Yet Another Sixteen Screams For Halloween: Day 2 (Miami Vice: Shadow In The Dark)

Would you look at that? We're back here again. At the start of the year (which feels like it was a million years ago now) I sat down and watched all of Miami Vice. In April, I wrote about it. I had much to say, but I specifically saved one bit of discussion and sent it forward in time by six months. That brings us to the here and now, to one particular episode which aired in the third season on Halloween night of 1986: Shadow In The Dark. Even back then, all those months ago, I knew this episode was something special. Now that I have the knowledge of the whole show with me, I can declare that not only is this episode a pure distillation of one of its core themes, but it actually does it better than some of the big dramatic arcs to come. What terrors await in the humid dark of Miami? Come, and let me show you.

Miami Vice was many things, but the key one to note for this analysis is that it was a show about good cops flirting on the edge of darkness in order to fight crime, while constantly in danger of slipping over that edge and plummeting into oblivion. Often the show would threaten this for our protagonists by having them endure terrible things... or, to be more specific, doing terrible things to the people they care most about. It's a tale as old as time. Shove the woman in the refrigerator and focus on how sad the man feels about it. Shadow In The Dark takes a different approach. Granted, there is one horrific moment where a terrible thing is said to have been attempted on a woman and she's clearly very traumatized about it, so the episode's not getting off scot free here. The rest of it, however, is focused on the nightmarish terror of a serial home invader. He's just a weirdo, deeply disturbed and breaking into people's homes to smear flour all over his face and eat raw meat. It's quite unlike the usual rogues and cocaine fiends which Miami Vice tackles, and the fact that it's so strange and disturbing is something that seeps into the mind and saps away at the sanity like an infectious cancer.

Much of the episode concerns the police trying to get inside the mind of the mysterious burglar, to predict how his warped mind thinks in order to find and arrest him. The mere act of doing so warps them, and drives them into a frenzied madness of their own as catching this guy becomes a paranoid obsession. It's that Long Dark Night Of The Soul shit, good cops slipping over the edge and falling into the darkness, a tale as old as Nietzsche... but with the incomprehensible aura of madness of something like an HP Lovecraft monstrosity. Perceiving the madman drives you mad. We see this with Lt. Gilmore, the policeman in charge of the case, as he gets more belligerent and violent, willing to rough up trash-talking civilians and police informants alike as he forces our heroes Crockett and Tubbs to pull all-nighters to just catch this guy until he finally snaps himself and ends up getting himself committed. It's Crockett's turn, then, to become an obsessed madman constantly convinced he's on the verge of catching this crazed burglar, he knows how this sicko thinks, just trust me on this!!! It gets to the point where thoughts of this mystery man haunt his dreams and give him nightmares, in the brief moments of rest when Crockett isn't pulling another all-nighter to try and predict where this man will strike next.

Love how this shot frames both Crockett and
the madman in the back of the cop car.

A curious synchronicity is at play here: Michael Mann was executive producer on Miami Vice, and his influence helped set the style of the show and make it bleeding edge cool. The same year this episode aired, Michael Mann released a film called Manhunter. It is a film very similar to Shadow In The Dark, in which a criminal investigator tries to get into the mind of a crazed madman to predict where and when he'll strike next. Unlike Shadow In The Dark, Manhunter's Tooth Fairy is an actual serial killer. The film is also set in the world of Hannibal Lecter, with the protagonist being Will Graham. The good Dr. Lecter shows up for a bit, albeit played by Brian Cox. It's an odd synchronicity, and Manhunter's a great film which you should check out. Tangent aside, the denouement of Shadow In The Dark shows just how far into the shadows Crockett's obsessions have taken him. He successfully predicts the madman's next target, breaks into the house and beats him silly... and the occupant looks at him with just as much horror as she did her home invader. Crockett has the monstrous in him now, always lurking, always waiting... and the nightmares do not abate. Worse things will happen to Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice, but that is all in the future. That was Shadow In The Dark. It impresses me how much it hits the darker vibes which I know the latter half of Miami Vice for, while not relying on manpain to do it. Instead, a darker and more insidious horror awaits. The thoughts of a madman become a madman themselves. The shadows keep on changing, but they always lurk as the sun sets, casting on the walls of the Long Dark Night Of The Soul. It may not be traditional horror, but I'm glad I saved it for this bit here. 

Okay, maybe next time a proper horror. With slashings and spooky things and shit. Maybe.