TV: Wiseguy, Rag Trade

The Rag Trade was the second arc of Wiseguy's second season, and its fourth arc overall. By this point, the series had attracted a decent buzz as a show to be seen on. Ray Sharkey almost revived his career as Sonny Steelgrave. Kevin Spacey made his bones on the show. And Fred Thompson started his climb to brief presidential front-runner here as well.



The rag trade was the first arc to attract some A-list guest stars, namely Jerry Lewis and, arguably, Ron Silver. Perhaps Silver is only B-list, but add the critically overrated Stanley Tucci as the arc's primary villain, you have some fairly serious star power for a little five-episode run on a cop show created by the guy who's more famous for having given us The A-Team.

Unfortunately, while filming the second episode Ken Wahl had his ankle broken by a camera dolly. There was talk of postponing the remaining episodes (with the show unlikely to keep the guest cast) all the way to outright canceling the series. Cooler heads prevailed, and the powers-that-be brought in a temporary lead, Anthony Denison. He was late of Crime Story and so familiar with the weekly cop-show grind and presently out of work. He would play John Raglin, a semi-retired, disgraced OCB agent with old ties to both Frank and Paul, so the arc came to be as much about them as it is the investigation.

Considering the bulk of the arc was hastily rewritten to accommodate Raglin, perhaps the highest praise one can bestow is that the arc is not a disaster.

Nor is it very good.

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Episode 28: 7th Avenue Freeze-out

The first act is all exposition. With Jerry Lewis onboard, he has to be front and center to launch the arc. So it's a long monologue of Jerry establishing the hard-ass old-school garment-industry personality of Eli Sternberg. It's a nice piece of showmanship, even if it's hollow to the core.

Having weathered some recent setbacks, small ones that snowballed into major trouble, there's a large order on the horizon for Eli's mini-major, Elrose Fashions. He has the future income to borrow against, so he goes to his factor, an annoying bespectacled geek with the nom du street of Johnny Coke Bottles. This is the only time in television history I've seen a loanshark set up with his own office and quasi-legit styling. Bottles has always been there with bridge loans, but won't cover the two million Eli needs to pull his business out of trouble. He hints that there's only one place to get that kind of money. It's an obvious set-up and David pushes his dad right into it by immediately ruling it out. The moment the Sternbergs leave, Johnny's on the phone to "Mr. P."

It's briefly a time-out while we pull back to see the Sternbergs at home. Society dinners, shiksa wives for Eli, bar-hopping for David. Cousin Carol is introduced, and she's "about to close the biggest deal of her life." Could this be connected somewhere?

Ignoring further overwrought David objections, Eli goes to Rick Pinzolo for an openly mob-style loan. Why Rick, who has never been convicted of a crime is directly loaning money in such a way, doesn't make a lot of sense at this point. Equally pertinent: why is Elrose, an old and moderately respected garment maker, going to the mob before a bank for a loan? Pure plotting fiat: Eli won't put any of his personal property at risk.  After all, BofA's late fees are harsher than the mob...

Throughout all this, Ron Silver and Jerry Lewis overact on each other continuously. Eli shouts while David freaks out and gesticulates.  Apple, tree, etc.

David, half hysterical at his father's lapse of judgment, immediately runs to the cops to turn over on Pinzolo. David has a Pinzolo card he's holding, and won't reveal until late in the arc when the situation has almost completely deteriorated. Why not use it now? I'd bet that since the development seems like it came from left field, it might have been a last-minute change when the arc was almost scuttled. Since Pinzolo runs all the 7th avenue rackets -- unions, trucking, loansharking -- the OCB is pleased to enter the equation. And like most of the mob bosses in this show, he has basically no trusted lieutenants (though he does at least have a consigliere), so dropping him will take out his entire structure. Convenient, wrap-in-a-bow TV plotting.

Since this is the first time there's been a player involved who knows Vince's true purpose (to start with, I mean; every Wiseguy arc where he's undercover involves at least one person learning the secret), Vinnie interviews David, another nice scene despite Ron Silver's slightly overwrought method acting. The arc might have been quite good if Vince had stayed healthy. David and Vinnie had decent chemistry. In terms of the arc, the scene establishes that Vinnie's cover will be trading on his former mob history as a "security consultant."

