#miami vice cast

[doesnotloveyou]

[ashandalder]

A Very Vice Christmas!

[deadendtracks]

i was just reminded of the existence of the miami vice movie, which i'm pretty certain michael mann pitched as "just like the tv series, except with everything good surgically removed."

it features an appallingly miscast Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett.

the cinematography is occasionally nice

if you want to see exactly the same story only with characters you'll actually care about, the movie replicates the plot of 1.16 "Smuggler's Blues."

sometimes a bigger budget... is worse.

[big-star-x]

Miami Vice (1984) Cast: Then and Now ★ 2023

[libertine-past]

Alternate “Love in Vain.” Cody doesn’t call. That’s it! That’s the fic! 😂

Rogue clonked her phone back in its cradle. “Don’t you hate it when you tell someone they got the wrong number, and they argue with you? I know I have a lot of characters floatin’ around in here,” she gestured at her head, “but I’m a hundred percent sure I ain’t Linda from the Yonkers Craft Expo.”

Gambit snickered with a look of pure engrossment, shaking his head in delight. “Indeed. Linda sound pretty boring to me.”

“Oh, I bet you think you could liven her up though, honey-tongue— the way you came in all gussied up to go out on the town.”

“We don’ have to go nowhere. You don’t even have to get out of your nightgown or put down your book, ‘less you want. A date can just be you an’ me in the same room.”

God, this man’s standards couldn’t get any endearingly lower. She puffed some fallen white hair out of her face. “Welp. You ever seen Baywatch? It’s kind of a guilty pleasure, like these Harlequin stories. Hnh. What am I sayin’. Of course you have. Men sure appreciate the um.” She rolled her eyes and made curvy gestures. “Casting.”

“Eh. That show irrealiste. Petty t’ieves always blowin’ up oil rigs or something. Nobody that dumb.”

“So your big takeaway from a show fulla bathin’ beauties is the shitty portrayal of crime?” she laughed.

“Oh, I see them beauties. How do you think I do all my trainin’ for look don’t touch?”

“You can always use more of that. Alright then. You, me, and bad TV it is.”

“Ey, what happen to your bedpost?” he asked, finally noticing.

“Trainin’ for knockin’ your dang block off.”

They sat on the rec room futon in the glow of the TV, under a blanket.

“Aw hell, this is one of those filler episodes with like three beach montages,” Rogue said.

“Yeah, I hate watchin’ people just enjoyin’ themselves,” Gambit winked. “You gotta have filler in life, chere. Can’t be all life-or-death drama.”

She looked him over. “The way you dress like Don Johnson on Saturday nights, I feel like we should be watchin’ Miami Vice reruns instead.”

“You love it.” He pulled off his scarf and draped it around her shoulders.

“Didn’t say I didn’t.”

And it happened—the long, hungry look that usually made her run. She didn’t, but she wasn’t above a quick subject change. “God, they use same underwater footage over an’ over.”

“Well, folks can’t hold their breath forever.”

She knew this wasn’t a dig at her, but she retreated into overthinking. “…you’ve been tryin’ for a few years with me, Remy.”

“Chere. Don’t. That’s never what this feel like.” He pulled her hand out from under the blanket and kissed it. “A barrier doesn’t phase me none. It’s you underneath. That’s all that matters. It’s the 90’s. Everyone big on protection, non?”

“Oh yeah, I’m blendin’ right in with today’s generation. …I-I’m sorry. I just can’t seem to stay off this topic, can I?”

The silence wrapped around them as the TV continued its soapy glow on their faces. Gambit didn’t realize that she’d mostly fallen asleep on his shoulder.

“You know why I like this show?” Gambit said. “I can relate, ‘cause Rogue always come to Gambit’s rescue.”

“…..mhm. Cuz iloveyou, caj,” she mumbled.

He exhaled hard. He knew the declaration probably didn’t count, but he clung to it like a life ring.

[yourwizardofaus]

In late 1988, the fifth and final season of Miami Vice began filming and finished around May the following year. When they began being broadcast, the second half of the final season was shown out of sequence. The final episode with its downbeat ending actually aired a few episodes before the run was ended. Not only that, but the network withheld a few episodes, which weren't screened until the final season was rerun a year later in 1990.

By this point Vice was rather different to the show it had been when it was such a sensation in the second and third years. Losing director and producer Michael Mann was bound to result in the tone changing. That was compounded when Jan Hammer, whose incidental music and overtures were central to its appeal, began phasing out his involvement to move onto newer things midway through season four. Even so, the cast didn't change and they remained to ensure that it continued to be compelling viewing right to the end. With that being said, there were episodes in the final season where each of the actors were absent, sometimes for numerous episodes, as the actors were away arranging projects for the future now that the end was in sight.

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

You Should Watch Wiseguy:

The show that changed the face of television while no one was paying attention

If you've ever watched and enjoyed anything that gets tossed around as “prestige television—”  you know what I’m talking about— long form narratives, high stakes, actors with something to prove— shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc.— you have Wiseguy to thank. While largely forgotten by mainstream audiences (for a variety of reasons, including sheer lack of availability), Wiseguy was one of the first non-soap-opera shows with a fully serialized story— one that expected you to see every episode, in order. When it began airing in September of 1987, really the only other thing on TV like it was Michael Mann’s Crime Story (also worth a watch), and Crime Story would be canceled before Wiseguy even hit its second season.

Writers, actors, and industry types of all kinds cite Wiseguy as a major influence— Vince Gilligan and Tom Schnauz credit watching Wiseguy in the 80’s as why they cast Jonathan Banks as Mike— Chris Carter hired writers from Wiseguy when he started the X-Files— actors like Stanley Tucci made their names on the show— and hell, David Chase wrote an angry letter to the New York Times claiming he was absolutely under no circumstances at all influenced by Wiseguy ever, which feels like the kind of thing you don’t need to write a letter about if it’s true. 

Of course, just because something is influential doesn’t mean it’s good. 

Wiseguy is really damn good.

Much like Miami Vice (and some of the later shows that took influence from Wiseguy), Wiseguy takes the position that there’s very little difference between criminals and the police, and that the justice system is wildly ill-equipped to create justice. Mafia movie blood, with all its inherent moral ambiguity, runs through Wiseguy’s veins, and then after episode nine, it asks you to think about how that blood would pump in a different milieu— corporate espionage and the destabilization of the global south by American capitalists, insular rural politics and the easy rise of small-time dictators, congressional politics and Twelve-Angry-Men-worthy courtroom drama, the music industry and the cutthroat disposal of talented young people. Money and power structures are always suspect, and good-hearted tough guy lead Vinnie is constantly torn between doing his job, doing the right thing, and doing the thing that makes sense to him emotionally.

The show is heartfelt, tense, funny, and above all else, incredibly human. The characters behave irrationally— they self-sabotage, they struggle with moral decisions, they lash out at people they care about— because they’re people, not plot devices. Little things will come back to haunt them, often many episodes later, in believable and sometimes gutting—but rarely shocking— ways. Despite this realism, and a deep sense of cynicism about our institutions, Wiseguy never falls into the trap of wallowing in grim bleakness. The writers and the actors clearly believe in people— it’s a show that says— ‘yeah, the world sucks. So how do we keep going, together?’ The characters are lovable not because they’re all good, but because you feel like you could know them, with realistic flaws and foibles and senses of humor. Sometimes it’s a little silly, and sometimes it’s a little melodramatic— but it works, because sometimes that’s how real life is, too.

Wiseguy is four (well. three and a half) seasons [cross out— and a terrible TV movie that disregards canon], and is notably divided into 4-11 episode arcs within those seasons, and occasional “breather” episodes between arcs. It’s actually a brilliant bit of plotting that I wish more shows would do today— it allows for overarching narratives and real stakes without running into DBZ-like “the next threat has to be BIGGER and MORE DANGEROUS” power level bullshittery that’s common to a lot of long running serialized shows. One of my favorite aspects of this design is that the cast partially rotates every few episodes, but the show still expects you to remember what was going on with the characters from the previous arcs— because they often return later in unexpected and narratively satisfying ways.

The three characters that remain more-or-less consistent throughout the show are Vinnie Terranova, an undercover agent for the Organized Crime Bureau, Frank McPike, his handler, and Dan “Lifeguard” Burroughs, the OCB call-center operator who gives Vinnie field instructions. 

