Abel Ferrara what can you say? If you haven't seen Bad Lieutenant stop reading this. SERIOUSLY. WATCH IT. Ok. This episode is Abel Ferrara and no one else.
To back up a little, this isn't one of the great "Miami Vice" episodes, but one of the b-stories as the other reviewers said, and a really good one.
The only improvement would've been Martin Scorsese as director, and that would've been a very different feel. This is just grimy, real street drama (as much as TV can get away with in 1985). Slow and the camera focused on the actor. Each shot is held so long, the actors have to deliver-- watch and count the seconds go by and go by-- and under Ferrara's direction the actor's deliver well. The serious tone the actors are going for is a little clumsy to watch, for sure, that's just how Ferrara wants you to see it. It's the "real" feel he likes to utilize to take down the barrier and put you in the drama. The clumsy realism, the long takes, the subtext-heavy dialogue, the ice cold operators stepping into the story, like Giancarlo Esposito in this one, that's Abel Ferrara.
Esposito's part could've been twice as big. This guy is just good.
Only the climax disappoints. Why wasn't Trudy left to resolve her own situation? I guess that's me talking in 2018; it is Sonny's show. Still, ends on a fine, serious note. I don't remember the show enough to say a down-beat ending is a rarity. But this one was good.