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Sons and Lovers

Sonsandloverstitle

Season
Episode
22 (44th Overall)
Airdate
May 9, 1986
Repeat Airdate
September 19, 1986
TV Rating
TV-14 L-S-V
Writer(s)
Director
Guest Stars
Previous Episode
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"Sons and Lovers" is the twenty-second episode and season finale of Miami Vice's second season. It premiered on May 9, 1986, and was rerun on September 19, 1986 (the final rerun of the second season). The episode continues the saga of the Calderone family.

Summary[]

Angelina returns to save Tubbs from her vengeful half-brother, Orlando Calderone, and to show him a surprise.

Plot[]

The opening scene shows Crockett and Tubbs transacting a drug deal which quickly turns into a rip-off. It appears the dealers knew it was a police sting as one of them removes Tubbs' hidden wire with a smile. Hidden Metro-Dade SWAT members are observing the situation through binoculars in real-time and witness the deal go awry. As SWAT rushes in to rescue Crockett and Tubbs, the dealers booby-trap the front door and handcuff the Vice cops to chairs before they can get there. A mysterious sniper from another building across the way appears and aims a laser-sighted rifle through the window of the room where all the action is going on. The sniper shoots one of the dealers (Mendez) from the distance, then tucks his rifle into a duffel bag, and runs away. Crockett and Tubbs finish off the dealers (though one escapes) and prevent Zito and the rest of SWAT from setting off the booby trap as they try to force entry. After Switek and SWAT members secure the area, Crockett mentions the laser pointer he saw and thanks the team for making a good shot. Switek answers back that no one on SWAT had that kind of equipment... or even fired a shot for that matter. Crockett is shocked and puzzled as to the identity of the person who saved his and his partner's lives.

At OCB, Crockett and Castillo muse how Mendez and his goons had Crockett and Tubbs made for cops from the beginning. Mendez survived and Castillo wants round the clock surveillance on him, and reprimands the back up as sloppy for allowing a suspect to escape. Crockett and Tubbs find the "snitch" that set up the meet and blew their cover, Jerome Vega. Under the threat of being thrown out the window of a tall building, Vega confesses that he sold the Vice cops out to Mendez for a $1,000,000 bounty that was placed on Tubbs' head by "Calderone." Crockett and Tubbs review the files on Calderone and confirm he was killed in 1984, then Tubbs reminisces about his confrontations with the Colombian drug lord and his relationship with Angelina, his daughter. Crockett and Tubbs go to see Mendez, but he has to go into surgery again, so they stop at Falcon's Restaurant for lunch. While Crockett is inside a van pulls up, some men take Tubbs at gunpoint, and one on a bike rips out Crockett's car phone and flattens all four tires of the Daytona before leaving. Tubbs is reunited with Angelina and she shows him a surprise - their son, Ricardo, the result of their 1984 hookup.

Angelina tells Tubbs her half-brother Orlando has taken over his father's operations, and will stop at nothing to kill Tubbs in revenge. The only reason Angelina contacted Tubbs is that he is baby Ricardo's father and she doesn't want him killed. Orlando gets Tubbs' file from DEA agent Harrison and now demands Tubbs and/or his sister. Angelina and Tubbs spend some romantic time together, then she tries to give Tubbs $800,000 to leave the area, fearing for his life. Tubbs refuses and leaves to get help from Crockett. Tubbs fills Crockett and Castillo in on Angelina and their son, asking Castillo to cut Mendez's shooter some slack (he is Angelina's bodyguard). Castillo orders Tubbs to the safe house until everything can be ironed out. Harrison calls Tubbs at OCB wanting to meet about Angelina and Orlando, and Tubbs gives up the safe house address, not knowing Harrison is working for Calderone. When Crockett and Tubbs arrive for the meet the place is ransacked and Angelina and the baby are gone.