Vinnie Terranova is just on the border of thirty when the series begins, a gregarious kid-from-the-neighborhood, just out of a cover-establishing 18-month stint in prison. He is a bundle of contradictions— quick to fall but slow to trust, a practicing Catholic who chose a job in the field of lying and murder, a 50’s hood irritated by bigotry. Vinnie is both far smarter and more sensitive than anyone gives him credit for, which is both his greatest strength and his fatal flaw— empathetic undercover agents burn out fast. He spends a surprising amount of the series trying and failing to quit his job. He has a marshmallow center, a steel-trap mind, and the general affect of your cousin who dropped out of college to marry his pregnant high school sweetheart. He also has no idea that his type is “angry asshole” and keeps being surprised when he falls for them. 

Frank McPike is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon, a career fed with a chip on his shoulder, a fathoms-deep sense of cynicism, and a collapsing marriage. He and Vinnie begin the series at odds, and as you watch the first few episodes, you're going to seriously struggle to believe me when I say that the affection between Frank and Vinnie becomes the absolute thematic and emotional heart of the series. Frank is also a genuine oddball failing to pose as a tough guy; he makes noises, he lurks in strange costumes, and the words he chooses when he’s irritated beggar normal human understanding.

We don’t get to know Dan as quickly or as deeply as we get to know Vinnie and Frank (in fact, he’s introduced as “Mike”), but he’s the man behind the curtain, a guiding moral and emotional star for Vinnie, a talented musician, and a cheerful face with a lot of anger bubbling just below the surface. He offers life advice even as his own home life is in constant meltdown, and loves both Vinnie and Frank with a fierce, sarcastic weariness. Dan is also an amputee, and his disability is portrayed with respect and without pity— a rarity for television even now, but especially in 1988. 

You’ll absolutely fall in love with these three, but one of the things that makes Wiseguy so special is its fantastic supporting cast. The world is fleshed out and lived in, and you get the distinct sense that all the recurring characters have their own lives we don’t get to see off screen. There’s Carlotta— Vinnie’s mother, as contradictory and sharp as her son, Pete— Vinnie’s brother, a progressive basketball-playing priest, Roger Lococco— a killer-for-hire who refers to every person on the planet as Buckwheat, Rudy Aiuppo— an elderly don with the heart of a trickster spirit, and a whole host of others who enter and exit the narrative throughout the arcs of the show. There are also a whole host of wonderful arc-based characters played by incredible actors, journeymen and and famous alike— including turns from Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Jerry Lewis, Stanley Tucci, Patti D’Arbanville, Stephen Bauer, and Billy Dee Williams. You can tell everyone involved in the show had a fantastic time working on it, and nearly every actor who comes aboard really puts their whole Wisegussy into it gives it their all.

You notice that as I’ve been speaking, the lights have dimmed slightly, and the strains of an organetto have started to play quietly in the background. A man in a rumpled suit is smoking nearby, though you are fairly certain smoking indoors hasn’t been legal in a number of years. I pass you a plate of espresso and biscotti. 

Let’s talk arcs.

The first arc of the show, known as the Steelgrave arc, is a lot of fans’ favorite arc of the show, and for good reason. Vinnie infiltrates a New Jersey mob organization, and gets very, very close* to this man:

Sonny Steelgrave, human Knife Cat, is a complicated man, and Vinnie has complicated feelings about him. He’s very nearly a co-protagonist to Vinnie in this arc, and the show artfully toes the line between condemning him and making it clear that he’s not always entirely wrong. Vinnie’s goal is to get Sonny into prison and take down the entire family— how and whether he achieves this goal is best left unspoiled. Sonny may not have been the first complicated, likable villain on television, but his arc is intense, heart-wrenching, and splendidly morally grey. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the Steelgrave arc is the best nine hour mob movie ever aired on television.  

*I’m really not kidding about the closeness. There’s an episode where Sonny announces he’s getting married and literally all the other mobsters are like ‘oh, now I understand why Vinnie has been in a bad mood all day.’ They are as close to canonically in love as a federal agent and a mobster have ever been portrayed on screen.

Lest you get Kevin-Spacey-jumpscared, the following arc unfortunately has Kevin Spacey in it. Thankfully he plays a slimy sister-kissing coked-up hypercapitalist, so it’s fairly easy to just hate his character in the same way you hate the actor and move on with your life. 

This arc, the Profitt arc— in which Vinnie is tasked with taking down a wealthy business mogul who is suspected of drug-and-gun-running— is, for many fans, a close second to the Steelgrave arc. It’s an interesting change of tone and locale, and introduces Roger Lococco, who is a really stellar supporting character. Personally, I rank a bunch of other arcs above Profitt, because no matter how much I like Roger, Mel and Susan are bananas, and they wear out their welcome before they exit the narrative. Regardless, it’s a stylish arc— one that rather  kicks truth, justice, and the American way in the teeth— and Mel’s machinations have serious reverberations later in the show. The Roger subplot is also genuinely excellent, and good old Corey Matthews’ Dad plays him with aplomb.

Back home, after trying to quit his job and failing, Vinnie has to deal with a threat with much smaller, but far more personal stakes. A white supremacy group has moved into his neighborhood and is attempting to recruit working-class Italians to their cause, pitting an older immigrant group against a newer one, pitting Catholics against Jews, and pitting a previously “ethnic” group’s newly acquired “whiteness” against people of color. I have mixed feelings about the Pilgrims of Promise/White Supremacy arc, because it’s truly quite good, and it pulls no punches about the kind of people fascists are and prey on, but it’s also exceptionally fucking upsetting that nothing has changed at all since 1988. Literally you could remake this arc word for word today and a) it would be exactly as believable, and b) your show would be immediately boycotted and canceled for being too “woke.” Great writing, great stakes, great character motivation; so, so uncomfortable to watch.

And then Ken Wahl breaks his leg in real life, and they have to replace him for a few weeks. 

The Garment Trade arc starts off pretty promising— Vinnie meets with the son of a clothing manufacturer, they have great (borderline meet-cute) chemistry, it’s a wonderfully New-York-in-the-80’s kind of storyline, Jerry Lewis is there, and I think it’s the only time I’ve ever seen Sukkot represented on TV— and then Vinnie has to leave for the next four episodes because of Wahl’s broken leg. They rewrote the arc on the fly, and considering that, it’s pretty good. Jerry Lewis is still there, and he gives the serious, dramatic performance of a lifetime, and Stanley Tucci chews scenery as The World’s Slimiest Businessman. We meet Vinnie’s childhood bestie, “Mooch,” whose actor, delightfully, starred beside Ken Wahl in 1979’s The Wanderers. My beautiful and talented wife Joan Chen even shows up for an episode. However, all of this is undercut by the lack of Vinnie; his replacement, a semi-retired agent named Raglin, is… a bit milquetoast. He’s okay, and he’s given some interesting backstory in his final episode, but he’s no Vinnie.

Once again sporting a functional leg, Vinnie returns, and my favorite arc other than Steelgrave follows. 

In the Dead Dog arc, Vinnie has to pose as a music producer, because the OCB traded an airplane for a music label. It’s the dumbest, most fantastic plot device of all time, and brings me incalculable joy. I literally made Dead Dog t-shirts because I love this stupid fake music label owned by a fictional government agency so much. 

The Dead Dog arc sees Vinnie at his happiest (the poor man really, really just wants to quit undercover work and stop being involved with Murder Organizations), and the crime he’s investigating is… wait for it… bootleg CDs. You would think this would be a ridiculously boring premise for an investigation, but the Dead Dog arc has Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Glenn Frey, and Patty D’Arbanville playing a cadre of unhinged music industry moguls all attempting to stab each other in the back, and it is exactly as chaotic as you would expect based on that cast. This arc also had a bunch of original music produced for it, which is extremely fucking cool, except that then the studio lost the rights to the music it created and this arc became inaccessible and unwatchable except through circulating the tapes, so to speak, of early 90’s TV rips. (The irony is not lost on me that the arc about the Evils of Piracy is the arc that one must pirate.) Miraculously, in the last year, Wiseguy’s rights have been renegotiated, and the newest sets of the show have Dead Dog restored. Accessibility via streaming is still a bit of a mixed bag— the episodes were streaming on Tubi and Youtube briefly, but now appear to have been taken down again.

