Episode #29 "Tale of the Goat"

[Ferrariman]

Begin posting

[crocketsgrl]

I found this an interesting episode seeing how they believed in Vodoo. I loved how Tubbs didn't believe about it and though it was laughed about, Crockett sort of believed in it. Funny thing was Sonny taking the photo of Legba dead in the coffin. Only he isn't dead. And the magic starts. Freaky how they start seeing the different people in Legba's crew and then Legba vanishes after killing his competition or the man who tried to get Legba's piece of the pie. How Tubbs went in and Sonny was the only back up. It just seemed strange with all the people in the squad, I'm talking about the ones you just see that don't say anything that they couldn't use them to scout out the area. The homing device coming off and Crockett finding it scared me the first time I watched this. Then everyone looking. Thank God Sonny and Larry found Rico in time. But watching Tubbs seeing Legba and strangling him only for it to be Crockett was frightening , to both. But being close, Sonny tried to calm him which was the way it always was with them. I'm so glad to that Sonny had faith in tubbs telling Castillo he'll be alright. Taking Tubbs to the Blackbird and nudging him on until Rico fought through Legba and killed him......This wasn't one of my favorites but it was interesting the caring of the partners and the vodoo and the ceremony and the drugs they used for the zobots. Rating in my book 6/10

[Tony D.]

Tale of the Goat is not one of my favorite episodes, but some parts are really great. At the cemetery, good shot of Rico making eye contact with Legba's girl. Very pretty chic! Sonny's smile is the best I've seen, while he's behind the tree with the camera & telling Rico to take it easy with the girl. Beautiful pink sportcoat & shirt, white pants. What a Miami Vice outfit! Rico kept laughing at the idea of voodoo, but it all turned on him in the end. Rick's dad has the best scene of the episode as Pepe the janitor, who gives Sonny his wise comment on voodoo! Cool when the guy says Zombie & the goat is in the coffin! Castillo used his famous"Keep me posted" line & Sonny, feeling frisky, salutes him as Captain Zombie. I liked Bobby Profile's spiel. Something like Izzy! The main thing I don't like is the creepy feeling I get from Legba's gang & the dark voodoo scenes! Liked when Tubbs threw his gun away, then came to his senses & blasted Legba with the shot gun. I wish I could capture pics off the DVD. Crockett looked so cool! I rate it 5!

[Guest neworder]

Hang on didn't Junk Love come before Tale of the Goat? lolOh well may as well jump on the bang wagon and review it.It's not all bad this episode, some good humour, some good music, I quite like the voodoo angle, I always feel as though people have a love it or hate it relationship with voodoo stuff e.g the 007 movie Live and Let Die I absolutely love but I've found many people hate it because of the voodoo.Overall this is fairly decent, some weird scenes at the end and questionable acting by PMT towards the end. A little bit of a crazy episode but it's enjoyable to watch.7/10

[Tommy Vercetti]

One of the worst episodes. A precusor to season 4 trash like Cows of October and The Big Thaw.Michael Mann had less time to spend on season 2 as he was off making Manhunter so as a result terrible episodes like this slipped through the net.Dreadful. This episode is pure crap. Almost unwatchable. If you like this sh!t then you'll like anything. 3/10

[Shill]

I gave this a 10. Excelllent music, storyline and classic love interest for Tubbs. It has a feel-good quality to it and some humorous moments - Sonny's "Ai Ai Captain Zombie" to Castillo :DCan't wait for Papa Legba's review of this - should be like War and Peace

[nmathews]