Tubbs is highly upset over the turn of events. Orlando calls Tubbs with instructions to be at Lighthouse Cove in one hour, and that Angelina and the baby will be in a car where he can see them. Zito tries to trace the call but it leads to a mobile phone and voice box. At the cove, Orlando ties Angelina up in a car with explosives rigged on the horn and window. They take the baby away to the main Calderone house, and make up the sheet to fool Tubbs into thinking he's still in there. SRT and Castillo make plans to save Tubbs' family, but want to wait until they get to the park to assess the situation. The bomb inside the car is controlled by radio signals - while the police transmissions won't set it off, they are using a coded signal making it jam-proof. After much discussion between Castillo, SRT and the Bomb Squad, Tubbs decides to confront Calderone's people himself, but Crockett will go too, hiding in the back of Tubbs' de Ville. Tubbs goes to the car with Angelina in it. There is a radio on the car and Orlando orders Tubbs to come to the shack in one minute and he will give him the transmitter. Angelina becomes very agitated, screaming through her gag that Tubbs will be killed regardless of what he does. Tubbs meets Calderone's goons, but Angelina breaks out of her gag and hits the horn, blowing up the car and killing herself. Crockett starts shooting and the SRT squad unleashes gunfire and grenade launchers against Calderone, destroying the shack just as Orlando runs out the back door.

IllBeBack

Orlando Calderone's promise to Tubbs

Crockett offers to take Tubbs to the St. Vitus Dance to talk, but Tubbs declines, wanting to be alone. SRT brings Crockett a bag of evidence found at the shack, which includes a DEA file on Tubbs that came from Harrison. Crockett goes to confront Harrison but impound security tells him that another Vice cop (Tubbs) visited 20 minutes ago. Crockett tracks Tubbs down to Falcon's, where he plans to confront Harrison for giving up his family to Calderone, despite Crockett's pleas to let the police handle it. When Harrison comes out Tubbs challenges him and Harrison and his partner Lyons start shooting. Crockett returns fire, killing Lyons; Tubbs bum-rushes Harrison's car and shoots him through the window, sending him and the car into the water. Tubbs and the Vice crew go to the funeral of Angelina and her son. During the funeral, a delivery service brings flowers, along with a note for Tubbs containing Angelina's necklace that her father gave her, and a message reading simply "I'll be back."

Cast[]

Guest Stars[]

Co-Starring[]

Uncredited[]

Notes[]

  • Many of the "classic" Vice elements that popularized the show to begin with would disappear following this episode, including Crockett's Bren Ten handgun, his tortoise shell Ray-Ban Wayfarers (replaced by Persol frames), the classic pastel look (replaced by darker, neon colors), Tubbs' long hair (which remained short for the rest of the series), and Crockett's short in the front, long in the back "bouffant" hairdo (replaced by a short spiky cut). However, some of these features would return later; Crockett would switch back to black Wayfarers in season 4, pastels reappeared periodically in seasons 4 and 5, and Crockett's hair also went back to its longer style for the last two seasons (in season 5 it grew out to its longest length).
  • Once again, this episode features one of the leading duo becoming involved in a romantic relationship with a woman linked to the case that inevitably ends in heartbreak by episode's end, a recurring plot point in the series. In this case, it is Tubbs rekindling his relationship with Angelina, only for her to be killed by Orlando's car bomb.
Iacocca

