Episode #022

Air Date: 10 May 1985 (NBC)
Director: John Nicolella
Teleplay: David Assael & Joel Surnow

Episode Summary
Albert Lombard is aboard his yacht, having a conversation with his son, Sal. It’s obvious the two don’t get along. Miami vice cops sneak aboard the yacht, neutralize Lombard’s henchmen, and make their way on deck, where they serve Lombard with a subpoena to testify in court against a criminal named Labrizzi. After the cops leave, Lombard talks with his friend Charlie, and tells him he has no intention of ratting out Labrizzi.

At the OCB, Castillo recognizes that Al Lombard is between a rock and a hard place because of his immunity agreement. If he testifies, he’s dead; if he doesn’t, he’ll go to jail on contempt of court charges. Castillo orders the vice squad to keep Lombard alive.

Charlie goes to meet Labrizzi in a soda shop [My Boy Lollipop]. Labrizzi feels certain Al will testify, and asks Charlie if he’s ready to take over Lombard’s action. Charlie nods his agreement. Later, Lombard has lunch with friends. As he’s leaving the restaurant, two hired guns attempt to assassinate him. Lombard is shot, but was wearing a vest, and escapes relatively unharmed.

A warehouse owned by Labrizzi is torched, presumably by Lombard’s people. Crockett and Tubbs go to visit one of their snitches, Augie, at the dog track, to try to find out what’s going on. Augie doesn’t know much, but promises to sniff around. Sonny and Rico then pay Lombard a visit, offering to put him under protective custody. Al declines. Lombard’s men catch one of Labrizzi’s thugs, and Lombard tries to get him to cough up the name of the person who set him up. The man points at Charlie. Even though the man has complied, Lombard concludes the meeting by having him shot. He has other things in mind for Charlie; he orders him to set up Labrizzi.

That evening, Lombard receives a call from Charlie. He did set up Labrizzi, but things didn’t work out exactly as planned, so Al needs to get out of town for a while. Charlie says he’s prepared all the necessary papers for Al, and that the two need to meet. Al leaves his yacht to rendezvous with Charlie, with Crockett and Tubbs tailing him [Wire]. It quickly becomes clear, as Al and Charlie face each other, that Charlie intends to kill Al. The two vice cops prevent this from happening by shooting Charlie before he has a chance to shoot Lombard.

Now, Lombard is taken into protective custody and transported to an old apartment complex comprised of small, single-residence buildings. Lombard sends Tubbs to get the fixings for a vermicelli dinner and, over the meal, Lombard tells the story of how he got into the criminal life and became estranged from his son. An undercurrent throughout this episode is a strange appreciation, even admiration, which Sonny Crockett develops for Al Lombard. He’s a hard guy not to like. There’s something about Lombard with which Sonny identifies – perhaps his loyalty, or the honor code, of a sort, that Lombard lives by. It’s never completely clear.

The next morning, Lombard asks to go for a walk. Crockett and Tubbs escort him into the courtyard. As Lombard is doing a little stretching, a truck pulls up and shooting erupts. As the vice cops are busy trying to stop the truck and the people in it, Lombard slips away. Al goes to visit Sal, who berates him for never having been there for him when he was a kid. Lombard clearly wants to make amends. Sal insists that the only way that can happen is for Lombard to testify. He also wants his dad to stick around and tells Al that he loves him.

Lombard agrees to testify and go into the witness protection program. He spends his last evening before the court appearance on Crockett’s boat. He has a talk with Sonny, telling him that he and Crockett are a lot alike. Crockett disagrees because, he says, he has never murdered anyone. Crockett then accuses Al of the murder of a woman named Barbara Carol, but Lombard claims he wasn’t the one responsible for her death.

Al Lombard does appear in court the next day, with his son waiting proudly to hear his father testify. When the moment comes, Lombard takes the fifth and refuses. His son angrily leaves the courtroom. Al tells Sonny that he will never rat out his friends, and it’s clear that Sonny respects that stance. In the final scene, Lombard leaves the courthouse in his car. Two men in another car immediately begin following him. They are carrying some big guns.

– Daryle Gardner-Bonneau