Tale of the Goat review from a few years ago.Being originally from the Chicago area, and a Die-hard Cubs fan, Tale of the goat means something far more different to me, a folk curse concerning Wrigley Field, a Goat and the Cubs. But I digress. I like this episode, but it isn’t one of my favorites. The Voodoo stuff bothers me, mainly because of my religious beliefs, so I’m sorry that probably does have an impact on my views of the episode although I’ll try not to let it impact it too much. 1. This episode bothered me from the beginning. I mean would a professional policeman (vice cop or not) really bring an instamatic camera to the airport and take a picture of the deceased? Isn’t the coffin supposed to have been sealed and not to be opened? Thus you see from the very beginning of the episode, I was bothered. 2 .Sonny’s whole Captain Zombie salute to Castillo seemed totally inappropriate, and I think Marty agreed with me by his look, it wasn’t quite a glare, but it was close. 3. If Sonny had been chasing Legba for three years, wouldn’t have Legba known about him? I mean the St. Vitus Dance wasn’t a very good hiding place for Marie. Wouldn’t that be the first place he’d send his people to look for her? What were the cops thinking of? 4. What was with Rico in this episode? One minute he’s laughing about Voodoo and how anyone’s stupid to believe that scam, and then when he’s talking to Crockett waiting for the Festival truck, he explains to Crockett he’s always concerned when it’s his mind at stake. Does this indicate, Rico thinks they can mess with his mind, even though he said at OCB, what are they going to do put a spell on me? Also why in the world did he just attach the homing device onto the truck, why not under it like he attached his extra gun to the underside of the caddy in smuggler’s blues? 5. Crockett was just as inconsistent One minute he’s joking about it, then he’s asking Pepe the Janitor if he believes in this Voodoo stuff. Then he’s warning Rico not to take it lightly that there must be something to it since a lot of people believe it. 6. What was with the saber and the pick axe? There were some good parts that I really liked: 1.The taking of the pictures of the funeral, in particular, Sonny talking to Rico, and smiling that smile of his (Definitely DJ’s smile) I also love the lines Easy does it Romeo and then he flashes that smile. It kind of bothered me that no one noticed them or got upset at them being at the ceremony w/ the coffin though. 2.Flash forward to Sonny and the rest of the gang frantically looking for Tubbs. I really liked the concern Sonny was showing for his friend and partner. Sonny finally finds him and cradles him and talks to him while they get something to get him out of the emptied pool. I also liked the concern Sonny showed Rico at the hospital, and even after Rico was trying to strangle him, he still got close to him and cradled him trying to soothe him. I also liked the confidence he had in his friend, and how he knew just what it was that rattled Tubbs so bad. 3. I loved Pepe’s reply to Sonny’s question about Voodoo. 4. Rico’s cavalier attitude about If’ I’m not up to this I want to know now, kind of bothered me, but I did like it when Sonny was doing his thing, and having to grab Rico to get him out of the line of fire. DJ’s smile I give a 10, Pepe's Line I'll give a 10, but the rest of the episode I’ll give a 5Since I originally reviewed this episode, I must admit it has grown on me abit. The same inconsistencies bother me, but the music does go with the episode both Jan's music and the popular music. Clarence Williams III overacting still bothere me though I do believe it was because of the character Legba not the actor I'll now raise my rating score to a 6.5 which I'll round to a 7 for the poll since you can't do half points.

[Papa Legba]

Can't wait for Papa Legba's review of this - should be like War and Peace

Lol. Hopefully not as boring though!

[Papa Legba]

