Episode: Season
2, Episode 8: “Bushido”
Original airdate:
November 22, 1985
Directed by:
Edward James Olmos
Written by: John
Leekley
Summary:
A major Vice operation to take down a key drug lord goes weirdly
and inexplicably egg-shaped when the drug lord ends up murdered under bizarre
circumstances (Crockett and Tubbs find him strung upside-down in a men’s room
on the beach with his head stuffed in a toilet full of cocaine. You know, the
usual) and half a million of the Miami Police Department’s money goes missing.
Castillo quickly figures out the culprit: Jack Gretsky (Dean Stockwell, never
better), his close friend and fellow former CIA spook, now rumored to be
working for the KGB. Castillo secretly meets with Gretsky, who urges him to protect
his wife and son, then whips out a gun and opens fire on Castillo. Shocked,
Castillo shoots and kills him.
After Gretsky’s autopsy reveals he had late-stage terminal cancer,
Castillo tracks down his Russian-born wife, Laura (the late Natasha Detante,
better known as musician Natasha Shneider) and young son Marty (named after
Castillo). With the KGB on their trail, Castillo smuggles them to a safe house
on an island. While awaiting the arrival of a boat to take them to safety,
Castillo tells Marty a thinly-veiled tale of an exiled samurai who deliberately
maneuvers his closest friend into killing him to preserve his honor. Realizing
this means Castillo killed her husband, an eavesdropping Laura sneaks up behind
him and knifes him in the back.
A tanned, Hawaiian shirt-wearing, Cadillac-loving, tommy
gun-wielding, capitalist jargon-spouting KGB assassin with the improbable name
of Surf (David Rasche, who would achieve sitcom fame the following year as the
star of Sledge Hammer!) arrives on
the island and storms the safe house. Armed with a samurai sword, a badly injured
Castillo protects Laura and Marty; he takes out a pair of heavily-armed thugs,
but Surf gains the upper hand. Castillo is saved by the timely arrival of
Crockett and Tubbs. Just to end this surreal and somber episode on a goofy note,
Crockett snarls, “Surf’s up, pal!” right before shooting and killing Surf.
Iconic Moments:
This is the episode where Castillo evades KGB agents by
clinging to the ceiling, Spider-Man style, before slaughtering them with a
samurai sword. Doesn’t get much more iconic than that.
It’s also got a damn memorable opening sequence, in which
the entire Vice team stakes out a public restroom on the beach at night in an
attempt to trap the drug lord: Crockett and Tubbs hole up in a hotel across the
street, Switek poses as a wino, Gina (Saundra Santiago) disguises herself as an
unusually glamorous bag lady (in a gold lamé jacket, no less), Trudy (Olivia
Brown) zips around the beach on roller skates while wearing a tight strapless zebra-print
dress, and Zito burrows under the sand, breathing through a snorkel, while
waiting for the right moment to spring the trap.
Themes:
It’s all in the title: “Bushido” refers to the samurai
lifestyle and moral code. Above and beyond his mysterious past in Asia and his Japanese-style house and his samurai sword,
Castillo is a samurai to the core, as demonstrated by the lengths to which he
goes to honor his best friend’s dying wish. (He even ponies up forty grand of
his own money to give to Laura and Marty to start their new life, after
returning the half million Gretsky swiped from the police department.)
Moments of Castillo
Badassery:
Oh, yeah, this episode is pretty much all Castillo
badassery, all the time. Prior to this, we knew that, before he transferred to
Vice, he was a DEA agent working the Golden Triangle (the area bordered by Myanmar , Thailand ,
and Laos ),
but I believe this the first we hear of his CIA background. The discovery isn’t
exactly shocking news; from what we’ve seen of Castillo, the Agency seems like
a natural fit for him. Nor is it especially shocking when a CIA agent
offhandedly mentions the absence of an early paper trail on either Gretsky or
Castillo (in other words, prior to joining the CIA, neither man officially
existed). You know what genuinely is shocking
in this episode? Castillo smiles,
several times, while meeting with his dear friend Gretsky. It's downright weird.
It’s All in the
Details:
The CIA agents tracking Gretsky operate out of a porn shop.
The set design is gloriously seedy and tacky, from the pastel polka-dot walls
and the pile of blow-up dolls in the corner to the hand-painted signs reading
BORED HOUSEWIVES WELCOME and CHEAP AND TRASHY LADIES’ WEAR. Bravo, set
designers. Job well done.
Signs of the Times:
When Castillo first tracks down Laura and Marty, they’re
staying in a house that looks like a too-broad parody of a hip abode in 1985: There’s
a fake flamingo perched on a staircase landing, there’s a pink sofa, the floors
are covered with black-and-white checkerboard tiles, and, as a crowning touch, there’s
a pastel jukebox in the corner.
Music Notes:
A pair of moody, surreal tracks accentuate this moody,
surreal episode. The opening sequence is scored to Bryan Ferry’s “Boys and Girls”, while Kate Bush’s ethereal, spooky “Hello Earth” (complete with the
Russian chorale part) plays during the climax.
Rating:
Four out of five flamingos. Surf’s up, pal.
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