CBS Late Night mostly showed only the arc episodes and not the one-shot stories that were sprinkled throughout the show's three-season run. All told, there are 12 episodes during three seasons that are treated as single stories, nine of which appear in the very uneven third season.
I still haven't seen the majority of them, and so I won't cover them in any detail.
Though today's hour-long tv dramas are rife with long and often slow-building plot arcs, at the time Wiseguy began it was very much a ground-breaking structure for prime-time tv.
While its long-form arcs were death for the mass audience of the day, a lot of good television has been built on the ground it staked out twenty years ago. As befits my chosen format of review, I haven't watched many of these episodes in years, often several. So here begins my refreshed take on the first arc of the first season, Sonny Steelgrave.
Note: the DVD release, while a welcome upgrade to my near 20-year-old vhs tapes, are cheap and sloppy at best. I'll be touching on their many problems as I encounter them, but to start: In the main menu of disc 1, the footage loop includes major spoilers from the end of the arc, some ten episodes later. Clearly these dvds are not meant for the new viewer.
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Episode 1: Pilot
We begin with series protagonist Vincent Terranova (played by Ken Wahl, who looks like the winner of a Poor Man's Travolta contest, 1987. Given Travolta's stature at the time it's half surprising he wasn't cast as Vinnie himself). He's being released from Newark State Penitentiary, where a guard mockingly calls him "wiseguy" and tells him not to come back. Vinnie gets a cab to the worst part of post-industrial Jersey-dressed-Vancouver the crew dared shoot in.
Interlude: Mr. Steelgrave and his driver idly discuss killing someone named Dermott. More on that later.
Vinnie meets his boss and second on the cast list: Frank McPike, played by thoroughly deadpan onetime Hey-It's-That-Guy actor Jonathan Banks. They banter about prison life in a safe-for-80s-CBS way. Vinnie is pissed he had to do "the whole eighteen," but Frank insists it's better for his cover as an entry-level mobster. He then radios someone, indicating it's all clear. Who is it? Oh, some guy named Dermott. Hmm!
Uh oh. Stan Dermott's about to retire. But first he's going to drop a load of indictments on... Steelgrave? Then he's off to Florida to live near his kids and do a lot of fishing. What a nice end for a hard-working career cop. Yay! Stan was Vinnie's training officer, but now training's done. Frank's his boss now. Boo! As Stan leaves to "meet with some people," Frank leads Vinnie into a parody of Secret Agent HQ, where behind the wall of a derelict warehouse there's a gleaming red-painted steel door emblazoned with "OCB - A Division of the FBI," complete with a federal seal. Don't worry about compromising the entrance -- you need to slide an OCB ID between the boards of the facade to get to it.
 |
| Inspector Gadget was more adult. |
They meet with Regional Director Darryl Exposition, who improbably assigns Vinnie his first undercover job like an hour after he leaves prison. Let the guy shower, huh? Vinnie balks, crying about his mother, estranged to him since his jail sentence. Exposition parries with some expert info-dumping, telling Vin that no one can know he's a Fed, it's department policy, etc, etc. Vinnie shrugs this off and goes right for the throat: immediate resignation. Ouch. The RD, continuing to move the plot along like a pro, name-drops Stan Dermott...
Who's being shot (squiblessly) by David Steelgrave. Man. Didn't see that coming. Dave wears gloves and does not drop his .45 at the scene.
And we're in the ICU, where Stan's been intubated and bandaged. Frank looks on, and then Vinnie arrives -- a move that would blow his cover instantly if anyone in the mob was watching. As is his custom, Vinnie shrugs him off, prompting some choice dialogue from Screenwriting 101: "You just play things the way you want, don't you?" Frank mutters. Vinnie goes to Stan's bedside and swears vengeance on Dave Steelgrave. Stan awakens, gasps, and dies.
Small note: The doctor who attempts to revive Stan is played by Dwight Koss. From the second season on he plays the recurring role of Mark Surmac, underboss at the OCB.
The following day, Vinnie goes to confess his sins. The priest's manner is both bitter and sarcastic.
Oh! It's his brother, Pete. Yes, we have two Italian brothers, one a gangster, one a priest. Thankfully, they aren't twins. Pete is the only person Vinnie can trust with his true employment status. He urges Vinnie to explain to their mom. Vin demurs, citing Dead Mentor Motive, and suggests that people like him are what God created for the victims of organized crime. And ladies everywhere.
..and he's back! Frank is about to drop Vinnie on the street, where, laughably, he's received the assignment to infiltrate the Steelgrave family. More laughably still, Frank allows Vinnie to indulge his juvenile scriptwriter fantasy of becoming the Steelgraves' handpicked protege through an enormously contrived coincidence.
Perhaps Frank just wants to be rid of Vince and lets him go.
The next scene introduces one of the Wiseguy elements that has aged the most poorly. The phonebooth check-ins with the third and final member of our regular cast, the Lifeguard. Lifeguard sits in a dark loft surrounded by the 80s version of Expensive Audio Electronics. He's Vinnie's day-to-day contact while he's under. It's never explicitly stated whether he watches other agents (for that matter, it's not clear if Frank does, either).
