Episode #52 "Better Living Through Chemistry"


Ferrariman

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Just watched this one again and I agree with most of the comments here. For me, this episode had great elements such as the scenery, music and action sequences. It also had the potential for some great plot lines. The synthetic coke, the possible drug wars, Sonny's undercover gig, Tubb's ex partner....all fantastic ideas that never really got off the ground due to getting diluted in the mix. I like many of the Izzie performances throughout the series, but in this episode he seemed out of place.

I can best relate this episode to a culinary creation, cooking with the finest ingredients but in the end the final dish just isn't that delicious. This is by no means a bad episode, but it could have been much better with just a little more focus and direction. It will always remain worth watching, but 6/10 would be my score.

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  • 5 months later...

 

Lackluster episode but it surely had great potential to have been marvelous. I recently watched over this one again, I think it has too much going on in the episode. 

 

The story with Tubbs' former partner being there and a major part was interesting, but then you have the chemical cocaine, the drugs wars, Crockett left out by himself deep undercover, and then the murder/blackmail/revenge side piece.

 

it don't all go together, but there's a lot of really good ideas here. 

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  • 1 year later...

This episode is a mixed bag for me.

Love the opening. The music is great, especially Sledgehammer. Good scenery. Love seeing Izzy's house. I dig the whole nightclub vibe of this episode. For some reason, when I watched Cocaine Cowboys I thought of this and the pilot the most. I also love the assault on the nightclub.

The Michael Jackson wannabe who died from the drugs was pretty frickin dreadful.

I've never liked the track Rico's Blues. Clarences girlfriend makes up for it though.

Kinda felt bad for Clarence at the end.

Overall it has a lot of good ideas but it just never really takes off.

7/10

Edited by Remington
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  • 1 year later...

My main problem was with the actor who played Clarence, just not convinced at all that he was Tubb's partner from NY.

Would have been great if they casted Delroy Lindo instead. 

 

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2 minutes ago, RedDragon86 said:

My main problem was with the actor who played Clarence, just not convinced at all that he was Tubb's partner from NY.

Would have been great if they casted Delroy Lindo instead. 

 

Yes he wasn’t the best of actors either.

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On 3/20/2019 at 2:45 PM, Matt5 said:

Yes he wasn’t the best of actors either.

Still a decent episode though.

Edited by RedDragon86
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  • 4 months later...

I like the idea of a former partner of Tubbs but the execution was poor. Nice to hear Born To Be Wild again, also Sledgehammer is a classic. What was up with the lovechild of MJ & Prince? :)

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  • 10 months later...

I enjoyed this episode, it was really fun to watch.

The weak side is the Michael Jackson purple guy, worst acting in season 3 so far, and in the intro, when you can hear Crockett screaming something to Mack but his lips aren't moving.

Overall, because of the humor and aesthetics, I'll give it an 8

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/7/2015 at 8:38 PM, DeepCover333 said:

Just watched this one again and I agree with most of the comments here. For me, this episode had great elements such as the scenery, music and action sequences. It also had the potential for some great plot lines. The synthetic coke, the possible drug wars, Sonny's undercover gig, Tubb's ex partner....all fantastic ideas that never really got off the ground due to getting diluted in the mix. I like many of the Izzie performances throughout the series, but in this episode he seemed out of place.

I can best relate this episode to a culinary creation, cooking with the finest ingredients but in the end the final dish just isn't that delicious. This is by no means a bad episode, but it could have been much better with just a little more focus and direction. It will always remain worth watching, but 6/10 would be my score.

A good point that this episode had the potential to be excellent, but it fell far short.  First off, I don't like "biker bar" stuff.  I prefer the Miami Vice of sunny sleekness. And "Born to Be Wild?"  It's a fine track, but so overplayed and cliche. (Plus it was already used on Vice in the McCarthy episode.)  The build-up to Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" though was great - we keep hearing the shakuhachi flute sound in Jan Hammer's score until - wham- the Sledgehammer track itself blasts in.  Too bad it's another biker bar scene. 

The humor with Izzy and Luna doesn't work well either.  I'm OK with screwball comedy in Vice, but it was dreary here instead of true humorous relief.  Clarence was an excellent character - one wishes there had been an arc with him.  Maybe, say, he gets introduced here but the revelation of Tubbs never having read the confidential report could be in a sequel episode. 

4.5/10

Edited by Jack Gretsky
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  • 4 months later...

The structure of the episode should have been more solid if they were going to introduce Tubbs former partner, leave all of the comedy, Izzy and the bikers out of it.

It should have been set up in the same way as "Evan"

And what didn't make sense was why would Izzy send the biker boss a picture with him laughing, he was kidnapped and might I add the background are not the same. 

