Episode
Wiseguy: Independent Operator
Overview
Vinnie’s assignment to check out a contract killer leads him into a huge global contraband syndicate — an operation that far exceeds the scope of the Steelgrave family — overlorded by brother and sister Mel and Susan Profitt.
Details
- Series
- Wiseguy
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 12
- Air date
- 1988-01-04
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
Independent Operator is Episode 12 in Season 1 of Wiseguy. It aired on 1988-01-04. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 11: Last Rites for Lucci
In the aftermath of the Steelgrave case, Vinnie tries to vindicate himself of his lingering feelings of betrayal and disloyalty by risking his life to save an old friend from the Brooklyn neighborhood who has a contract out on him.
Episode 13: Fascination for the Flame
Vinnie, now a bodyguard for the Profitts, gets his first trial by fire when Mel Profitt, the brilliant but paranoid overlord of an international crime empire, disrupts the wedding of an associate, who retaliates by kidnapping Susan.
More episodes from this season
Episode 10: No One Gets Out of Here Alive
An outraged Sonny Steelgrave accuses Vinnie of betraying him to his arch-rival, then realizes the devastating truth — that his paisan is an undercover Federal agent.
Episode 14: Smokey Mountain Requiem
Vinnie tells Mel Profitt he is leaving to go home to New Jersey, but Mel offers him the biggest cocaine distribution network in the country — a plum that Vinnie feels is too juicy for any undercover cop to turn down.
Episode 9: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Sonny’s impending marriage to a syndicate boss’ daughter begins a supposedly businesslike realignment of “families,” but Vinnie learns that the wedding is a pretext for a bloody gang war.
Episode 15: Player to be Named Now
Mel’s desire to buy a baseball franchise is two-fold: he wants to play on it, and he wants to take it away from an old business associate who cheated him in a Mexican drug deal. When Mel’s former girlfriend shows up, begging for readmission to the Inner circle, he humiliates her, using her as a sexual pawn in a power game with a rival, but for Vinnie, forced to watch it happen, the worst is yet to come.
Episode 8: A Deal's a Deal
Sonny’s cruel punishment of a lounge singer who wants out of his contract triggers a cascade of events that leads to Vinnie’s being photographed with McPike — a photo that is to be delivered to Sonny.
Episode 16: The Merchant of Death
When some of his munitions contacts begin drying up, Mel decides to blackmail a French Deputy Minister of Defense into supplying him with the weapons he needs.
Episode 7: Prodigal Son
After his mother is mugged in Brooklyn, an enraged Vinnie sets out to find the punk who did it, but when he visits his mother in the hospital, it breaks his heart that she still won't forgive him for his life of “crime.”
Episode 17: Not For Nothing
Hiding out in Vancouver after the fall of the Steelgrave empire, Aldo Baglia sees a photo of Vinnie in the paper and decides to even the score, sending Vinnie into a coma from two serious gunshot wounds. Roger, using his CIA contact, tracks down Aldo.
Episode 6: One on One
After several deals go sour, Sonny starts suspecting Vinnie may be a plant. Frank orders Vinnie to drop the case when he finds out the local police have an informer in Sonny's operations. Sid has Frank picked up and tortured, but Vinnie and undercover cop Karen Malloy rescue him. Karen's disappearance points the finger at Sid as the leak.
Episode 18: Squeeze
After his munitions operation starts falling apart, Mel orders Vinnie to set up a meet with the mob to use his immense cocaine trade to regain financial power.