The OCB assumes that not only can their agents routinely make phone calls from a reasonably secure line, but further that they can start these regular conversations with a subtle "Agent 4587, day code: Style section..." which is then followed by the words in the first newspaper article corresponding to the day's date as a preamble to their report proper. Vinnie in fact rejects an opportunity to ditch the unwieldy code, which he thinks is good for "doing it on the fly." He would use the full-preamble format throughout the first season.
Vinnie's plan to becoming the most important man in the Steelgrave family is to bluff his way into a job at the restaurant where Dave and brother Sonny eat and discuss illegal business in virtually plain speech, in front of a dozen or more witnesses. On today's agenda, Dave openly, flat-out confesses to killing Dermott. Sadly, the subject is closed just before a gang of FBI agents arrive for a spot of fist-shaking and We'll Get You Yets. Tony Greco, pinch-hitting as Sonny's driver and, I hope not consigliere, immediately threatens the feds with violence. The feds laugh it off, noting they could take him away for 3 years for that. But these feds aren't our heroes, so they do nothing.
After they leave, Vinnie makes his move, spilling a bowl of soup on Sonny which leads to his being summarily fired. When Vince gets angry and indignant at the treatment, Sonny develops an instant crush on him -- his eyes linger on Vinnie hungrily throughout -- and, bizarrely, challenges him to a fight later that day at the docks.
While there was often talk of homoeroticism relating to the Steelgrave arc, I hadn't really given it much credence until watching this scene again. Sonny's eyes positively twinkle when they fall on Vince, and Greco looks like he's about to jealously blurt out "damn right!" when asked if he and Sonny "go dancing together."
Before the fight, we get a few crumbs about Winfield and his use of one of Steelgrave's piers. This is well executed, though likely lost on a first-time viewer, by placing a line or two of advancement in each scene until the first appearance by Winfield himself later in the episode.
Then Vinnie arrives and, following some chicken-dance he lets Sonny take him down. Vince goes into his Golden Gloves stance and they box for a while as the longshoremen gather around to watch their boss beat someone up. Risking public humiliation seems a bit stupid for a boss. But Vinnie knows his place: after getting Sonny on the ropes, he lets his guard down and Sonny finishes him off.
Further firming his status as a less than sharp knife, Sonny immediately offers Vince a job interview at his casino on the folliowing day. Vince arrives, bruises and all, gaining a meet cute with Dave's daughter, Tracy, in the elevator. She's in town for a week from UCLA, where she's studying law. Just like Meadow.
On the strength of ten seconds' Golden Gloves banter, Sonny rejects any notion of Vinnie being placed low in the pecking order. Based on what must be a thorough background check, Sonny hires him as his new driver and gives him an 80s neon-accented luxury suite.
With another hungry look, Sonny muses that Vince might be able to do some "heavy work."
Now, finally, the A plot of the pilot episode gets fully underway. Arms manufacturer Winfield has been using one of Greco's warehouses for exporting his weapons (a dandy piece of TV firepower that sports a mini rocket-launcher over the barrel of an MP5-ish submachine gun). Vince and Greco pick him up, Winfield protests right away that he'd already paid Greco. Arriving at an amusement park ("subtlety" has no place in the Steelgrave dictionary) Greco takes Winfield into a shed and highly conspicuously keeps Vinnie out of the interrogation process. Vin nevertheless overhears Winfield begging for his life and sees the telltale signs of electricity applied for interrogative purposes (the Wiseguy writers love electrocutions).
Some time later Greco emerges and practically bends over backward ordering Vinnie NOT TO GO INSIDE. Is it any great wonder that when he returns minutes later with Dave that Winfield is dead? Greco's explanation is hilariously overlong: that Vinnie somehow "saw the combination, went in there while I was gone and whacked him around some." No third-grade teacher in America would buy that. To his credit, Dave only half-buys the lame excuse, and makes Greco go along to plant the body.
Vinnie uses his government connections to find Winfield's patron, Renaldo Sykes, who's unfortunately played like an effete Michael Myers Eurotrash character. The Steelgraves and Sykes have a sit-down, which for once is not in public and surrounded by witnesses. It's in a seedy motel where the other patrons have been run out by Steelgrave men.
Sykes makes a lengthy infodump about Winfield's ingenious assault rifle and how he came to buy both the man and his gun. He in fact manufactures the latter (where is not disclosed), and when there's this much rope flying off the spool, the script again hangs itself: With all the prior outlay, there's no good reason why he's using this mob-controlled pier in Jersey. Sykes has a factory, freighters, customers. Why add an unpredictable middleman in a country where you're not selling the guns?
Dave and Sonny are unmoved; they know Sykes has the cash to buy back his guns. Just as talks are breaking down, Vinnie conveniently hears something next door, and leaves to investigate.
Now, the entire motel has been cleared of people. It's one of those long two-floor strips of a motel, where all the room entrances are visible to the parking lot. In the parking lot is at least one Steelgrave button.
Yet somehow in the room are two unidentified thugs, who are listening at the wall when Vinnie breaks in. They turn and start shooting at him.
Was that a signal? Classic mob sexism let Sykes bring his sultry latin moll with him, and Tony doesn't bother to frisk her. So he's as surprised as anyone when she busts out a submachine uzi (ok, actually a mac-10..) from her miniskirt. And she shoots up the room, some part of which fly right through the wall into Room Next Door where Vinnie and the thugs are.
