The MANY Loves of Sonny Crockett...

[Matt5]

Caroline I liked - he was so unlucky in love 

[wolfie1996]

On 8/22/2010 at 5:26 AM, MrsEvanFreed said:

There were quite few throughtout the show's run.My vote went to Margaret, really liked her for Sonny.

I did too, actually! She was a feisty type, confident and cool. No point being a wilting flower with him. You had to be the female version of him.

[wolfie1996]

On 8/22/2010 at 7:41 AM, MrsEvanFreed said:

Quote

I've had the hots for Caroline' date=' as I thought she was right for Crockett....(and me). :)My votes for Caroline. [/quote']He did admit that SHE was the one that got away. Sonny working Vice is what ended their marriage, yet the love never faded. But they both moved on and found it again with other people.Caroline with Bob.Sonny with Theresa, then Caitlin.

Neither of the latter two any good for him in my opinion...

[wolfie1996]

On 7/25/2014 at 2:31 AM, Sonny-Burnett said:

To resurrect this thread a bit, this was a tough call for me.

As to women for Crockett, I thought many had some qualities that at first seemed they would work...Gina who understood the grind and daily demands of being a Vice Cop; Caitlin who had a strong personality and could hold her own with Sonny; Polly was certainly a match in the Bad Girl Bad Boy department; and Caroline had perhaps the most down to earth personality of all, which may have been a good grounding influence on Sonny as suggested in some early scenes. Never could understand the Sonny/Brenda connection though. Celeste, while stylistically seemed a match to his alter ego, really never knew the true Sonny and likely would not be involved with a cop...same could be said for Polly. The Margaret thing never made sense to me ....I didn't get that unexplained attraction. Almost forgot Teresa...well to me this was a total miscast to put someone who looked like a teenager in a Dr role and never really explaining how Crockett  nearly presented her with a ring. She had way more personal issues than she could handle to even contemplate taking on Crockett in a relationship.

But overall I thought none of them were a great match for Crockett. Something seemed to be missing in each one for me and the chemistry was a major factor. I didn't get a lot of that between Gina and Sonny, as there were frequent conflicts, nor with Polly or Celeste as Sonny wasn't really himself as his alter ego Burnett.

Caroline had pretty much rejected the Vice lifestyle so she was never going to be long-term. Caitlin was living in an alternate universe of sorts....lots of flash and mega money that a Vice cop could not really appreciate. The same questions moneyed Brenda once asked Crockett about their future together could be asked by Caitlin, and likely similar answers. And Brenda then had her answer ..and both knew it.

Maybe Crockett was destined to live the bachelor life going forward. He had a hair trigger temper, was a hard drinker, worked long hours and immersed himself in the mindset of the drug world, and so his persona took on a lot of similar qualities at times. He became a tough minded skeptic and cynic, and even seemed burned out on life toward the end of the series.

So I think any woman who could match up to him would have to be familiar with his work lifestyle, maybe even involved in some ways, and have some incredible tolerance and patience. Maybe such that he could get some balance back in his work/life existence. So maybe another cop could be in his future, and a very understanding one at that.

In fact his most real relationships were with his colleagues  and the job itself......

[NeonHumidity]

On 6/29/2021 at 1:27 PM, wolfie1996 said:

In fact his most real relationships were with his colleagues  and the job itself......

Which is probably why Vice slash is so popular. 

But keeping this to the ladies...  Caroline has just always seemed to me the embodiment of "Never have a boyfriend who's prettier than you"; while Belinda Montgomery is lovely, there was such an instant (and I can only assume deliberate) visual mismatch between her and Sonny that I think it's supposed to be shorthand for the issues between them.  Not just appearance, but symbolic of something deeper.  They don't look like they belong together at any point, and I never got that feeling with any of the others, not even Danielle the creep.

I have a soft spot for Margaret largely because "Prodigal Son" was the first episode to make an impact on me, but also because I think the chemistry with Sonny was great and their mutual secrecy and craziness played well off each other.  Almost definitely not a forever relationship, but I really would have liked to see her come back for at least another episode.

