Tubbs is sitting in a car in America, on a stake-out. Some gangbangers knock on his window, because this is America. Sheeeit, one of these cats got a switchblade. Not to be outdone, Tubbs pulls a sawn-off shotgun. Gangbangers retreat.

Crime boss emerges from house. Were I Tubbs, I would assume the gangbangers were running surveillance for crime boss.

Cut to nightclub. Tubbs pays negro waiter to spill drink on crime boss. I actually thought the waiter was Tubbs until I saw them in the same shot. Tubbs looks more mulatto than 100% negroid, probably got that 5 – 10% IQ boost because his grandmother laid with the white devil. He has a sensitive, violent look – classic Michael Mann protagonigger, I like him already.

Crime boss goes to toilet. Tubbs follows. Fight with bodyguards.

Boss escapes. Tubbs left impotent, helpless, unable to do his job because he is stupid.

Cue Miami Vice theme music.

Cut to Don Johnson with a paedo moustache, watching a negro dance on the corner. The guy from NYPD Blue appears and chats with Don; he doesn’t make enough money, says no woman of his should have to work, he wants to take his wife or whatever out for a romantic evening – right there, you know he’s going to die. Cut to the guy with some sleazy mofo talking about how he wants to sponsor a child or something.

Sleazy mofo takes nice NYPD guy to car. Car explodes. Both die.

Don Johnson visits ex-wife. She busts his balls. He explains his partner died. She busts his balls even more because she is a woman.

Well-dressed negro walks down street, gets in car. Car doesn’t have a roof for some reason. Johnson exploits this vulnerability to jump in the car, grab the negro’s fried chicken and throw it into the back. Johnson is wearing an incongruous peach jacket.

Some kind of drug deal, Tubbs and Johnson are both masquerading as drug dealers; they meet, neither presumably knowing the other is a cop. Local police appear and ruin everything. Tubbs steals Johnson’s boat. Johnson steals a car and is in hot pursuit, to the Miami Vice theme tune.

Johnson jumps into the boat and thumps Tubbs. Tubbs reveals he is a cop.

Johnson unhappy. Amusing line as he expostulates to his superior:

Two weeks! Two weeks of legwork I put in on this bust, and three-fourths of the dealers turn out to be cops! Me, Scottie Wheeler and Dr Voodoo here putting in a surprise guest appearance direct from Fun City! […] My badge says Miami but lately it’s looking a lot like Disney World!

Tubbs wakes Johnson up on his boat. Because Johnson lives on a boat like Duncan McLeod. Johnson, as a white man, does not appreciate a negro in the morning and punches Tubbs, then feels abashed and apologises. Tubbs punches him back: “couldn’t let you handle all that bad karma on your own.”

Tubbs does into the boat to get ice for the bruise, is chased out by an alligator called Elvis. Johnson chuckles, revelling in his white supremacy for only the white man can master the gator: “don’t mind him Elvis, he’s from New York.”

Romantic interlude. Crockett woos some woman thusly:

Maybe I’m getting too old for this line of work. Scraping by on four hours of sleep a day. Living undercover for weeks at a time. Dealer this week, outlaw biker the next. It’s Tuesday? I must be working drugs. Hell on the old nervous system, I’ll tell you.

Classic 80s burnt-out cop dialogue, woman helplessly spreads her legs for the Crockett dong.

Tubbs revealed to be brother of Tubbs, on a vengeance mission against a greaser Cartel boss. Complicated. Crockett unhappy at the news, throws an American football about his own boat, probably breaking his own possessions.

Tubbs in an alleyway for some reason, a tranny appears and tries to shoot him but Crockett appears in a black Ferrari and tranny-assassin gets shot by Tubbs. Justice.

Crockett tracks down the corrupt cop who led the tranny-assassin onto Tubbs. The corrupt cop is a jovial Irishman who took a bullet for Crockett and seemed, thus, beyond reproach. However, like all Irish, he is untrustworthy and criminal. Crockett ends up trying to strangle him to death in his black Ferrari. Soulful scene as Crockett realises you can’t trust anyone, that in this Mannly world every Mann must stand alone and die alone. Just as Hamlet, after his mother married Claudius, begins to question every human relationship he ever took for granted, every truth he assumed, every value, so here – Crockett thinks, “if this guy was corrupt, who can I trust?”

Cut to Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’ as Crockett and Tubbs drive a Ferrari down a dark road.

Crockett, heading down his own dark examination, calls his ex-wife:

“I need to know something, Caroline. The way we used to be together…I don’t mean lately, but before. It was real…wasn’t it?”

Just as Hamlet questions if Ophelia ever loved him, if his mother ever loved his father, if anything he knew was true, so here.

Big shoot out. Crockett & Tubbs deal death out with wanton abandon. Tubbs corners the greaser who killed his brother, is about to execute him when the white man appears as the voice of reason: “Tubbs. Not like this.”

Greaser escapes.  The end.

All in all, a great great pilot episode.