What are the thugs there for? Listening? How did they get there? The motel was swept and the only entrance was in view of Steelgrave men. They were armed, but seem interested only in escaping Vinnie, which they do easily, even though he's just come in through the only door to the room. We never see them actually go with Sykes (whose muscle seems, overtly, to be limited to his Latin Moll and his German manservant, Dieter -- no, really), the only workable theory is that they were crew from his freighter looking for a little extra pay.
Clearly they were just there to provide an easy way for Vinnie to escape injury. When he returns, Sonny and Grecco are wounded, and Dave, Dave is dead. Vengeance accomplished, your ghost may rest easy, Stan Dermott. An arms dealer's moll has done what you could not. Still, a sloppy job, leaving two thirds of the targets alive. This is another of the Wiseguy writers' pet peeves, and it comes up a few times in the course of the series: automatic weapons suck.
Greco uses Vinnie's fortunate absence as some kind of proof he was in on the hit. Never mind the two thugs, the bullet holes, etc. Vince counters that this situation has been festering for some time, and it's all on Greco's turf. Maybe Greco took the money from Winfield and never told the brothers Steelgrave? He bets that if they check Greco's bank accounts, they'll find Winfield's money. Because mobsters diligently make taxably large bank deposits that result from shady arms deals.
Further, displaying incredible initiative for a newly-hired driver, Vinnie says he called the dock after the ambush and told the boys to replace the crates of WARs with crates of rocks. Just in case someone came to steal them. Which they then did, using the old Hot Latina With Car Trouble ruse. Too bad Vinnie didn't just warn them about who would be coming to get the guns...
Tony, playing against type this once, was not so stupid. Vinnie, being a fed, calls in and has a matching deposit made "by an attractive latina." Unfortunately, Greco was standing right behind the phone booth where Vinnie made the call, and heard the whole thing. That's right, two uses of the call-in code and he's already been made. Tony said Dave knew Vince was a fed, and then he makes disparaging (and totally inaccurate) accounts of how Dermott died. Fortunately, Vinnie beats him down and Frank quickly arrives explaining that Lifeguard traced the call. Yeah.
Vinnie urges the now-arrested Greco to flip, but Tony is having none of that. Frank assures Vince that Greco won't surface while Vince is still under. Gitmo is alive and well in the 80s.
Sykes discovers he's been had, turns his ship around, agreeing to trade his Hot Latina for the guns. No sooner is he off the phone with Sonny has he declared his intent to renege on the deal, to hopefully no one's surprise. He comes in guns blazing (it's Wiseguy's largest action piece, ever) and eventually dies fleeing from the Greco pier by chopper.
Several of Steelgrave's soldiers are killed, but since they'd for the most part never been seen before, no big deal.
Dave is laid to rest, as is the spectre of a love interest in Tracy Steelgrave, who is returning to California with her mother. At the funeral, Sonny is again harassed by Dermott's replacement, and this time he snaps at the bait: he asks Vinnie to chill the frisbee.
Dermott 2.0 answers his door later that night, and Vinnie shoots him once in the chest, square in the vest he had time to don prior to his assassination. One chest shot isn't up to mob standards, but Sonny is appeased. He'll trust Vince forever now...
Until next week.
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Pros: Great action scenes during the end game and a very cool weapon prop
Cons: Numerous plot holes, bad acting, and another quick removal of Jennifer "Pilot" Chase.
Then: A
Now: B
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Episode 2: New Blood
The second episode of the series finds the murder of Dave Steelgrave to be front page news all around the eastern seaboard, with mob war and indictments predicted. There's a grandstanding special prosecutor on television talking about bringing the mob to heel.Sonny's position suddenly seems weak indeed, with bosses in New York and Philadelphia stepping forward to protect their interests in Jersey. Vince has been in place now for six months.
New York's boss, Paul "Pat the cat" Patrice calls first, demanding a sit down. The director has a bit of fun with the nickname, and for his first few lines of dialogue Patrice is filmed from distinctly Blofeldian angles, though all the build-up is moot; Pat the cat is neither bald nor a nehru jacket enthusiast. And he definitely does not own a cat, but that story comes later.
Pat's worried. Greco's gone, possibly flipped,
Dave's dead. He strongly implies that New York has a near controlling interest in Sonny's operations, and fears he'll lose thirty million dollars that's tied up on Steelgrave enterprises. Pat suggests a commission of 4 guys (which would quintuple the size of Steelgrave's brain trust), but it's just a bargaining ploy because what he really wants is to put in a single accountant: |
| Sid Royce, played by Dennis Lipscomb |
On the drive back to AC, Sonny's in a good mood for having bargained Patrice down to one man. He tells Vinnie how Pat the Cat received the nickname; many years ago, after an evening of drinking and "putting cigarettes out on their arms" the boys decided the real test of manliness was to put a mangy old alley cat with "claws like steak knives" down their underwear. Yeah, I know. Only Pat had the fortitude to follow through, at some price.
 |
| You'll see this look again. |
.
Things are equally ugly at the former Greco Marine dock, now rechristened Terranova Marine. No sooner have Sonny and Vince paused to admire the newly painted signs than Philadelphia's boss, or at least the Philly boss with Jersey ties, Mack "No Money" Mahoney rolls up in his white limousine.
Mack and Harry
All the mobsters in the 80s took limos everywhere. In every way, Mack is the anti-Patrice; older and fatter, as menacing as he is vain. His colorful nickname derives from having bet every cent he'd ever earn that Patrice wouldn't put a cat down his shorts.
