"Back in the World" is a bit offbeat for the first seasons of Miami Vice, but outstanding nevertheless. What's different? Here, instead of giving us the usual dose of unadulterated '80's culture, Vice mixes in a generous amount of Vietnam-era content, ranging from newsreel footage of the Fall of Saigon to in-country lingo to the music of the Doors. Even the drug is old (literally), decomposing heroin rather than '80's cocaine (is there a message in that somewhere?) The plot is well-known by now. The teaser shows the chaos of 1975 Saigon through archival clips, and then cuts to soldier Sonny Crockett (youthful-looking due to being clean-shaven and having his '80's cut obscured by a helmet) as hip, ace reporter Ira Stone shows him a dead soldier's body, in its body-bag, stuffed with China White for shipment to America. After the credits, we're back in the present-day (and the world, Vietnam-era soldiers' slang for the USA) as Stone catches up with Crockett and Tubbs as they complete a drug bust. The story Stone is working is that the heroin is now being distributed, apparently out of South Florida. It's the stash of the exporter Stone was investigating ten years earlier, a shadowy figure known only as The Sergeant. Stone knows it's the same stash because it's tainted with embalming fluid, and he wants Crockett's help in ferreting out this mysterious figure from their shared past, and winning Stone a Pulitzer in the process.
Together, the two seek out former army colonel William Maynard, an old comrade-in-arms, who may have some information on The Sergeant. Maynard was suspected by Crockett and others of being an intelligence agent: he was known as "Captain Real Estate" because anywhere he went in Vietnam, the action got hot. Maynard passes off The Sergeant as a myth, which enrages Stone, who in turn tells Crockett he made up the whole story. But Crockett knows otherwise: he'd seen the heroin in 1975, and just hours before the meeting with Maynard he'd discovered a junkie sick from the old stash. (The episode, to its credit, spends a bit of time sympathetically examining the plight of Vietnam vets.) Now investigating Stone, Crockett and Tubbs find that he is out of money and on the edge of divorce, and, further, that he's meeting with The Sergeant, threatening to expose the heroin operation unless he receives hush money. Tubbs gets a look at The Sergeant, Crockett puts two and two together, and after showing Tubbs an old photo for identification, realizes that The Sergeant is Maynard and that Stone knew it all along. Stone wasn't after a story, but money.
Crockett and Tubbs learn from Maynard's wife that Maynard and Stone are meeting in a remote location in the Keys and rush to the rescue. In Maynard's getaway, surrounded by mangrove and jungle, Stone again threatens Maynard with exposure: Stone's manuscript will be put in the mail by an associate in twenty minutes if Maynard doesn't pay. With that, Maynard pulls the manuscript from his briefcase: his Vietnamese henchman Hmung had killed Stone's wife and taken the manuscript from her. With that, Maynard shoots Stone, but the thick manuscript prevents the bullets from killing him.
Crockett and Tubbs proceed to hunt Maynard and Hmung through the jungle: Crocket kills Hmung, but Maynard escapes in a boat. The episode ends with Crockett comforting and forgiving the wounded Stone.
There are several standouts in this episode, which is Don Johnson's well-done directorial debut for the series. First and foremost is Ira Stone, played to perfection by Bob Balaban. Edgy, stuck in the Vietnam era, perhaps suffering from PTSD, Stone is the embodiment of the late '60's/early '70's culture that runs throughout this episode. Perhaps the best scene is when Stone and Crockett are conferring at night aboard Crockett's speedboat somewhere off Miami Beach. In the middle of the conversation, with only the slightest whispering sound to alert the viewer (and then only if he goes back and listens for it), Stone maniacally begins screaming "INCOMING!" as Johnson jump-cuts to a close-up on him. Stone isn't in the boat; he's got a thousand-yard stare that is looking straight back to the jungles and rice-paddies. Then (of all things) mortar fire starts falling around the boat as Crockett, finally reacting, cranks up and bugs out, with Stone now photographing him and laughing. It's one of the most surreal scenes in all of Miami Vice (and that's saying something), and it's done perfectly. Stone's reaction when he's shot is similar: screaming "MEDIC!" his expression and body language show that he's somewhere very different than the Florida Keys.
Another standout is G. Gordon Liddy as Maynard. Not much acting here: Liddy simply had to be his ultra-nationalist and intimidating self, which again works very well for the episode. The scene in which he shoots Stone is chilling for the very reason that you're pretty sure Liddy could do it for real (and possibly has) without a second thought. Following the shooting, as Crockett and Tubbs stalk Maynard and Hmung—and Maynard and Hmung are stalking them—Johnson does some very good camera work (e.g., Tubbs moving slowly into the camera, close-up shots of different pairs of eyes reacting to gunshots and premonitions—think the cemetery showdown in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) set to The Doors's surreal and evocative "My Eyes have Seen You." The déjà vu parallel between the keys and the jungles of Southeast Asia are too obvious and need no further comment.
All in all, an outstanding Vice episode that would be revisited in the Season 3 episode Stone's War, another fine episode.
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