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My current rewatch is Miami Vice, with four of its first five seasons now available on Amazon Prime Video. Debuting in 1984, the crime procedural about a pair of very stylish undercover police detectives, James ‘Sonny’ Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo ‘Rico’ Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas), was a weekly hit that changed the face of network television: neo-noir lighting, hardboiled cynicism, hit songs and pastel fits were all prominent.
What the show also had, I’m now realising, was masterful casting instincts. Each episode’s case required a handful of guest stars, and between showrunner (and future Heat director) Michael Mann and casting director Bonnie Timmerman, the results were ludicrously good. The show is littered with soon-to-be-famous faces and iconic musicians enjoying a week on set in Miami. No television show has recruited a deeper bench of guest talent.
Here, listed chronologically, are 10 to watch out for.
Bruce Willis (season 1, episode 8)
Six months before Moonlighting hit, Willis had a full head of hair and white parachute pants as despicable arms smuggler Tony Amato, who is selling stolen Stinger missiles and tormenting his wife Theresa (Katherine Borowitz). Tubbs, with a wild Caribbean accent, goes undercover, while Crockett typically tries to save Theresa. Willis is mostly coldly cruel, but there’s a flash of wisecracking charisma when Amato’s shady Central American connections earn him protection from federal agents. In the era of Iran-Contra, Miami Vice did not have a lot of faith in Washington DC.
Gene Simmons (season 2, episode 1)
Given the Florida setting and the cocaine cowboys era, the majority of Miami Vice episodes featured a guest star in a drug dealer role. Few did it better than KISS bassist Gene Simmons, whose Newton Blade interrupts his boat party to broker an introduction for an undercover Crockett and Tubbs. The character’s dead-eyed sleaziness is pungent, backed by an open to the waist shirt and outrageously hirsute chest. Also in this two-part season opener: Pam Grier, Anthony Heald, Luis Guzman and Penn Jillette.
Miles Davis (season 2, episode 7)
Miami Vice looked anything but gritty, but the backstories could be grim. This episode about a Napoleonic heroin dealer and the woman he can’t let go of is a prime example. Between them and the squad is ‘Ivory’ Jones, a drug-runner turned brothel owner played by Miles Davis, who is forced to vouch for Crockett and Tubbs. The jazz great’s performance is wonderfully lean, his voice a raspy whisper. When Ivory says “you’re crazy”, he sounds like someone who has seen the real thing up close.
Phil Collins (season 2, episode 12)
The British musician’s totemic solo hit, In the Air Tonight, was the soundtrack to a bravura sequence in the Miami Vice pilot, so it was welcome symmetry for the former child actor to guest-star in this manic episode. Collins plays Phil Mayhew, a British game show host and serial grifter whose outrageous lifestyle gives the unit access to a cocaine dealer they’re targeting. The narrative is generous with time for Mayhew’s patter, rich guy scams and questionable interior design taste, which draws in a party girl who has started selling ounces, introducing a young Kyra Sedgwick.
Leonard Cohen (season 2, episode 18)
The legendary Canadian singer-songwriter subsequently admitted that his role as French spy Francois Zolan was curtailed because his minimalist performance wasn’t appreciated by all, but what remains is sublime: Cohen, dressed all in black in Zolan’s Parisian chateau office, issuing orders on the telephone to his operative, Danielle Hier (Lisa Eichhorn), regarding “wet work” in Miami. Cohen’s every line is spoken in French, with a degree of sangfroid that is off the charts. Chef’s kiss!
Liam Neeson (season 3, episode 1)
For the role of supposedly reformed IRA member Sean Carroon, whose humanitarian speaking tour may be a front for an arms deal, the show went authentic and cast an up-and-coming Irish actor. Liam Neeson does his best with so-so dialogue as Carroon romances Crockett and Tubbs’ colleague, detective Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago), but his shirt-off work in their bed scene – those are some broad, rippling shoulders – is top-tier. Gina is gaga for Carroon, which in Miami Vice is always a bad portent.
Willie Nelson (season 3, episode 7)
This episode has a lot of talk about feared cartel conduit “The Bolivian” and his lost briefcase, but that’s all a backdrop to country music great Willie Nelson portraying retired Texas Ranger Jake Pierson. Arriving in Miami seeking revenge, the ailing lawman nearly dies of a heart attack – during which he has a flashback in baroque black and white to a 1930s gunfight – and plays Crockett with one-way ticket ease. It helps that Nelson can make every line sound like the title of a ballad. Exhibit A: “Dead men can’t give what you want.” Also in this episode: Steve Buscemi.
Helena Bonham Carter (season 3, episode 16)
Merchant Ivory to Miami Vice is a crazy pivot, but Bonham Carter nearly pulled it off in 1987. Looking like a teenager, the 21-year-old plays Crockett’s latest girlfriend, British expat and Miami ER doctor Theresa Lyons. Crockett’s romantic interests were frequently killed by vengeful criminals, but Theresa’s issue is an addiction to painkillers (big The Pitt vibes) that gets her caught up in his investigation of psychotic cocaine dealer Joey Wyatt (Brad Dourif). Theresa’s nocturnal confession to Sonny, bathed in blue light, is a contrast in acting styles, as Johnson goes big and Bonham Carter tries to find nuance.
Ben Stiller (season 4, episode 2)
An episode’s weekly plot often required bit players to deliver the necessary exposition, and this instalment about feuding televangelists had a young Stiller as “Fast” Eddie Felcher, a serial con artist working a religious grift that Crockett and Tubbs lean on. Stiller makes an impression as a shifty motormouth, and while he’s overdoing it his performance neatly contrasts with Brian Dennehy’s turn as the Reverend Billy Bob Proverb, a prototype Prosperity Gospel advocate who tries to frame Tubbs for rape in between eerie broadcasts that feel like excerpts from a lost David Cronenberg movie.
Julia Roberts (season 4, episode 22)
Miami Vice – and Don Johnson’s hairstyles – started going off the rails in season four, but the finale is a moody thriller where an undercover Crockett survives a boat explosion but loses his memory. He believes he actually is drug dealer Sonny Burnett and goes to work for a cartel boss, whose secretary Polly Wheeler (Roberts) makes a frisky application to be his gangster’s moll. “I like hoods,” she says, “they’re so much more up-front with their trickery.” Is the trademark Roberts smile lurking? Absolutely. Also in this episode: Chris Cooper.
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