Episode #43 "Trust Fund Pirates"

[Tony Petres]

I give this episode a 7.  I wonder how they staged the Pirates hammering down on the smuggler's boat? That M-60 looked pretty real and bad ass! A thing that could have been explored more was Jackson's military background. He wears  a jacket with the  101st Abn patch on his left shoulder in his first scene where he discovers the gunned smuggler's boat. The suggestion is that  he was an aviator with the Screaming Eagles and that means helicopters (also as suggested by Crocket when he and Tubbs first meet Jackson in his hanger and he is supposedly "repairing" remote control helos -"remember what is what like flying the big ones Jackson"? With Jackson being 30 in 1985 he was borderline for Vietnam (the 101st left in late '72) he must have been a post Viet veteran. I also liked the recorded music selections including Lynyrd Skynyrd "That Smell" in the crack house scene. How perfect was that!  In the end, there seemed to be (like Glen Frey's character one year before) a "good guy" inside; only one crusted over with the slime of narcotics smuggling. At the end, we are left hoping he does "get back" to Sonny as he flies of into the Florida sunset in his little seaplane !

[RedDragon86]

This episode is so far fetched and has unexplainable plot.

There are so many whys in this, like why was Noogie on the yacht.

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by RedDragon86

[Dadrian]

3 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

why was Noogie on the yacht

I’ve always guessed it was for the same reason he (or Izzy) are anywhere—to be able to help C&T. 

Their characters are almost never doing the same thing twice, which was very convenient for the writers. 

I guess you realize, but Noogie was totally their “foot in the door” for the intro to Captain Hook. 

I’m totally with you on the cringes!  

This is another episode where I mostly just enjoy the scenery and music. 

[ViceFanMan]

4 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

This episode is so far fetched and has unexplainable plot.

There are so many whys in this, like why was Noogie on the yacht, like what purpose was he serving and why was the DJ called captain hook and more importantly why was Tubbs listening to that 1 eyed idiot on the radio. 

Every character is cringy and unbearable to observe apart from the main cast of course and I suppose Cole was alright.

The plot is thin or poorly written because the whole gun running thing as well was just thrown in a last minute, just so C&T have a reason to bust them but originally they wanted to buy a boat for 60k?

It's like a poor episode in season 5. 

 

This isn’t probably a “strong” episode...but there’s some interesting and action moments.

The DJ was probably called Capt. Hook because he wore the eye patch...like a pirate...which Capt. Hook was in the story of “Peter Pan”. The DJ guy was “pirating” a radio frequency for his show, as he wasn’t licensed to use it. That’s why he jokingly did the whole pirate persona.

Tubbs liked the show & enjoyed listening to it, despite the fact it was technically illegal...that’s why the guy was out in the water on his yacht, to move around and the authorities wouldn’t know exactly where he was at any given time.

Why Noogie was there? I can’t answer that one, lol. He was annoying and I couldn’t stand him anyway. Completely ridiculous and pointless character. 

But, I enjoyed the plot and Cole as the main guest star well enough.  

[Dadrian]

2 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

The DJ was probably called Capt. Hook because he wore the eye patch...like a pirate...which Capt. Hook was in the story of “Peter Pan”.

Also, his listeners were “hooked”. Maybe a long shot..

I’ve also always enjoyed Gary Cole’s performance in this one. He is very natural and believable in every one of his scenes. He was also great as Reese Bobby.    

[ViceFanMan]

4 minutes ago, Dadrian said:

Also, his listeners were “hooked”. Maybe a long shot..

I’ve also always enjoyed Gary Cole’s performance in this one. He is very natural and believable in every one of his scenes. He was also great as Reese Bobby.    

Tubbs was definitely “hooked”, lol!  But, the whole pirate thing, eye patch, and Capt. Hook name makes sense with what the “Law & Order” DJ was trying to do for humor. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by ViceFanMan

[pahonu]

4 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

This episode is so far fetched and has unexplainable plot.

There are so many whys in this, like why was Noogie on the yacht, like what purpose was he serving and why was the DJ called captain hook and more importantly why was Tubbs listening to that 1 eyed idiot on the radio. 

Every character is cringy and unbearable to observe apart from the main cast of course and I suppose Cole was alright.

The plot is thin or poorly written because the whole gun running thing as well was just thrown in a last minute, just so C&T have a reason to bust them but originally they wanted to buy a boat for 60k?