And Gina, the one he apparently figured he didn't break up with, so he'd keep his hands on...  Literally.  The ongoing flirting/kissing/touching is quite spectacular, but, omg, modern-day Sonny would be up to his Ray-Bans in HR "appropriate workplace behavior" hours trying not to immolate his career... 

That aside, I did not go into this show expecting to ship anybody, but I really enjoyed him and Gina together.  Great chemistry, ongoing emotions, and a very solid handful of "love and caring" moments, which I think outnumbered all of the ones he had with all of the others put together.  If his most real connections were with the job, they were definitely the work spouses.

Edited January 30 by NeonHumidity

[vicegirl85]

On 7/24/2014 at 9:31 PM, Sonny-Burnett said:

To resurrect this thread a bit, this was a tough call for me.

As to women for Crockett, I thought many had some qualities that at first seemed they would work...Gina who understood the grind and daily demands of being a Vice Cop; Caitlin who had a strong personality and could hold her own with Sonny; Polly was certainly a match in the Bad Girl Bad Boy department; and Caroline had perhaps the most down to earth personality of all, which may have been a good grounding influence on Sonny as suggested in some early scenes. Never could understand the Sonny/Brenda connection though. Celeste, while stylistically seemed a match to his alter ego, really never knew the true Sonny and likely would not be involved with a cop...same could be said for Polly. The Margaret thing never made sense to me ....I didn't get that unexplained attraction. Almost forgot Teresa...well to me this was a total miscast to put someone who looked like a teenager in a Dr role and never really explaining how Crockett  nearly presented her with a ring. She had way more personal issues than she could handle to even contemplate taking on Crockett in a relationship.

But overall I thought none of them were a great match for Crockett. Something seemed to be missing in each one for me and the chemistry was a major factor. I didn't get a lot of that between Gina and Sonny, as there were frequent conflicts, nor with Polly or Celeste as Sonny wasn't really himself as his alter ego Burnett.

Caroline had pretty much rejected the Vice lifestyle so she was never going to be long-term. Caitlin was living in an alternate universe of sorts....lots of flash and mega money that a Vice cop could not really appreciate. The same questions moneyed Brenda once asked Crockett about their future together could be asked by Caitlin, and likely similar answers. And Brenda then had her answer ..and both knew it.

Maybe Crockett was destined to live the bachelor life going forward. He had a hair trigger temper, was a hard drinker, worked long hours and immersed himself in the mindset of the drug world, and so his persona took on a lot of similar qualities at times. He became a tough minded skeptic and cynic, and even seemed burned out on life toward the end of the series.

So I think any woman who could match up to him would have to be familiar with his work lifestyle, maybe even involved in some ways, and have some incredible tolerance and patience. Maybe such that he could get some balance back in his work/life existence. So maybe another cop could be in his future, and a very understanding one at that.

This is the best answer, from my POV.

I think Sonny really loved Caroline (or at least the ideal she represented).  She was depicted as very grounded, practical, and sensible.  Sonny himself seems to have come from a somewhat unstable family background (from *Bad Timing*); his Vietnam experiences shaped him to some degree; he was attracted to Caroline and her apparently stable background.  Before he moved to Vice, his schedule *may* have allowed him more family time, but the cracks really showed up when he started working undercover (like the Ed O'Neill character).  Caroline was less and less satisfied as their son grew older and Sonny seemingly grew more distant from her.  In the end, although Sonny was willing to give his life for his wife and son, he discovered he couldn't stop them from being a target and Caroline realized he truly was "hooked on the action;" he wouldn't leave undercover work for a normal, ordinary life that was less adrenaline-fueled.  So she had to leave in order to protect herself and their son. 

Gina was a rebound romance.  Sure, she was attracted to Sonny (as nearly every woman he met was).  She did have a lot of understanding of his personality; her intensity and sometimes/often overconfidence in her ability to handle undercover situations was a match for his (in fact I think she allowed herself to get into risky situations moreso than he did).  But after Brenda, it seemed to me that Sonny realized his own limits in being in a relationship, and (for me) he believed he wasn't able--or maybe even willing--to be the partner Gina wanted.  I felt that he held himself apart from a continued physical relationship with her--but he didn't really let go, as he showed in *When Irish Eyes Are Crying*, and *Blood and Roses*.  Many people do believe they continued to have a "friends with benefits" relationship, and maybe that's true.  She also had to protect her heart, and I think he would have continued to prioritize work over a relationship.  For me, Gina would have gone back to him in a heartbeat at any time during the show's run... but I've come to believe that in the long run they wouldn't have lasted as a couple.    