Well I think you all know what I'm going to say about this one! This, together with "Whatever works" and "Definately Miami" are my top three Vice episodes. This is actually the episode that got me into Vice. My dad, who at the time already watched it, taped this episode and thought the entire soundtrack was that good that he actually rigged up a tape recorder to the tv set to tape the entire soundtrack to the episode. As I was in the living room at the time, he asked me if I could change the tape over half way through. At the time, I was indifferent to Vice. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't go out of my way to watch it either. So when my dad made this request, being the surly teenager I was, I begrudgingly agreed to do it. Because that forced me to actually sit and watch the episode (so I knew when to stop the video and change sides on the audio tape), I got hooked, and watched every episode after that. My dad had a driving job at the time and I used to accompany him on his jobs whilst travelling around South Yorkshire, and we must have listened to that tape hundreds of times. Whilst watching subsequent episodes, I then spent the following nine years (with the help of my parents) accumilating on tape the previous 28 episodes that I'd missed. Now I think that this episode probably gets a lot of negative criticism because of the Voodoo subject matter. The fact is though that the storyline isn't as far fetched as you might think, and whoever researched this episode researched it very well. Almost everything that Marie and Dr O'Hara say in this episode is factual. The Tetrodotoxin derived from Caribbean fish is true (actually from the Puffer fish). Also there are Voodoo Witch doctors in Haiti who administer these paralysing drugs to people in an attempt to create what they believe to be "zombies" (such as the case of Clarvius Narcisse who was buried alive in 1962 and who's story was featured in the book "The Serpent and the rainbow"). The rest of the community believes them to be dead, and buries them, only for the Witch doctor and his cronies to turn up late at night and dig them back up again. Then they employ them as slaves. In "Tale of the Goat", it was said that the brain damage was a side effect of the Tetrodotoxin. However in actual fact this arises from the slow asphyxiation caused by reduced breathing and/or being literally buried alive. Additionally, Voodoo priests also use psychoactive drugs in order to confuse and passify their abductees (post exhumation) in order to maintain their submissive state. From the Voodoo priest's perspective and that of the Voodoo believing community, the priest has actually brought someone back from the dead as a Zombie. The reality is of course he's merely drugged someone to the extent that they appear dead for 48 hours, then once they wake up, drugged an already possibly brain damaged victim to the extent that they just act like a "Zombie". Now in Miami, having such a large Haitian community, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a Voodoo priest might work his way into the city, having used his own stuff, in a mistaken belief that he's gone over to the spirit world and come back again. This possible brain damage is probably one reasons why in the episode Papa Legba limps, walks on crutches, talks slowly, and generally just acts weird. So in this sense it's nowhere near in the same league as a clear "Jumping the shark" episode like "Missing hours".Papa Legba is actually more a title, rather than a name (Like "Caeser" in ancient Rome). In Voodoo, Papa Legba is the one who supposedly acts as the medium between the living and the supposed spirits of the dead. He is in essence a gatekeeper by which the living supposedly communicate with the spirit world. This is why in the episode, Papa Legba keeps referring to walking with the living and the dead, and going from one side to another. In Voodoo art, Legba is usually depicted as having a limp, or walking with crutches, and often smokes a pipe. Both of which Legba does in this episode.Marie was correct when she said that Legba was the high priest of a community of Bokors. Bokors, in contrast to the other more benign Voodoo practioners, are the the equivalent of black witches. Like Marie says, "their voodoo is like black magic". Bokors are the ones who practice the creation of what they perceive as "Zombies".Anyway, "Get on with it!" I hear you cry....I love all the music in this episode, including all Jan Hammer's music all the way through.Being such an important episode to me, I asked DanJ if he could take me and my dad to the cemetary where they filmed the Legba funeral. The interesting thing (to me anyway) is that there is actually a real cemetary, and a fake one next to it that was built for the episode. The "cemetary" that Tubbs was standing in where the actual funeral took place is fake (now some kind of private courtyard/carpark), the cemetary which Crockett is standing in across the road is real. They actually made the wall and the stone pillars of the gates look identical to the real ones across the road. If you look at how Tubbs reacts when the biker hitman drives in and starts shooting, he flinches and you see PMT accidentally nearly topple over an obviously fake stone pillar.Just before the biker turns up, when Romulus turns up to take away Marie, I like the look of jealousy on