Eli doesn't want a security consultant, though, so he orders Vinnie to go beat up Coke Bottles -- after which, he's fired. But Vinnie makes a complete botch of it. Bottles zaps him with a stun gun and kneecaps Vince with a baseball bat. Vince will be gimpy for a couple of days, by which point he'll be gimpy the rest of the arc. At home, Pinzolo himself comes to visit (it's Vinnie's second limo-riding visitor in two days) and informs Vince of the way of things in the "holistic community known as 7th avenue" (take a drink, that exact description will return later) and further, that if Vinnie works for Eli, he also works for him. Ricky gives Vince a pager. And clearance to beat the hell out of Bottles in retribution.

In parting, Ricky asks about Vince's mother marrying Don Aiuppo. "Welcome to la familia." he says, mocking. Vinnie, of course, was made last season as part of Sonny's crew.

Vinnie roughs up Johnny Coke Bottles in a half-assed way more befitting a lighthearted cop than a ruthless mob lieutenant. More importantly, he gets Elrose's merchandise pulled out of customs where it's been languishing due to outside interference. Armed with that stock, Eli can pay off Pinzolo. Pinzolo's so unhappy with the early repayment that he bumps the trucking rates further to keep Eli down. When Ricky learns that Vince released them (how'd he know? If he knew the feds made legal pressure to do it, Vinnie'd have more problems. And if the OCB is so good as to cover their tracks (perhaps in the fashion of the Greco/Winfield intervention from the pilot), Vince is in Ricky's doghouse. Also, because Johnny's been pinched. Someone of moderate smarts might add two and two, but not the villains on this show.

Elsewhere, the OCB has picked Bottles off the street and is trying to flip him. Frank stupidly goes too far in selling him the old the-world-is-against-you-now line, and lets Bottles dive out a window to his death. Perhaps they should have used one of the dozens of OCB safehouses that have only one floor. The only positive of this is Vinnie can claim responsibility to Ricky and get back in his good graces.
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Pros: Good chemistry between many of the central characters.
Cons: Ron Silver freaks out at the drop of a hat. Any hat.
Then: B
Now: B-

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Episode 29: Next of Kin

The night of a union dinner honoring Rick Pinzolo, David's about to leave for Sri Lanka to deal with the sweatshops. Carol spends the time shamelessly flirting with Vince, and then Eli notices someone stealing a dress out of a truck in the alley. Yes, you read that right. He rushes downstairs, somehow in time to just barely miss the guy. Eli, old and fat as he is, manages to avoid the taxicab speeding up the street, but Vinnie takes it right in the leg (sold with a fairly painful-looking stunt).

Vinnie makes a call directly to Frank, right in front of Carol. Why not Lifeguard? And why in front of Carol, with barely disguised language. I guess it's the pain, or the drugs for the pain.

After xrays and plastering, Carol plays the bedside manner card, dropping off some Carnegie Deli chicken soup and a long chunk of bad exposition about her views on Elrose. She loathes Eli, but loves "my cousin David." Eli, she argues, systematically stole Elrose from her father, who was once Eli's full partner but is now halfway a lackey. Carol then attempts to heal Vince with the power of her tongue and package grab, not knowing he's on his way out.

At the banquet, Frank works the room as the outsider but interested fed. There's some service paid to favorite pets of the show: cops seeking political office, golden gloves boxing. Shorn of any rationally thinking handlers, Eli gets drunk and roasts Pinzolo thoroughly, which prompts an apres dinner visit to Vince's hospital room. Vinnie struggles not to produce the world's smallest violin while Ricky sobs about how mean ol' Eli hurt his feelings in front of his peeps.

Enter John Raglin, the "only man I know who even comes close to being in [Vinnie's] league." Really? Should we be apprehensive that John Raglin is a desk jockey who's haunted by his disastrous last field assignment in Phoenix? He exposits his back history, and how he's finally laid those ghosts to rest. So he refuses, and Frank calls him onto the carpet, warning that John did not go out on a "win." This is somehow enough to guilt Raglin into working with "crazy people" again.