After his turn as a surprisingly successful music producer, Vinnie returns to his roots: the mob. In the Mob Wars/Trash Wars arc, Vinnie unintentionally becomes the temporary leader of the local mafia commission (I will not spoil how.) The OCB wants to use this as an opportunity to take down the entire organization from the inside out, and Vinnie must deal with mafia backstabbing, pressure from Frank and the OCB, and surprisingly personal stakes. It’s an unspectacular but solid arc that regrounds the series, and the interpersonal aspects of the story— and its examination of fathers and sons and generational inheritance of social rules and expectations— are excellent. The Mafia Wars storyline won’t blow your pants off, but it’s thoughtful and well-executed and reminds us of who Vinnie is and where he came from.

What follows is another of my favorite arcs, referred to as the DC or Counterfeit Yen arc, but perhaps better described as the Mr. Terranova Goes to Washington arc. Vinnie is summoned by the federal government to investigate counterfeiting, and thus unfolds a multinational conspiracy that ties back to the Profitt arc. Much like the White Supremacy arc, this arc is distressingly current— Vinnie is a patsy for a group of corrupt republican senators who want to destabilize the currency of a perceived East Asian economic rival. It’s Yen here, but all you’d need to do to bring this arc into 2023 is swap out references to Japan for China, because the American government has changed very little from the 80’s and has to be awful about some country somewhere or, I don’t know, a bunch of horrible old racist politicians will shit themselves. Vinnie enters talking like Jimmy Stewart, and leaves with one more thing to be crushed and disillusioned about. We get some riveting and stomach-churning courtroom drama, the bad guy turns out to be capitalism all along, and Frank threatens to shoot a Howard Hughes stand-in on a ski lift.

And then somehow we end up in Twin Peaks. The Lynchboro arc predates Twin Peaks by a whopping two months, indicating a total coincidence of premise similarities, but it does take place in a corrupt rural Pacific Northwest town unduly influenced by one large family/company, wherein an outsider has to investigate a tangled conspiracy and deal with strange townsfolk and some spooky happenings. There’s no way either show could’ve plagiarized the other— they were assuredly written and in production at the same time— but it is deeply bizarre. In the Lynchboro arc, Vinnie goes undercover as a local beat cop, and finds himself faced with both a serial killer and a land-rights and building-contracts espionage plot. He also has to deal with Mark Volchek, the ostensible “owner” of the town, and his eccentricity and decreasing grip on reality. Roger returns, and Vinnie must finally confront the enormity of his trauma. One major character is literally brought back from the edge of death by another character’s crushing love for them, expressed via church bells. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but it doesn’t not, either.

And then Ken Wahl quit.

Season Four begins with a deeply depressed, heavily bearded Frank struggling to find the will to live after Vinnie has disappeared. (I don’t think I’m really at risk of spoiling anything serious by saying that we are “supposed” to think Vinnie is permanently gone, but that there are a huge number of blatantly spotlighted contradictions in that story. Wahl left on decent terms, and I firmly believe the Wiseguy staff was expecting to eventually win him back to the show and have his absence turn out to be a ruse. Unfortunately, Wiseguy got cancelled before this could happen.) Frank spends the first (and only complete) arc of this season investigating his partner’s disappearance, eventually working with the supposedly-corrupt DA who helped establish Vinnie’s cover back before Season One. 

It’s not an uncommon opinion to say, ‘hey, just skip S4’— and honestly, if you chose to watch S1-3, you’d have consumed a wonderful story with a reasonably coherent ending. But I don’t actually hate Season Four. The “new Vinnie—” Michael Santana, played by pretty-boy Scarface alum Stephen Bauer— is exceptionally likeable, and he brings with him a new set of characters who are also quite compelling. Furthermore, if you’re a Frank fan, he really gets the spotlight in this season, and if you’re a Frank/Vinnie fan, Vinnie may not be around, but Frank’s despair is really fucking something else. It’s almost worth it just to see him lie to the FBI and tell them he “never crossed the line” of professionalism with Vinnie.

Unfortunately, the next arc sets up something really compelling and unique, but it’s only 3 (unaired on TV) episodes, and ends on a complete cliffhanger, because the show was unceremoniously cancelled. After his niece is shot in the midst of teenage gang violence, Michael teams up with Billy Dee Lando Calrissian Fucking Williams to investigate red-lining and racist underfunding of schools. Oliver Stone shows up in the last like, ten minutes of the last episode?? I would be all over this storyline if it wasn’t just dropped like a moldy tomato, but I guess that’s what fanfiction is for. It’s not how Wiseguy deserved to go out, but hey, it was really aiming for the stars even as the plug got pulled.

Oh, and if anyone tells you there’s a 1996 TV movie, no, there isn’t.* 

(*The movie is so deeply mediocre that it’s worse than any of the controversy surrounding Season Four. It essentially retcons all of S4 and, frankly, really the last few episodes of S3, and presents a bland, uninspired “getting the gang back together” story that retreads thematic materials from the show without saying anything new. Vinnie has apparently been doing wiretapping for 6 years, which is completely at odds with everything we know about his character, and he and Frank are treated as “dinosaurs” that the OCB doesn’t know what to do with, and yet they are also simultaneously the only ones who can take care of a nearly-kidnapped child. It’s rushed, it’s emotionally hollow, the actors are phoning it in, and it ignores all of the character development from the series in a way that renders its plot nearly nonsensical. Furthermore, Ken Wahl had been in a seriously disabling motorcycle accident a few years before, so his apparent discomfort and stiffness throughout the film is because he’s genuinely in significant pain. Don’t watch the movie. You can always write fix-it fic for how Vinnie manages to come back after Season Four. It’s much harder to write fix-it fic for boring character assassination written by the 'due-process-is-for-pussies-and-torture-works' 24 guy.)

One of the other delightful things about Wiseguy is that Vinnie is both a big softie and yet is also saddled with a bizarre sort of erotic smolder, and therefore he has ridiculous chemistry with basically half the cast of the show. Vinnie very much seems a guy like you could say some blandly nice things to and buy him dinner, and you’d wake up, exhausted and satisfied, the next morning to him cooking breakfast. You’d think, wow, this guy is so thoughtful, he must be the one— and then you’d turn your head and he’d have immediately been seduced by the next schmuck down the line. He’s a good boy, but his “acceptable romantic target” sensors are so wildly mistuned as to render him, affectionately, a tragic slut. Will he end up with a mobster? One of a number of widows? His boss? No one knows but god.

Vinnie is also heavily bi-coded— his relationship with Sonny is almost explicitly romantic, he calls out Roger for homophobia (in 1989), one of his old friend asks if the reason he’s not married is because he ‘likes boys,’ and he doesn’t say no, and he has a borderline I-love-you moment with Frank. The boy just wants someone to love him, goddammit. 

I’m also really not kidding about Vinnie and Frank developing into the emotional core of the series. They live together for a period of time. They both imply they can’t live without the other. They go shopping for Dan’s birthday together. They pick up Frank’s ailing father from the nursing home together. Frank picks out Vinnie’s tie.

You pick at the plate of spaghetti that appeared in front of you, unsure of either its provenance or why it came after dessert. It’s the best spaghetti you’ve ever had, and that frightens you, somehow. 

I lean in close to whisper to you about crime. You note that at some point I changed into a pinstriped suit. You don’t remember me changing, or even getting up— you console yourself with the notion that maybe I’d been wearing it from the start, even though you know that isn’t true.

So, the thing about Wiseguy is— well— it’s more available than it used to be. The whole series was recently released on blu-ray, and both that set and the most recent DVD sets actually have every episode, a change from the previous releases. As of August 2023, all of the series except Dead Dog is available, legally, on Youtube. This is a vast improvement from even two or three years ago, when multiple episodes weren’t available through any means but blurry, VHS-tracking-laden downloads of TV rips. 

