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The Dutch Oven: Miami Vice. Ep #4, Season 2 (1985)

Dir: Abel Ferrara

Ferrara’s 2nd foray into “Miami Vice” land came during the show’s reputation solidifying second season, but there is little here that is memorable.

The music heavy, neon tinged opening sees Vice Cop Trudy Joplin (Olivia Brown) applying some outrageously over the top make-up (which makes her look like a “Kiss” fan club reject) and a white wig and hitting a local night club to catch some dastardly drug dealers.
A double cross throws a spanner in the works though and sees Trudy becoming the passenger in fellow Vice Cop Sonny Crockett’s (Don Johnson) sports car as they go on a high speed chase.
A chase that ends with Trudy blowing the drug thief out of his socks.

As Trudy faces up to an Internal Affairs investigation into the shooting, she also meets up with singing ex-lover David (Cleavant Derricks). The problem here though is the circles (and parties) David hangs in which are heavy on drugs, which puts major pressure on Trudy given her day job!

One of David’s acquaintances is arrogant, super fly drug dealer Adonis (Giancarlo Esposito) whose on the way up in the Columbian drug trade.
Trudy now feels trapped in the middle as she risks betraying (the annoying, whining) David to catch Adonis….

The opening car chase offers up the hope of some prime “Vice” action as “The Dutch Oven” delivers one of the finest bits of motor mayhem seen in any episode so far. It’s got that Ferrara punch and the abrupt, no nonsense shootout that ends it is typical of the harder edge Abel brought to his first “Vice” directing chore “The Home Invaders”.

Sadly though the rest of the episode is almost devoid of any action at all and it becomes a very dated, cliché, rather sexist trudge.
The sexism (nothing to do with Ferrara, it’s in the script he’s given) comes in the form of the attitude towards Trudy’s shooting.
Crockett and Tubbs (co-star Phillip Michael Thomas, who's given nothing to really do in this episode) blow away bad guys without a care on a regular basis, but let one of the female Cops do it and it’s a big shock for anyone with them at the time and an even bigger emotional issue for the poor women themselves.

An important part of the story concerns the investigation into the opening shooting and although it’s not just Trudy getting the flak, it’s rather strange that this kind of investigation (something that has not happened at all in the series so far, despite all the shootings Crockett and Tubbs have been involved in) is happening after a shooting by a female Cop.
And of course the IAD guys doing the investigation are your typically odious pen pushers who are only out to bring good Cop’s down! But I guess we would not have it any other way.

As with all “Vice” the episode looks very stylish and Ferarra delivers a very 80’s style overhead shot of Trudy and David lying in bed together on bright white satin sheets and pillows and the sharp contrast of black skin against white satin makes for a memorable, if slightly overdone, image. Elsewhere it’s your typical neon and pastel blow-out.

The most entertaining aspect of the episode is Giancarlo Esposito’s performance (always good and who would appear in Ferrara’s “California” video) as drug dealer Adonis, and he’s given lots of smooth, ego self-stroking dialogue (“I’m not just pretty…I’m the candy man”) flash suits and an even flashier attitude.
And as it’s the 80’s HUGE mounds of cocaine are sloshed around by Adonis with gay abandon.

Dialogue is pretty enjoyable throughout actually with another cheesy gem coming during a weirdly warped sequence (that must have been right up Ferrara‘s street!) where guy who wants to hire Trudy (who’s doing her regular undercover work as a hooker) to have sex with two teenage lads he has in his car, who both sport smiles of joyful anticipation, while he watches! Head out of the window he shouts to Trudy, “Come on brown sugar, be as sweet as you look”. Classic!

Sadly this episode does feel overly padded out with very dated musical moments, which we can blame Ferrara for as they are staffed by his regular composer Joe Delia and the band he was then playing in.

The extended musical sequences are a slushy soul/soft rock ballad in a bar by David‘s band (the band is actually Delia and co and which brings on memories of the only dubious moment in Ferrara’s otherwise masterful “King of New York” where Freddy Jackson is shown warbling away at the fund raising bash) and a most bizarre moment of very bad , white guy rap during a night-time party on a large ship, where Delia’s lead singer David Johansen bounces around in a big straw hat, jester’s trousers and skinny, tied at the front, naval showing t-shirt and sings about being the ‘King of Babylon’!
Oh dear! It was the 80’s I guess,
We are also subjected to a very cheesy ‘walking along in deep thought’ montage as Trudy (scored with a suitably angst ridden bit of 80’s craptastic synth pop) tries to decide what to do about Adonis, and it goes on far too long for no good reason.

Ferrara fans can try to spot regular Abel screenwriter Nicholas St. John (“King of New York”, “Ms.45”) as a drug pusher, but really there is very little for Ferrara to do in this episode (aside from the bad musical moments) and except for the opening car chase/shooting it’s certainly a below average entry in the show.
And coming right after the excellent episode “Out Where the Buses Don‘t Run“ means “The Dutch Oven” seem even flatter.