1izz.png

izz3.png

Edited by RedDragon86
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vor 36 Minuten schrieb RedDragon86:

The structure of the episode should have been more solid if they were going to introduce Tubbs former partner, leave all of the comedy, Izzy and the bikers out of it.

It should have been set up in the same way as "Evan"

What didn't make sense was why would Izzy send the biker boss a picture with him laughing, he was kidnapped and might I add the background are not the same. 

Sometimes less is more. The problem of this episode IMHO is that the storyline was not consistent, i.e. too many changes were done and too many people fudged around with it during production. I have the production reports of this episode to back that up. The basic storyline (Tubbs gets exposed by former partner within a biker gang case and chemistry drugs) was very good and would have guaranteed a good combination of hot topic plus character drama, but they did too much around it.

First, yes, I agree the comedy is too much. Reason is:  they cut out the scene where we would have seen what really happened at the bookie shooting that ended Batisse´s cop career. By cutting this scene out (they filmed it at the Gusman Center in Downtown!) and leaving all the lengthy Izzy/lunar stuff in, they shifted the episode towards the wrong corner. And, third, Victor Love, is the wrong casting choice for a strong x-partner character. Just compare with William Russ or Bruce McGill. Love has no presence whatsoever and he is not credible. Even if they had left the bookie scene in and had reduced the comedy angle of this show, Love would not have been able to leverage the added screen time for a better episode.

Bottom line for me: too many writers, an inconclusive story-concept and a weak casting (that happened very rarely). 

The teaser, the strong drug testing scene (the Michael Jackson-like guy dies from a strong dose) and the final shoot-out prove that this episode had great potential for threatening violent action and its own significant tone.

Edited by Tom
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  • 1 month later...
On 1/24/2021 at 4:08 PM, Tom said:

Sometimes less is more. The problem of this episode IMHO is that the storyline was not consistent, i.e. too many changes were done and too many people fudged around with it during production. I have the production reports of this episode to back that up. The basic storyline (Tubbs gets exposed by former partner within a biker gang case and chemistry drugs) was very good and would have guaranteed a good combination of hot topic plus character drama, but they did too much around it.

First, yes, I agree the comedy is too much. Reason is:  they cut out the scene where we would have seen what really happened at the bookie shooting that ended Batisse´s cop career. By cutting this scene out (they filmed it at the Gusman Center in Downtown!) and leaving all the lengthy Izzy/lunar stuff in, they shifted the episode towards the wrong corner. And, third, Victor Love, is the wrong casting choice for a strong x-partner character. Just compare with William Russ or Bruce McGill. Love has no presence whatsoever and he is not credible. Even if they had left the bookie scene in and had reduced the comedy angle of this show, Love would not have been able to leverage the added screen time for a better episode.

Bottom line for me: too many writers, an inconclusive story-concept and a weak casting (that happened very rarely). 

The teaser, the strong drug testing scene (the Michael Jackson-like guy dies from a strong dose) and the final shoot-out prove that this episode had great potential for threatening violent action and its own significant tone.

I do like this episode, but I agree with you that the way events shook out took a wrong turn with its focus and overall made the plot feel inconclusive. Too many things taking place, not enough satisfactory resolution. I would've liked the scene with the bookie shooting, and I believe the kidnapping scenes could've been trimmed without any harm done to the overall point of of its inclusion.

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What Melody is wearing when she answers the door, uh, I always thought it was a bra and underwear:hot:. It makes me think of that episode of "Columbo" when Columbo goes to a house and fetch'n Gretchen Corbett answers the door in a bikini.

As a character, I thought Melody seemed like a good companion: very aware, not self-serving, and looking out for Clarence (who clearly wasn't looking out for himself; if he waited two seasons and he still wanted to eat his gun, Miracle Man had a chocolate one...a little stale, but it would likely give Clarence the energy to continue to spin the platters).

Anyway, until Jack Gretzky brought it up, I didn't think to realize that "Born to be Wild" was twice on Vice. Upon reflection, I think the show could've done better than double-dipping musically, especially since the first time the song was played it was used during a key scene.

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  • 2 months later...

