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Lend Me An Ear

Season	3
Episode	18 (62nd Overall)
Airdate	February 27, 1987
Repeat Airdate	June 19, 1987
TV Rating	TV-14 V
Writer(s)	Dick Wolf Teleplay:Michael Duggan
Director	James Quinn
Guest Stars	John Glover Martin Ferrero Neith Hunter Anthony Holyen and Yorgo Voyagis
Previous Episode	"The Afternoon Plane"
Next Episode	"Red Tape"

"Lend Me An Ear" is the eighteenth episode of Miami Vice's third season. The episode premiered on February 27, 1987 and repeated on June 19, 1987.

SummaryEdit

Crockett and Tubbs work with an electronics expert who is also working for a dealer they are after.

PlotEdit

Crockett and Tubbs are in the cigarette boat watching a man named Alexander Dykstra (Yorgo Voyagis), who is leaving a seaplane that has made a delivery. The shipment is sent to another man named Lucardo and the Vice cops give chase, pursuing him through causeways and under bridges until his boat makes landfall in the middle of a street. Crockett and Tubbs board the boat, to find Lucardo dead -- and no drugs onboard.

The Coast Guard check the boat and say that not only aren't there any drugs, there never were, despite information from a wiretap on Dykstra's house. Castillo asks the tap be maintained to see if a new delivery is scheduled. Dykstra, who is at his place playing with a toy boat, orders his lieutenant Leon to have the house swept. Crockett (complaining about being turned down for a loan) and Tubbs go to see a sick Izzy, who has nothing they don't already know about Dykstra and Lucardo, except that Lucardo's death was allegedly "by design." Dykstra's electronic expert Steve Duddy (John Glover) sweeps out and fries all of Switek's bugs, and sells Dykstra additional equipment to keep his place clean; he is easily able to manipulate Dykstra's deep-rooted paranoia. Crockett recommends using Duddy (unaware he's working with Dykstra) to get their bugs into Dykstra's place. Castillo is hesitant as Duddy is considered too unpredictable, having quit the force while under review for a misconduct charge. Duddy's house is filled with surveillance equipment and he sees the Vice cops arrive. He "plays dead" for them until his face appears on a video screen, telling them not to even think of using mouth-to-mouth.

Over lunch, Duddy explains his business in electronic surveillance and that even he fears being bugged by someone else, but chooses to keep an emotional barrier between himself and his work. He arrives at OCB with his plethora of electronic devices, including a subtransmitter he has customized to transmit in gigahertz, which cannot be picked up by normal means. Crockett agrees to rent five of them, and the team heads to Dykstra's house to install them. They plant one in an ashtray and another in a fuse box, but in the process Switek bumps a statue, and they barely make it out undetected. Trudy can't find anything on Dykstra's drug imports, but finds reports on currency violations in various countries, including an indictment in Greece on a Ponzi scheme. Crockett suspects that Dykstra's business is laundering money, not drugs. The next morning Dykstra notices the statue Switek bumped and immediately calls for Duddy, who easily finds the bugs but replaces the one in the fuse box with his own. Dykstra asks to test a portable lie-detector (also known as a Voice Stress Analyzer) on his girlfriend Trace (Neith Hunter) to see if she's been faithful. When the device shows she's lying, Dykstra shoots her, telling a shocked Duddy he can't tolerate dishonesty.

Duddy (using a voice disguiser) calls 911 to report Trace's murder; he gets irate and hangs up when Metro Homicide Detective Scanlon asks for his name. Crockett confronts Duddy about the bugs being found and Duddy tells them Dykstra must have a good sweeper, before recommending the use of a laser microphone on the glass walls to listen in. Dykstra and a man named McGregor (Anthony Holyen) meet to arrange a currency deal. The recording of Duddy's call to Scanlon is played at OCB and taken to Duddy, who says the voice is altered beyond his ability to reconstruct it. Duddy then takes some recordings he's gotten of Dykstra on the phone and splices them together into a tape which gives the impresson Dykstra is planning something with McGregor. Meanwhile, Dykstra meets with McGregor, shoots him, and kicks his body into the bay.

Duddy attaches a device to a wall of Dykstra's house and plays the altered tape, which Switek picks up on his mic. When McGregor's body is found the next morning Castillo requests an estimated time of death from the coroner, which is about 11-12 hours. Crockett determines that both Lucardo and MacGregor had more cash than they could launder, so Dykstra must have been moving it for them. They play the recording Switek monitored and found it took place 90 minutes after McGregor was killed; Crockett immediately suspects Duddy. They confront him and he is indifferent about the deaths he has caused, concerned only with the bottom line: getting paid. They go to Dykstra's place and find a new sweeper, LaGuardia; he says he found one of Duddy's specialized bugs and showed it to Dykstra, who then left, presumably to kill Duddy. Dykstra and two of his goons show up at Duddy's, where he has the advantage of his elaborate surveillance system. Duddy (using a video monitor) and Crockett (who has arrived with Tubbs) each kill a goon; Dykstra is tricked into shooting a TV showing a recording of Duddy, before the real Duddy blows him away.