Unfortunately, the most recent renegotiation of the series home video and streaming rights still failed on the music rights front. Dead Dog has been spared the hammer, but there are still places where the series has gaps. Notably, there’s an episode (Stairway to Heaven) where Frank murders a jukebox, and looks completely fucking insane, because the original (thematically meaningful) music the jukebox was playing was replaced with generic elevator music. Worse, the final episode of the Steelgrave arc (No One Gets Out of Here Alive) is missing two musical cues: in one instance, Sonny himself is singing, in a fit of mania, and the footage has straight up been cut from the episode because they couldn’t get the rights to The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’.  Equally egregious, The Moody Blues’ Nights in White Satin, which originally played over nearly a minute of sustained, silent eye contact between Sonny and Vinnie— has been replaced with the Wiseguy opening theme. It renders a scene which should be quite clearly devastating and unsubtly romantic instead utterly awkward and bizarre. It’s hard to demonstrate just how jarring the change is unless you’ve seen the scene, but suffice to say that everyone I know who has seen both versions— in either order— has expressed horror and bafflement at the substitution. 

Which is to say: there’s a couple of episodes of Wiseguy you’re probably going to want to locate those shitty old TV rips of. It’s worth it, even if it seems like it wouldn’t be.

I place my hand over yours. You jump a little. I have a number of large, dark-stoned signet rings, and my hand is strangely cold. 

I make you an offer you can’t refuse.

You’re going to watch Wiseguy. 

[assignmentimprobable]

Welcome to Miami.

(Miami Vice 2006 Edit

Track: Miami - Will Smith)

For @power-chords who gave me the brilliant idea 7 months ago to do a Miami Vice edit to the actual Miami song. Icon. Legend. Im giving you like 69 potato

The sheer difficulty of doing this because of Mann’s evenly paced directing style lmao. It was pure simpery for the cast that got me through this lowkey 😭 Definitely worth the obsessive 24 hour period spent scrubbing through clips on iMovie to get the timing right

[wewebaggit]

"El never had romantic feelings for Mike"ers 🤝 "Mike had romantic feelings for El"ers

Y'all think y'all are arm wrestling bt it's actually called a handshake in most parts of the world.

Both come from some weird desire for romantic miIeven to have meant nothing/something for both.

Cuz everything has to be just right and fair and neatly tied in a bow. God forbid the gay boy have struggles with his sexuality or the straight girl get her heart broken in the process. Evil evil things. To have your feelings unrequited. Unless it's Will. Cuz he's single and has to stay single and pure and loyal and what not, and it's only temporary. Soon in a few years after the time skip at the end of the series he'll be rewarded for being reduced to a pathetic little sap with no social life beyond Jonathan, Mike and the horrors of having spidey sense for 2 seasons.

And yeah there will be cirque du soleil levels of acrobatics being performed to show why this story and narrative makes sense. And I'm not opposed to it for being that but just that on show that prides itself for show don't tell it neither shows nor tells and then there's outside the show telling by cast cuz inside the show showing was less subtle and more in the realm of not there at all.

MiIeven is NOT a "plot device" for Byler any more than Mike being revealed gay is a plot device for independent El. They're both self contained arcs for the respective characters. MiIeven thoroughly exploited the BSY dynamic with how their interactions were framed and played and okayed and filmed. It's incredibly condescending to fault the GA for buying into the self insert fantasy of nerdy boy gets supergirl when the show didn't shy away from profiting off of it. Regardless of Mike's impending sexuality. Especially because of the super ambiguity of Mike's sexuality it cannot be classified as anything but trope exploitation. Subversion where? Leaving some visuals here.

El initiating the kiss in S1E6

And I'd love it if anyone explains them to me that's not the tired af "El's idea of romantic love comes from her watching soap operas" cuz she was shown watching it once. She was stuck in a cabin with a TV so she watched TV most of the time and daytime is soaps. You know what she (also) watched regularly? Westerns. Miami Vice.

Also El did make the first move in s1e7 to kiss Mike. Before Mike ever kissed her in s1e8. And before the soap operas n all other things. Point being. The BSY has always been BSYing.

Poor babies being forced by Lucas, Nancy and daytime TV into making out and enjoying it. Tsk tsk. (S3E1)

A forced to be flustered and blushing El after talking to her boyfriend.

Time to make out some more. It hits different at 4:20. - Mike & El probably. Dunno it's on mute.

Naive but powerful fawn rebelling against father for nerdy boyfriend. Ya. White American thing cuz Mike would be pissing his pants if he were anywhere else or maybe anyone else. (Can you imagine Lumax this way?)

For God's sake your platonic soulmate and so called lesbian awakening's brother is dying there.

Don't even understand the point of this shot. Since Mike never looked Billy's way. Or comforted Max. A glance at El that, idk what it meant, no mike crow expressions to guide me.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) dir. Ingmar Bergman

Scenes from a Marriage (2021) dir. Hagai Levi

There's an intentional way in which the MiIeven scenes (not just the kisses 🤮) are filmed in a more "adult" way as opposed to the "cute teenaged romance" way that some people purport it is in contrast to Lumax and Duzie. (I guess they didn't go through puberty.🤷‍♀️) Heck even Jancy, Stancy never looked this weird even though sex was shown/ implied. (Because they were played by actors born in the 20th century and even then they weren't 13 🤷‍♀️.)

MiIeven is not a plot device for Byler. It is fan service. The adults shipping them and comparing them to various other adult couples isn't outta nowhere. Please compute. Which is why it was stretched for 4 seasons.

As of NOW Mike's sexuality is still plausible deniability and the breakup too is neither here nor there. It's NOT straightbaiting. Lmao. Not at all. It's fan service. Leaving the OBVIOUS BSY aside, the point neither party were forced into anything nor were they doing it to keep appearances cuz canonically NOBODY cared. Not Dustin, not Lucas, definitely not Will and I'm sure neither did Max.

El was a willing participant and initiator and Mike was also not opposed to it until puberty monster/feelings caught up with him. El has shown her attraction to guys and it is okay. There's no need to take that away from her cuz that is also an experience of girlhood. She barely has any experiences anyway. Let her have that.

It's the same for Mike. He's not some evil monster for being gay. Not anymore than Joyce was for being with Bob out of convenience and the fact that she liked him n didn't hate him. Mike does love El and cares about her deeply as all of S4 shows.

So to sum it up. Yes I smooshed 2 posts cuz I couldn't be arsed talking about these 2 AGAIN. But Mike and El were independent agents when they decided to embark on their disastrous romantic journey and Born Sexy Yesterday is REAL.

P.S. If you find this shit cute and y'all roll your eyes over byler kissing n what not (even in fics goddamnit). Hit your head against a spiked wall till you can't no more. Piss and love. 💙💛

P.P.S. Mike's the clingy one. NOT Will.

[ramblingsofamuskrat]

Can you connect the German city of Kiel to Diehard please? Thanks

Well the lazy way of doing this is the villain in Die Hard is Hans Gruber who was German and Kiel is in Germany. I could also be like: Oh Bruce Willis was born in Germany and yeah. But I love making things more convoluted than that...