It's like a poor episode in season 5. 

 

Pirate radio stations came to prominence in the 60’s, but had a bit of a resurgence in the 80’s so it’s not as far fetched that it was on an MV episode, as it might seem today. Operating offshore, this made Florida a major source of such illegal broadcasting.  It actually still goes on today though new technology has eliminated the offshore boat method.  I recall a story just a few years ago about the FCC struggling to shut down a station broadcasting to the Haitian community in Miami.

I also believe the Cole character was supposed to be the Glenn Frey character but he was unavailable.

[RedDragon86]

Another thing that didn't make sense was how Jackson fiancé went from being very immature, like a ditzy teenage girl playing video games at the arcade to suddenly turning into Sarah MacPhail at they end. 

[pahonu]

4 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

Tubbs was definitely “hooked”, lol!  But, the whole pirate thing, eye patch, and Capt. Hook name makes sense with what the “Law & Order” DJ was trying to do for humor. 

The LA area had Wolfman Jack howling during broadcasts as part of his on-air persona.  Elvira, Mistress of the Dark originated here also, on a local channel that hosted horror movies on the weekend.  Those two both went nationwide eventually.  Local entertainment is often less sophisticated than network programming, but there are a lot of gems to be found and some that are really wild but also a lot of fun. 

[Dadrian]

2 minutes ago, RedDragon86 said:

Another thing that didn't make sense was how Jackson fiancé went from being very immature, like a ditzy teenage girl playing video games at the arcade to suddenly turning into Sarah MacPhail at they end. 

Yes that was not believable at all. 

I can see where they were trying to go with “the unexpected”, but…

[RedDragon86]

On 8/29/2021 at 7:52 PM, pahonu said:

Pirate radio stations came to prominence in the 60’s, but had a bit of a resurgence in the 80’s so it’s not as far fetched that it was on an MV episode, as it might seem today. Operating offshore, this made Florida a major source of such illegal broadcasting.  It actually still goes on today though new technology has eliminated the offshore boat method.  I recall a story just a few years ago about the FCC struggling to shut down a station broadcasting to the Haitian community in Miami.

I also believe the Cole character was supposed to be the Glenn Frey character but he was unavailable.

Better that he was unavailable as the story was not strong enough or serous enough for his return.

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by RedDragon86

[ViceFanMan]

2 minutes ago, RedDragon86 said:

Another thing that didn't make sense was how Jackson fiancé went from being very immature, like a ditzy teenage girl playing video games at the arcade to suddenly turning into Sarah MacPhail at they end. 

I think she was immature to an extent...but not as ditzy or dumb as she portrayed herself as. I think she was always more deadly & greedy than what she let Jackson or anyone else think. We & Jackson just didn’t get to see that until the end, when her true colors were ultimately exposed.

[ViceFanMan]

9 minutes ago, pahonu said:

Pirate radio stations came to prominence in the 60’s, but had a bit of a resurgence in the 80’s so it’s not as far fetched that it was on an MV episode, as it might seem today. Operating offshore, this made Florida a major source of such illegal broadcasting.  It actually still goes on today though new technology has eliminated the offshore boat method.  I recall a story just a few years ago about the FCC struggling to shut down a station broadcasting to the Haitian community in Miami.

I also believe the Cole character was supposed to be the Glenn Frey character but he was unavailable.

Yes, they tried to get Frey to return as Jimmy, but he was unavailable. It would have probably been “cooler” if Frey had been in it, but I liked Gary Cole as Jackson, too. 

[RedDragon86]

2 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

I think she was immature to an extent...but not as ditzy or dumb as she portrayed herself as. I think she was always more deadly & greedy than what she let Jackson or anyone else think. We & Jackson just didn’t get to see that until the end, when her true colors were ultimately exposed.

She was an airhead, I think it was a simple fact that the director changed her character at the final stage just to suit the ending or making it easier/quicker to close. 

[ViceFanMan]

Just now, RedDragon86 said:

She was an airhead, I think it was a simple fact that the director changed her character at the final stage just to suit the ending or making it easier/quicker to close. 

I don’t know about the director changing the character...maybe? But, either way they chose to have her be or portray herself as kind of an airhead...but not as dumb as initially thought.

[Dadrian]

I think Crockett summed it up well:

”Boy do I feel dumb.”

