---------SPOILERS---------- "The Prodigal Son" is Miami Vice's Season 2 opener, a two-hour special. By this time the show was a red-hot hit and the producers accordingly decided to do something special, so they took it on the road. Most of the episode is set on location in New York City (with the teaser being set in the jungles near Bogotá).
In brief the plot is simple. A pair of Indian brothers from Colombia, the Revillas, have managed to establish a cocaine operation that controls every aspect of the trade from production to street distribution, and along the way they've compromised the DEA, likely through bribery, thus knowing the name of every federal drug agent on the east coast. The feds thus turn to Crockett and Tubbs, whose names aren't in the compromised files, to travel to New York to bust the drug ring. While there, Tubbs reconnects with NYPD Detective Valerie Gordon (introduced in Season 1) and has some thoughts of remaining in the Big Apple after the assignment's conclusion, while Crockett falls in with an enigmatic allumeuse he spots in not one, but two different nightclubs (what are the chances?).
Beyond this synopsis, the plot is convoluted and (in Crockett's words from "Brother's Keeper," the series pilot) "you can't even tell the players without a program." Valerie is under cover to try to get dirt on a local crime boss by serving as his mistress. The crime boss is somehow connected to Crockett's woman Margaret, who in turn has connections to Wall Street bankers who've lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Latin America and thus want the "major cash crops" of same to be protected at any cost, who in turn are pressuring local law enforcement to lay off the Revillas. Crockett and Tubbs are apparently attempting to cut in between the Revillas and their buyers with the help of a mid-level dealer played by Penn Jillette, who is either working for the Miami duo or for the Indians (it's hard to tell even by the time he cashes out). Crockett and Tubbs tee off the local authorities, who (pressured by the bankers) deny them all aid even though the DEA wants them to stay on the case (but doesn't offer any aid of its own). Shootouts happen, sex is had, action scenes occur, betrayal rears its head, and all somehow leads to the inevitable showdown between the Indians and our vice cops, who save the day with an assist from Valerie. After a final fling in the sheets with Valerie, Tubbs decides to return to Miami with Crockett after all (was she really THAT bad in bed?).
I must have watched this episode a dozen times over the years (including the original airing), and I still can't get the details straight. No matter: This is typical Vice faire, and it's best not to try to follow the plot too much. But there are some standouts here, most good, some pretty bad.
On the bad side: the women. Valerie, who had been arrested when we last met her and is on probation by now, is reinstated as a detective? Hard to believe, especially since she seems to have fallen for the crime lord she's supposed to be investigating. And Margaret is even worse. She's simply unattractive, if not physically, then personality-wise. Crockett himself describes her as "a nut job with an attitude problem" (an impression we easily agree with and never see any reason to reconsider), and after their first night together she departs after stealing his gun. Why Crockett would, after that, fall hard for her requires total suspension of disbelief, especially since she doesn't show any redeeming features after that.
On the good side: it's interesting to see New York portrayed and shot in Miami Vice style. This is the episode, more than any other, that shows directorial style, cinematography, and production values, at least as much as location, is what the Vice vibe is all about. (Nevertheless, seeing New York portrayed in this way still causes me some cognitive dissonance even after seeing the episode so many times; it's sort of like I imagine watching Star Wars with a ragtime musical score would be like.) Along these same lines, the episode features Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City," which he wrote specifically for Vice. It plays while Crockett wanders aimlessly through the city, ironically a fish out of water in the Big Apple.
Finally, the best scene in the episode by far is when our vice cops confront the banker J. J. Johnston, Esq., played by the controversial actor/poet Julian Beck in his only television role. A gaunt, skeletal, sinister figure, Mr. Johnston explains, as if to two children, the facts of life to Crockett and Tubbs: Money, including dirty Wall Street money, makes the world go round, and vice cops can't change that. Beck's performance is haunting; he seems a 1980's mixture of Gollum and Darth Vader, wasted by greed and desire for wealth and power and having been completely corrupted by it. (In fact Beck was suffering from advanced stomach cancer at the time of filming, and died shortly before the episode aired.) It's a tremendously dramatic moment, not at all diminished because of its brevity.
All in all, then, typical Miami Vice, albeit with some rather atypical elements that make it well worth watching.
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