Raglin's first stop is Pinzolo. The two share the in-joke of "Don't I know you from somewhere?" which in-show is that Raglin did time with a cousin of Rick, but the really it's that the two actors probably met on Crime Story. This joke would recur in Wiseguy's third season Lynchboro arc, when no fewer than three other CS alums would share scenes.

Frank has a long stakeout on behalf of Raglin. He's trying to find out who's been stealing the occasional Pinzolo truck. It takes a much longer scene than any stakeout to date, and all it nets is that a customs official is in Rick's pocket. The one who delayed the Elrose shipment? Possibly. A lot of time just to get to that point, when Frank had all but figured out that angle from his fact-finding banquet mission. Amusingly, the customs guy is played by Alex Bruhanski in his second bit-part; here he's sans the beard and glasses he wears in the third season when he's playing Alex Vechoff.

Over in the ostensible main story, there's been a bombing in Sri Lanka, which has Eli beside himself. John makes a call to the state department, and learns the bomb was in the hotel bar, and David's room was not damaged. But then David spends a lot of time in bars... Eli, with witnesses, swears to make David a partner if he returns. Everyone says that's a beautiful gesture; but it's also a promise he reneges on the moment David turns up alive and admits he got five cents per unit worse on the deal than Eli wanted.

Already thick with padding, we actually follow up -- in two scenes, yet -- the guy who stole the dress in the opening scene. First we see him apologize to Ricky, and then to Eli. Did we need to see both apologies? Doubtful.

Meanwhile, in the first major reveal of the Real Plot, Carol visits Ricky and they discuss, obliquely, the plan. Even Rick is taken aback by her vehement hatred of Eli; but old Carol reveals that Wall Street subscribes to the Krese philosophy of Strike Hard, Strike Fast, No Mercy, Sir.

Frank later visits Ricky to tell him he's got the customs agent. And? It's just a Frank-rattles-cage scene, and not an especially rich payoff for the time invested. The truck hijacking, the corrupt customs guy -- none of this is ever referenced afterward, even when they're scrambling for something, anything, to tie to Pinzolo.

Raglin later asks Vinnie for a briefing, which under the circumstances here is funny -- what does Vinnie know that wasn't in the official briefing? That Carol is an opportunistic floozy? That he got on well with David? It's only been one episode. Not much to pass on.

But it's John's problem now.
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Pros: Frank and Pinzolo
Cons: Carol

Then: C
Now: C-



Episode 30: All or Nothing

It's dawn in New York. Carol is home, on the phone with a Mr. Chin. She mentions the closing price of RightWear stock, and that while "we" could increase "our" position, it would probably draw attention from the SEC. After the call, Carol's overnight toy leaves, summarizing the evening as having been "wonderful." Glaring at her computer, she mutters "At least one of us thought so."

David, belatedly, wants to know how to explain Raglin's presence instead of Vinnie. Um, David, while you were in Sri Lanka and points east, all that laborious cover-establishing stuff was taken care of. But it gets us through the early-episode Story So Far moments, allowing viewers who just joined us to learn why Ken Wahl is nowhere to be seen. As Raglin shifts the exposition into supposition, David cuts it short by announcing they are late for the Medici show.

As the models wrap up their walk, Raglin spies Carol across the room. "How do you know Carol?" David asks, dreading the most likely answer. Carol's with a ridiculously 80s high-fashion woman, who is actually the buyer for... RightWear. Hmm. Where have we heard that name before? David's taken with her, announcing that she has eyes "like a graphic computer screen," quite possibly the worst, most technologically-ignorant compliment ever.

In no time, he's negotiating a large order to knock-off the Medici show dresses. It'll be a fast turnaround, but a huge deal that could get Elrose up to the next level -- so they opt to go with the Chinatown sweatshops for labor.

Raglin puts in a call to Lifeguard, revealing his agent number of 3623. No known significance. He asks for "a line on an outfit called RightWear,"  which turns out is "the biggest discount department store chain in America."  How could he not know that?  In-universe it'd be like asking for a line on "an outfit called Burger King,"  and besides that they're in the news as being a takeover target for Z-Mart.

