Episode #30 "Bushido"

[mjcmmv]

Episode #30You have a good eye. I didn't pick up that Marc was in other episodes. Now, I'm going ot have to watch Death and the Lady and Freefall again to catch him! MJ

[Guest neworder]

He was also in the Miami Vice movie during the air traffic control scene with A-500 playing in the background

[nmathews]

Some observations about these questions

Wow' date=' great comments. .... One scene that I always found interesting was the one where Castillo strokes Gretsky's wife's hair, as if to comfort her. It was so unlike him and I found myself wondering if he was attracted to her or if he wanted to convince her he would always be there to protect her and her son.Another thing I wondered is how Jack's wife figured out that Castillo killed her husband. She was an agent and she was smart but what did Castillo say that tipped her off? Was it intuition? Was it a clue in the story he told the boy? How could she think he was out to destroy her when he ran to the safe house and did all he could to hide her and the boy? He could have killed her any time he wanted while she was off guard but he was tender and thoughtful, trying to support her and her son in any way he could. The way she turned on him didn't make sense to me. MJ[/quote']As for stroking Gresky's wife's hair - I thought this was very well done. You can see that Castillo is at a lost to comfort her, and doesn't want to intrude and finally he just lightly strokes her hair and that's when she grabs him and hugs him. Although Castillo wasn't comfortable with the hug he allowed it. He was hurting to and still felt guilty about killing Jack. I'm not sure he knew about the Cancer yet. As that was something we knew, and Sonny and Rico knew from the ME's report.Like others have said. I think she overheard the Toshi story (she had heard the beginning of it in the car) and came to realize from Castillo's emotion that Castillo had killed Jack. Her initial reaction was revenge because she considered it a betrayal. She may have loved Jack, but she didn't understand him. Castillo did. She also didn't understand the code of Bushido. Her initial reaction was how dare he come here pretending friendship when he killed Jack. She just wanted to get away from him and the pain, and wasn't really thinking clearly until Surf showed up then she began thinking more clearly where to hide and how to escape. Notice after Castillo knocked the knife out of her hand she did follow Castillo orders except when she told Surf she'd rather be dead than go back to Moscow.

[Tommy Vercetti]

Great episode. Cool guest star"Suave. Goddamn you're one suave f*cker!"

[Papa Legba]

Have you seen Dean Stockwell's Pedigree? It's astonishing. Considering he began acting as a child star at the age of nine, he's appeared in 190 different tv shows and films. He's now 73, and still going strong! He's due to appear in "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan" due for release this year. And guess who's directing it? Non other than Edward James Olmos himself.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/

[Papa Legba]

The fact he speaks english to his comrades means nothing' date=' the actor may not have had time to learn some russian, the producers may not have had time, or, more likely, this is TV in the eighties, how many shows during this decade we have seen where we see similar scenarios? It means nothing, it's a TV show, it means nothing that he doesn't speak russian, the actor may not have known russian, it's not like that the people behind the show were going to drop an actor just because he didn't speak russian, on movies? maybe, tv shows? no. We just have ignore it and enjoy the episode, it was made for that purpose.[/quote']I'm sure that David Rasche didn't know any Russian, or Marc Macauley for that matter or even the guy who played the other Hitman. An actor doesn't have to know the Russian language in order to speak Russian. The producers could translate the relevant lines from the script and the actors recite them parrot fashion. The point is was there any significance in the fact that the hitmen characters spoke Russian and he didn't? Having said all that, thinking about it, he's not going to speaking to them in Russian if the whole point of what he said was to remind them that none of them are allowed to speak Russian. D'uh! I should have realised that!

[mjcmmv]

Episode#30Hello Nancy and thanks for the comments. As always, you see the scene for what it was: Castillo's desperate attempt to comfort someone when he felt he had been the cause of the pain. His guilt must have been more than he could bear, leaving him confused and almost numb with grief. He loved Jack and he knew he was responsible for taking away this woman's husband and the child's father. How could he ever explain this to the wife that Jack had set this up? What a conflict this must have created in his heart and in his soul! Very powerful stuff!!! But I also wonder how selfish this was of Jack to do this to his friend, making him his executioner and knowing his Agent wife would be vindictive and probably seek revenge...This was cruel to leave Castillo with this heavy load and it almost cost Castillo his life!Thanks for the insight, Nancy! This is a great discussion!!!!MJMJ

