If you told Crockett you're trans he'd say "This is Miami, pal. Where you can't even tell the players without a program. The only time I concern myself with what's in someone's pants is when I need to know if they're packin' some heat that could blow me and my partner away." and then he'd do 8 consecutive doughnut spins in his ferrari
I feel like many people misinterpret Michael Corleoneās character and his tragismā¦ They usually blame everything on Kay because if Apollonia had lived, he would have ruled the world, blablabla. But thereās no guarantee Apollonia would have turned out to be like Carmela, and also, being like Carmela isnāt a good thing at all. Mama Corleoneās circumstances were complex but with her submissive attitude, she was an enabler for Vitoās criminal endeavors, which affected their children, basically fucking them up. Kay wasnāt having any of it as soon as she realized Michael wouldnāt change.
Michael had darkness in him but other than that, he really wasnāt like his father. He wasnāt a peopleās person, he didnāt enjoy the job, he had a different destiny planned for Kay and himself. He didnāt want to be a mobster, I think he wasnāt that almighty don and alpha male by nature, and thatās why he felt compelled to prove himself. He ruled by fear, he became cold, he started to exhibit toxic masculinity, which wasnāt necessarily inherent to his nature. He should have left Kay alone after coming back from Sicily since she wasnāt made for that life, but the failure of their marriage wasnāt her fault, Michael was the toxic one, he would have been like that with any woman.
His choice of Kay to be his wife and the mother of his children shows us that he wanted her no matter what because he was in love with her, but also because he desperately clinged to the man he used to be, he wanted her to serve as a reminder of his past life, of the life he wanted to share with her, he wanted Kay to redeem him. He didnāt really feel comfortable in his role, but he adopted a mask of coldness and self-confidence. He shunned Kay and their children to protect them from the horrors of his world, he convinced himself that everything he did, he did for his family, focusing too much on his business and desire for revenge, which led to him eventually losing all that he loved and valued.
This is an analysis of Miami Vice Season 1, Episode 21: Nobody Lives Forever. This was inspired by @mxcatmoon's post on this episode.
The episode opens with Rico good-naturedly teasing Sonny about Sonny spending all his time with his new girlfriend. Rico adds it's nice to see Sonny in love. Previous episodes have established that Rico thinks every time he's attracted to a woman, it's true love. Sonny is a little more realistic saying it's lust with potential. The tension between what people want to be true and what is true is the central theme of the episode.
Despite the opening scene setting Sonny up as the realistic one, the episode reveals that is not the case. Sonny and his new girlfriend Brenda are in that honeymoon phase where they spend all their free time with each other and act like each parting is agony. It's very high school. Their second phone goodbye distracts Sonny from where he was supposed to be at his job. Brenda hears gunshots from the phone Sonny understandably forgot to hang up. She is distressed. That night, she asks Sonny how he deals with the stress of his job, and Brenda asks him a few other intense questions about his job.
Later in the episode, Brenda decides she and Sonny should play a game about their future. Sonny says they'll have two kids by 1991, which Brenda replies that he moves fast. This is ambitious talk from a man that barely spends time with the one kid he already has. Doctors generally advise that couples space out babies for the woman or carrying person's health, and taking time off work for a child can take a toll on a woman's career. I don't think Sonny either knows or is considering this. What he wants with Brenda does not fit into reality.
Brenda is the same way. What she wants with Sonny does not fit into reality. She says she wants to go to Paris with Sonny, but he says as a vice cop there is no way he is going to get that much time off. In addition, I think cops often don't get to travel very far because they might get called back to testify in a trial. Brenda doesn't get either of these points. She doesn't perceive that he's annoyed with her and asks what their married couple friends would be. Sonny doesn't have time to date and develop friends outside of the vice squad. She has known him long enough to know this, and Sonny tells her earlier in the episode that he feels like he's always working. I think she is being inconsiderate.
The next morning, Brenda either turns Sonny's alarm off or fails to wake him up after he sleeps through his alarm. Despite all of her questions, she still doesn't understand Sonny's job. She doesn't get the stakes are high. To her, she is living the romance book trope of dating a attractive yet haunted man with a dangerous job that never affects the couple's life. Obviously, the characters of Sonny and Brenda aren't real, but this seems to be a subversion of that trope, intentionally or not. Sonny is late, and as a consequence, Rico gets beaten up by two criminals. Seeing Rico's bloody face finally hammers home what Sonny's job is like to Brenda. Rico is understandably furious with Sonny. Castillo demotes Sonny to paperwork duty as punishment. After this for the first time in the episode, Sonny appears to think about something other than Brenda. One his boat, Sonny reflects on Castillo's disappointment with him and Rico's bloodied face.
While all of this is going on, three murderous teenagers are wrecking havoc on Miami. Their MO (modus operadi) is leaving Archie comic books in a trashed car they stole and then abandoned. Of all the comics, why did the show runners pick Archie for these murderers? For those unfamiliar, Archie comics is a squeaky clean, wholesome series about teenagers in a small town. The main character is Archie. The other important characters are his best friend, Jughead and, Betty and Veronica, Archie's love interests. It has absolutely no violence, no swearing, and no sex. Porn comics were a thing in the 1980s. In 1985, Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Dark Knight Returns had just been published, which pushed DC, one of the two main American comic companies, to the darker and more violent approaches that would become popular in the latter half of the decade. Even a 1985 superhero comic published before Crisis on Infinite Earths or The Dark Knight Returns would have more violence than an Archie comic. Watchmen, the seminal dark take on the superhero comic genre, was still a few years away. Again, why Archie? Reasonable people realize porn comics are a fantasy. Superhero comics are a power fantasy. It's not as obvious, but Archie comics are also a fantasy. Archie can dither between Betty and Veronica all he wants, but they never get tired of him. Veronica can be as mean to Archie as she wants, but he always comes running back. Betty can be obsessive over Archie, but this never has consequences. Jughead can eat his weight in burgers, but this never has health effects.