Then it's off to see Pinzolo, where Raglin is told to make sure the deal goes through. This sets Raglin to asking questions, but Pinzolo's not answering, and quickly changes the subject before he digs his hole any deeper. Shockingly, Ricky actually has a guy, Carmine (his father's namesake and, along with Dominic, a go-to name for the Wiseguy writers when a gangster name is needed) who watches Chinatown for Ricky. Carmine's a fat, indolent man; the jovial guy on the fringe of organized crime. He gives Raglin the tour of the sweatshops, squalor, pro-union protesters, etc. The first two are just there to push us to the third: Joan Chen, the future Josie Packard of Twin Peaks, Washington, is out on the streets, rousing the rabble.

Too well, as it happens. Pinzolo wants her brought to heel and ensure that Elrose's order gets finished. Hmm, he's very interested in Eli's success, now. Apparently Rick has no better muscle to do this, so he sends Raglin. He goes to Josie's nice, if snug studio. The two bandy words about compromise and the nature of management versus the workers; her childhood, parents. It's reminiscent of the early Vinnie/Emanja scenes of last season. Except where the star of the show could never hook up with a black girl, it's okay for a guest star to, at great length, be seduced by an asian. Never mind that he's married (he slips the ring off as she ritually shaves him -- yes, ritual shaving) and that she doesn't want to know his name. Later, like Emanja, she and Raglin return from an outing to find a corpse in her home. I wonder how much of this subplot was directly recycled from season one's Blood Dance. The scare tactics succeed, and the chinese go back to work. Eli's order will go through, on time and under budget. Josie further agrees to testify, which will put Carmine away. Another episode, another small fish.

Later still, Raglin sees Carol and Pinzolo together, using that incredible detective skill known as "lucky coincidence." Oh, and that nice buyer from RightWear? You know, the EGA eyes? Strange, she seems to have killed herself.

Thus does the arc enter its slightly overdue third act.
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This episode contains a lot of fat. There's incremental progress on the takeover, but more time devoted to chinatown strike, developing the characters of Raglin and Packard in order for them to plausibly hook-up. Since the series lifespan of one is over this week, and the other in two, it's of dubious value.  Would Vince have hooked up with her, and risk Carol?

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Pros: Finally some real Arc momentum.
Cons: Padding, oh so much padding.

Then: B-
Now: C-




Epsiode 31: Where's the money?

Wherein Carol's plan is finally implemented. Having worked and slept with Pinzolo to get to this point, she nudges Elrose off a cliff in an effort to finalize a takeover by some mysterious asian cartel, the owners of Z Mart. Knox Pooley would doubtless rail against all this if he were still in the hate business.

There's a problem with this long-term and intricate plot that has involved only a few less players than JFK's Dallas trip: the mob, a foreign cartel, the SEC, customs agents in two countries, at least one manufacturing mill, several labor unions, the country's biggest clothing discount retailer, and, oh yes, Elrose fashions. And the problem is simple: Raglin has figured it all out: Pinzolo has tampered with the flame retardant on Eli's shipment of RightWear dress fabric. When discovered, it will trigger both Eli's ruin and a retailer stock collapse, one that Carol will then profit by from a hostile takeover by Mr. Chin's cartel. To hammer home the point, Raglin stages a graphic demonstration of the dress burning in seconds at OCB.

And then, improbably, we cut over to a window dresser who is smoking while, well, dressing a window display with said Elrose dress. It catches, and he jumps through the ground-floor window to escape the flames. And breaks his neck. Couldn't he have just bled to death from the glass?

Okay, so even if the scenes take place simultaneously, Raglin still knew far enough in advance to call a meeting and assemble props. If he knew, then, logically, the justice department knew as well. They could have intervened, but did nothing. Once again we hear the ghostly voice of Sonny Steelgrave: Who's the mob in this room, Vinnie?

Once the damage is done and Eli stands ruined, Raglin decides to tell David, who then beelines to Carol and nearly throttles her before John stops him. It's only delaying the inevitable; some people are born to be strangled. Carol can't talk her way out of David's wrath, which ends with him delivering a NASA-condemning O-ring speech that probably looked a hell of a lot more convincing on paper. Fainter, this time: Who's the mob in this room, Vinnie?

Following the dramatic O-ring exit, Raglin's talking David down from doing anything stupid. He rationalizes their overall case against Pinzolo, urging David to have just a little patience. At OCB, there's enough of an SEC case to give Ricky 10 years and a $150 million fine. Raglin wants blood instead. We get payoff of Raglin's inner demons, something about a case gone bad, dead reporter, etc. If all this had been much more than briefly alluded to in the previous two episodes, it'd mean something. But at this late hour, it's just one more scene that's happening only because it's next in the script.