Crockett takes Duddy in for interfering with their investigation but Castillo, under orders from the DA, lets him go, much to Crockett's incredulity. Switek suggests Duddy needs a taste of his own medicine. When Duddy sits down at his home console and switches the power on he is met, to his horror, with a recording made by Crockett. He tells Duddy that they both know what he did, and he'll have to live with it, but not alone -- they'll be watching him.

CastEdit

Don Johnson as Metro-Dade Detective James "Sonny" Crockett
Philip Michael Thomas as Metro-Dade Detective Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs
Saundra Santiago as Metro-Dade Detective Gina Calabrese
Michael Talbott as Metro-Dade Detective Stan Switek
Olivia Brown as Metro-Dade Detective Trudy Joplin
Edward James Olmos as Metro-Dade Lieutenant Martin "Marty" Castillo

Guest StarsEdit

Co-StarringEdit

James Finnerty as Leon

"Ripped From The Headlines"Edit

In this episode, the evolving world of increasingly sophisticated electronic surveillance and counter-surveillance is explored.

NotesEdit

Several of the night scenes appear as though they were filmed with night-vision, as evidenced by the green tint in the shots. However, it is evident that green lighting was used to give this effect, as other colors can be seen in the shots which would not be present with real night vision.
Voice Stress Analysis (fairly new at the time of this episode) has become an area of dispute of its accuracy and scientific value for the past few years.
Bruce Willis was a lead actor on the show Moonlighting when he sang one of the songs used in this episode. He appeared as Tony Amato in Season 1's "No Exit".
Glover's "Steve Duddy" character was under consideration to be part of the fourth season episode "The Big Thaw" in the role of the "thawer" of Robillard Nevin's body, but the role ultimately went to Izzy Moreno.

GoofsEdit

A few shots of the opening boat chase have clearly been sped up to make it seem faster than it really is.
A clumsy jump cut reveals that the car screeching to a halt after the boat skids across the road was filmed separately.
Duddy, using the bug in the fuse box, picks up Dykstra's phone conversations, yet Switek, using Duddy's laser mic, apparently does not. If he did, he might have noticed how Duddy's faked call sounded a lot like the conversations Dykstra had over the past few days.
When Crockett and Tubbs go to Dyskstra's house and are met by LaGuardia, Tubbs gets out of the Testarossa twice.
When Crockett and Tubbs arrive at Duddy's house for the final time, there is a shot of Dykstra's thug dead outside the front door. In the last second of the shot someone's hand can be seen moving into the frame on the railing (it's neither Crockett nor Tubbs' hand because they are still downstairs).

Production NotesEdit

Working Titles: "Hear No Evil" and "The Better You Hear With...Lend Me An Ear"
Filmed: January 7, 1987 - January 15, 1987
Production Code: 62027
Production Order: 62

Filming LocationsEdit

Venetian Cswy Bridge between Belle Isle and Miami Beach to Collins Canal along to crossroad Collins Avenue to 24th Street in Miami Beach (Opening boat chase)
1727 W 27th Street, Sunset Island 2, Miami Beach (Dykstra's house)
Big Fish Restaurant, 55 SW Miami Ave Rd, at Miami River (Crockett/Tubbs/Duddy have lunch)
Southeast end of San Pedro Avenue, Miami (Duddy's house)

MusicEdit

"Be My Enemy" by The Waterboys (Crockett and Tubbs chase boat)
"Respect Yourself" by Bruce Willis (Duddy sweeping Dysktra's place)
"The Ballad Of The Little Man" by World Party (Crockett and Tubbs visiting Duddy)
"Climb" by Peter Himmelmann (Crockett, Tubbs and Switek sneak into Dykstra's to install new bugs)

QuotesEdit

"A lousy 32 a year, probably twice what the little finger-counter makes, and he's telling me I can't have a loan!" -- Crockett to Tubbs after being rejected for a loan
"This is America. You gotta be in debt!"--Tubbs to Crockett
"Listen, Mallet Head! I'm trying to help here!" -- Duddy to Homicide Detective Scanlon
He's (Dykstra) got a voice stress analyzer, you lie, you die! -- Duddy to Crockett
"I know where the line is. I didn't cross it."--Steve to Crockett
"Yeah, you just leaned across and looked over it a little."--Crockett to Steve
"Hello, Steve. You know what you did -- you'll have to live with that. But I just want you to know -- you won't be alone. I'll be watching you." -- Crockett's video message to Duddy