31 Day Miami Vice Challenge, Day 10: Least Favorite Villain

There are so many famous people that appeared in Miami Vice prior to making their big breaks. For instance, Julia Roberts was in "Mirror Image," the final episode of Season Four, before even Mystic Pizza was released. Bruce Willis played a wife-beating arms dealer right before he landed Moonlighting. Benicio del Toro had a bit part as a criminal-turned-actor in Season Three. And Helena Bonham Carter even acted opposite Don Johnson as a drug-addicted doctor girlfriend of Sonny's. But just because someone is famous now and has done several movies that I adore does not mean that they are going to play a good villain in an episode of Miami Vice.

Case in point: Liam Neeson's third season villain, Sean Carroon.

Via Star Warped

I don't blame Gina for falling head over heels for the guy. She had it rough the first couple of seasons. First, she sleeps with Sonny, even though she knew he wasn't over his soon-to-be-ex-wife Caroline; second, in order to maintain her cover as a prostitute, she is forced to sleep with an exceptionally gross man who also happens to be her "pimp." Third, she's stalked by a guy who raped a friend of hers. So when a reformed IRA terrorist shows an interest in her - and when he happens to look like a young Liam Neeson - naturally, she goes all in. But he's just as big a creep as the others*, and she shoots him at the end of the episode when he won't not shoot a stinger missile at a plane.

The main reason Carroon is my least favorite villain is because he's just another way to show that Gina, being a lady person, gets incompetent whenever her vagina trembles. True, Crockett's ability to be a policeman is rocked a bit when he gets into a relationship with a woman (resulting in Tubbs getting pretty beaten up), but it's because he's having all the sex late into the night and just kinda forgetting his duties. His emotions aren't mixed up; he has a penis and is therefore incapable of letting that happen. Carroon is also one of those characters you just sort of forget. Like, oh, right, he existed. And there was also a drunk British person in that episode, right? And missiles? And something about Ireland? And Gina cried at the end. I definitely remember Gina crying and the boys consoling her because of her lady feelings.

This was the first episode where Dick Wolf was the executive producer, and it shows with the distinct change in colors and topics. It would have been like Buffy being taken over by, oh, Supernatural's producers after the first couple of seasons (we'll say after Season Three) and having her suddenly start taking on Bible-thumping Christians while wearing survivalist clothing. So I guess it's a combination of huge changes in the show's scope and a general disrespect for the female characters that make Carroon so distasteful a villain, not so much a criticism of Liam Neeson as an actor. He was nice to look at, though, wasn't he??

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* And yes, Sonny is a creep for essentially lying to her. Just because you don't realize something about yourself does not mean that you aren't responsible for how it affects others. No number of roses in your coworker's locker is going to change that.