 

[pahonu]

25 minutes ago, RedDragon86 said:

She was an airhead, I think it was a simple fact that the director changed her character at the final stage just to suit the ending or making it easier/quicker to close. 

We’ve had this conversation on another thread here before.  Dramatic series TV directors typically don’t play a big role in character development within episodes, and not at all for the series regulars.  Unlike most of the cast and crew, the directors are not regulars in the production.  They are brought in to prepare for and oversee all the details of that episode only.  

TV is a writers medium, as they say, and it’s pretty unlikely that the director deviated from the dialogue, the action lines, or the parenthetical instructions in the script they were given.  TV directors are more focused technically than anything else.  They make sure that all the script pages for the day are complete on time, with surprisingly little creative control.  It’s quite different from film production.

Edit:

Maybe I should explain the script components better.  Everyone knows the dialogue, but the action lines generally come first (after the heading) and they describe what is physically going on in the scene.  Then the character names with dialogue follow.  Very often, between a character name and dialogue, the writer will place instructions in parentheses.  These typically describe the emotional tone, but also might add instructions like “said out of breath” or “mumbled inaudibly”.  The last thing is the transition, which is usually very simple like, “fade out” or “cut to”.

The director follows these instructions pretty carefully.  They wouldn’t just decide that a character will now be different.  All of those decisions are made by the various writers who then have their work reviewed by the script supervisor (a regular crew member) for continuity of character, backstory, etc... 

Edited August 29, 2021 by pahonu

[ViceFanMan]

1 hour ago, Dadrian said:

I think Crockett summed it up well:

”Boy do I feel dumb.”

 

Well, the dumb-blonde turned out to not be so dumb...more like a deadly-blonde.  So, he and Jackson probably felt kind of dumb for just assuming she was a ditz.

1 hour ago, pahonu said:

We’ve had this conversation on another thread here before.  Dramatic series TV directors typically don’t play a big role in character development within episodes, and not at all for the series regulars.  Unlike most of the cast and crew, the directors are not regulars in the production.  They are brought in to prepare for and oversee all the details of that episode only.  

TV is a writers medium, as they say, and it’s pretty unlikely that the director deviated from the dialogue, the action lines, or the parenthetical instructions in the script they were given.  TV directors are more focused technically than anything else.  They make sure that all the script pages for the day are complete on time, with surprisingly little creative control.  It’s quite different from film production.

Edit:

Maybe I should explain the script components better.  Everyone knows the dialogue, but the action lines generally come first (after the heading) and they describe what is physically going on in the scene.  Then the character names with dialogue follow.  Very often, between a character name and dialogue, the writer will place instructions in parentheses.  These typically describe the emotional tone, but also might add instructions like “said out of breath” or “mumbled inaudibly”.  The last thing is the transition, which is usually very simple like, “fade out” or “cut to”.

The director follows these instructions pretty carefully.  They wouldn’t just decide that a character will now be different.  All of those decisions are made by the various writers who then have their work reviewed by the script supervisor (a regular crew member) for continuity of character, backstory, etc... 

Well, in all honesty I don’t think there was that much seriousness, or depth put into the characterization of MV (whether main cast or guest cast).  Although they tried to add some interesting, if not “wild”, back-stories to Crockett, Castillo, and even a little with Gina along the way...for the most part MV mainly focused on the visuals (colors, cars, fashion, music, action, lighting, etc...). 

As much as I love this show, I have to admit that the visuals came first...then the characters. But, at the time no other show had done that...and it worked!  The MV visuals catapulted the show into iconic status almost immediately! To this day,  whether people realize it or are old enough to remember or not, a lot of MV-style visuals are still used. 

[pahonu]

3 hours ago, ViceFanMan said:

Well, the dumb-blonde turned out to not be so dumb...more like a deadly-blonde.  So, he and Jackson probably felt kind of dumb for just assuming she was a ditz.

Well, in all honesty I don’t think there was that much seriousness, or depth put into the characterization of MV (whether main cast or guest cast).  Although they tried to add some interesting, if not “wild”, back-stories to Crockett, Castillo, and even a little with Gina along the way...for the most part MV mainly focused on the visuals (colors, cars, fashion, music, action, lighting, etc...). 

As much as I love this show, I have to admit that the visuals came first...then the characters. But, at the time no other show had done that...and it worked!  The MV visuals catapulted the show into iconic status almost immediately! To this day,  whether people realize it or are old enough to remember or not, a lot of MV-style visuals are still used. 