Mahoney (note that so far Wiseguy has been keeping all its mafia boss names as far from real-world Italian Family names as possible -- how are these guys getting made?) has sensed Sonny's whereabouts and brought him his guy, Harry Shankstra, a runty old man with a cane and elevator shoes, nicknamed "Hunch" for his back. Harry's played by Eric Christmas, who is perhaps most famous for his portrayal of Angel Beach's principal in the Porky's trilogy. Hunch continues the Mack/Patrice contrast; where Sid was slimy, Hunch is crotchety. Sonny, resigned, accepts Hunch, and he has Vinnie give him a space at the docks.
When Vinnie later meets with Frank, Frank is unhappy with Vince's job performance, particularly of late. It brings up a good point; what exactly is Vince doing for the FBI on a day to day basis? Calling in? Speaking of which, Vinnie seems surprised when Frank confronts him with having met with Pat the Cat the other day. Um, Vince, you told the Lifeguard. On your way to said meeting. Shortly, Frank's real reason for pissiness comes out: "We've never had anyone in this deep before," he admits.
WTF? Vinnie's idiot method of getting an in with a mob boss is the most effective in history? Rewrite the rule book! Vince promises to be more dutiful if Frank can get loudmouth prosecutor to turn down the volume until he has indictments. The constant media barrage has the whole mob rattled. And it keeps making Sonny break TVs.
Back at the casino, Sid has started making large business decisions without consulting anyone. From drug-testing to computer access. Child psychologists would call this "testing the boundaries." The boundary here is Sonny marching up to Sid's desk and punching him full in the face prior to the airing of grievances. After Sonny has stormed out, Sid calmly dabs the blood from his nose, picks up the phone, and orders a hit on the mouthy special prosecutor, looking somehow even more smug than his usual air.
Down at Terranova Marine, Vinnie and Hunch are watching another grandstanding speech by the mouthy special prosecutor, this time on a tiny b&w portable that looks like it's from the Carter administration. MSP's saying how even though he and his family have been threatened, he will continue to work to destroy Sonny Steelgrave. Cue Sonny! He storms in like he's been watching the whole speech, snaps up the TV and throws it to the floor. He bellows that he wants to kill that guy. Hunch can't believe what he's hearing. "How'd you last this long with such a big mouth?" he asks for everyone at home in TV land.
Sid's first overt gambit gets underway. He invites Sonny to a lunch at a high-rise private club that, not coincidentally, overlooks the MSP's office. Sonny arrives early and wanders out onto the balcony. Gosh! MSP is on his way out of the office with his entourage, what timing! A floor or two above Sonny, a sniper takes a couple of shots, wings one of the entourage, and pitches the rifle over, down into Sonny's waiting hands on the balcony below. Sonny and Vinnie are arrested.
Frank is in difficult spot. He thinks Sonny is guilty, even though the original assassin wasn't wearing gloves and there has to be at least two sets of prints on the rifle. Frank himself tells Vinnie to "forget the gun," because the writers will, too.
Vinnie asks about the other suspects: Sid and Harry. Frank rejects Sid out of hand, summarizing Sid's stature in the financial community. Yet the guy works for mob bosses... Harry, well, Harry's like 80 years old and not what one would consider spry. Neither Frank nor Vinnie seem to think that maybe one of the two hired a third party. Nah, that's just not possible! Vinnie establishes his dislike for testifying as anything but a federal agent if it should come to trial, a fact that's paid off in the next arc of the series.
While the two fret about Vinnie's cover, an extra comes in and whispers some news to Frank: Sonny's made a deal; if Vinnie passes a polygraph test, Sonny walks. "The machine will bust you," Frank warns, demonstrating a fear of the polygraph that I think a real-life cop at his strata would not possess. The polygraph is very beatable with a minimum of training, and even a little preparation will greatly aid your chances when taking the test.
For all that, any real effects aren't clear. Sonny and Vinnie are both back in the casino offices in the next scene and just like the gun, the polygraph plot point never returns. Once an episode, Sonny gets to question Vince's loyalty; here it's because the polygraph indicated Vinnie may not work for him. Vinnie is completely flummoxed (though the situation arises frequently, the writers on this show have no idea how to have someone talk their way out of trouble convincingly) and eventually Sonny just drops the subject, never to be broached again.
Now he wants to kill Sid. Which is a good move all around. Vinnie talks him out of it with the worst possible reason: better the devil we know. Actually, the devil we know has changed corporate policy and framed the boss for an assassination attempt, however lamely, in his first week. Maybe the next guy wouldn't be so effective?
While listening to Hunch drone on about history, Vinnie does a rare bit of deduction, realizing that the impoverished immigrant that delivers MSP's pizza is likely a sicilian assassin. Detectives Terranova and Steelgrave shake down the local pizza stand's help, break in to the apartment where bomb parts are of course waiting out to be discovered -- along with the detenator, a garage-door opener. They tear over to MSP's building in Vince's candy-apple red Porsche. Too late! Pizza's on its way up in the tv-friendly glass-walled external elevator. Out of frustration, Sonny punches the button on the detonator, which has been clearly modified for longer range.
Poor Angelo the pizza guy is splattered all over the building, leaving Sonny to ask: Did I do that? In the epilogue, Sonny reenacts his favorite scene from 2 with Sid standing in for Fredo.
