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Payback:
70
miles north of
Miami
, Crockett
enters a visiting room at a
Florida
state
penitentiary at the request of a convict he busted named Moroto. The
only reason he gives is ‘Payback’. He makes small talk for
barely a minute before drawing a homemade firearm on Crockett.
Crockett shouts in denial as Moroto turns the weapon on himself.
Back home, neither Crockett nor Tubbs could figure out why. Moroto
was only put away for eight years, and not even two had passed
before he lost his head. But now they had to meet with Ruben
Rodolfo, frontman for a dealer named Fuente, who is rumored to never
set foot on dry land, just lives out on his boats. Posing as Burnett
and Cooper, the deal goes nowhere when Ruben welches on the most
important of the ‘dealer’s’ terms—meeting Fuentes
face-to-face. No one ever meets with him.
Messages
are being left at the station for Crockett, all the same: Sonny
Crockett, please call. But more importatnly, Castillo has guests in
his office. Kevin Cates and Earl Hodges, DEA. They’re hitting dead
ends in
New Orleans
and their
target is also Fuentes, ‘the Howard Hughes of dealers’. They
think they can help, but their only connection happens to be
Rodolfo. Nevertheless, Castillo approves the DEA’s joining the
case.
Cates
later admits he has worked undercover by the name of Lou Carlan, and
he may be able to get them past Rodolfo. A skeptical Sonny concedes
they haven’t gotten anywhere, then goes home. That night, a
blasting radio announces that someone’s been on Sonny’s boat,
and when he investigates, there’s a message scrawled across the
chart.
“Where’s the
money, Crockett?”
Then
the threatening phone calls begin. To everyone who knows Crockett at
the marina, his last name is Burnett, so who found out his real
name, and what money are they talking about?
After
Crockett spells everything out to Tubbs and denies Elvis his
breakfast, Cates calls and informs them that the meet is on. There
the stakes are raised from 100 to 500 keys a month, and the meeting
with Fuentes will be arranged, but Crockett & Tubbs would love
to know what Cates knows that got them past Rodolfo. More messages
are waiting for Crockett at the office, and now Internal affairs
wants to see him. Not very badly, though. They keep him waiting for
an hour but no one ever comes out.
At
the briefing before the Fuente meet, Cates announces he’s bailing
out of the operation. Crockett & Tubbs are taken to the yacht by
Rodolfo, no wire, no weapons. Fuente begins by telling them that
Moroto was a faithful carrier of his product until he stole $3M from
him and disappeared. Then he finds out Moroto is in prison, called
for the cop who nailed him, Sonny Crockett, and only one left the
room alive. Now Fuente has discovered that Crockett and Burnett are
the same person, and he thinks the cop has his stolen money!
Crockett
& Tubbs grab Fuente as a fight breaks out on deck, and after
shooting a few of his guards, they haul Fuente onto the Scarab and
flee. There’s no convincing Fuente that Crockett doesn’t have
the money, but they can’t take him in, either. So, the next best
thing is to throw Fuente overboard and head back to shore.
Crockett
explodes when he learns that IAD blew their cover because they also
thought Crockett had the money. Hodges reveals that he’s IA, but
Cates really is DEA. Castillo halts Hodges’s insinuations only to
have him turn his pointing finger at the lieutenant. Crockett and
Cates are asked to leave the conference room.
Cates
claims he still knows a way to take Fuentes down, despite his split
lip. Crockett can offer Fuente half the money for a finder’s fee
of 50 keys. Castillo thinks it’s too risky, but how else can
Crockett clear his name? Tubbs looks into Cates’s 18-year record
and finds multiple wounds, commendations and divorces. Hearing that,
Crockett starts to like him, but can’t get past how Moroto played
him. He confronts Castillo to find out what he thought when he let
IA investigate. Castillo admits he knows Crockett’s clean, and
finally approves the sting.
Cates
will be going with Crockett, wearing a wire, but after they leave
for the meet, Tubbs is going through the files when he finds that
Cates was on the yacht the day Moroto disappeared. Then
he volunteered to work with IA to find the money. Cates had the
money all along!
On
the Scarab, Rodolfo asks Crockett to go below. There, Crockett finds
the bag of money, then hears a gunshot on deck. He surfaces to find
Rodolfo dead and leaps on Cates in a struggle for the gun. After
rolling about on deck for a few minutes, the gun fires again.
Crockett stands up and stops the boat. Cates tries to explain
everything, apologizing to Crockett with his final breath. Hopefully
Fuentes will know the truth when he finds the boat, and Crockett’s
name is cleared with the department. There’s no better
“Payback” than that.
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Thanks to the fellow Miami Vice Fan C.T. that wrote
this synopsis
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