As for stroking Gresky's wife's hair - I thought this was very well done. You can see that Castillo is at a lost to comfort her' date=' and doesn't want to intrude and finally he just lightly strokes her hair and that's when she grabs him and hugs him. Although Castillo wasn't comfortable with the hug he allowed it. He was hurting to and still felt guilty about killing Jack. I'm not sure he knew about the Cancer yet. As that was something we knew, and Sonny and Rico knew from the ME's report.Like others have said. I think she overheard the Toshi story (she had heard the beginning of it in the car) and came to realize from Castillo's emotion that Castillo had killed Jack. Her initial reaction was revenge because she considered it a betrayal. She may have loved Jack, but she didn't understand him. Castillo did. She also didn't understand the code of Bushido. Her initial reaction was how dare he come here pretending friendship when he killed Jack. She just wanted to get away from him and the pain, and wasn't really thinking clearly until Surf showed up then she began thinking more clearly where to hide and how to escape. Notice after Castillo knocked the knife out of her hand she did follow Castillo orders except when she told Surf she'd rather be dead than go back to Moscow.[/quote']

[Tom]

Another question that crossed my mind was regarding Surf's identity. Was he an American (possibly CIA) agent that had defected to the KGB' date=' or was he a Russian KGB agent that was doing a very good job of impersonating an American agent?[/quote']that he was Russian has deservedly already been outlined by other members. I just wanted to share some information with you to underline that a Russian guy who speaks English like a US native speaker is/was no science fiction: the KGB in the Soviet Union times had built US-like training cities in Russia where they systematically educated intelligence personnel to get through as US citizens including slang, baseball and US-history. These secret cities had US newspapers, governments, US TV stations, etc and were organized similar to the "Truman Show". They had to set this up because due to the iron curtain they could not easily send someone abroad to learn and persons who grew up bilingually were not available either.Married to a Russian woman I know how good these Russian intelligence guys are: being a German native speaker myself, I met once the local resident from the Russian military intelligence (GRU) once at a private dinner. He was about 50, very educated and spoke German without any accent. The only hints to me were -next to his German, because German is a difficult language and is nearly impossible to speak flawless for a foreigner- that he applied very sophisticated question techniques to get information (he asked a lot of qestions about every aspect of life in my hometown including companies and government policies; I recognized this because I am working in sales and use questioning techniques myself for a living) and that he was no able to speak our local German slang when I got suspicious and tested him. After this experience I am sure that a good intelligence professional can pose as every citizen he likes and he will be able to deceive you for at least the short time span he needs to.

[Papa Legba]

Thanks. Interesting stuff.Another thing I noticed was Surf's gun. It looked like it was something about of the 1930's Chicago prohibition days. Do you think Surf had been learning how to be an American by watching old black and white Hollywood gangster movies? Maybe this was another subtle clue as to his true identity.One things for sure, up until now I never paid much attention to the episode and it's storyline, but after discussing the episode on this thread, you guys have made me understand the episode at a much deeper level.

[Papa Legba]

[mjcmmv]

Episode # 30-BushidoThat clip was hysterical! Surf in another life!Was "Sledge Hammer" a TV show? I never saw this character before.

[Papa Legba]

Apparantly it was a spoof cop show from the 80's where he played the main star....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledge_Hammer!

[rodriguezisdead]

Just reviewing some of this thread here - my 2 pennies worth as I think it offers a slightly different view...The word 'guilt' seems to be being used heavily here as the core emotion running through Castillo as he progresses past Jack's death, but I don't think I've ever shared that thought.The way I saw it was Jack was basically in town to get Castillo to look after his family after he was gone due to the imminent arrival of his cancer-induced death - as he says himself earlier in the ep, he knew that Castillo could perform this task for him perhaps better than anyone else he knew, and certainly trusted.But the other reason was to die honourably at the hands of his old friend ('Bushido' or 'warrior' even) - these men clearly owed a life-debt to each other from at least one fight in a temple long ago on foreign shores. As Jack says to Castillo, 'we should have died then' - it was almost like some god-like force present in that temple had decided to spare their lives that day, but now Jack feels it only right that if that 'god-like' force had spared their lives that day, it was almost 'just' that that force should one day have a say in taking one or both of their lives in a temple again. And that day had finally arrived.If you look at it from this angle then guilt doesn't necessarily have to be the over-riding emotion that drives Castillo through this episode. For me it's not about guilt, but about honour and doing the 'right thing' by his old friend and 'brother warrior' Jack. There is so much evidence in other eps (like the Savage for example) that honour and duty are the central issues for Castillo in so much of his life. Jack draws Castillo into killing him and hence relieving him of his cancer, whilst simultaneously handing the responsibility of keeping his family safe over to Castillo. The responsibility and duty to do this doesn't IMO stem from the fact that Castillo kills Jack - this was entirely Jack's decision and Castillo ought not to feel any guilt from doing what he does (remember when he says for example 'It's what I am'). The duty to look after his family stems from the time they saved each other's lives in far away lands.And so when we look at the Jack's wife comforting scene, I don't think guilt drives him to stroke her hair - he will not allow himself to love this woman - it's almost like the wife of someone closer than your own brother - their wife is sacred. You do not get too close to her, simply to avoid any temptation. And it's hardly like he knew this woman well in any case. He just wants to offer her some sympathy but he knows that offering her more than a shoulder to cry-on is somehow inappropriate of the sacred 'brother-warrior' relationship he had with Jack.To an extent I think Castillo respects the choice Jack makes in the way he wanted to die, and he believes that in time Jack's wife will also come to respect that decision although in the midst of the pain and early grieving she isn't going to realise that immediately. I also think that's partly why he chooses to explain what happened to Jack's son by way of a parable-like story, well-aware that Jack's wife is also in earshot.More evidence of the 'duty and honour' approach comes with the financial side of things related to the whole affair - right from the get-go Marty promises to make it his personal responsibility to find the lost cash - all of it - and then he also makes sure that the missing 40 grand (to support Jack's family of course) is something that comes out of his own personal assets as soon as possible (the next day).I come away from the episode just having even more respect for Castillo and the way he chooses to conduct his life than I had before - which is pretty near impossible anyway! Who was it who said that Castillo was the real hero of MV? Give that man a medal I say. Absolutely correct. Sonny was just one of the many who the job eventually destroyed IMO.Anyhow, enough rambling from me, but be interested to see if anyone else shared my view on this ep, or even thinks I'm just off my rocker!