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Pros: Great casting all around for Sid Royce, Harry the Hunch and the Pat the Cat.
Cons: Horrible plotting all around: Idiot rifle-toss frame-job, the all-powerful polygraph, both of which are tossed aside the moment they're established.
Then: B+
Now: C-
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Episode 3: Loose Cannon
Wiseguy's third episode begins with a more amicable business discussion between Sonny and Sid. Patrice would like an extra 10% (what Sonny's "other partners" are paying) from a Jamaican crew led by one Cecil Dumont. In a striking contrast to the close of last episode, Sonny accedes to Sid, and prepares to lay down the law on Dumont.The "A" plot of the episode is teased, with the arrival of a "personale" trunk with "Lorenzo Steelgrave" stamped on it. This is Sonny's nephew, returning for the summer (last episode featured a Day Code of 7/7) after being deported back to Sicily with his father about 20 years ago. When he left he was a little kid who went to Yankee games with his big uncle Sonny.
In the "B" plot, Vinnie is suddenly dating a "girl from the neighborhood," Gina Augustina, who is the widow of a recently deceased local cop. Brother Pete is concerned that dating Vince will only set her back in her grief, but Vinnie plods ahead. Sonny likes the idea too, but worries that Vinnie is too embarrassed by him to bring her around.
One of the more hilarious images of Wiseguy comes in the following scene, where Sonny's two-car caravan is ambushed on the streets of Duck Town. The ludicrous footage of a suit-and-tie Vinnie, standing up through the sunroof of the caddy with a shotgun was good enough to add to the opening credits in the second season.
The 1987 Cadillac, perfect for Shotguns.
Despite having several men with automatic weapons lying in wait on both sides of the street, the "coconut salesmen" are unable to successfully hose down two cars. Sonny and company get away, vowing war. The moral, again: automatics suck.
Cecil Dumont is that rare marriage of character actor (he looks like a poor man's OJ Simpson; too bad the real one wasn't available...) suited to completely batshit dialogue, even if he has trouble with a word like "guineas." Furious at his failed attack, he begins spouting fervently nonsensical lines like "I am the paisley-eyed death stalker.. I walk on the air!" I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but boy, is it great!
Patrice has a cooler head, which looking at the scene now probably meant he was hoping Dumont would succeed, but is now forced to support Sonny instead. War has to wait, though, because it's the "C" plot and it's time to switch back to...
Lorenzo arrives via boat. Not sure why his clothes came via air freight and he didn't. He's skinny and seems a little off when Sonny talks about the good old days (Ray Sharkey's "Yabba dabba doo" is not a great moment in Wiseguy). He's also a mouthy punk who complains about the cars they came in. Sonny takes him aside for a talking-to, and for the moment, he chills.
Some hours later, judging from the darkness, the wartime entourage arrives at the restaurant. Sonny has a surprise; he sent a car for Gina! What a boss. Gina and Vince make the most of the situation until Lorenzo, unmindful that Sonny handpicked two office bimbos for him to choose between, tries hitting on Gina. When Vinnie warns Lorenzo to back off, the kid sucker-punches him. Sonny apologizes and says he'll call the old country to find out what's gotten into his once-favorite nephew.*
Vinnie drives Gina home, and when next we see them they're sitting on her porch. He's trying to talk her out of seeing him, dropping talk about his "back story" as Pete called it. Gina says it only matters that he cares about her, that's enough for right now. For clumsy reasons unknown to me, the two then go and sit in Vinnie's car before he leaves. Gina asks for a sip of his coffee, which is cooling on the dash (no cup holders in the 80s!) in a styrene cup and plastic lid. Vince pop the lid off and tosses it into the distant reaches of the dash. Gina gives a double-take and remarks that's just what her late husband, you know, the COP, used to do with coffee lids. Vinnie makes a lame excuse and changes the subject to their next date, to which she agrees. This is Gina's second scene with any real dialogue, and it's pretty clear all her lines have been looped in post. While this happens occasionally for technical reasons, the main cause over multiple setups is almost always bad line delivery. Especially given the actress's very small post-Wiseguy resume.Also, I can't for the life of me think of why the scene is constructed to start on the porch and later return to the car. No human beings in the world would behave this way just to establish the coffee-lid-cop connection. Is there any possible way to change the scene and still preserve all the points?
Ugly plot advancement now over, they start making out in the car. Pan back to.. yep, Lorenzo has tailed them here and is watching. Something's not right with that boy.
Having worked for the mob all day, been beaten up by a skinny punk, and finally reaching second base for the first time since prison, Vince is ready to do some of his actual job, and requests a meet with McPike. While the Day Code is in effect, he skips reading the date. He shares the important day's events with Frank: the war with Dumont ("Cecil 'the diesel'" Frank calls him) and Lorenzo's nuttiness. Frank will check him out through the state department. But most important, the coffee lid! Banks adds some deftly understated warmth (a subtle but crucial change from his customary lightly mocking but weary deadpan) when he notes that "Every cop or fed I've ever known sort of does it the same way." It's Frank's best moment in the series to date. He also agrees with Pete: Leave Gina alone. Oh, and by the way, her dead husband cop? He was dirty. That's why he ate his gun.
