"Miami Vice" Amen... Send Money (1987)

Director:

James Quinn

Writers:

John Schulian (writer)
Anthony Yerkovich (creator)

TV Series:

"Miami Vice" (1984)

Original Air Date:

2 October 1987 (Season 4, Episode 2)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Detective | Police | Undercover | Drugs | Miami Florida

Cast

Don Johnson	...	Detective James Crockett
Philip Michael Thomas	...	Detective Ricardo Tubbs
Saundra Santiago	...	Detective Gina Calabrese
Michael Talbott	...	Detective Stan Switek
Olivia Brown	...	Detective Trudy Joplin
Edward James Olmos	...	Lieutenant Martin Castillo
Brian Dennehy	...	Reverend Billy Bob Proverb
James Tolkan	...	Mason Mather
Jo Anderson	...	Faye Nell
Ben Stiller	...	Fast Eddie Felcher
Anita Morris	...	Leona Proverb
James Dybas	...	IAB Det. Stroh
Dan Fitzgerald	...	Dr. Ollinger
Joel Goodman	...	Carl Becker
Michael George Owens	...	Deacon

Quotes:

Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett: One good thing about TV- you can always turn it off.

Soundtrack:

Black Book

Solid tongue-in-cheek MV

Brian Dennehy puts in one of his patented solid performances, this time as the televangelist Reverend Billy Bob Proverb who preaches the divinity of materialism (props to the MV writers for not pulling any punches satirizing the likes of notorious religious shysters such as Jim Bakker). This episode isn't your standard MV fare: no guns are shot, no boats are raced, no Ferrari's rip around town to 80's pop music. What you do get is a pretty solid, albeit light, 48-minutes of entertainment.

The opening sequence brings together the televangelist, his drug addicted wife and the undercover work of Crockett and Tubbs. When the televangelist's wife gets pinched by MV, the big fat Christian money maker goes into his bag of tricks to not only shame MV, but most notably the detective in charge (Tubbs)...or so it seems. Other forces, most notably the Rev's arch nemesis/competitor Mason Mather (played by the poor man's Robert Duvall or {far worse) Donald Pleasance, James Tolkan), are at work, making for a somewhat convoluted and unpredictable plot line.

The highlight of the episode (for me) is an comical exchange of dialog between Crockett and Tubbs, where Tubbs runs on about the technological dangers of radio towers prompting Crockett to ask him how the hell he'd know so much about something so random. Tubbs replies"Night School...there IS life after vice." Perhaps a cheap expository cover up by the writers, but I gotta give them the nod for making it worth the price of admission.

Of note, Ben Stiller has a cameo playing a fast talking scumbag huckster of religious paraphernalia...in other words, he plays a slight variation of himself.