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Wiseguy (TV series)

American television series

Wiseguy (1987–1990) was an American crime drama TV show airing on CBS, about an agent with the Organized Crime Bureau who infiltrates dangerous criminal organizations, struggling to remain true to himself while becoming close to the criminal leaders he is sworn to bring down.

Season 1

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Pilot [1.01]

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Vinnie Terranova: [in the confessional] Bless me, father, for I have sinned.
Father Peter Terranova: No kidding. Well then, I guess you haven't changed much, have you, Vinne?
Vinnie Terranova: Listen, Pete, I'm not gonna confess to you 'cause the last time I did, you told Mom and I had to wash the kitchen floor for a month.
Father Peter Terranova: You were six. You stole my cowboy boots.
Vinnie Terranova: Says you!
Vinnie Terranova: Pete, you know, all the people who come in here and pray, they all got problems... seventy percent of 'em can't get a bank loan; a guy can't make the payments on his house, he's got a wife and kid, he doesn't want 'em to be evicted so he goes on the street for the money. He misses a couple of payments, the next thing he knows somebody's ringing his doorbell with a steel pipe! Now you got his widow and his kid and they're praying for help!
Father Peter Terranova: And the Lord will provide it!
Vinnie Terranova: Okay, all right, but what if what the Lord provides is people like me? People to go out and get these brazholes? What if you and I are just on different ends of the same handoff?
Father Peter Terranova: [stares at him for a moment] How did we turn out so different... and so much alike?
Vinnie Terranova: [about his undercover work] Look, if I told Mom, she'd tell Uncle Pete and Aunt Celeste; they'd let it slip to Norwood, he'd tell that dingbat wife of his, and she'd tell half the Metropolitan Life Building!
Father Peter Terranova: She got sacked. She's home eating bon-bons and doing crosswords and hacking poor Norwood to pieces.
Vinnie Terranova: [shakes his head] Still, Mom couldn't keep it to herself. I shamed her, she'd have to tell somebody, and then you count to ten I'd be the captain of a fifty-gallon oil drum at the bottom of the river.
Father Peter Terranova: You could tell her you're working for the government. What would it hurt?
Vinnie Terranova: Pete, I wasn't even supposed to tell you, but I figured a guy could tell his priest anything!
Renaldo Sykes: Norman Winfield created the greatest single-hand weapon to date, capable of firing more than twenty rounds per second. It is also a compact rocket launcher.
Dave Steelgrave: Yeah, and I got a toaster that makes popcorn. So what?
Sonny Steelgrave: In my neighborhood, possession is nine tenth of the law. The other tenth - we don't care about.

New Blood [1.02]

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[Sonny and Vinnie are watching TV interview of the new district attorney Anthony Serrera]
Anthony Serrera: [describing how the mafia bosses operate] They use the most draconian methods!
Sonny Steelgrave: Huh?
Vinnie Terranova: Like Dracula.

The Loose Cannon [1.03]

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Gina Augustina: Are you sure you OK?
Vinnie Terranova: Oh yeah, I'm fine. It takes more than an antenna-wielding maniac to put Vinnie Terranova on the bench!
Jack Jackson: This is going to be bad for business, Cecil!
Cecil Demont: I am the Paisley Art Death Stalker. I walk on the air! All who see me cry in wonder.

The Birthday Surprise [1.04]

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One on One [1.05]

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Frank McPike: [appearing out of nowhere] Boo!
Vinnie Terranova: Frank!
Frank McPike: No cotton candy?
Vinnie Terranova: Why did you bust us last night?
Frank McPike: I didn't. I was up on the roof playing shutterbug. I didn't know those units were going to roll.

The Prodigal Son [1.06]

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Carlotta Terranova: [Vinnie has come to visit her in the hospital, but she won't even look at him] I can't... I can't do it. It's for Pete you're in this room... not you! You broke my heart! I want you to leave!
Carlotta Terranova: [Vinnie has shown her his official ID, proving that he's not a criminal] Why didn't you tell me you work for the government?
Vinnie Terranova: I wasn't allowed to. I thought the rules were more important than anything, but I learned that they're not.
Carlotta Terranova: Two years! I've prayed for this! My prayers have been... [she suddenly looks sad] Oh, but what I've done to you, figlio mio. Oh Vincenzo, can you forgive me?
Vinnie Terranova: For what?
Carlotta Terranova: For not believing in you.
[Vinnie starts to speak, but she places a finger over his lips]
Carlotta Terranova: Oh, no, no, you're my son... no matter what they said I should have believed in you. I'm sorry.
Vinnie Terranova: I took something away from you that no one can ever give you back... that's two years out of your life. I shamed you, in front of your friends, la famiglia...
Carlotta Terranova: It doesn't matter what they think. All that matters is that I know the truth!
Vinnie Terranova: Mama... the reason I'm telling you this today... is because, um... I was afraid I might lose you.
Carlotta Terranova: [leans back in bed, smiling at him] Where am I going? I have two sons again!
Carlotta Terranova: [almost crying from happiness] I never stopped loving you! And don't worry... the truth goes no farther than this room. Now I'm undercover too!
Carlotta Terranova: What's the matter, you think I'm going to tell Sonny that Vincenzo works for the government? I got to protect my boy! Vinnie's a hero!
Frank McPike: [listening in another room to a concealed microphone in Carlotta's room] You just lost it for me, Carlotta!

A Deal's a Deal [1.07]

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Vinnie Terranova: Hey, Frank. Your father really a boozer?
Frank McPike: Only on days of the week that ended in Y.