So, we all know that Bruce Willis is in Die Hard, but an even more important role was his role as Tony Amato in one singular episode of Miami Vice, which we all know stars Don Johnson in it, who we all know was in Rian Johnson's movie Knives Out, which we all know. Ok I'll stop, even if this is just for you. You know actually I really wanted to connect this to Knives Out and then to 10 Things I Hate About You or 3rd Rock from the Sun because of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but I have changed my mind, as it turns out Edward James Olmos is in the same Miami Vice episode as Don Johnson. Okay, so Edward James Olmos is Admiral Adama in Battlestar Galactica, which also stars Michael Hogan, from your favorite TV show ever, Teen Wolf. BUT, he is also in Skyrim as General Tullius. Skyrim also has Christopher Plummer as Arngeir, who was also in Knives Out. But that's not as fun as connecting to Charles Martinet, who was in the Mario movie despite not playing Mario but whatever. Now, as much as I love Charlie Day and want to connect through him, I feel the need to connect through Crisp Rat, but I'm resisting that cause I had a revelation. Charlie Day is in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, starring Danny DeVito, but Kim Whalen was in an episode of that show, and I love Starkid. Corey Dorris is also in Starkid and he was in an episode of Future Man, which has our icon, Josh Hutcherson, who was in Journey to the Centre of the Earth with Brendan Frasier, who was in the Mummy with Rachel Weisz, and she is married to Daniel Craig, bringing us BACK to Knives Out. Am I losing track of the mission?? NO!!!! So, Knives Out has many amazing cast members, but one of the more iconic ones, is Frank Oz. I just realized that my goal was to eventually bring my connection to the Lion King, and I can easily do that now cause Frank Oz is Yoda, but also that's lame cause I wanted to bring it to Matthew Broderick, but let it be known that we could just do Frank Oz to James Earl Jones at this point. So, Frank Oz was in Star Wars with Mark Hamill, who is in many, many things, such as Avatar, which features Dee Bradley Baker as Appa. He is also Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb (for some reason my brain broke and almost wrote Despicable Me). Phineas and Ferb features Thomas Brodie-Sangster, which is always very funny to me, but it also has Ashley Tisdale, who was in the wonderful movie, 2009's Aliens in the Attic. Aliens in the Attic features many people, including Austin Butler, someone who was in the After movies, Tim Meadows, and Andy Richter, who played Mort in Madagascar. Ben Stiller is in Madagascar, who was in Night as the Museum, which has Rami Malek, who was in Bohemian Rhapsody with Joe Mazzello, who is in Jurassic Park (AND a movie called Star Kid). Jeff Goldblum is in Jurassic Park and also in Thor: Ragnarok, which also has Sam Neill in it, but unrelated to the goal at hand. Thor has Chris Hemsworth, who was in 2009's Star Trek, starring Chris Pine, who was in Wonder Woman with Robin Wright, who is in the Princess Bride with Cary Elwes, who was in Psych. Since they are not in the same episode, James Roday Rodriguez is in Psych, and so is Ally Sheedy, who was in War Games with Matthew Broderick.

To answer your question, yes, I came to the official conclusion that I really needed to get on track or this would literally last forever. Crazy how I can get myself to do this and not my homework. Ignore the fact that it took me over a month to respond to your question. Matthew Broderick is Simba in the Lion King, which also features Nathan Lane as Timon. Nathan Lane was in The Nutcracker: The Untold Story, which I know about solely because of Danny Gonzalez. Nathan Lane plays Albert Einstein in this movie, and so, within the lore of the movie, we could accurately state that because Albert Einstein exists within the movie, so does Max Planck, who knew Lise Meitner. I just wanted to say that cause I am aware as to how much you love her. But Max Planck was born in Kiel. Thank you and goodnight.

If I wanted to play this seriously, and not in my convoluted "6" Degrees of Michael Sheen way, probably could've connected Die Hard to Charlie Chaplin somehow, who met Albert Einstein but NO!!

I hope you enjoy this well thought out response, @wiggogwiggogywrath :)

P.S. That point where I was nervous about this going on forever took A LOT of willpower to not continue. Like I was gonna go into the After series and then end up in Harry Potter or some shit. I'm sure I would eventually run into both Smosh and Dropout cause I am addicted. Luckily for you, I was so concentrated at the task at hand, I somehow like forgot that I usually include those too but whatever. There ya go. Bitch.

P.P.S. I just wanted to do this cause now I can't stop please send help oh god oh no I can't stop, can't stop typing why did you do this to me I can't escape

P.P.P.S. Bye :)

[kaiandthestrangespaghetti]

The Only Home I Know (Part 01/?)

This is a continuation of Wasteland, Baby - all parts of which can be found here: 01/02/03/04/05

Pairing: Miami Man x F!Reader

Wordcount: 3.6k

Warnings: Mentions of violence, brief mention of cannibalism, vaginal sex, anal sex, mouth stuff, size kink/size difference, strength kink, bodily fluids, hide and seek/play fighting, dirty talk, (just all round filth), love and cuteness.

Summary: You, Miami and Miel are holding up in an abandoned town after escaping Miel’s kidnappers.

A/N: Thank you @artsy-trash-panda for coming up with the premise! And @kamcrazy123 for enabling this lol. This is the first one where we start to get plot involving The Dream.

Tags: @artsy-trash-panda @kamcrazy123

The exhaustion of the past few days is so total that you remember tucking back into Cam’s body on the kitchen floor, the song drifting quietly from the radio’s speakers and then nothing. Your eyes open crisply as the very first morning light leaks into the kitchen through the big patio doors.

Cam has turned the other way in the night. He stirs slightly as you sit up but rolls a little further onto his front. The elegant necks of the flamingos tattooed on his back and shoulder blades rise and fall with his slow breathing.

You’re so awake, so full of energy. Getting to your feet you cross the kitchen and quietly reach into a box of supplies you’d brought in from the truck – the stuff you’d taken from Elijah’s compound.

Elijah’s face swims in your memory for a moment. The man who kidnapped Miami’s daughter. He’d kept talking about someone called ‘The Dream’. The shockwave of the grenade you’d stuffed in his clothes punctuates the thought. Whoever The Dream was, he’d lost one of his lapdogs.

The candy bar is delicious after nothing but meat. Sickly sweet but heavenly. Using your knees as a vice, you crack the seal on a Sprite bottle one handed and wake Cam as you twist it open, he rolls with a groan. Flexing his neck as he leans up on one elbow. His hair completely loose, face still bruised from what happened the day before.

Before you can pass him the bottle, he’s on his bare feet, padding quietly down the hall to check Miel’s room. She’s still sound asleep. It must be no later than five am.

He closes the bedroom door silently and comes back into the kitchen, sweeping his hair back from his face with one hand and leaning his forearms on the opposite side of the kitchen island. With a smile, you pass him the bottle and he drains the rest of it.

His bruised cheek is rough with stubble when you cup it in your hand. He leans into you, placing his own much larger palm over yours. It’s so warm. You communicate easily this way now; wordlessly. A soft peace settles in the gloomy kitchen. It feels strange in how normal it all is. Like you could almost be a family who bought a house here, not the outcasts you are.

But you’re not like the people who would have bought these houses. None of you. A thought that no longer causes you any pain, especially when you see that look on Cam’s face – that low lidded hazel gaze and slight smile. So warm but so wicked. He’s the safest place you’ve ever been, and the taste of blood in your mouth simultaneously. A crate of chocolate bars and the brutal means by which you obtained them. Cam is dangerous, but so are you. Perhaps more so.

You’re chewing your lip and you don’t even notice. But you do notice Cam’s cleaver still laying on the counter between you, still clipped in its holster. He sees you glance down at it, but he can’t catch your hand before you unsnap the holster and slide the bare steel of the blade across the counter with a hiss. His tattooed fingers close on your narrow wrist. There’s no moving now. He raises a scarred eyebrow at you, the amusement evident on his face.

“Told you already, m’better at this game…” He leans across as he says it, so close you can feel his hot breath on your cheek and ear. With the morning light at his back, he casts you in the gloom of his huge shadow.

As if by way of explanation he nods over his shoulder to where your small kitchen knife and revolver are still laying on the floor. You’d taken them out of your holster the night before. Your tongue traces the underside of your teeth, and his upper lip hitches up in a half snarl, half smirk. The low rumble of his laugh makes you test his grip, but he lifts your wrist easily, turning the blade from your hand and pressing a kiss to your palm.

“Tell y’what…” He purrs, his eyes raking up and down you. You’re pulling against him but not to escape; just to feel the strength of him. The tension between the two of you in the silent kitchen is almost unbearable. You think about crawling over the counter.

“No weapons, y’get ten seconds, then I come for you.”

Your wrist drops limp on the counter, and a hard sigh exhales out of you. He’s grinning, still not letting you go. Sure, he could just turn your arm and bend you over the counter like a rag doll if he wanted. If you wanted. He could fuck you almost the way the couple who might have lived in this house would have. But you’re not them.

You nod, and you can’t help it – you lean in and smash your lips into his, his beard grazing your face. His tongue presses deep into your mouth for a second and you can feel him melting. He tastes like Sprite. His fingers are clenching hard in the back of your hair and suddenly he’s dragging you from around the side of the island. The shove is playful, but you still need to brace your hand against the glass of the patio doors to stop yourself as you stagger.

Cam swallows, holding himself in position by the counter. You can see the effort he’s exerting. You’re bent forward against the glass, your ass almost visible under your dress, so you decide to make it worse for him; your right hand snares the waistband of your panties, and they drop around your ankles, the tiniest flash of your cunt visible to him as you do it.