Tubbs' face. PMT acts jealousy very well.Even though I've watched this episode ad infinitum, it was only when I was watching it the other day (to refresh my memory for the review), that I noticed that the guy with the coffin at the airport right at the beginning was the same guy in New York that Tubbs went to visit in "Better living through Chemistry". In the latter episode he had greased back hair, unlike the big bushy mane he was sporting in "Tale of the Goat".I like how even Castillo smiles when Crockett and Tubbs leave his office laughing about the whole Zombie thing.I thought the makeup that they gave Clarence Williams III was apt. If you notice there is often a grey look to his face and hair. You particularly notice this in the scene where he hobbles out of a room to talk to Marie after she's just been visited by Crockett and Tubbs. I believe the production grew wanted to give him this appearance to convey the idea that he was almost Zombie like himself, thus reinforcing the tone of the episode.I also got DanJ to take us to the site of the Voodoo Arcade. The street where Crockett and Tubbs were parked no longer has a building next to it (which you see when they start driving off). It's now just an open field. The Voodoo Arcade looks exactly the same but appears to be now a Federally protected building. This became evident when a huge security guard came over and told us that we couldn't take photos of the building, and basically told us to leave. It must be a building of some importance considering that as he was walking away, he watched us drive away over his shoulder to check that we weren't still taking photos. As we drove down the street I noticed that the shape of the doorway where Crockett and Tubbs find Romulus' body is still there. But the doorway has now been sealed/bricked up, and the doorway painted over.I loved the words of wisdom from Rick Bravo's dad "Do you believe in the Ocean? Cos no matter if you do or you don't, for sure you gonna wet". Nancy mentioned earlier about the inconsistency of Crockett one minute being heavily cynical about Voodoo, then later taking it much more seriously. However the scene where Crockett asks Pepe the Janitor for his opinion seems to be a turning point in his beliefs and perceptions. Crockett appears to be examining some evidence which appears to be making him think that there might be something more serious in this, and the fact that he asks Pepe for his opinion seems to be his way of trying to work out whether or not all this is real or not. At that point he seems to be 50/50, which is why he's asking for an independant, outside opinion. Pepe's comments urge caution. And it's exactly this advice that makes Crockett worried for Tubbs' safety in the next scene that we see Crockett in.Again this episode places Crockett and Tubbs (for a time at least) at opposite ends of an opinion spectrum, similar to the one they had in the previous episode, "Junk Love". Again Crockett is the instinctual one, who takes his feelings and instincts very seriously. Tubbs is again the rational one who is totally cyncial of the dangers of getting involved in something which he doesn't understand. Crockett even says to him "You cannot dissect this with your intellect, Pal.. because it isn't rational, it isn't logical". Again like in "Junk Love", we see that Crockett's instincts turn out to be right, whereas Tubbs' rational side is mistaken.Crocketsgrl mentioned earlier about the lack of back up which Tubbs had when he was doing his undercover operation. Trudy said "you know we're all on loan out to burglary tomorrow, there wouldn't be any back up". This explains the lack of back up, but it doesn't explain the error in judgement that Castillo made in letting Tubbs go undercover with only Crockett for back up. I can only assume that this had something to do with the fact that Legba was about to skip town and Castillo considered that as a result, time to rearrange the operation to when there was more back up available was not an option. Therefore he took a gamble on this, one that didn't pay off.Another thing that surprised me was how there was an immediate role reversal between Crockett and Tubbs just before Tubbs gets picked up by the Haitians. In the scene beforehand, Tubbs was the one who was confident about being able to pull the operation off, whereas Crockett was the one who was panicking about his partner's safety and who thought it was a bad idea. Then just prior to the pick up, Tubbs is the one who's worried and apprehensive, whereas Crockett is the one who's telling him to relax!I loved the shootout at the end. I thought Clarance Williams' stunt man's jump was a bit contrived though as you can clearly see him turn round, and then physically jump off the ship. Maybe the stuntman was scared of hitting his head on the ship on the way down, but it would have looked more realistic if he'd thrown himself backwards into the water as if blown back by the force of the shot.I also thought Tubbs must be psychic to not only presume that Legba didn't kill Marie, but also to know exactly where to find her.The biggest mystery is though, what exactly was "Legba's operation"? In other words how does a Voodoo priest come under the radar of the local Vice squad in the first place? Was he a drug dealer as well as the leader of a malign Voodoo sub cult?In summary a brilliant episode. 10 out of 10.

