|
The
Prodigal Son:
Sonny and
Rico are getting another taste of the third world. DEA operative
Henry Drummond is escorting them to a meeting outside Bogotá when
they’re met by trigger-happy Colombian militias who escort them to
a freshly raided coca farming village. There they witness a
prisoner’s interrogation, Colombian-style, which gives them a
coded clue to the Revillas family’s next shipment. “La Cruz De
Jesus”, what does it mean? But the militias turn violent again.
Just as Drummond hustles Sonny and Rico out of the interrogation
room, they hear a blast of gunfire.
Back in
Miami, Sonny, Rico and Drummond meet with Castillo and the other DEA
men to try and interpret the information. In English, “La Cruz De
Jesus” is “The Cross Of Jesus”. Sonny remembers a bust he had
in the Everglades at a place called “Christ’s Crossing”. Could
they be the same? There’s only one way to know.
Twelve hours
later, the Vice Squad has sat through far too much heat and mosquito
swarming in wait for the Revillas to arrive. Though late, the plane
flies in low and makes its rendezvous with a swampboat. The DEA’s
lights come on but the Revillas refuse to come quietly. A huge
firefight commences and ends with the swampboat exploding. Most of
the Revillas’s men are wiped out, and kilos of cocaine are seized.
The next night, Sonny and Rico arrive late to a party given by the
DEA to celebrate the bust. Sonny isn’t happy, though. In his eyes,
no matter now big the bust, the drugs are still coming in, so how
much difference does it make? Rico simply says his partner is “Singin’
those Vice Cop Blues”. Trudy, Stan and Larry are outside being
hassled by the parking valet over the bug van, but as Sonny and Rico
enter, shots ring out. Bursting in, they find Drummond and two other
agents gunned down, and chasing the shooter through the rooms leads
them to Gina, critically wounded.
While
waiting for Gina to come out of surgery, The rest of the Squad meet
with Drummond’s boss, who identifies the shooter as ‘The
Prodigal Son’ Miguel Revillas, out to exact the family’s
revenge. But the dead agents were deep cover, so someone has the
agency infiltrated. No one in the compromised files can do anything
without risking their covers, so Sonny and Rico are tapped to trail
Miguel and sting him… and he’s headed for New York to enforce
the Revillas monopoly.
The first
person they talk to is Newton Blade, a Miami player who tells
“Burnett and Cooper” to contact Jimmy Borges, a Manhattan dealer
he knows who’s gone semi-straight. The NYPD lieutenant they touch
base with is nowhere near as accomodating. Neither is Jimmy Borges
at first, but Sonny and Rico tell him of the Revillas shipment that
never reached the Dade County evidence locker, and there’s 50 keys
for him if he helps them move it in New York. Jimmy arranges a
meeting at Club Delirious with Frank Socco, Manhattan’s biggest
distributor, and Rico gets a shock. Sacco’s dinner date is none
other than Valerie Gordon, apparently working deep undercover. On
the dance floor, Valerie confides to Rico that she’s been in Vice
ever since she got off probation from the incidents in Miami.
She’s playing companion to Sacco because he works at high levels
in the Dante crime ring, suspected in at least five drug murders.
Sacco turns down Sonny’s offer and Jimmy has left for the night.
While Rico and Valerie leave to catch up, Sonny decides to hit the
town on his own. He inadvertently crosses paths with Margaret, a
hot-and-cold clubhopper with whom he ends up sharing a cab and
spending the night. But when Sonny wakes up, she’s gone, along
with his gun.
Catching up
with Rico, they doggedly try to get Jimmy to help them again, but
he’s terrified of the Revillas muscle. He agrees after being
promised 100 keys and time to disappear before the deal goes down.
But even combing the streets in Jimmy’s Cadillac, no one is
willing to buy the stash. Everyone is as scared of Revillas as
Jimmy, right down to the street-corner dealers. After a full day of
striking out, Jimmy splits. Moments later, the cops pull up and
shake down “Burnett and Cooper”. The jerk of a lieutenant mocks
them for getting nowhere, and forcefully suggests that they quit
wasting NYPD time and go home. When Sonny suggests they should head
back to Miami, the cops leave, and then he informs Rico that he
thinks the situation calls for some new strategy.
[Part 2]
Back at Club
Delirious, another meeting with Jimmy turns into a shootout with two
Revillas gunmen, but they don’t live through it. After Sonny and
Rico up the ante to half, Jimmy gives up that a runner in Jackson
Heights asks no questions, just makes the drop and disappears.
Later that
evening Sonny tracks Margaret into a cocktail party and demands his
gun back. She admits she only wanted something of his to make him
come back. They plan dinner for after the meeting.
Meanwhile,
after not getting any of his calls returned, Rico finds Valerie at
her apartment, where it’s all too obvious her relationship with
Sacco has is no longer strictly business. Rico’s incensed, but
Valerie turns furious when he asks, and throws him out, saying, “If
you still care, you’ll try to understand.”
Sonny
overhears the end of a phone call after a vigorously intimate night
with Margaret, and though she won’t reveal what it was about, she
does confess she want to know Sonny better. He tries to calm her
into believing he’s not as dangerous as she thinks, and her
lifestyle doesn’t make her a thrill-seeker.