The next morning, Lorenzo saunters up to Vince and flat-out tries to recruit him. He makes a threat he's a Steelgrave and Vinnie's not even been made. I guess Vince accepts at face value that being from Sicily, Lorenzo is made -- though nothing Sonny said prior to his arrival indicated Lorenzo was in the business at all. Vince warns him again to back off, and immediately goes crying to Sonny, who is being berated by Sid vis-a-vis the war with Dumont.
Meanwhile, in Duck Town, plots A and C meet. Lorenzo has walked right into the club (one can't help but wonder if it would've been the Rabid Rabbit, if the cast from the pilot had been available) and in the men's room he pitches an offer to Dumont's second: kick him a percentage and he'll tip them off about Sonny's collections. Then he can kick up to Sonny and Patrice money from their own take. Sounds like it'd work forever. Dumont strolls in and Lorenzo shoots him - nice squib effect, using an old-school frame-drop to make the blood spread seem instant. You don't see that much anymore, but done right, as here, it looks great. Still, I'm sad to see the jerked ham exit before giving us more zany lines.
Over in the B plot, Gina plays the you're-lying-to-me card, and confronts Vinnie of his coppiness, and Vince gives her a non-denial exit from her life.
The next day Vinnie is on the road to Boston, making a cash deposit. In the middle of nowhere (and a nowhere that looks a lot more west than east coast), the reggae theme music of Dumont's crew strikes up. Five dredlocked rastas in a green Sabre run him off the road and into a farm field. Even though they're again loaded to the gills with uzis, the rastas know Vinnie is the main character of the show and let him flee on foot when the car gets stuck. Inexplicably (except for vital exposition needed) Vinnie calls Frank for help. On the way back to AC Frank lets him know that the real Lorenzo Steelgrave washed up on the shore of Sicily last night (word travels fast for the OCB). Most likely, Fauxrenzo is an escaped Italian mental patient who murdered people for no reason in the hills of Sicily, and even the Sicilian mob feared him.In AC, Lorenzo has decided to alter his bargain with Dumont's guys. He tells Sonny he killed Dumont and offers a 2.5% upgrade in the crew's kick, and in return he'll run the rastas. Or, he can go to war with Sonny. Sonny mulls this for a few seconds and then summarily disowns Lorenzo, and kind of stupidly turns his back on him directly thereafter. Lorenzo urges him to rethink the deal, and produces a dummy grenade. Sid cries in terror, and dives for cover behind the leather sofa when Lorenzo rolls it across the office. Sonny sits quietly and ponders his nephew's betrayal.
At Terranova Marine, Sonny has learned that Vinnie's run has been sheared. Now despite Lorenzo's defection, the apparent murder of Dumont, and the fact that Lorenzo knew about the cash run to start with, it's this week's installment of Sonny Momentarily Questions Vincent's Loyalty. Vinnie tells Sonny to shoot him if he thinks he really did steal the cash. Sheepish, Sonny backs down, looking apologetic that the scriptwriters made him do that again.
Later, Vinnie's back at the casino and talking to one of Sonny's office girls. She just happens to mention that Lorenzo tried to get her to go out with him, but when rejected mentioned he had a girl in Queens he could go party with. I wonder who...
A phone rings in a house in Queens. Out of focus behind the AT&T touch-tone, a woman cries "No, no," as a shirtless man grabs at her. Vinnie tears over to Queens in his porsche (couldn't he have called a cop?), and walks through the unlocked front door. Distantly, he hears sobbing. He forces the bedroom door and finds Lorenzo abed with Gina. The fiend snaps up the .45 he left on her nightstand and shoots at Vinnie three times. Vinnie takes cover behind the flimsy interior wall while Gina tells him to flee. Really, Lorenzo could shoot him right through the wall, no problem. But he doesn't. Vince circles outside and through a window, but by time he's back to the bedroom, Lorenzo has Gina up, clothed, and is backing her toward the living room with a necktie noose on her neck. Vince stands stupidly looking at the empty bed for at least 2 full seconds before Lorenzo fires, missing with every shot from less than ten feet. He throws away his dry pistol and Vince quickly has him taunted enough to let Gina go, too. She flees outside while Fauxrenzo gives a me so crazy speech that doesn't contain a shred of Dumont's loopy charm. At the end of which, Vince shoots an unarmed man to death in Gina Augustino's living room. Granted, Fauxrenzo assaulted her and tried to kill him, but this seems the sort of thing that cops have difficulty getting managerial buy-off for.
Not that any of that matters; Lorenzo, Dumont's crew, Gina, nor any fallout from this episode are ever mentioned in following episodes.
Pros: Cecil, McPike and the coffee lids.
Cons: Gina, Pete's meddlesome priest shtick, and any consequences from all of it.
Then: B+
Now: C
* : While Lorenzo is referred to as Sonny's nephew, cousin is the only relation that makes sense given their ages and the fact that his father, Dominic, was deported. Further, the fake Lorenzo seems to acclimate easily enough to pass the smell test with Sonny; did he know of Sonny's mob ties prior to arrival, or was he just supremely prepared to take advantage of the situation?
**: Also, what IS Vinnie and Pete's neighborhood? In various episodes it's implied as being possibly in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Flatbush. Why not Staten Island, too?