[Papa Legba]

I agree with everything you said Mate. Gretsky's death was almost like euthenasia, and if you wanted someone to finish you off then you would choose someone who was like a brother to you.I thought EJO acted very well in this role. When he and Gretsky's wife are sat down talking about Gretsky, not only does Castillo look like he's about to cry, but you also get an overwhelming feeling of guilt coming from him.

[Christine]

I remember one scene that tells me that some people must have known before that Castillo had killed Jack. Castillo showed up at the door of the house Gretsky probably had rented. The woman, Ermendira, opened the door and while they were talking to each other she told Castillo that she was glad that he had done it. For me, that was a sign that she knew about the killing.I think Mrs. Gretsky knew that Castillo had killed her husband, and she was sure about it after she had listened to Toshi´s story.Nevertheless, I gave this story only a 6. In my opinion, Toshi´s story is too long - winded and too difficult to understand for a boy.What I like in this ep is to learn more about Castillo and to see that he´s such a good friend that Gretsky entrusted him his family. I think that was the only reason for Gretsky to come to Miami. He knew he would have to die and that the Russians were behind him. He wanted to die with the thought that his family was safe.About Surf, I think that he was Russian, but had lost his accent in a special training. Maybe he had lived in America for some years, but maybe he had only learned about all the things he loved in a Russian training - camp.

[mjcmmv]

Episode # 30-Bushido

You gave this a lot of thought and good thought is was! You make a lot of sense. I do agree that Castillo had nothing to feel guilty about, however, I do feel he was devestated he was the one who pulled the trigger. Castillo is such a complex character which is why I find the episodes he is featured in so interesting. His relationship with Sonny and his respect for him despite Sonny's renegade approach to being a cop and fighting crime says a lot of how important integrity and loyalty plays in Castillo's assessment of a man's worth. His comments at the thrown together party for Sonny's upcoming wedding to Caitlin says it very well: "To a cop who always has the fire but refuses to lose sight of what is right…loyal and unselfish…congratulation, Sonny." Or in "Payback": "Alright, the bullet left the gun. It was your gun; your finger was on the trigger. You pulled the trigger. Now, live with the responsibility. It's going to scar you, eat you, burn you, inside…and it should. But you have work to do that you care about. People are depending on that. You have people who care for you Sonny, like me. Don't lose yourself. Keep on going."Castillo saw the same fire in Sonny that he had and I think that is why he fought so hard to keep Sonny sane and on track. You are so right that it is not guilt but rather the theme of duty and honor. We see this theme from two points of view: Sonny's view, as he disregards protocal and laughs at what he seeas as policy-driven, unimaginative crime fighters like agents from the FBI or CIA. Castillo who for the most part, follows the rules and knows he must keep Crockett in line, but can't help but admire Sonny's intuition and unorthodox approach when it came to solving a crime.I love your interpertation of Castillo's motive for offering Jack's wife a shoulder to cry on. Very good. I think you've nailed it! And I didn't realized he gave her some of his own money..."Who was it who said that Castillo was the real hero of MV? Give that man a medal I say. Absolutely correct. Sonny was just one of the many who the job eventually destroyed IMO."I'll tell my husband you agreed with him about Castillo being the real hero! He'll love it!!! Great discussion!!!!

