Trivia / Miami Vice S 2 E 1 The Prodigal Son

• Ability over Appearance: According to Penn Jillette, Jimmy Borges was originally written to be a short, Puerto Rican drug dealer. Jillette, who's white and very tall, portrays him.
• All There in the Script: Burr (Bill Smitrovich) is only identified by his last name in the shooting script and the subtitles, but is not credited as anything more than "DEA Commander" in the episode itself.
• California Doubling: The scenes ostensibly set in "Bogota" (particularly the nighttime raid on the Revilla's supply cache) were actually shot in Bear Mountain State Park in New York.
• Creator Backlash: Penn Jillette has admitted he didn't like his experience on set, calling the experience "worse than high school."
• Deleted Scene: Syndicated airings of the episode were done in two parts, with several scenes being deleted due to runtime. This included a longer scene in the third act where Crockett is sitting in a club and thinks he sees Margaret, and gets his suspicions confirmed about her duplicitous nature by Tubbs, who he calls up on a payphone and learns important information from.
• Hostility on the Set: Penn Jillette has stated he and Don Johnson didn't get along on-set.
• Uncredited Role: Ken Ober (who had fame at the time for starring in Remote Control, among other works) appears uncredited as the voiced taxi driver who tells Crockett and Margaret to hurry up and get in as they chat outside the NYC club.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Miguel Pinero (Esteban Calderone in the first season) plays Esteban Revilla, even sharing the characters' same first name.
  • Bill Smitrovich, who plays DEA Commander Burr in this episode, famously played The Informant, Scotty Wheeler, in the pilot episode.

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