Lee Iacocca as Parks Commissioner Lido

  • Lee Iacocca (1924-2019) took time off from his job as Chairman of Chrysler Corporation to film a brief cameo in this episode; his character takes his real first name -- Lido. Izzy Moreno would frequently (mis)quote Iacocca throughout the series. Iacocca's autobiography Iacocca: An Autobiography was the best-selling non-fiction hardback book of 1984 and 1985.
  • This episode marks the TV debut of John Leguizamo. He would return as Orlando Calderone in the season 3 episode "The Afternoon Plane".
  • The name Orlando was originally the first name of Calderone, Sr. in the episode "Brother's Keeper". Later the name Esteban Orlando Calderone was used in "Calderone's Return (Part II)". Esteban is now considered the character's canonical name, and his son was given his middle name of Orlando.
  • Angelina and Tubbs' love child is not seen again in the series. Tubbs is shown to believe his son is dead in "The Afternoon Plane", never made aware of his survival. Presumably this is a result of major changes in the show's producers & writers at the time, who wanted to take the show & characters in different directions...and subsequently Tubbs' baby son is never mentioned again.
  • The gold dolphin ring, worn by Calderone's children, would reappear in the season 5 episode "Borrasca", worn by the title character.
  • Nelson Oramas, who plays the bomb squad specialist in the episode, previously appeared as bomb squad specialist named Sam in "Smuggler's Blues". While his character in this episode is never named, given the similarity of their roles, they are presumed to be the same person.
  • At the end of the episode, we see Crockett wearing a tie, one of the few times he does so in the series. He also wore one for his divorce hearing in "Calderone's Return (Part I)" and at Robbie Cann's son's baptism in "Buddies", and would do so again at Zito's funeral in "Down for the Count (Part II)" and at his wedding to Caitlin Davies in "Like a Hurricane". He would be seen with a tie more frequently during his time as Sonny Burnett in seasons 4 and 5.
  • This is the first Tubbs-centric episode in which, at the climax, Tubbs has to confront the bad guys unarmed and must rely on backup (mainly Crockett) when the shooting starts. This trend would recur throughout the next two seasons.
  • In this episode, Orlando Calderone seeks revenge for the death of his father. Considering that it was Crockett who killed Estebán Calderone at the end of Calderone's Return (Part II), it does not completely follow that Orlando would put a price on Tubbs's head and not on Crockett. A similar inconsistency arose in "Calderone's Return", where Estebán Calderone had Crockett on his hit list - although it was Tubbs who arrested Calderone at the end of the pilot episode Brother's Keeper and almost shot him point blank with a double barreled shotgun.
  • This is one of several episodes that does not end on a freeze frame.

Goofs[]

  • When Crockett kills the man with the shotgun during the opening rip off, he clearly does not fire the weapon. Instead, a single white frame has been inserted into the footage to simulate muzzle flash.
  • The photos used in Calderone's file are obviously production stills since neither Crockett or Tubbs were shown using a camera at the time they were taken in "Calderone's Return (Part II)".
  • The apartment where Crockett and Tubbs throw Vega out of the window has net curtains when seen from the inside, but these curtains disappear whenever the window is seen from outside.

Production Notes[]

  • Filmed: March 14, 1986 - March 25, 1986
  • Production Code: 60008
  • Production Order: 44

Filming Locations[]

  • Corsair Hotel 101 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach (teaser, Crockett and Tubbs lean on Vega in room 117, hotel gone)
  • 17th St./James Ave, Miami Beach - Sunset Dr./SW72nd St. eastbound and westbound, Miami (Crockett/Tubbs talk in the car)
  • 2750 NW South River Drive, Miami (Falcon restaurant, restaurant gone)
  • 7000 SW 69th Avenue, South Miami (Angelina’s residence)
  • east end of Julia Tuttle Causeway/I-195 (Harrison meets Calderone)
  • 775 S. Mashta Drive, Key Biscayne (Angelina held hostage, car explodes)
  • 1361 NE 127th Street, North Miami (Crockett asks at gate of DEA Office for Harrison)
  • GPS: 25.939851, -80.153395: eastern shore of West Lake in Greynolds Park 17530 W. Dixie Highway, North Miami Beach (funeral scene at the end)

Music[]

Jan Hammer Music[]

  • "Flashback" and "Angelina Flashback" (Scenes with Tubbs/Angelina/Ricardo Jr)

Quotes[]

  • "Book 'em, Dan-O!" -- Crockett to Gina and Trudy after throwing Vega out the window
  • "Just goes to show what the average New York flatfoot can do, with the proper local supervision!" -- Crockett to Tubbs
  • "I wasn't really suspicious... except when you told me that the kid was good looking." -- Crockett to Tubbs after asking him if he was sure Angelina's child was his
  • "I'll be back" -- Orlando Calderone's note to Tubbs at the funeral
Season 2 Episodes:

"The Prodigal Son" "Whatever Works" "Out Where the Buses Don't Run" "The Dutch Oven" "Buddies" "Junk Love" "Tale of the Goat" "Bushido" "Bought and Paid For" "Back in the World" "Phil the Shill" "Definitely Miami" "Yankee Dollar" "One Way Ticket" "Little Miss Dangerous" "Florence Italy" "French Twist" "The Fix" "Payback" "Free Verse" "Trust Fund Pirates" "Sons and Lovers"

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