This episode was reportedly inspired by the 1987 political scandal involving presidential hopeful Gary Hart and his affair with Donna Rice, airing less than a year after said scandal hit the news. There are multiple similarities between the scandal and this episode: Larry Pine's hairstyle in his portrayal of Tom Pierce clearly mimicked Hart's at the time; like Hart, Pierce suspended his campaign only to resume it later (Hart however permanently withdrew from the race later in March 1988); the local Miami paper (The Herald in real life) broke the story, and so forth. Hart's second and permanent withdrawal from the race happened less than a month after this episode aired.
Ironically just five months prior to the scandal, Rice, then an unknown television commercial actress, played a small uncredited role in Forgive Us Our Debts (1986) as Mrs. Frankel (Det. Frankel's wife).
Ironically just five months prior to the scandal, Rice, then an unknown television commercial actress, played a small uncredited role in Forgive Us Our Debts (1986) as Mrs. Frankel (Det. Frankel's wife).
In this episode, Mr. Mister performs their song "Stand and Deliver," which was also the title track to Stand and Deliver (1988), also starring Edward James Olmos.
This is only the third episode in which it is raining. Naturally, the producers want to shoot everything without rain if possible, but the fact is that in Miami there is an average of 140 rainy days a year.
Cowan refers to the term, "the fourth estate." This refers to the press, with the other estates being the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. This goes back to Thomas Jefferson; the concept being that the government operates by the will of the people and the role of the press is to observe and report on how well the government fulfills that mandate.
A running theme on the show is how often Crockett and Tubbs are investigated (often mercilessly) by Internal Affairs (IAD) for actions they have taken, only to be exonerated, as they are again in this episode. Tubbs even makes reference to their repeated tangles with Internal Affairs with his line, "IAD has a permanent poker with our names stenciled in on it!"