I go back and forth on how/ whether Sonny and Caitlin's relationship would have gone if she hadn't died.  Their worlds and careers were very different (as with him and Brenda).  All-consuming passion is a wonderful thing, but for a relationship to hold up over the long term, it would seem that common interests and common friends would be important.  All of life isn't a bubble where two people who are in love spend all their time with only each other and see their lives going down the same path.  He had already had numerous relationship failures; his work life was making him more and more cynical and disillusioned, and I agree with many here that he was trying to find something solid and normal to hold onto.  I'm not sure he was able to do that and I don't really think he and Caitlin would have found that together.

Christine is an interesting character as a romantic interest for Sonny--but I really think that has more to do with the long relationship of DJ and Melanie Griffith and their own chemistry as a couple.  There seemed to be a high amount of chemistry between Christine and Sonny--but was there anything real between the two characters?  How would they spend their time together when not physically intimate?  It was another flash in the pan for Sonny with nothing there to back it up. 

Agree about Theresa--the character was way too young to be believable. Although some here feel that the scene from a previous episode (where the two of them are together comfortably on the St. Vitus Dance) showed an established relationship, nothing was actually shown that explained how they met and what they had in common that led to a deep enough relationship for him to decide to ask her to marry him.  The storyline would have been OK if we were shown the actual development of their romance (in spite of the age gap; I'm aware actors portray older or younger characters all the time).  But like with most of Sonny's romances, there's just no basis shown for them to be together.

Basically every other romantic interest is super short-term and again everything is superficial.  Celeste (as Sonny-Burnett states) only knew Sonny during his amnesiac phase.  If we accept that (as the show wants us to) we must accept that she doesn't know the real Sonny.  I don't think either she or Polly (the Julia Roberts character) would have been interested in being with a cop.

[mjcmmv]

Not hard to figure out the one I'd choose: Gina would be my number one pick. She understood him the best. 

And I agree, his marriage to Caitlin wouldn't have lasted. Their worlds were constantly crashing into each other. Caitlin wasn't about to give up her "good thing"; Sonny thrived on adrenalin. Giving up his job might have caused him to resent her after a while.  

 

[NeonHumidity]

There's also a socioeconomics lesson in here, one that seemingly confirms Crockett as a wannabe social climber.  We all know he's a public servant wage slave who likes the finer things when he gets his hands on them, and that includes successful professional women -- an architect, a gallery owner, an Interpol agent, a doctor (not a nurse), a high-powered businesswoman, and a multi-album recording artist.  

He never dates a teacher, or a file clerk, or a bank teller (all of whom could have had similar plotlines); all we see of his flight attendant friend is that it was occasional and she dies, he only shows a passing interest in a waitress once (and that's after having gone to hell and back), and he only makes the exception for Gina because she's there, partly.

Tubbs had some pretty successful love interests, too, but I'm not sure if there were as many or if you can draw the same conclusions, especially since he's coming from a different place.

[vicegirl85]

12 hours ago, NeonHumidity said:

There's also a socioeconomics lesson in here, one that seemingly confirms Crockett as a wannabe social climber.  We all know he's a public servant wage slave who likes the finer things when he gets his hands on them, and that includes successful professional women -- an architect, a gallery owner, an Interpol agent, a doctor (not a nurse), a high-powered businesswoman, and a multi-album recording artist.  

He never dates a teacher, or a file clerk, or a bank teller (all of whom could have had similar plotlines); all we see of his flight attendant friend is that it was occasional and she dies, he only shows a passing interest in a waitress once (and that's after having gone to hell and back), and he only makes the exception for Gina because she's there, partly.

Tubbs had some pretty successful love interests, too, but I'm not sure if there were as many or if you can draw the same conclusions, especially since he's coming from a different place.