The Marriage of Heaven & Hell [1.08]

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Carlotta Terranova: Do you really care for this man?
Vinnie Terranova: Yes.
Carlotta Terranova: Then you're a fool. That man is an anathema.
Vinnie Terranova: Ma, I didn't say he wasn't. But he's also my friend.
Carlotta Terranova: Vincenzo, we're all human beings. Every person who ever lived in this Earth from Ivan the Terrible to Hitler, had their moments of kindness and love. But there has to be balance. What good's a man who loves his children and murders someone else's?
Sonny Steelgrave: [chuckling] Theresa, I've had my eyes on you since you were 12 years old. You were pretty developed for jailbait. Not that I'm a pervert or anything.

No One Gets Out of Here Alive [1.09]

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Frank McPike: You did the right thing. In spite of the money and the women and the power, you did the right thing. A lot of guys we work for and with, they would have caved in to the seduction. I don't know that I wouldn't have myself.
Sonny Steelgrave: You a federal or a Jersey cop? I can't believe you're a cop!

Last Rites for Lucci [1.10]

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Lou: How come you didn't hop a plane?
Nick Lucci: Why put off the inexorable? I wanted my wife to get the insurance money quick.

Independent Operator [1.11]

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Susan Profitt: I do most of my singing in the shower--where do you do yours?

Fascination for the Flame [1.12]

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Mel Profitt: The idle rich are hard to entertain.
Roger LoCocco: You're not listening, Vince. This is supposed to be an error-free environment. You get one mistake, it's your last.
Frank McPike: Vaya con dios, scumbucket.

Smokey Mountain Requiem [1.13]

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Mel Profitt: [about Vinnie] Elvis is leaving us.
Susan Profitt: Why?
Mel Profitt: He wanna go home to Guido.
Susan Profitt: Who's Guido?
Mel Profitt: [Doing a Marlon Brando voice] The Mob. The OutFit. The Don. Fredo, kiss my ring.
Mel Profitt: A man can kill with anything.
Roger LoCocco: You know, it's going to be a major disappointment in my life if I dont get a chance to kill that guy.

Player to Be Named Now [1.14]

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Frank McPike: You know, you pay $150 for a suit, you expect the buttons to stay on.
Kenny Sushia: That's why they sell needles and thread, Frank. Frank, relax; you know, it's just a button.
Frank McPike: It's not just a button. We're talking about the collapse of national pride here. We've already lost the auto industry. Nobody in the states can make a stereo. And now they can't keep my buttons on!
Kenny Sushia: Frank, what's bugging you?
Frank McPike: Nothing.

The Merchant of Death [1.15]

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Vinnie Terranova: You speak French?
Frank McPike: Perrier.
Mel Profitt: There's nothing like death to get the old juices flowing. Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It's kinda like love I suppose.
Vinnie Terranova: What do you do, Frank? What do you do when you're 3,000 miles from your wife and the urge hits you?
Frank McPike: I watch Billy Graham and pray for salvation.

Not for Nothing [1.16]

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Frank McPike: Well, there you are in a nine hundred dollar a day suite at the Georges Cinque and here I am in the naugahyde room of the Karl Marx Pavilion. This is great. When I was undercover it was pockmarked prostitutes.
Frank McPike: Lillah, Lillah, please don't take this as a personal thing. I used to go home before Mel Profitt, now I haven't been home for a weekend in more than three months. I know the strain's beginning to show. I'm hurting in places I don't wanna hurt. And Vince... Vince. You know, I stood right here buying a hamburger when he took it. And I looked out there and there he was in the blood and the pain... You know, I'd just been bitching about how lucky he's had it... And my wife left me. I hadn't talked to her in a week. We kept missing each other. This morning I got a recording telling me that the phone had been disconnected at the customer's request. She put my dog in a kennel and took my kid to her mother's. Now you tell me where the hell that's at-my dog is thirteen years old and he's gonna stay in a kennel 'til I get back or I exceed my credit card limit. In which case I don't have any idea what happens to him. Vinnie's dying and she tells me I'm doing this to her? Actually, her mother tells me 'cause she won't talk to me. She says that if she were dying I'd say, go ahead and go on without me, Hon, 'cause I have no idea why I'll be home. So here I am, standin' here in my nightie, telling this to a practically absolute stranger. A very nice stranger. Because - Because, Lillah, I want to be touched. I want to be loved. Because- 'Cause I'm an ass.
Frank McPike: I don't care what gets raised right now. Vince's cover couldn't mean less to me.

Squeeze [1.17]

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Frank McPike: They're MBA gangsters. They don't honor thy father, they honor the leveraged buyout.

Blood Dance [1.18]

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Susan Profitt: [to dying Mel] I love you.

Phantom Pain [1.19]

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Vinnie Terranova: I want you to tell me what happened to Mel. I want you to tell me so I can help you.
Susan Profitt: Do you think, do you think he knew I loved him? I know I told him, but do you think he really knew?

Dirty Little Wars [1.20]

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Roger LoCocco: I live in a thicket infested by zealots bent on the bloodletting of this nation. They raise a glass of Sake to the rising sun and plummet Zeros filled with dynamite into our fathers. They beat themselves with chains until they arrive at a narcotized state, then they shout "Allaahh!" and drive truckloads of explosives into our brothers. They thump Marxist manifestos like some backwater evangelist and carve away half of Europe, enslaving our cousins. Now they want what we have, but they don't want to arrive at it by initiative, they want it by insurrection.
Roger LoCocco: You tell me, Herb. You just tell me, where it's worth dying for: life, liberty, and the pursuit of soda pop.

Date with an Angel [1.21]

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Vinnie Terranova: Look, Frank, you may think this job is who you are, but I don't. I want to get the hell out of it someday. I want to fight with my wife, play with my kids, worry about my taxes and crabgrass.

Cast

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