David, too, wants some blood. He has enough patience to have a minor reconciliation with Eli, who never grasps that subtext. David sets aside some old case data for Raglin, and marches off to save his father's business by shaking down Pinzolo. Gun in hand, he leads Pinzolo into a bank for a substantial withdrawal. Ricky shouts gun in a crowded bank and David takes the bait: attempting to kill Rick before the security guards can react. It leaves Rick smirking and David dead. Shocking.

Less shocking is that Frank and company are watching the last act of it draw out, and don't move on the pair until it's too late. Hey Sonny, who's the mob in this room?

Raglin snaps, accompanied by melodramatic monochrome flashbacks, and he pistol whips Pinzolo in the bank, breaking his jaw. The guards do nothing to stop him, but now Frank's arrived and calms John down. Back at OCB, briefly, Frank threatens to pull Raglin off the case again. Again, John's not going. At the hospital, in another of those great coincidences, Eli's left the morgue just as Ricky's discharged from having his jaw wired. Eli punches him, eliciting a realistically horrible scream of muffled pain. I don't know how or why he's still a viable double agent at this point, but Ricky now tells his goons that he wants Raglin. That's right. A man pistol-whips you in public and you're expecting him to answer your calls.

John Henry's over at Carol's office (a lot to cram into one day) to let her know in his best Robin Curtis voice that her cousin David, whom she loves, by the way,  is dead. She asks if he suffered, and Raglin gives her another speech that probably looked better on paper, relating to the effects of hollow point bullets on human skulls. Rent-a-cops in NYC pack hollow-point loads?

Dangerous city.

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Pros: Good talky, calm scene between Silver and Tucci.
Cons: Feds really sit on this much information? Really?

Then: B+
Now: B-

Episode 32: Postcard from Morocco

Today's opening exposition has a curious note to it; Raglin says that "four weeks ago" he hadn't heard of this case. That would mean the arc is playing in real time. Somehow, all of these business trips, union difficulties, production runs, and insider trading is crammed into that window? Especially when two Elrose orders were scheduled to take three and six weeks.

On 7th Avenue, Ricky's getting ready to flee the country. He's liquidating everything into Swiss and Cayman accounts and his consigliere, Mike "Mooch" Cacciatore (one of Vinnie's neighborhood friends, also played by "Meat" from the Porky's trilogy). Mooch thinks it'll take 3 months to clean up Rick's investments; Rick gives him a week.

At David's funeral, Eli offers Raglin his last $50k if he'll kill Pinzolo. That's much too much for a civil servant, and Raglin refuses. Raglin also receives the letter from David, detailing Ricky's one definite murder: 20 years ago. Unfortunately, in the intervening 20 years, Rick's had someone on the inside change the records: the victim apparently died in a one-car accident. Besides which, the murder weapon's gone forever, and the only proof to the contrary is the word of a dead man.

Carol, meanwhile, has already agreed to testify for the SEC case, and so now she comes clean to her father. He's sickened by her misplaced hatred for Eli, and rebukes her actions. This drives her over the edge; she sleeps with Rick again and then stupidly tries to get Ricky to admit to wrongdoing on tape. Her technique is clumsy, and he smothers her. With his largest liability taken care of, Rick decides to flee to Morocco.

The feds go forward with the SEC case, since it's all they have now. At the airport there's one last Raglin/Pinzolo scene; as McPike stands and watches (again). Raglin admits he's a cop, which amuses Ricky. He then deduces that Vinnie must be a cop, too. His familia will want to know that -- and so Raglin shoots him dead, using the old "I thought he had a gun" excuse.

So there's the climax to a troubled arc. Raglin fails to protect David or Carol, Eli is ruined, and Ricky doesn't get arrested, the reason for the whole thing. And Raglin blew both his and Vince's cover, however briefly.

Frank needs to redefine the term "going out on a win."

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Pros: It's over.
Cons: Carol's stupidity, Raglin's stupidity, Ricky's stupidity.

Then: B
Now: C-