LOL, you have a point here.  I wonder if all of this was purposeful from the writing/ production side--quite a few of the episodes seem very random and unrelated.  We certainly are never shown how he meets a number of his romantic interests.  In the cases of Danielle and Caitlin, he met them through work and they knew he was a police officer.  With Christine, it *seems* he was working undercover, so she knew him as Burnett (it's been awhile since I watched this one).  We don't know how he met Theresa or Brenda--but they both know he is a police officer.  

[NeonHumidity]

44 minutes ago, vicegirl85 said:

LOL, you have a point here.  I wonder if all of this was purposeful from the writing/ production side--quite a few of the episodes seem very random and unrelated.  We certainly are never shown how he meets a number of his romantic interests.  In the cases of Danielle and Caitlin, he met them through work and they knew he was a police officer.  With Christine, it *seems* he was working undercover, so she knew him as Burnett (it's been awhile since I watched this one).  We don't know how he met Theresa or Brenda--but they both know he is a police officer.  

Yeah, the only ones who don't know he's a working stiff are Margaret and Christine, but it's not so relevant whether they know or not -- I think some (enough) of Crockett is attracted to success and money.  He bitches about his own finances, as Burnett he (still) twists the knife into Cliff about being white trash enough to reveal a good bit of disdain and insecurity, he's not shown as exceptionally interested in his super-ordinary first marriage to Caroline (who is implied to have come from a better background herself) and all of that aside, he may just be doing what his female counterparts have done since time immemorial -- realizing that his exceptional looks, charm, and prowess will not only land him anyone, but can land him someone closer to letting him live more like glamorous Burnett for real and less like Crockett the broke-ass cop, so why not? 

...and ultimately that all backfired on him when Caitlin was murdered and we never see him doing a thing with her money, but he had a pretty solid pattern up to that point.

Edited February 11 by NeonHumidity

[Robbie C.]

1 hour ago, vicegirl85 said:

LOL, you have a point here.  I wonder if all of this was purposeful from the writing/ production side--quite a few of the episodes seem very random and unrelated.  We certainly are never shown how he meets a number of his romantic interests.  In the cases of Danielle and Caitlin, he met them through work and they knew he was a police officer.  With Christine, it *seems* he was working undercover, so she knew him as Burnett (it's been awhile since I watched this one).  We don't know how he met Theresa or Brenda--but they both know he is a police officer.  

I honestly doubt if any of it was purposeful in that sense. I tend to think his love interests were intended to reflect Crockett's desire to get away from his cop life...even though he always cycled back into it. And I think his desire to escape was more metaphysical and not driven by material interests. We never really see Sonny pining for material advantages. In fact, most of his stuff appears to be driven by the search for something "real"...something beyond his undercover existence. Most of the women he's seen with also have the appearance of stability...something else he's shown as craving. I think in his mind (assuming there was ever any kind of production plan for this kind of thing) he saw success as equalling stability. He also tended to be attracted to women who would in some way tolerate or at least understand his undercover and police lifestyle...something Caroline made clear she would not do.

[NeonHumidity]

2 hours ago, Robbie C. said:

I honestly doubt if any of it was purposeful in that sense. I tend to think his love interests were intended to reflect Crockett's desire to get away from his cop life...even though he always cycled back into it. And I think his desire to escape was more metaphysical and not driven by material interests. We never really see Sonny pining for material advantages. In fact, most of his stuff appears to be driven by the search for something "real"...something beyond his undercover existence. Most of the women he's seen with also have the appearance of stability...something else he's shown as craving. I think in his mind (assuming there was ever any kind of production plan for this kind of thing) he saw success as equalling stability. He also tended to be attracted to women who would in some way tolerate or at least understand his undercover and police lifestyle...something Caroline made clear she would not do.

You can have "real" and metaphysical connections with women who are below a certain socioeconomic level.  Except for Caroline, who divorces him and he faintly pines for, and Gina, who is part of his cop life, he does not.  ...and he doesn't have very many with women aside from those two..  

There's also no way he would have equated someone like Margaret or Danielle with "stability"; in fact, in those cases he seems to be attracted to exactly the opposite.  But they are both glamorous, Margaret seems to have money ("slumming?") and Danielle is polished and sophisticated.

A whole slew of successful women (none of whom are ever shown to offer him an escape -- if he wanted one, he probably would have quit and stayed with Brenda -- or be particularly tolerant of the vice life) without ever once dating a teacher, paralegal, or secretary does tend to tell you something about a person's priorities.

