seriously, why would you make a basketball player get in this car) and makes a long, unhappy walk to the gym. His son tells him he'll be right back, leaving dad alone on the parquet; there is a long, solemn pan around him as he takes and makes a shot that we don't get to see, but do hear.

He clearly resolves to tell Matt (his son) what's going on, but doesn't really want to out by the car; Matt says he's an adult and can take it. Ferguson explains, and Matt (rightly) is pissed off and says something like that is likely to pretty significantly fuck up his life. He walks away and leaves his father alone.

We next see Ferguson alone, crying by the edge of the ocean in his car-- it's not stated directly, but given the eventual trajectory of the episode, I think the implication here is supposed to be that he considered killing himself but couldn't go through with it.

Matt is clearly shaken at practice the next day, and Sonny tries to talk to him-- he tells Matt they have something in common, and Matt's face reads "who is this old white asshole and why is he talking to me"

I think Stan and Larry are reading Teen Titans

Benedict goes to see Ferguson and offers him a new "throw the case for a kickback" deal for Berlioz, which Ferguson is insistent he won't take. He reminds Ferguson how much he's got to lose and Ferguson forcibly ejects Benedict from his office. As Benedict leaves, Matt comes in and asks if "that's the guy;" he then tells his father while he can't purposefully play badly, he would be willing to sit the game out. This will still likely screw his future career up, but not to the extent that throwing the game would, and he tells Ferguson that he wouldn't even have a future career to lose if not for his father's love and support, so he's willing to lose it if he has to to help him.

Sonny and Rico sit back to back listening to the tapes of Benedict's office, and Sonny says knowing the answers doesn't make any of this easier. Rico points out that in their line of work, "you're lucky if they don't make it harder," which is a great way of underlining the fact that a huge number of the people they arrest are only doing Vice Crimes because of whatever circumstantial corner they were backed into.

Also:

Once again, what is personal space

Kramer Pagone doesn't think this is good enough, and Ferguson points out that he can't MAKE his son do anything; Pagone is like, well. I don't care. Make him.

Sonny goes to talk to Ferguson directly, and Ferguson says he doesn't have much to tell him. He explains, wearily, that growing up in a rough neighborhood like he grew up in makes it easy to be bad, and Sonny rebuts this, telling him that making a mistake doesn't make you a bad person. He tells him he can still turn the situation around, and then tries to find some common ground with Ferguson.

Explaining that he also has a son (Billy mentioned! 🎉) and that he used to be a decent ball player himself, Sonny tells Ferguson that he thinks "most people deserve" the trouble they're in (which I don't actually buy; I think Sonny has to pretend to believe that not to lose his mind). He then assures him that that isn't the case for him, and that some people, like Ferguson, are able to reverse course and get back on their feet. He offers him a deal to give up Pagone, but Ferguson declines, stating that "making deals" is what got him into this in the first place (which is not true at all; gambling and borrowing money from criminals is) and that he has to fix this on his own.

Right before the game, Ferguson calls Matt and tells him to "go out there and play the best game of his life"; Stan and Larry, who are monitoring the calls, hear this and look at each other with great distress, knowing that the implication here cannot be good.

Sonny, with Rico lurking behind him in the dark at the station, tells someone on the phone that he could get Ferguson to roll over on Pagone (which is... also not true, but I appreciate Sonny shooting his shot), and that helping would be a personal favor to him.

The prosecutor doesn't bite; Sonny says he took a shot, and Rico gently jokes that he's surprised the prosecutor didn't simply hang up on him. Sonny, calling back to Rico's offer of pina coladas, says he'll take him up on his offer for a drink, and Rico smiles like a man who knows he's going to get laid, but then the phone rings again.

Larry tells Sonny what they heard, and Sonny is just as concerned as they were. He decides he needs to follow Ferguson to the marina, and tells Rico he has to go to the ballgame and stay with Matt.

Ferguson, meanwhile, climbs up Pagone's boat and threatens his guard with a gun; the guard jumps off the boat into the water. There's a gorgeously stylish sequence of Rico walking cut with Sonny piloting his boat, and then Ferguson shoots Pagone in his bed just as Sonny comes up the ladder.

There's a tense, sad, heavy standoff between Sonny and Ferguson where Sonny, despite, as cop and a war veteran, almost certainly having the upper hand, looks like a cornered animal. Eyes wide, shoulders raised up by his ears, muscles stiff and locked, he pleads with Ferguson not to do this, with "this" presumably at this point being "do murder" and "completely ruin his life." He then watches with increasing desperation and panic, his face growing helpless and almost childlike, as Ferguson stops threatening him and instead brings the gun up to his own head. Sonny's voice gets higher and more strained and he begs, "please, please don't," and then when the shot goes off he flinches so hard he practically jumps off the deck of the boat.

And that is where the episode ends.

I guess we should be happy that gambling debts aren't heritable, because wow, absolutely nothing else is solved, fixed, or in any way improved over the course of the story, everyone just gets fucked except maybe Benedict and Ortega

The justice system is fine though

Sonny "having been a soldier means I'm only good for killing and it's probably for the best that I'm not involved in my son's life most of the time any longer because my life can only hurt him" Crockett's faith in the system is surely doing okay now that he has witnessed a man blowing his brains out at point blank range because it was the only way he could think of to protect his son

Surely this will not have knock on effects on anyone's mental health