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Episode 4: The Birthday Surprise
While there are no direct ties to last week's episode, there are many similarities. The story begins with an amateur boxing tournament at Vince chatting up a blonde (a bimbo supplied by Steelgrave Enterprises). The table is sent a bottle of cheap champagne from one "Kiki" Vanno, whom Sonny wittily dubs "The Little Richard of organized crime." We never learn to which family, if any, Kiki is attached -- someone, obviously, or he wouldn't be in "OC." I guess that helps tie into the title's superfluous "the." Kiki is presently fronting for two guys named Zarazzo, and the series returns to its roots here by having all the principals discussing business in plain english, publicly, in front of witnesses. The Z's can cover a cool mil just to talk to Sonny, and despite himself, that many zeroes makes Sonny interested.This week also features a cousin; Vinnie's cousin Danny Tessio ('1' reference?) who is participating in the amateur boxing tourney. In the event the Lorenzo contrast was not clear enough, his father is also named Dominic, similarly a straight-arrow who, unlike his son, disowned Vince when Vinnie went to prison.
Even with the rough spots, it's clear the series is starting to find its feet, and Vince quickly calls in to get a dossier on the hoods du jour. This time he does give the date: 9/14. Lifeguard puts Vince on hold while his cutting edge 1987 color printer spits out something that looks a little like Vanno's picture. Apparently Vinnie's diligent call-in is so important that he even calls Frank while Vince is on hold; as a bonus we get our first brief look at Frank's home life.
Kiki's file drops little we couldn't suspect; he's a three-time loser with minor convictions: arson, assault, etc. Did a stretch in Rockaway. The Zarazzos, though, two Greek brothers with a history rife with murder: 14, including the mutilation of a fed, case dismissed for lack of evidence.Danny wins his fight against what turns out to be a strung out junkie boxer. In the locker room, he finds his opponent shooting up and, being the kind of stupid guest-star family member who winds up dead by act two, beats him and takes his works.
When next we see him, it's another callback to last week: the green station wagon is almost surely the car Vinnie made the ill-fated cash run to Boston in. Danny, though, is dead behind the wheel, needle in his arm.
Vinnie goes off the rails, and tries to browbeat every cop and medical investigator involved in the case. When they are hesitant, he picks a fight in the station, which leads to a visit and another stern talking-to from Frank, who could've done all the cage-rattling behind the scenes. Now it's too late. Vince gets Sonny involved, and then goes to get his OCB ID that Pete keeps for him at the church. Armed with it, he returns to the police and starts expediting test results from the still-apathetic police. One of whom is played by Jerry Wasserman, another member of the Wiseguy repertory of day players; he'll show up later this season as the Russian employee who tries to flip Herb Ketcher.
At the Casino, Sid is explaining why Pat the cat won't do business with the "messy" Zarazzo brothers. Too many bodies, and not worth the danger to Patrice's wide range of legit income. Sonny considers backing off, but Vince thinks the money is worth the risk. So they decide to ahead with the million dollar meeting.
Back to the hunt, Vinnie has found exactly one clue on his own: in Danny's locker was Leon's works and, naturally, the belt he was using to shoot with -- with a big red LEON emblazoned upon it. While trying to find the man, Vinnie is picked up by cops on the street. Frank's pissed about his vendetta, particularly in how it relates to Vince blowing his cover to cops. He gives Vinnie a few days in a holding cell pending bail to cool off. In the space of one quick scene, our hero is contrite and will trade George and Minos Zarazzo for Danny's killer.
Bail springs Vinnie just before the meeting; on the way Harry fills in details about the Z boys, and at any sign of trouble he urges our heroes to "Hit them hard as chinese arithmetic." You have to love those old-man turns of phrase.
Gathering up Kiki, they meet at a turkish bath. The Zs want to unload some of their boat full of heroin on Sonny's AC turf. Meanwhile, it's another strong sequence from Banks as McPike picks up Leon the junkie boxer and takes him on a long driving tour of the New Jersey countryside. There's a masterful cut, as Leon sickens from withdrawal and hangs his head out the car window, retching, to the light drip, drip, drip of the faucets at the bath during the negotiations. In the end, Sonny takes $3 million up front to let the Zs do three shipments through his customs agent in Buffalo; if that goes smoothly they'll talk about AC.
Elsewhere, it's midmorning and Frank is out of patience with Leon. Borrowing a page from Batman, (who Frank was, in the third grade) he dangles Leon over the rail of a high pier until Leon finally sings: Kiki Vanno killed Danny. Frank leaves him on that pier, allegedly near a state hospital where Leon can enter rehab.Vinnie and Frank trade notes. Frank reluctantly gives up Kiki as the killer, but warns Vince that they're going to use him as the stoolie who will bust up the Buffalo deal. Kiki's absent from Buffalo, and when the cards fall two feds are shot by the Zs but Frank gets the satisfaction of killing Minos himself.
Leaving jail once again (a fact Sonny chides Vince for), it's time to play kick the dog! Sonny's in high spirits despite his right hand having yet another run in with the law: he has four million dollars and the Zarazzos are out of the way for good. And there's a surprise birthday present for Vinnie in the back of the limo -- it's Kiki Vanno's corpse, wrapped with red ribbon! Sonny's laughing uncontrollably, and Vinnie regards him with his patented look of disgust as the credits and laughter roll.--
Pros: Minor ties to contrast with our last episode, Frank's time with Leon, also the first episode where Sonny doesn't make a clumsy show of questioning Vinnie's loyalty.
Cons: Danny's scantly plotted death, Vinnie dropping his cover, another lame kick the dog moment.