In Jackson
Heights, Sonny and Rico follow as the runner emerges from the East
River and moves Revillas’s coke stash to an abandoned warehouse.
As soon as he leaves the scene, they break into the warehouse,
confiscate the stash, and moments after they leave, the warehouse
explodes. Later Sonny and Rico get a call from the Revillas. They
want to meet.
The next
morning Sonny and Rico find themselves hassled by the NYPD again
about the night before, claiming that they’re shutting the
operation down. Sonny and Rico, and their DEA supervisor explode at
Commander Renae, trying to talk sense into him and convince them
that with this meeting, they’re closer to the Revillas, they and
the DEA are closer than the local cops have ever been, to no avail.
The Commander blindly screams that it’s over. The jerk lieutenant
just stands there with a big gloating grin. Sonny and Rico keep
trying to figure out why NYPD would want to throw away such a huge
bust, but the situation gets even worse when they find Jimmy
murdered in his apartment, with four shooters still there and still
firing! Sonny and Rico flee the apartment, splitting up as the
killers spill onto the street. Sonny loses his two in traffic, while
Rico leads two of them down a side street, disappearing behind a
freight truck. As it passes, Rico is revealed holding one dead
gunman and he uses him for a shield while blasting the other. Rico
realizes Sacco is behind the hit and confronts Valerie about him,
only to end up shooting it out with Sacco, killing him. Rico drills
Valerie on why the NYPD hasn’t moved on the Dantes for three years
until he finds Margaret’s business card in Sacco’s wallet.
Valerie picks up Sacco’s gun and orders Rico to leave, maintaining
her cover.
When
confronted, Margaret confesses that she’s paid to obtain
information and get names, but it’s never led to murder before.
She gives them the business card of one mysterious Mr. Johnson, who
tries to explain everything as a business proposition. Without
selling drugs, Latin American countries will never pay back the
millions loaned them by the U.S.. Sonny and Rico storm out of the
office in disgust.
That night,
Sonny and Rico meet the Revillas men, alone. Miguel’s lieutenant
shows them the money, but before Sonny can open the case with the
drugs, Miguel steps forward ready to kill him. Valerie jumps from
the shadows with her gun drawn. But again, the Revillas refuse to
come quietly. As they open fire, the lieutenant flees and Sonny
races after him. Rico and Valerie pick of the shooters one by one
until only Miguel is left, and Rico shoots him dead before he can
fire. Valerie collapses into his arms. Sonny chases the lieutenant
to a waiting helicopter, and Sonny empties his clip into the
fuselage as it lifts off. It doesn’t get far, whatever Sonny hit
brings the chopper down in a fireball.
After
spending the night with Valerie, Rico almost misses the flight back
to Miami, but meets Sonny at the airport. Almost no one notices them
as they enter the squad room, but Castillo has a new assignment for
them—surveillance on Newton Blade. Only Gina seems happy to see
them, saying she’ll be back to work in a few weeks. Sonny and Rico
go back to singing those Vice Cop Blues.
This episode is
probably most musically diverse episode in Vice history. Over the
course of the story, besides Jan Hammer’s score, Billy Ocean, The
Neville Brothers, Glenn Frey, Joe Cocker, U2, Huey Lewis & The
News, and Phil Collins all contributed songs to this two-hour movie. But strangely, Gene Simmons guest starred yet there was no
KISS number? Perhaps there just wasn’t enough room.
Location
Information
New York: The locations you see in "Prodigal Son" were all Manhattan locations. There are four other boroughs in New York: Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and The Bronx (where Tubbs is from), but all the clips were Manhattan locations, mostly from the area called the "Upper West Side". In one scene, you can see a building with a street number "1155". That is a business location where many well-known banks, insurance companies and big name public accounting companies are headquartered. This whole area is known as "Times Square - 42nd Street". You can go to any Broadway show here, and Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall are just a few blocks away.
The scenes shot by the park with Jimmy Borges are a little tough to tell
which park exactly it is. It's not the most famous park in NY which would
be Central Park. The park could also be Washington Square Park, but it's really hard to tell. There were possibly shots of the Guggenheim museum, when Sonny and Rico are being chased and Sonny and Rico run in different directions and Sonny runs onto the block of the Guggenheim.
The scenes where Rico, Sonny and Valerie are sitting in the club "Delirious", unfortunately, that was not a real NYC club name, but the one Rico mentions in that scene, The Limelight, that was a real club. The Limelight was still around until a couple of yrs. ago when the owner was arrested for dealing drugs in his clubs. He owned more than one.
The club where Sonny meets Margaret is Studio 54. That was the place
for celebrities, models, and musicians to party in the late 70's. As a matter of fact, Peter Allen, who also appears in that episode, hung out and performed there. By the early 80's, both of the club's original owners were in jail for income tax evasion, and the club closed for 15 months. It reopened, but never reached the level of popularity it had during the disco era.
Special Thanks to Nancy L. for sending us the NYC information!
|
Many thanks to C.T. Warren, the fellow Vice fan that wrote
this synopsis.
Miami Vice
8x10 Color Glossy Photo
Buy this Color Glossy Photo at art.com
Miami Vice
8x10 B/W Glossy Photo
Buy this B/W Glossy Photo at art.com
Don Johnson
8x10 Color Glossy Photo
Buy this Color Glossy Photo at art.com
Posters
Movie
Posters |