 

"But wait!" you say.  "Crockett likes money and not being broke...?  How come he didn't wind up on the take?"

Three things, all of them fairly unique to him: 

1.  He's got principles.  Huge ones.  Demonstrated repeatedly, although they seemingly never got tested by Billy or Caroline having a medical emergency, or anything like that.  Even so, I imagine Sonny would have quit Metro-Dade rather than bring corruption near anyone he knew.
2.  He at least gets to fake-live like he has a good bit of it with the boat, Rolex, clothes, and car.  A fairly nice perk that's not available to most of his struggling and more susceptible colleagues, and:
3.  Again, and relevant to here, he actually has the option of attracting and marrying someone (and his pool is about the size of the Okechobee) with a much better income.  Pleasant and not illegal.  Also not an option for most cops hoping to improve their lifestyle...

Edited February 11 by NeonHumidity

[NeonHumidity]

I'll also say, this solves one of the ongoing mysteries from the (mostly male side of) fandom; namely "why aren't Crockett's love interests all as model-gorgeous as you'd expect them to be?" (gripe, gripe) and while out-of-series the "relatability, let viewer self-insert here" aspect (in a show that was so known for being relatable and down-to-earth. lol) may very well apply, in-series the Occam's razor explanation would have to be... Sonny values things other than looks. 

• Although Gina is usually viewed as one of the prettiest... and has no money.  (And gets dropped when he starts the pattern with Brenda.)  And he hooks up with Julia Roberts and the well-regarded Debra Feuer once he has a completely different priority set (and is no longer making a cop's wages, lol). 

Okay, so maybe he likes being the good-looking one all the time.

And I'm honestly not trying to make him into someone who's only interested in the fiduciary aspect, despite the green eyes ; he obviously falls way too quickly, way too easily, likes to think he's following his emotions and does demonstrate he values some other stuff too.  But like a few things about Sonny, I really find it fascinating when tropes that normally end up applying to women and female characters end up with our beloved Mr. Pastel Macho.

Edited February 11 by NeonHumidity

[Robbie C.]

You've got your interpretation, I have mine. I think you make far too much out of the money. Most of Crockett's paycheck comments were there to make a plot point about the reality of how much cocaine traffickers could make (something that was, frankly, brand new in the 1980s). Also, it stands to reason Sonny would be attracted to women with a certain edginess about them (much like his own), but the OCCUPATIONS they were in (at least in terms of the ones we're given as possible serious relationships, so not Margaret or Danielle) were seen in the 1980s as being very stable. He also wasn't usually aware of the issues his potentially stable women had until after he was in semi-serious relationships with them. He didn't start dating Theresa knowing she was a junkie, for example. As far as he knew she was a successful doctor. And he was similarly blind to Brenda's concept of their future. He was an idealist looking for the stability he lacked, and also wanted to find that stability outside of the Job. To me that's pretty clear. And one of the things we see when he's Burnett is that the toys and money get hollow very fast. I think even as Burnett he was looking for that stability, but in that side of himself he had no idea how to find it.

You also have to take into account the time warp Miami Vice was in when it came to its own timeline. I actually charted many of the episodes in timeline form when I was writing Genesis, and they frankly compress time or jump around in ways that don't work. For all we know he was seeing Brenda for some months instead of the short amount of time it looks like in Nobody Lives Forever, and a Federal payola case would take far longer to play out than what we're shown in the whole Caitlin arc.

[NeonHumidity]

3 hours ago, Robbie C. said:

You've got your interpretation, I have mine. I think you make far too much out of the money. Most of Crockett's paycheck comments were there to make a plot point about the reality of how much cocaine traffickers could make (something that was, frankly, brand new in the 1980s). Also, it stands to reason Sonny would be attracted to women with a certain edginess about them (much like his own), but the OCCUPATIONS they were in (at least in terms of the ones we're given as possible serious relationships, so not Margaret or Danielle) were seen in the 1980s as being very stable. He also wasn't usually aware of the issues his potentially stable women had until after he was in semi-serious relationships with them. He didn't start dating Theresa knowing she was a junkie, for example. As far as he knew she was a successful doctor. And he was similarly blind to Brenda's concept of their future. He was an idealist looking for the stability he lacked, and also wanted to find that stability outside of the Job. To me that's pretty clear. And one of the things we see when he's Burnett is that the toys and money get hollow very fast. I think even as Burnett he was looking for that stability, but in that side of himself he had no idea how to find it.