His eyelids flutter, thick fingers gripping the side of the countertop till his knuckles are white. His hair spills across his face and his throat bobs.

“Ten…” he rasps harshly.

You turn and slide the glass door, sprinting barefoot as if your life depended on it across the patio, past the empty pool in the back yard, scrambling over the low fence into the next garden of dried-up turf. Even in your frenzy you notice how the whole place is still completely silent, apart from the occasional bird cawing. You’re alone, in your own playground. The moment of peace passes, you burst through the back door of the house you’d scoped out the night before.

This one has no furniture. Your heart is hammering in your chest, but it’s not fear. Not totally. You take the stairs three at a time, stumbling onto your side at the top and swerving into the master bedroom. There’s a walk-in closet with a door. But you regret it the moment it closes behind you – you’ve trapped yourself.

How many seconds is that? Too late to move. You slide down onto your side and press your cheek to the floor, watching under the narrow gap.

What feels like an age passes but is probably less than a few minutes. Your ears strain against the quiet and when you detect slow footfalls on the stairs the hairs on the back of your neck rise. Cam’s bare feet are visible on the landing, he pauses there a second, then turns left down the hall toward the other bedroom. You see the opening. The adrenaline jolts you to your feet, flinging the closet door wide and nearly tumbling down the stairs as you half leap, half stumble most of the way down, clutching the banister with one hand.

The back door slams open on its hinges and before you can think another desolate pool is yawning out in front of you beyond the paving slabs of the patio. You leap. It’s not deep, maybe five feet but you’re not prepared; your knees still crumple as your feet impact the concrete, sending you sprawling forward.

Quiet, deliberate steps follow behind you. Cam isn’t running. Rolling onto your side you see him standing on the edge of the pool with his hands braced on his hips, looking down at you like you’re a wounded animal. The heat of his expression sears you in place, just long enough for him to hop down from the pool’s edge with a climber’s grace that makes no sense for his size. You start crawling, trying to get your knees under you.

He makes no move to grab you, he just laughs. His head canted to one side over his muscled shoulder, wrists flexing in anticipation.

“Keep crawling Princesa…” He goads, and you swing a heel into his shin. It connects hard enough to make him grunt, but he seizes your ankle, pulling you helplessly across the floor of the pool toward him. His other hand locks on your thigh and before you can get your legs underneath you, you’re in his lap, face to face with that smug, hungry smile.

Yet it’s devoid of cruelty, even when his fingers and thumb easily circle your throat. He holds you delicately, without pressure, despite the way his top lip hitches up and he swallows with driven want, eyelids fluttering.

“How’s somethin’ so small got a bite like you do?”

You lean hard into his grip and snap your teeth at him playfully. He catches you with a snort of laughter and you feel his cock twitch against your thigh.

It’s impossible to hold it back; you moan and grope his lap, finding the heat under the white cotton. He doesn’t stop you but his eyes almost completely close, his exhalation through gritted teeth is warm on your face. The grip on your throat flexes, then shifts familiarly to the nape of your neck. The way his forearm braces your whole back makes you unravel.

Eyelids dipped, Cam slips two thick fingers in his mouth then firmly, but delicately splays your cunt to look at you.

The shudder that goes through him makes you grin. He’s so lost in looking at you that he doesn’t notice the balls of your feet gaining purchase. You’ve almost enough strength to dive momentarily out of his grip but his fingers seize your hair. It’s useless.

“Done yet, lil biter?” He lilts. And as he says it his wet fingers spread you exquisitely open before him. It’s so intense your head lolls back a moment, hair dragging on the floor of the pool. You look at him with a single expression that communicates a complex reply:

Never, but yes, yes. Please yes.

The abstract lines tattooed on his middle finger sink into you and your eyes roll, turning totally limp in his grip. Cam adds his index finger and presses slowly into your core, watching your face, his own breathing becoming irregular at the heat, the softness. When he pulls them free, he sucks them clean with that expression he always has when he tastes you; as if you are something rare, delectable.

The strong brace of his arm at your back is lowering you onto the floor of the pool, the concrete, not yet baked hot by the sun, is cool beneath your shoulder blades. Everything feels soft and slow after the rush of adrenaline. Your head rolls to one side and you see Cam push his hair back from his face, palming his cock in his wet hand.

He grins, amused at your limpness, casually lifting one knee with two fingers of his free hand, then letting it fall to the side. He doesn’t even need to say it out loud, it’s written on his face as he leans over you;

Look at you, cock drunk on me already…

The thick pressure of him pushing an exquisite inch into your cunt makes your back arch. You try to roll your hips to take more but he denies you, his palms settling on your knees and pressing them almost all the way to the floor at your sides. Another inch and you’re whimpering.

He’s enjoying this, a little in the way a carnivore toys with its prey. He leans back, chin tilting to his chest to get a look at his cock splitting you and a guttural mutter of something that might have been fuck falls from his lips, broad palms sliding down the outsides of your thighs, grasping your ass and pulling you open with his thumbs while he presses deeper, agonisingly slow.

You give a strangled moan, trying to lift your body to meet him, reaching up to grasp his shoulder, just above the letter ‘N’, but he’s too strong. You’ll have only what he allows.

“More…” The word leaks out of you pitifully, your vision a daze of Cam against the brightening blue sky. At the same moment his cock totally fills you the two fingers that had been inside your cunt slide deep into your begging mouth. Just for a second you choke, and Cam pulls them back – but then you’re pleading with your tongue, tasting yourself on his fingers. His expression steels with want and the rough pads of his fingers slip deep, he’s fucking you so hard your bare shoulders shunt against the concrete, anchored only by his grip on your jaw.

It's like being pulled apart in the most exquisite way you can imagine. Everything but the force of him and the blur of the sky disappears from your perception, you feel a rivulet of saliva stream down your cheek. Cam sheathes into you once more, hard, and then his face comes back into focus. He’s looking down at you, angling your face by the fingers in your mouth. Just a tinge of concern in his expression.

Your eyes unfocused, your cunt soft and fluttering against him.

“Too much, lil biter?” He lulls with a hot breath. His beard and lips brush your cheek.

How he takes such strength, such force and turns it effortlessly into endless gentleness you never know. It reminds you that the same hands that have butchered human beings have also produced the most delicate brushstrokes. But it always, always, breaks you. The shudder goes from the nape of your neck to your tailbone.

It feels involuntary – your teeth clamp down on his fingers, hard enough to hurt. A hiss of pain escapes between his teeth and when the shock passes, he looks down at you with a kind of wonder. What are you? It says, glowing.

His breathing is fast and raspy, sweat shows on his forehead, his hairline damp. Still, you haven’t quite relinquished your grip on his fingers.

“You wan’ more?” He utters and slides from your cunt leaving you achingly empty. For just a moment you protest before his free hand drops to angle the slick head of his cock against the tight, exposed ring of your ass. Teasing you with it, watching your face closely.

You freeze up at the sensation. It’s new. Your jaw drops open and you give up his fingers. He cups your face softly despite the bite marks on the back of his knuckles. The daze of it all still engulfing you. The wet slide of his cock against your ass makes you shiver.

“Ok...” He judges from your reaction and goes to pull away but a look of panic floods your face. Words aren’t easy in the moment.

“Don’t…Please. Yes.” You manage.

You can read the conflict on his face. How he loves your size compared to him. How he almost wants to fuck the tight, soft, breakable form of your body so hard you shatter. And yet he wouldn’t harm you, not for anything.

He remembers the way you’d clutched Elijah’s neck, singlehandedly declawing a threat that was bigger, stronger, and better armed. You’re not easily broken.

Cam’s spit hits your ass and cunt, one hand on the back of your neck, your tight hole resisting the slippery head of his cock for a torturous moment before he palms the shaft and pushes hard. A little cascade of sting runs through you but you’re still pulling him toward you by his shoulder.

It’s slow, different to how he normally fucks you; when he finally slides the whole of his cock into your ass he gives an unguarded moan of broken pleasure, and as if to distract himself pushes his fingers back into your mouth.

Cam’s forehead is pressed to yours, no longer restraining you at all. You’re boneless, mind gone with him – and he isn’t much better. The muscles of his neck and shoulder are taught ropes where your hand lays on them, he trembles with tension. The thick twitch of him stretches your body totally and you know he won’t last another minute.