Then: B+
Now: B
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Episode 5: One on One
Ah, One on One; the episode that guest stars Annette Bening, and so the reason she appears as a featured name on the DVD information for Wiseguy.Our story opens with another touching old-mob anecdote from Hunch as he and Vinnie await a truck full of swag from an old friend of Harry's. But suddenly the job goes south with the arrival of two units of Jersey's finest. It's the second deal busted this month. Only four people knew about it: himself, Vinnie, Harry, and Sid. Sid, learning nothing from Greco's protest too much downfall, immediately harps in on Vinnie's largely unknown background. Vince fires back that losses to Sonny encourage Patrice to move in further. Sid tells him that nobody's interested in the opinion of the hired help, and when Sonny fails to come down strongly for Vince, it prompts Vinnie to flare and resign.
Of course, Sonny is soon hanging around Vinnie like a jilted boyfriend, and it's not long before the pair have kissed and made up. Directly after, Vinnie runs into Karen Leland (Bening), a fund-raising hack for the city ballet company who wants Sid to become a corporate sponsor.
Vinnie calls in, revealing the date as 7/26 -- which means either the last episode is out of order, or it's been more than a year since Vinnie began the case. Later, he vents to Frank, who was supposed to watch the latest bust but not move on it. Frank didn't move on it; and demonstrating more of that Scriptwriting 101 intuition, Vinnie wonders if the local police have someone undercover, too. Frank's contempt for the skill level of local cops is telling.
Vinnie returns to find his suite being tossed by some thugs. They're from Carmine (jr?) in Miami. When they give their report to Sonny, they have exactly one piece of damning information: Vinnie has driver's licenses from several states, and one lists a Quantico address. Sonny feigns idiocy about the significance of this for the sake of the audience; Quantico is home to the FBI academy. Wiseguy would revisit this same fascination with Virginia residences in the following arc.
All of which leads to a second round of Sonny questions Vinnie's loyalty. The 3 am call, the drive in the limo, the pointed questions. You'd think that after 18 months (more likely 6, depending on the order of episodes) they'd know more of Vinnie's background. Anyway, Vince explains he had licenses from all over the southern half of new england (Mississippi is in new england?) and would show various licenses to various police as he ran bootleg cigarettes. This, apparently, is why he was in prison. Not very glamorous. Once again, Vince manages to lamely talk himself out of danger.
Two of the many faces of Annete Bening; big-hair 80s, and smoldering temptress.
Later, Frank, dressed as a bellhop, brings Vinnie his breakfast. Vince is momentarily speechless, giving Frank an opening to lay into him about going out last night without authorization. Eh? Vinnie needs to call in and get authorized to leave his room? Having learned that the NJPD has someone working undercover, Frank wants Vinnie pulled out of the operation. Vinnie barters for 3 days to find and stop the mole.
At the ballet, Karen Leland is all over Vinnie, and spends the evening trying to get him into her pants. She reveals she knows a lot about Sid, and Vinnie is less than surprised when he later sees her leaving Sid's Manhattan apartment in the morning.
Not that she's happy about it. She wants off the job, and nearly begs the chief to let her stop being "a whore for the department." He urges her to stay on just a little longer, so they can bring down Sonny. It's not clear how close, if at all, the NJPD is to having a strong case.
Next morning, another cash run has been busted. For the first time, someone on the mob side of the show mentions the existence of the OCB. Not only that, both Sid and Sonny are aware that Frank McPike is "their man in the city." This would strongly imply that Frank does much more with his job than babysit Vinnie, though it's never seen. Sid advocates abducting Frank and putting him to the question; Sonny thinks that's incredibly stupid -- and this is a man who kills feds. Sid goes ahead anyway, two goons grabbing Frank out his front yard in broad daylight. They take him to a local laundry and start the Gitmo treatment. Luckily for everyone, Sid had talked about all these contingencies within earshot of Karen, who's faking refractory on his bed.
Sonny sounds Vinnie out on the subject of pumping and dumping Frank; Vince thinks it's stupid, but tears off to call the Lifeguard to warn Frank. There's a continuity error here; the newspaper clipping at the Lifeguard Loft for ID shows 7/17, 10 days before his previous call-in. Too late, though. Vinnie learns that Frank's been taken. Oh, and that Karen girl, the one with the big 80s hair that wants you in her pants? She's a cop.
Meanwhile, Vinnie corners Karen in an elevator and immediately drops his cover. In the best TV fashion they team up to rescue Frank, who has resisted the torture and failed to out Vinnie.
In the epilogue segment, Karen's disappearance has made front-page news. Sid arrives and airily informs Vince and Sonny that he had a clerk at city hall find out she was cashing checks from the NJPD payroll. Of course, how her being a cop ties in to the recent busts only makes sense if you know she was sleeping with Sid and thus was privy to his job information. Vinnie knows, but Sonny isn't told. Unless Sid came clean, which seems unlikely -- nobody is going to admit to sleeping with the enemy. Thus, Sid has it both ways -- he gains some much needed street cred for looking like a ruthless SOB for having this apparently casual-acquaintance cop murdered, and Sonny still has to fear leaks in his organization. Nice job, if it was at all intended by the writers.
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Pros: Stoic Frank being tortured, major one-shot guest star.
Cons: Sid Royce's sex life.
Then: B
Now: B
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