411 Retro Review: Miami Vice Episode 15-Smuggler’s Blues
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 04.19.2008
Crockett and Tubbs take a flight with Eagle Glenn Frey
“Smuggler’s Blues”
Airdate: 02/01/1985
Cast
Don Johnson: Sonny Crockett
Phillip Michael Thomas: Ricardo Tubbs
Olivia Brown: Trudy Joplin
Saundra Santiago: Gina Navarro Calabrese
Michael Talbott: Dan Switek
John Diehl: Larry Zito
Edward James Olmos: Martin Castillo
Guest Stars: Glenn Frey as Jimmy Cole. This was really the first time the series utilized stunt casting of a pop star, but they would become notorious for it in later seasons.
Crockett, Tubbs, Switek and Zito stakeout some guys talking in Spanish. Zito has grown a full beard. One guy takes a bag from a car and then throws it over a bridge to a waiting boat. Crockett and Tubbs think something is fishy, aside from the fishing pole the guy is using as cover. He leaves and the guys tail him to a yacht. Soon as he gets aboard, it blows up. Crockett gets a glimpse of someone tied up before the fireworks start. Credits.
Back at the precinct, the case is discussed. The guy they were tailing lived, but is paralyzed from the waist down. Castillo hooks Crockett and Tubbs up with DEA agent Ed Waters. He’s been on the case for months and believes that someone on the inside is using information to blackmail and kill this drug dealing family. To smoke the guys out Crockett and Tubbs are going undercover as drug smugglers. The paralyzed man has agreed to identify Tubbs as his cousin and Trudy will pretend to be Tubbs’ wife to serve as bait. The guys have to contract an airplane so they can go to Columbia to score some dope.
Tubbs visits a druggie he met recently who mentioned he knew of a pilot that would do anything. He gets his name and they go off to a local airport. They find Jimmy Cole standing on top of a plane jamming on guitar. They discuss terms of business.
Tubbs drops Trudy off at the safe house to the tune of “Smuggler’s Blues” by guest star Glenn Frey. The plane gets tuned up. Jimmy says it looks like a cow, but runs like a stallion. I know some girls that way. They take off. Tubbs thinks it’s all funny, but Sonny is nervous.
They arrive in Columbia. Jimmy watches them with a gun from a hotel window while the guys deal in the courtyard with a drug dealer. They haggle over terms. Rico gets tough and the Columbian tells them to take a walk. A woman jumps on Tubbs blabbering Spanish. She’s a diversion for some goons to try and knock them off. They get cornered in an alley, but Jimmy makes the save. He wants to waste the goons, but the cops show up. They nail Tubbs. Crockett runs off with Jimmy and is mad at himself. Jimmy tells him it’s a war zone and when the guy next to you goes down, you keep moving. Sonny understands that, but he has to get Tubbs out.
Tubbs is worked over in a cell. A lieutenant grills him. They got his jacket from America and he has a long rap sheet. That’s cool with them. The cops work for the Columbian and wanted to get background on him. Tubbs goes back to Sonny and tells him the deal is on.
They go to the deal. Tubbs says he feels like a midget about ready to go one on one with Dr. J. They have another tense meeting with Grocero. They call the shots of when and where the deal will go down. They refuse to have a drink with Grocero. They meet later on in a cemetery with two separate cars; one with the money and one with the coke. The coke checks. The money checks. They switch cars. The guys drive to the plane. Grocero’s men try to block them in. Sonny turns it into a demolition derby and they take off.
They return to Miami and put the coke in their car. They are jumped by Jimmy’s mechanic. He steals the coke and says he has Trudy. Jimmy shows up for the save. He gets winged. They capture one goon, but he doesn’t know anything. They finally get word on where she is. She’s in a trailer, but they don’t know if it’s wired. Crockett takes in the bomb expert. Gina wanted to do it.
They find Trudy tied up to a vibration sensor. If she moves, it goes up. The bomb guy can’t do much, because Trudy is scared and shaking. Sonny talks with her to calm her down. Rico gets the call from the big boss, Morales. It’s the same set up as before. Throw the money into a boat, then soon as Tubbs does that they know Morales use a remote to blow up the trailer.
Tubbs throws the money into the boat, then follows after it. He fights with the driver. The vice squad gets the drop on him. He hits the detonator. Tubbs shoots him. Tubbs gets a call from Sonny. They got out just in time. The dead man is a homicide detective. Tubbs and Crockett check on Trudy.
The 411: Frey’s character was just fluff. They beefed it up, because he was Glenn Frey. His mechanic being in on the crooked cops scheme seems a bit iffy, unless the cop trailed Sonny and Rico and then paid the guy off to help him. The ending is a bit meh, because we’ve never seen the homicide cop before, so as a viewer we’re not invested in him as a bad guy. Johnson and Thomas have some nice parts, but the whole episode seems like an excuse to play “Smuggler’s Blues” ad nauseam.