I like this one...the plot is pretty cool, with some of Tubbs' past come back to "bite" him--and we meet a disgruntled former partner. Awesome beginning!! :clap: The bizarre chemist, along with the usual stupidity of Izzy added some humor. :) 

The action & gun fights were awesome, but also the acting and dialogue between Tubbs and Clarence was pretty good! I like it that Tubbs helped finally clear Clarence (ironically since he originally helped convict him), but it was tragic that Clarence in his anger made a stupid choice now that will again send him to jail. :rolleyes:

Also, what was up with the drug dealer's teeth? :eek: Okay, that guy had more money than he knew what to do with...and he doesn't fix his rotting teeth? Looks like he'd been sampling meth, rather than "coke". :p 

This also seemed to be one that showcased more of Tubbs' Caddy (which I always love seeing :thumbsup: )...but that's probably because it delt more with him in the storyline. Overall I like watching this one and I originally gave it a 7, and still stand by that. :cool:

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/27/2020 at 11:47 AM, Jack Gretsky said:

A good point that this episode had the potential to be excellent, but it fell far short.  First off, I don't like "biker bar" stuff.  I prefer the Miami Vice of sunny sleekness. And "Born to Be Wild?"  It's a fine track, but so overplayed and cliche. (Plus it was already used on Vice in the McCarthy episode.)  The build-up to Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" though was great - we keep hearing the shakuhachi flute sound in Jan Hammer's score until - wham- the Sledgehammer track itself blasts in.  Too bad it's another biker bar scene. 

The humor with Izzy and Luna doesn't work well either.  I'm OK with screwball comedy in Vice, but it was dreary here instead of true humorous relief.  Clarence was an excellent character - one wishes there had been an arc with him.  Maybe, say, he gets introduced here but the revelation of Tubbs never having read the confidential report could be in a sequel episode. 

4.5/10

Oh good, I reviewed this a year ago so I don't have to struggle to write something for this fairly dull episode.  My review above holds and, yeah..."Born to Be Wild" played in a biker bar.  Really, Miami Vice, really?  At least we have Peter Gabriel's magnificent "Sledgehammer" to make up for that musical lapse.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

Okay, I thought of another wacky Vice spin-off in the vein of Bob Rickert & "Rickert Fences". This one features Clarence Batisse & Melody, simply titled "Clarence & Melody: On the Case". I believe this half-hour show would be revolve around Clarence coming home at night to Melody with a different suitcase containing different things (a rattlesnake perhaps, strange glowing liquid, foreign cash, old newspapers, rare comics--possibly Archie comics--, anything really; the possibilities are truly endless!) and Melody saying to Clarence, "What did you do, Clarence?". The remainder of the episode involves Clarence attempting to rid himself of the contents of the case, and likely the case itself.

Edited by Eillio Martin Imbasciati
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12 hours ago, Eillio Martin Imbasciati said:

Okay, I thought of another wacky Vice spin-off in the vein of Bob Rickert & "Rickert Fences". This one features Clarence Batisse & Melody, simply titled "Clarence & Melody: On the Case". I believe this half-hour show would be revolve around Clarence coming home at night to Melody with a different suitcase containing different things (a rattlesnake perhaps, strange glowing liquid, foreign cash, old newspapers, rare comics--possibly Archie comics--, anything really; the possibilities are truly endless!) and Melody saying to Clarence, "What did you do, Clarence?". The remainder of the episode involves Clarence attempting to rid himself of the contents of the case, and likely the case itself.

As long as Melody keeps wearing them bathing suits and robes, I'm on board with this one!

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This episode is a big let down, just like "The Afternoon Plane"

Its not believable that was Tubb's partner from NYC, just not feeling it and his former partner just so happens to be a DJ in MIAMI! of all places and what a coincidence Tubb's is conducting undercover work there or and Izzy knows Clarence as well.

 

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12 hours ago, Jack Gretsky said:

As long as Melody keeps wearing them bathing suits and robes, I'm on board with this one!

Look, Melody answering the door like that EVERY TIME is a must:p; we'll have to work in a way for a scene like that to happen every few episodes (I'll concede that every episode would be exploitive).

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4 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

This episode is a big let down, just like "The Afternoon Plane"

Its not believable that was Tubb's partner from NYC, just not feeling it and his former partner just so happens to be a DJ in MIAMI! of all places and what a coincidence Tubb's is conducting undercover work there or and Izzy knows Clarence as well.

 

I like this episode (it's a little "off" though, at least that's what I believe), but I agree, I could never get into a previous Tubbs/Batisse partnership either (and I've tried!); it felt like it came out of nowhere to me. It just didn't feel "real" to me.

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On 1/24/2021 at 5:35 PM, RedDragon86 said:

The structure of the episode should have been more solid if they were going to introduce Tubbs former partner, leave all of the comedy, Izzy and the bikers out of it.

It should have been set up in the same way as "Evan"

And what didn't make sense was why would Izzy send the biker boss a picture with him laughing, he was kidnapped and might I add the background are not the same. 

1izz.png

izz3.png

Yeah i know, but its sooooo funny

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