Crockett and Tubbs are hanging out with detectives Tim Duryea and Dickey Hawkins and discussing proper police work. Tim Duryea favors more heavy handed measures than our heroes, verging on Police Brutality. While hanging out, a group of four thugs assault a shop owner before killing Hawkins. Duryea is furious and wants to track the killers down and kill them. Crockett and Tubbs blame Duryea for his reckless actions during the chase.
Identifying the criminals as the Escobar Brothers, they eventually manage to track them down to a seedy hotel calledThe Maze. The Escobar Brothers are high on drugs and incredibly violent, taking a population of squatters hostage. Duryea ruins the element of surprise and gets Tubbs, undercover as a Jamaican street musician, captured.
Thus begins a long and dangerous siege.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Attempted Rape: Elio Escobar attempts this on Gabriella, just because he can.
- Ax-Crazy: The Escobar Brothers are violent and irrational thugs with the exception of Raul.
- Cop Killer: The brothers become a priority target for the polcie after they kill a police detective.
- Cowboy Cop: Tim Duryea is a Deconstruction of this trope as his attempts to rush in and be a hero continually make all of the police's efforts worse. Almost ends up shooting Tubbs at one point after Raul has been captured.
- Crime After Crime: The Escobar Brothers kill a cop and end up involved in rape, kidnapping, hostage taking, and (more) murder.
- Dwindling Party: The Escobars go from four brothers to two dead as well as two captured by the end.
- The Family That Slays Together: The Escobar Brothers are a bunch of Ax-Crazy murderous psychopaths.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The Escobar Brothers are considered small time hoodlums before they kill a cop and later take a building hostage.
- Hell Hotel: The Maze is an abandoned hotel in downtown Miami inhabited by the homeless and criminals.
- Hostage Situation: Much of the episode is about how the Escobar Brothers take an entire hotel's worth of hostages.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: The Escobars are completely off the police's radar until they go through a series of escalating crimes.
- Sacrificial Lion: Georges gives his life to prevent his sister from being raped.
- The Siege: Much of the episode is about the Escobar Brothers taking a bunch of squatters and their families hostage.