So does he; frozen still, eyes shut, trying to breathe slowly.

“Hurts?” He husks, and you can see the mental effort it takes him to even form the single word. The back of your head rolls back and forth on the hard floor of the pool. No.

Still keeping two fingers in your mouth his free hand teases your fucked cunt, pausing a long moment before pushing his index finger all the way into your wetness. When he feels his own cock filling your ass through the inner wall of your body his eyes go wide, mouth open.

He’s staring down at you, tiny repetitive gasps pulling air into his lungs. The pads of his fingers pumping your cunt, teasing that exquisitely sensitive spot, feeling his own cock seated so deep in your body. His hips piston short, brutal thrusts in your ass and you come suddenly, all sense going from you in the nerve whiteout.

He feels it and he’s muttering in your ear, a harsh, filthy-sweet rush of want, need;

“You like that Princesa? Lil biter? You want more? Gon’ make you so full of me…fuck, so…tight, how? Fuck…”

The words tumble from English into Spanish. You’ve learned that he almost always says ‘I love you’ in Spanish, and you recognise the phrase as he utters it over and over.

Cam lets out a snarl that curls into a vulnerable whine, his fingers slip wetly from your mouth and his arm wraps you crushingly tight. The whole of him spills deep into you with a shudder, until he can’t thrust anymore. You’re both panting. The weight of his body on you holds the world still, pressing you flat on the floor of the pool, everything makes sense. Sweat beads on his back. You both lay that way, feeling your breathing slow.

For a long and beautiful moment there is nothing else in the world. Past the point of language your body becomes a mantra of Cam, his weight and presence. The way he smells. Burying his face into the crook of your neck below your jaw he inhales you deeply; it’s mutual.

A bird caws in the morning sky and your unfocused eyes settle on something upside down, where your head is rolled back; there’s a hosepipe dangling into one corner of the pool. When you’d arrived at the little ghost town you’d checked every faucet, Cam had checked the stop valves and opened them but no water had come out.

But there is a small, damp patch of concrete right below that hose. It’s dripping. You start laughing giddily, still half addled. Cam leans up and looks down at you with a bemused smile, his big hand cupping the back of your head.

“What?” He laughs, and then he sees your eyeline, and looks up.

-

Running water has become such a strange luxury that you still use it sparingly as you both clean yourselves up in the pool. Tenderly, but like much in the desert, shaped by utility.

Miel gets the first proper bath in the house next door while you sit out on the sun-baked patio.

The dripping hosepipe keeps grabbing your attention.

Dragging it over the fence you toss it into the empty pool in your own little backyard and start the faucet running. Fuck it. You always wanted a pool as a kid. You watch the bottom fill up and realise it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d had one – nothing will ever be as good as this perfect, love bruised, dusty oasis.

-

About a hundred miles of desert away, a man with dark hair is sitting next to an indoor pool that glimmers with a chlorine scented luxury absent from the derelict concrete bowls in the ghost town.

But all the same, it smells artificial. The bleach tang gives the air an unpleasant taste. He takes a sip from his cocktail and watches a pregnant woman climb out of the water and start towelling herself off. A man with a rifle is at his elbow.

“Sir?”

“Yes? David, is it? Why are you troubling me?” His voice is a low, Texan drawl. He doesn’t look up.

“I apologise sir, but it’s Elijah.”

“What exactly about Elijah?”

“He’s dead sir.”

The Dream freezes with the cocktail half way to his mouth and looks up to pin the other man with a searching look.

“And tell me, how exactly did that happen?”

The man with the rifle looks uncomfortable. “They took Miami and his kid, and some girl with one arm. The girl was due to be transported with the supplies yesterday but…She put a live grenade down Elijah’s shirt. They escaped, all three of them.”

The dream sets the colourful glass down on a side table.

“Well that just wont do. You best be finding out where they went.”

“And then, sir?”

The Dream looks pensively over the blue undulation of the water.

“There’s only one thing to be done with rabid dogs David, but bring me the girl. Maybe she can be convinced of civilisation.”

[doesnotloveyou]

Don Johnson ~ The Bold Ones: The New Doctors ~ "End Theme"

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Miami Vice: Freefall (Mayberry, 1989)

Miami Vice in its fifth and final season was a very different show from its heyday. Michael Mann’s name continued to be slapped onto the end credits, but the lightning in a bottle quality of the first two seasons, with their mixture of effervescent aesthetics, defiance of conventions and willingness to leave the audience in violent disconcert, had long since dissipated and the show had become increasingly straightforward, formulaic. Probably the easiest way to demarcate the phases of the show would be the colour schemes. The first two seasons favoured pastels, which provided ironic comment on the edgier subject matter. The third and fourth seasons favoured neons, hinting at a more straightforward idea of cool. And the fifth season shifted to an even darker, high contrast colour scheme, with deep blacks in the interiors and at night, contrasting with the sunburnt daylight hues. And musically, the sometimes complex and layered, sometimes giddy music by Jan Hammer had been replaced by a more conventional hard rock sound by Tim Truman.

There’s an obviousness to this final aesthetic, that brings to mind the laboured style of modern prestige television, which can lean on drab colour schemes and ponderous camera moves to lazily gesture towards seriousness. (I should note that I pretty much can’t stand HBO sheen.) But the overwhelming feeling here is of exhaustion. Episodes increasingly settled matters through shootouts, with a higher gunplay quotient than in previous seasons. The moments of bemusement offered earlier are increasingly scarce. And the personal cost of the job seems to weight increasingly heavily on our heroes Crockett and Tubbs, as their efforts seem to make little difference in the grand scheme of things. (The series is certainly an ‘80s cop show and carries a certain cavalier attitude about law enforcement as one can expect, but it’s been more willing to interrogate those qualities than I expected going in, and has always had a social conscience.)

So there is a certain dulled quality one can expect with the finale, but I must report that I found it an immensely satisfying finale to the series. Like the other two-parters, the narrative is more expansive than usual, although along with the lower number of needledrops, this is an area where the smaller budget for this season shows. The first half has the boys heading down to a Latin American dictatorship to extract a politically friendly despot (modeled after Manuel Noriega, but played by Ian McShane in brownface makeup that makes him look like Muammar Gaddafi). There are shootouts and battles and an exfiltration from the presidential palace, although it rarely feels like they’re actually in Latin America. (The combat footage is recycled from “Stone’s War”, which is one of two episodes to feature the most bananas stunt casting in the show: G. Gordon Liddy as a CIA scumbag.)

But the second half feels like Vice much closer to its peak, setting off a series of double crosses that evoke a violent sense of whiplash, each twist of the plot punctuated with as much blood and gunfire as ‘80s network TV would allow. Crockett’s and Tubbs’ exhaustion turns to rage, leading to a thunderous finale that mirrors the iconic capper to the pilot “Brother’s Keeper”, with the boys heading down to the pier to settle things once and for all. Crockett even dual wields like he did in the pilot. I do think it’s a mistake to not have reused Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”, although Honeymoon Suite’s “Bad Attitude” isn’t the worst song in the world.

And on a superficial note, it’s nice that both the boys return to wardrobes somewhat similar to the ones they had originally. Back to the pastels for Crockett. No more awful prints for Tubbs. Some of the other regulars are awkwardly integrated. Gina and Trudy barely figure into the episode, and Castillo’s hair in his final scene looks very… unconvincing. (I believe Edward James Olmos as shooting Stand and Deliver around this time, in which he has a combover, so I suspect he’s wearing a wig in the scene.) But at least Switek’s gambling problem, which the season tried so hard to push, finally pays off with something interesting. And there’s no way I can be objective about this, but having spent half a year obsessed with this show, the final scene between Crockett and Tubbs had me tearing up a bit.

[thejfblog]

“Miami Vice:” The Series Finale

Crockett and Tubbs embark on one last rodeo before parting ways in the series finale of “Miami Vice.”

Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, as they appeared in the series finale of “Miami Vice,” titled “Freefall.” (NBC)

It was the show that hit it out of the park. Starting with a timeless pilot episode directed by Michael Mann, theme composed by Jan Hammer, and stars Don Johnson (Crockett) and Philip Michael Thomas (Tubbs), “Miami Vice” encapsulated the height of 1980s fashion and pop culture.