These teenagers also seem to be living in an fanasty where there is no consequences. They don't seem to realize their murder spree means that the cops will eventually catch up to them.
This is contrasted with Sonny in this episode. When he talks to Brenda near the end of the episode, Brenda says she doesn't want this to be the end of a wonderful fantasy. Sonny nods. He says he wants to build something real. This combined with the earlier reflection sequence implies Sonny has been using Brenda to live in a fantasy away from his job. When he did this, Rico got hurt, and Castillo got mad at Sonny.
Right after this, Sonny finally tracks down the murderous teenagers as they are going after Rico. One of them aims his gun at Sonny and says nobody lives forever. Sonny shoots him in the chest and kills him before he has a chance to kill Sonny or Rico.
Earlier in the episode, the murderous teenagers spray painted on their car "death is the ultimat high", but they don't realize death comes to us all in the end. Rico and Sonny meet up with Isadore "Izzy" Moreno the informant. Izzy says "You can't kill them. They're already dead." It's a surprisingly dark, introspective line from a character who has also driven a cement truck over a bunch of portta potties. Izzy is an incompetent, small-time criminal, but he has managed to learn a second language and survive the regimes of both Batista and Castro, so he's not as clueless as he appears. Izzy's line suggest living in a fantasy world is a form of death. Consequences are a part of life.
Sonny, Rico, and Izzy live. Sonny manages to patch things up with Brenda and Rico by embracing reality. The episode is arguing those that indulge in fantasy too much literally or metaphorically die. Those that embrace reality can build something imperfect and hard but real. Why bother? Because as the episode's title card reads: Nobody lives forever.
Sources:
Comic book stuff:
Read Alex Grandās Understanding Superhero Comic Books published by McFarland Books in 2023 with Foreword by Jim Steranko with editorial revi
Izzy stuff:
Isadore Francisco Moreno (born 1947), better known as Izzy, was an informant for Crockett and Tubbs on numerous cases. Despite his endlessly
Brenda isn't the only one getting romance book/romcom tropes flipped on her this episode, Rico is. This happens even through Rico and Sonny aren't dating and/or romantic.
Rico knows Sonny is blowing off work and Gina to hang out with Brenda. Rico lies to Castillo on Sonny's behalf after Sonny's preoccupation with Brenda means Sonny screwed up the stakeout they were supposed to be on, and Rico is annoyed when Gina quizzed him on what Sonny was up to that week. Later on in the episode, Sonny turns down Rico's offer of dinner to hang out with Brenda. Rico is disgruntled. From lying to Castillo earlier, his annoyance with Gina, and his upset at Sonny turning him down, Rico clearly thought he would be the exception to Sonny's poor behavior. It's normal to want to spend plenty of time with a romantic partner, but Sonny can't half-heart literally everything in his life to do that. Sonny behaving poorly to Rico as well as everyone else is an unintentional subversion of romance book/romcom tropes.
There is the romance trope of the bad boy who is horrible to everyone but the love interest. Sonny isn't a high school/college delinquent or a petty criminal who owns a tattoo parlor and/or motorcycle bar in a small town, but he fits other aspects of the trope. He smokes too much. He drinks too much.* He has extreme mood swings. Regardless of how the viewer personally feels about 1985 Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett, the amount of shirtless scenes where the camera slowly pans up his torso means the audience is aware they are supposed to view this character as sexy. Whenever the audience sees Sonny off the clock, he is usually shirtless with a five o'clock shadow. This is fan service, but it's also supposed to show Crockett doesn't care about his appearance. The audience is supposed to view this character as effortlessly sexy. Effortlessly sexy is a core part of the bad boy trope.
This is 1980s US network tv, so Rico and Sonny, the male main characters, aren't going to be each other's love interests. Still, buddy cop shows/movies and romance books have structural similarities. Both focus on an intense bond between two people as the emotional core of the story. Dedication to the partner is a key theme in both medias. The plots in both romance novels and buddy cop shows/movies require them to be together. Romance books and buddy cop shows/movies position the bond as the most important part of the story. Sonny and Rico aren't romantic and/or sexual together in the slightest**, but their story structurally is. When Sonny mistreats Rico, this is an unintentional subversion of the bad boy who is horrible to everyone but the love interest. Eventually, shitty people will treat the people they like the same way they treat everyone else.
*I don't know if the audience is supposed to think Sonny drinks too much, but every time the audience sees him drinking a beverage, it's alcohol. It kind of comes off like Sonny has a minor problem, even if that wasn't the intention.
**This is my interpretation. I am not saying other interpretations are wrong. I am only halfway through Season 2. In addition, I couldn't watch one of the Season 1 episodes because it wasn't on Tubi.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
I just watched Miami Vice Season 2 Episode 2 Prodigal Son, and Rico only has $347 dollars and 42 cents in the bank. He has got to get better with his money šššš Like Sonny is a mess and a half but so is Rico
According to the Lombard episode, Rico doesn't gamble. He doesn't smoke. He lives in an apartment. He doesn't have any kids (I'm mid season 2). Where is his money going? šššš
Sonny: Whatās it called when youāre so disconnected from reality that cold water doesnāt feel like anything and you can barely taste food anymore?
I just watched Miami Vice Season 2 Episode 2 Prodigal Son, and Rico only has $347 dollars and 42 cents in the bank. He has got to get better with his money šššš Like Sonny is a mess and a half but so is Rico
discoholicmusic
dededos
blakekathryn
origamiaround
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