[Guest neworder]

Interesting review Papa Legba and good justification for your scoring. And I'm agreed, this episode is not is jumping the shark, no where near the ridiculous nous of season 4. Good observation about the guy at the airport, never realised he was the same guy as the one in Better Living.SJB

[agent 47]

While not a perfect episode, Tale of the Goat is strikingly well written and is one of the best of season two, the downside is the quickie conclusion and poorly concepted romance Tubbs has for Legba's "widow", for the faults, the score is trickled down to an 8 out of 10.

[Murphy's Law]

Papa Legba has already done an amazing job of analyzing this episode, so I'll just throw in my 2 cents on a couple of points. First, I think Tale of the Goat and Junk Love were very similar in terms of theme -both feature Crockett & Tubbs in very well-defined battles of good vs. evil - Tale offers a spiritual dimension. I thought Crockett & Tubbs did an interesting role reversal in this episode : this time it was Tubbs falling for the woman who was something of a "wounded bird", normally Sonny found himself in this position. Tubbs, who usually was outwardly more spriritual & accepting than Sonny, initially scoffed at the voodoo practices. This episode seems to be one of the more polarizing. I'm among those who love it because I think it had some great dialogue and it prevents Sonny & Rico from becoming one-dimensional characters. I give the show alot of credit for taking the risk with the storyline - one of my favorite things about MV was that it wasn't traditional or predictable! I'd give it an 8/10.

[Lar]

I hate this episode, one of the weakest, maybe THE weakest, of the series before S4. It gets a 2 from me, it misses the dreaded 1 only because it's marginally better than "Cows of October" and "Missing Hours".I can't decide which is S2's weakest, this or "Free Verse".

[Tony D.]

Wow, Papa Legba, you are certainly giving Nancy's reviews a run for their money! I want to rewatch this episode now. These reviews breathe new life into Miami Vice!

[chum981]

Don't like it so much, gave it a 6/10.Kind of reminds me of Live and Let Die, which I really liked...

[miamijimf]

Enjoyed reading Papa's review. I agree that it is not as far fetched as some people believe. There is a huge Haitian community there and perception is reality, i.e. if people believe in Voodoo, it's real for them and can affect them mentally and physically. It's one of my favorite episodes, I guess it's because I watched it so many times when I first got into finding Vice filming locations with DanJ, Jeremy etc. It was a real kick when I was able to contribute in a small way to finding some of the Goat sites. I have to believe Vice is more than just entertainment. Miami has to be the fastest changing City in America. Therefore the unique visual record that the show provides is important from a historical perspective. There are several significant Miami locations in Goat such as the East Bay Fisheries area. Also the acting was good and the music contributed to the drama. The episode grew on me. It was one of the things that got me hooked on Vice web sites. I rate it 10.

[Papa Legba]

For anyone who's interested, I've just updated my earlier review

[rodriguezisdead]

Loved the review Papa !Rated this one a 6. Which for me means more or less 'ordinary' for MV - little that was exceptional. But I did like some things a lot, like others have mentioned...Sonny's outfits, especially that peach combo in the early scenes, are great - classic Vice.Pepe's line is great. Agree that I don't think the ep jumps the shark at all.I think what I loved the most though was something that we see in many eps throughout MV - often portrayed quite subtly, but usually acted-out extremely well between DJ & PMT - and that's the relationship these guys have. They trust in each other - perfect partners. One time one of them will be passionate, the other logical and more 'cold'. Another time vice-versa. They always made such a great team.And in this ep the most poignant moment for me is when Sonny says to Castillo 'he'll be just fine' when Castillo poses the question about Tubbs on the street again. Sonny knows what to say straight away.How many times have we seen something similar? I don't just think they want to trust in their partner. I think there's something more here every time. It's almost like at these moments one or another of these guys just refuse to contemplate what might also happen to them one day. What they live with the fear of succumbing to every day they go to work. This is where they live.So many moments are similar throughout Vice... think about the way in which Sonny explains at the end of Payback how he understands how the job can lead to corruption. Or how he explains how he promised to himself (in Deliver Us From Evil) that he'd throw the towel in way before he thought he didn't know what the right thing to do was anymore. Or how much dread and almost empathy all the cops have towards the ex-Vice cop in the famous final scene of Out Where the Buses. Or how brotherly C&T look on at Castillo as he reads from Trang's letter at the end of the Savage. The examples are endless, but these moments IMO are as central to the unique magic of MV as pastels, fast cars, and 80's pop music. Anyway, I digress...