They routinely went undercover in Miami’s criminal underworld as members of the fictional Miami police vice squad. They also drove nice cars (Ferrari Daytona and Testarossa, Cadillac Coupe de Ville), dated beautiful women, and Crockett lived on a yacht in Biscayne Bay called St. Vitus Dance (most recently docked in Key West).

It was a life of vice, and they were just living it.

Print ad for the "Miami Vice" finale.

The last episode of “Miami Vice,” the 21st and 22nd of the fifth season and 113th and 114th overall, first aired in prime time Sunday, May 21, 1989 on NBC.

In “Freefall,” Crockett and Tubbs are recruited by the feds to protect a corrupt South American dictator involved in illicit drug trade, as the two find themselves increasingly disillusioned with the work of vice.

Original supporting cast members Michael Talbott (Stan), Saundra Santiago (Gina), and Olivia Brown (Trudy), as well as Edward James Olmos (Marty), appear in the two part, two hour conclusion of the series.

Final scenes of “Miami Vice.”

[jamiebamberdaily]

TV & Satellite Week Article - Issue 25 (24 - 30 June 2023)

Tap/Click ‘Keep Reading’ to view the transcript.

Picture Cannes and you’ll probably imagine an azure ocean, the annual film festival or multimillionaires sunbathing on superyachts - but Acorn TV’s six-part romantic crime drama Cannes Confidential is hoping to make it synonymous with screwball comedy and a ‘will they, won’t the? central pairing.

Detective Camille Delmasse (Lucie Lucas) is having a challenging day when she collides with debonair art collector Harry King (Beyond Paradise’s Jamie Bamber) on the Boulevard de la Croisette, wrecking her beloved classic car in the process. Already irritated by the smooth-talking stranger, Camille’s day goes from bad to worse as she and her colleague Léa Robert (Tamara Marthe) investigate the murder of a street artist known as the Jester, only to find themselves crossing paths with Harry...

He pops us everywhere within the town, infuriating her,’ reveals Bamber. ‘They get off on the wrong foot, and the bickering and badinage, an that energy between two people with sexual chemistry finding each other intolerable was what drew me in.’ It soon becomes clear that there’s much more to Harry than he’s willing to let on to anyone, but as Camille comes close to finding out what he’s really up to, he proposes a mutually-beneficial alliance between the two of them.

PIVOTAL PACT

‘When Harry finds out she’s a policewoman, it’s a problem for him because he’s got something to hide,’ says Bamber, 50. ‘But he also happens to know a lot of the characters involved in the supposed wrongful imprisonment of her dad, the former chief of police, so they each have something that the other needs.

‘They have a quick agreement, a sort of poisoned chalice that they each take a sip from, and from that moment, they become more dependent on each other.’

Bamber likens the show to ‘the love child of Moonlighting, The Persuaders! and Miami Vice’ with its compelling blend of a feuding odd couple at its centre and solving crimes in scenic locations, but Cannes Confidential has a few more twists up its sleeve... ‘Léa, Camille’s police partner has designs on her as well,’ explains Bamber. ‘So you’ve got this odd love triangle at the heart of the show, each angle of the triangle antagonising the other.’

For avowed Francophile Bamber, who speaks fluent French, the lure of filming on location in and around Cannes proved impossible to resist - as was the opportunity to deploy his skills for the show’s French-language version. ‘The language was a big deal, because you’ve got a mostly French cast who are working in English and they were real troopers,’ says Bamber. ‘But they shoe was on the other foot when we dubbed into French - I was allowed to dub my own part, but that was when the French actors really came to the fore!’

Navigating a language barrier wasn’t the only difficulty that Bamber faced during filming for the series last summer - the scorching Mediterranean temperatures left him literally hot under the collar. ‘The most challenging thing I had to deal with was wearing a three-piece suit in the sunshine for three months, and trying not to ruin it with perspiration!’ he laughs. ‘My dresser, did amazing work with portable fans, whipping one shirt off and drying it while I wore the other, because I was wringing wet a lot of the time.’

[transman-badass]

The Omega Detective A Retrowave/80s inspired omegaverse vigilante detective series Setting: An alternate 1980s Miami [I think?] Tropes: brilliant inventor heroine - badass Omega - secret identities - villain reverse harem - slowest of slow burns - enemies to lovers - 80s nostalgia/retrofuturism - tv show inspired format

Deisi met the Big Bad Wolfe. A wrong turn that could’ve snuffed out her life, she walked into the wrong mall and right into a crime scene in progress. But like he said - she was just some lil Omega. Nobody would ever believe her. He let her go, and gunshots followed her out. It’s a decade of change, they say. But Deisi can’t get a job outside of the library because no one wants to hire a mateless Omega. Her neighbors mean well but they still call her ‘sweet girl’ and invite themselves over with strangers for her to meet. She tinkers alone in basements and garages, listening to the radio, padding her paycheck with repair jobs and babysitting. She’s not sure there’s anything sweet left in her anymore. People are angry. You can feel it sizzle in the heat. Crooked cops and sleazy businessmen, night club drugs and money to burn. Gunshots in the darkness. Bodies on the beach. Desperate people. Something’s gotta give. Somebody’s gotta do something. Deisi’s found a way to change. To switch her scent and her appearance and be seen as an Alpha. She’s gonna put that to the only possible use she can. Deisi met the Big Bad Wolfe, and saw him face to face. Deisi’s just an Omega, nobody’s gonna listen. But she’ll make them listen. She’ll make the whole city sit up and pay attention. Deisi De La Rosa is the Omega Detective, and she’s not letting any of it go again.

CONTEXT: 

My friend Jay challenged me to just let loose with this idea. So that's what I'm gonna do. 

This story is inspired by 70s/80s copoganda shows, especially Miami Vice, so I’m theming it similarly. Each part is an ‘episode’ - each episode is part of a season. For now I’ll be releasing the episodes for free but eventually I’ll bundle them all up and sell the ‘season’ somewhere with some extras, like ‘behind the scene footage’ or ‘deleted scenes’, etc etc. IDK, I think it’s fun.

Each episode will be well under 50k words - maybe novelette or novella length, maybe short stories, I haven't decided yet

It might get 'spicy' but I’m not actually sure. We’ll see!

This story is junk food reading. I’m not trying to make anything challenging here. I want to have fun, and make sure the reader has fun. This is gonna be a solid 3 out of 5 star series.

THE VIBES:

Pulp as hell tbh

Palm trees, beaches, neon, sunscreen, boom boxes, big hair, short shorts, warm rain

Smuggling, trafficking, robbery, kidnapping, drugs, prostitution, corruption, the dark side of the decade of excess

In other words, 80s nostalgia that goes deeper than cheap pop culture references [looking at you, RPO]

Kpop! Yes, really. It’s my story, damn it. I do what I want. I don't care if it's the wrong decade, I want to have fun.

MAIN CHARACTERS... SO FAR

Deisi De La Rosa: A Latina Omega with a bright smile and boundless energy, a love of technology and science, and a way of getting into people’s hearts. No one would ever connect her to…

The Detective: An Alpha vigilante and private detective, she has a short height and sharp mind. She doesn’t play games when lives are on the line - and they always are. 

Hazel Carpenter: a Black 15 year old gamer Deisi sometimes babysits. She loves arcades, flavored lip gloss, bright colors and boy bands. A surprisingly good source of information.

The Big Bad Wolfe: A notorious criminal that haunts the city streets. He's got a lot of connections and never lets anyone who sees his face survive - with one exception. Currently the only white person in the cast, which was not on purpose but I'm rolling with it.

VI-Lains: A six man musical group from South Korea who crashed onto the world stage, bringing with them bad boy appeal and intense good looks. Hazel is obsessed with them. Deisi is baffled.

Blacklist: A mysterious criminal organization from overseas, there’s not much information on them or the appearance of the six masked men in the city who work for them. Look, you can connect the dots here, it’s gonna be revealed in the first ‘episode’ anyway. 

STATUS CHECK: Planning and world building; ETA Episode 1 - Spring 2023?

Note: I have a very outdated blog dedicated to an older version of this idea. If there's a desire I'll move most of my work on this over there. There's also an Instagram but I don't really use Instagram...