You also have to take into account the time warp Miami Vice was in when it came to its own timeline. I actually charted many of the episodes in timeline form when I was writing Genesis, and they frankly compress time or jump around in ways that don't work. For all we know he was seeing Brenda for some months instead of the short amount of time it looks like in Nobody Lives Forever, and a Federal payola case would take far longer to play out than what we're shown in the whole Caitlin arc.

It's interesting how every time there's something that disagrees with any of your interpretation, it's suddenly "canon isn't canon, timeline isn't timeline, later episodes have no validity because the draft scripts only apply to the earlier ones, Gina can't possibly be Hispanic and the writing and supervision for the series is garbage".  

I prefer to think what we're given has a little more solidity, thank you.  

By the way, he was an idealist with a stable, reassuring partner in Gina and he dumps her, not for some kind of psychic stability, but for a flash-in-the-pan with someone higher on the social register where the relationship starts endangering his work.  How is that stability?

There's nothing saying he wasn't considering Margaret or Danielle as a partner; Tubbs asks when he can meet Margaret and Crockett seemed enamored enough with Danielle to the point she knew she had him in the bag.

Not knowing of the issues any of his other seemingly-stable partners had just reinforces my theory that he's attracted to surface things like status and money. 

Toys and money get hollow very fast, and yet one of the relationships Crockett continues to mourn most is his murdered 150k Daytona, which he did not need to work undercover, whatever he said, and for which he is mocked by every other person in OCB.  Tubbs got along just fine in an old Caddy, and Crockett could have managed with something less flashy.  He wanted the Ferraris.  Tell me again about how he's not a Material Guy. 

You're also ignoring, and continue to ignore, that the one factor all his serious relationships had was money and status (and things the way he despised Cliff for being white trash).   You can think he dated them for whatever reason you want.  But objectively, there the commonality is.

[Robbie C.]

Like I've said, you have your interpretation. And you have yet to provide any kind of explanation, for example, of how someone drafted in early to mid 1970 could have served two tours in Vietnam. If you want to view Crockett as essentially a materialistic boob, go for it. So he never stuck with Gina because...she didn't have enough money for him? Ok. So two whole episodes framing Sonny's time in Vietnam are wrong because there was one line later in the series that contradicts them? Ok.

[NeonHumidity]

Giving this another think... and it feels like the overall pattern of his relationships (maybe "encounters" is a better word) is interesting.  After trying to juggle Gina and Brenda blows up in his face:

Season 2:
- Margaret.  (He probably had never slept with anyone undercover before.  Blows up in his face, and not only that, sleeping with her got his cover blown, info stolen, and Tubbs's as well)
- He sleeps with the random woman in "Whatever Works" (probably as compensation, and probably doesn't call)
- He doesn't sleep with Callie
- He tries to sleep with Sara but gets sideswiped by tragedy instead
- He sleeps with, gets used by, and has to kill Danielle.  Who's a psycho.  (and stole a march on Elektra King by several years...)

And Season 3 (incidentally, long after Gina hooked up with Sean and he more-or-less said he wanted her to be happy):
- There's nobody until Theresa.  Whom he wants to marry after a relatively short-but not apparently Caitlin-short-and-everyone-questioning-your-sanity period.
- And then Christine is apparently the rebound romance when that doesn't work out
- And when that doesn't work out, there's nobody until Caitlin well into season 4.

It seems like when he tells Caitlin he has "monk" periods, he's exaggerating far less than his string bikini fantasies from the pilot (for that matter, when he is living something like that other life, as seen in "Whatever Works", it's not portrayed as titillating and glamorous but rather seedy and super-unfulfilling, as Gina probably knew when she told him that wasn't the answer, back at the start).

Maybe part of the Caitlin-craziness was him desperately hoping something would finally work.  

Edited March 12 by NeonHumidity