[vicenarc]

I give this ep a 6. It just had too much black magig written into it. I found this storyline just didn't fit the MV genre.

[AzVice]

Not one of my favorites of season 2. I think i'm stretching it giving it 8/10. Still , here's a good example of the difference between season 2 and 4. If they had attempted this story in season 4 it would have been a dark , weird mess. Somehow they avoided. For some reason i get a kick out of it when Ray Sharkey says, "Voodoo garbage, i don't need."I do take issue with Tubbs portrayal. In "Whatever Works" he's familiar with Santeria, but here he scoffs at voodoo. It seems they're always going back and forthe between Tubbs and Crockett on who is cynical this week.

[MrsEvanFreed]

Let's see, how can I make clear my HATRED for this episode.T:TerribleU:UnwatchableR:RidiculousD: Dreadful2/10Those points are for Marie, she was pretty woman.

[Noogart]

7/10

I thought live and let die was one of the best post Connery Bonds-awesome storry and it was Jane Seymour's first movie-she is a fox. As for this episode, its a 5 in my book. It could have been a Season 4 episode very easily. Pretty cheesy all around, but it had a midget in it so it gets a couple of points up just for that fact. The story is a bit rediculous and the ending is weak but it did have a midget in it so I'm cool with it.

[Spyder]

Tubbs gets a good bit of spotlight in this one, and he gets put into danger, so I give it a 4, but no more than that because I don't like when shows like Vice steeped in realism start delving into the corny and supernatural. Already we were getting away from baddies like Calderone into laughable bad guys like Papa Legba?They should have learned their lesson after making this one not to film stuff like Missing Hours a few years later.

[CrockettandTubbs]

*says very quickly* This is one of my favourite episodes so I gave it a 9! *hides*I know it's freaky, and I'll tell you, the music FREAKS ME OUT (both Jan Hammer's "The Search" score and Todd Rundgren's "Flesh") and I was sat watching this episode, agreeing wholeheartedly with Tubbs about Voodoo (and I liked Sonny's "you can't dissect this with your intellect pal"). Wasn't so keen on the Marie aspect, but that's by the by.And then of course, the tracker gets left behind and suddenly Tubbs is on his own. Now, if my family were to talk about me watching Vice, they would tell you that I do NOT LIKE TUBBS AND CROCKETT BEING SPLIT UP. It's the one thing that makes me unsettled, because if they're together, then that's fine. They can cover each other. They can do some kind of unrealistic thing where they get away even though they shouldn't!! But when they are apart...Anyway! So, the tracker is left behind, with the confuzzled expression from Sonny that I love (aside from his wide-eyed WHAT'S GOING ON face...does anyone else love that? SO CUTE!) and Tubbs is in trouble.Gets a needle stuck in him, too. EEK. And then we're with Crockett trying to find him!! I was terrified, I mean, terrified, because I really thought something nasty had happened. (I have a habit of watching these episodes stand alone, even though I know there is more to come, that still means one of them could die. I'm unrealistic like that!)Best moment? Tied between Crockett finding the jacket (his face breaks my heart there) and him and Tubbs in the hospital where Tubbs does not realise it is him and tries to strangle him. I also like Crockett's defence of Tubbs to Castillo and the way it is clear that Tubbs is not right, but with Sonny there he manages to fight through it and shoots Legba (good riddance too...no offence Papa Legba!)So, yes. I like this episode for the fact it had me on the edge of my seat (because I adore Tubbs) and I like the Sonny and Rico interactions that we have. And I definitely thought twice about voodoo after it! A nine, then, after all that waffle (sorry! No one else in my world listens to my Miami ranting!)

[alleycat]

Love tale of the goatI love this episode its my favorite.I can watch it over and over again.Love the music and what got me was how Sonny worried and cared for his partner when he was found in the swimming pool and in the hospital and when Tubbs was going to interupt the voodoo ceremony and the concern Sonny gives.Just love it.Would love to know what music is played during the office scene when Sonny says to Tubbs you want to crash the ceremony.