[rodriguezisdead]

however' date=' I do feel he was devestated he was the one who pulled the trigger. Castillo is such a complex character which is why I find the episodes he is featured in so interesting.[/quote']I think it's probably a bizarre mix of devastation and honour!Castillo's eps are a mixed bag IMO - some are extremely good at developing his character or showing us further insights into it, whilst a few are just average or poorly executed.By the way, isn't that line about the bullet leaving the gun etc. from Child's Play, not Payback? :)Bushido, Golden Triangle, Duty and Honour (aka the Savage) are all examples IMO of great Castillo eps. But I was less impressed by eps such as Heart of Night or even Borrasca.It's worth keeping an eye out for him at all times though as his contribution is almost always minimal verbal, maximum impact per word or more importantly screen-time. A second of EJO screen-time is worth minutes of monologue from some of today's actors.Off the top of my head some of the other unforgettable quality bits from him include his scene with Gina in Heroes of the Revolution, his heart-to-heart with Sonny at OCB at night when Sonny guesses at why Castillo felt duty-bound to bring IAD in in Payback, and even his reprimanding scene of the OCB team in Hell Hath No Fury (which IMO is an extremely under-rated ep and elsewhere I've argued it should perhaps more appropriately have been entitled 'Rules').He is a man driven by protocol, rules, duty, honour, commitment to the highest levels of integrity and professionalism (for most of the time at least), but at the same time remains an extremely sensitive and private man. The show would never have been the same for me without him.

[mjcmmv]

Episode # 30-Bushido"By the way, isn't that line about the bullet leaving the gun etc. from Child's Play, not Payback?"Opps! You're right. It was from Child's Play!Thanks!MJ

[Mr. Calderon]

That was a pre-intro that i never forgot from the 80´s: that beach undercover work. But the episode was too focused on Castillo. I expected more of C and T on it. Boring in my humble opinion. Nice start but boring development.It gets a 6 from me.

[mjcmmv]

Episode#30

I remember one scene that tells me that some people must have known before that Castillo had killed Jack. Castillo showed up at the door of the house Gretsky probably had rented. The woman' date=' Ermendira, opened the door and while they were talking to each other she told Castillo that she was glad that he had done it. For me, that was a sign that she knew about the killing.I think Mrs. Gretsky knew that Castillo had killed her husband, and she was sure about it after she had listened to Toshi´s story.Nevertheless, I gave this story only a 6. In my opinion, Toshi´s story is too long - winded and too difficult to understand for a boy.What I like in this ep is to learn more about Castillo and to see that he´s such a good friend that Gretsky entrusted him his family. I think that was the only reason for Gretsky to come to Miami. He knew he would have to die and that the Russians were behind him. He wanted to die with the thought that his family was safe.About Surf, I think that he was Russian, but had lost his accent in a special training. Maybe he had lived in America for some years, but maybe he had only learned about all the things he loved in a Russian training - camp.[/quote']Interesting thoughts, Christine. I love that this episode stirs up so many points of view. To me it confirms even more how special this epsiode is.

[vicenarc]

I rate this episode with a 7. I found it had a bit of a heroic scripting to it, that being Castillo coming to the aid of a former intelligence operative's family from the Russian authorities.

[AzVice]

9/10This episode grew on me. Best 'castillo episode'. I love the scene where he and Jack meet again. One of the few times Castillo smiles. Just a tremendous scene, on into the end where Castillo is forced to shoot. Hammer's music again sets the mood throughout. I actually like Toshi's story, and the way it explains Jack and Martin's relationship.

[MrsEvanFreed]

Don't like it as much as the Golden Triangle, but it does have some great moments.Castillo is one Bad Ass M0FO.

[Noogart]

I think Marty knew that Gretsky intentionally missed him when he turned to shoot him. He didn't know about the cancer. I think the point of the story was to tell their relationship in a way the boy could understand without saying "hey kid, I shot you dad...you'll be safe with me." Great episode. I love that its slower as it really gives the show a chance for some more Castillo character development.

[Spyder]

Has anyone seen this before?http://wherebadmovieslive.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/miami-vice-monday-special-guest-review-bushido/I'm assuming since it's on a "Bad Movies" type of site, they don't take Vice too seriously. Still, it looks like they gave Bushido a good viewing for their take on it.I prefer ones like Golden Triangle, Duty and Honor, and Heart of Night over Bushido, but this one is good because it shows Castillo's true samurai codex at work. (Especially considering how he still tries to save Gretsky's family after being stabbed by Gretsky's wife!)Olmos did a good job at directing this one too, working outside the familiar confines of Miami as we know it on the show.