I agree with all those statements.  I was just commenting that the episodes director almost certainly didn’t change the character in the end as you had thought.  Character development and continuity proved to be a bit of a weakness on the show, but it had so many other strengths, as you described.  

[ViceFanMan]

1 minute ago, pahonu said:

I agree with all those statements.  I was just commenting that the episodes director almost certainly didn’t change the character in the end as you had thought.  Character development and continuity proved to be a bit of a weakness on the show, but it had so many other strengths, as you described.  

Totally agree...the director most likely didn’t change much for any of the characters (unless that had been agreed on, early on with the script). I’m not the one who had thought that...one of the other members had suggested the thought. 

But, yes although depth of character & continuity ended up being a problem and/or weakness for the show (which I blame the change in writers & producers for), ultimately the visuals and style-technique “made” the show!  

And some of the pasts and/or backstories they created for some of the main characters were interesting and fun to watch. 

 

[pahonu]

58 minutes ago, ViceFanMan said:

Totally agree...the director most likely didn’t change much for any of the characters (unless that had been agreed on, early on with the script). I’m not the one who had thought that...one of the other members had suggested the thought. 

But, yes although depth of character & continuity ended up being a problem and/or weakness for the show (which I blame the change in writers & producers for), ultimately the visuals and style-technique “made” the show!  

And some of the pasts and/or backstories they created for some of the main characters were interesting and fun to watch. 

 

Sorry I misattributed that. 

Edited August 30, 2021 by pahonu

[ViceFanMan]

32 minutes ago, pahonu said:

Sorry I misattributed that. 

No problem or biggie...I’ve done it too. There’s so many thoughts, opinions, statements, reviews, info, etc...that sometimes it’s hard to keep it all straight. But, that’s what makes this show and fansite amazing...NO other fansite for any other show I’m a member of, is this in-depth, detailed, serious, captivating, interesting, and fun!  

[Jack Gretsky]

I look forward to this one. It's a "fun" story, despite its dark undercurrents. (The bloody killings, the crackhouse scene)  It has the greatest song of 1986, "What You Need" by INXS, Randy Newman's "Miami" (a "sequel" to his "I Love L.A."?), turns by Gary Cole, Richard Belzer as a "pirate radio" DJ, complete with eyepatch, Tommy Chong and Denny Dillon as the most unlikely contraband middlemen, the return of the Noog-Man, preppy Perry Lang as a ruthless "trust fund pirate," and Nicole Fosse as Lang's sister and Cole's girlfriend.  I'm a huge fan of her father's stage and screen work - All That Jazz is one of my top 10 favorite films.  I also hope that that blonde on the exercycle on Hook's boat is noted in the "Hottest Vice babes" thread.  Yowzah! 

Edited September 9, 2021 by Jack Gretsky

[Viceguy]

One of favorites from Season 2. I realize that I am very biased though. One of my strongest childhood dreams was about becoming a pirate. Then I understood what I really want is to host a radio station. Sadly neither of these dreams came true.

10/10

[ViceFanMan]

Watching this one again tonight...although I wish Glenn Frey had been able to return as Jimmy, Gary Cole was still awesome as Jackson.  

I also enjoy the abandoned/derelict interior of the drug-house. They must have chosen a different building for the supposed exterior scene, as from what I understand it was not the same as the interiors. The interior scenes were filmed in the old Floridian Hotel (later called the Biscaya)...also used for the meeting scene of Crockett, Tubbs, Castillo, Trudy, and a DEA agent in the beginning of “Smuggler’s Blues”. Al Capone was part owner & liked to stay there back in the 30s.

I’m not sure what building the exterior shot is of, but check out the detailed tile stairs of the old Floridian, still there as Jackson goes up...so sad it could not have been saved/restored! Pictures & captions below: 

An exterior shot of some building that supposedly Jackson enters in search of a lady strung out on drugs. The interiors were  actually not of this building. 

A vintage postcard of the Floridian Hotel (later called the Biscaya Hotel). Gangster Al Capone was supposedly part owner & liked to stay there in the early to mid 1930s. The abandoned & drug-house interiors for this episode were actually filmed here, before its sad demolition in 1987. 

Jackson going up the old stairs of the abandoned Floridian/Biscaya...check out the original, ornate styled tile! So sad this historic hotel could not have been saved! 

Edited May 31, 2022 by ViceFanMan