User:Craverguy/Mel Profitt

Mel Profitt was a fictional character on the television drama Wiseguy, portrayed by future Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey in his first major film role. He was the focus of the show's second major story arc. A billionaire crime boss, he operated his empire from a luxury yacht anchored in international waters off the coast of Vancouver. He was portrayed as being mentally unbalanced, and it was implied that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister and business partner, Susan Profitt (Joan Severance).

"Independent Operator"
Mel Profitt is first mentioned, but does not personally appear, in the first season episode "Independent Operator." In that episode, undercover FBI agent Vincent Terranova (Ken Wahl) strikes up a friendship with reputed contract killer Roger LoCocco (William Russ), who soon reveals that he works for an international criminal organization headed by Profitt.

After attending a decadent party aboard Profitt's yacht, Terranova meets with Mel's sister Susan (Joan Severance), who flirts with him, then offers him a job, if he can pass a test. The test turns out to be to join LoCocco in abducting and murdering a Yugoslavian marijuana smuggler being held by the RCMP. During the planning of the job, LoCocco tells Terranova that "Mel Profitt is God," and that he presides over an empire of drug dealing, gunrunning, contraband smuggling, influence peddling, and prostitution that earns over $40 million per day.

When LoCocco is shot and knocked unconscious during the raid on the RCMP safe house, Terranova and his superiors take the opportunity to place the would-be victim in protective custody and replace him with a disfigured medical school cadaver, which enables Terranova to convince the hit man of his prowess at murder. Returning to the Proffits' yacht, he meets with Susan, who tells him that Mel would like to invite him to dinner.

"Fascination for the Flame"
In the next episode, "Fascination for the Flame," Mel is introduced as a hypochondriac and insomniac who suffers from bouts of paranoia. After one such episode, during which he accuses underlings of planning to poison his food, his sister is shown injecting him with heroin between his toes to calm him down. (This scene is referenced many times over the course of the arc, with Mel's oft-repeated catch phrase: "Only the toes knows.")

The next day, Mel and his entourage, including Terranova and LoCocco, attend the wedding of Argentinian drug kingpin Paco Bazos (Franklyn Seales) in Monterey, California. They are soon ejected, however, when Mel, convinced that the bride is a government agent, offers Bazos a $1 million bribe to postpone the marriage.

Later that night, Terranova, in an effort to obtain Mel and Susan's fingerprints, cozies up to both of them. Susan responds by plying him with champagne and kisses. Mel, however, pulls out a revolver and forces Terranova to play a game of Russian roulette. The encounter ends with Terranova obtaining not only Mel's print, but also his respect, when he pulls a gun of his own and actually dares to fire off a round at Mel.

The prints allow Terranova's superiors to identify the Profitts as Mel and Susan Martin, originally of Shreveport, Louisiana. They learn that Mel has an I.Q. in the genius range, that he had been diagnosed with manic-depression, and that he and Susan were convicted of murder when they were teenagers, for killing a foster brother who caught them making out.

Bazos, meanwhile, has imported a Brazilian death squad to eliminate Mel and his people, but offers to attend one last sit down with him to avert a gang war. While Mel attends the meeting, however, Bazos' men kidnap Susan, and the drug lord threatens to kill her if Mel refuses to surrender his drug distribution operation.

The kidnapping sends Mel into a psychotic rage, during which he threatens to skin LoCocco alive if his sister is not rescued. Fearing his wrath, LoCocco and his men, with Terranova in tow, track down Bazos via his underlings' habit of killing live poultry for their meals, and slaughter Bazos, his wife, and his men after a pitched gun battle, rescuing Susan in the process. It is subsequently revealed that Mel's instincts were correct, that Bazos' wife was indeed a deep cover operative of the CIA, and he celebrates both this revelation and his sister's return with a party aboard his yacht.

"Smokey Mountain Requiem"
In "Smokey Mountain Requiem," Mel, informed that Terranova wants to leave the organization to form his own crime family in New Jersey (actually, because he is uneasy about his authority as an FBI agent in a foreign nation), first gives his underling a lecture on the theories of the political economist Thomas Malthus and how they inform his business practices, then offers him $10 million to take over and run the backbone of his empire: a clandestine cocaine laboratory, reputedly the largest of its kind in the United States, nestled in the backwoods of Tennessee.

Upon arrival in Tennessee, Terranova and LoCocco are met by an elderly man, Ernest Haynes (Rance Howard), who first threatens them with a gun, then cryptically invites them to his home, which happens to be located next door to the lab. After a sleepless night, they meet up with Mel's local enforcer, Willie Jesús (Fred Asparagus), who announces that he has taken over the lab and threatens them with death if they don't clear out.

Pumping Ernest's wife for information, the two learn that, four years before, Mel set up the Hayneses' son, Russell (Mark Pillow), to receive a 30 year sentence for moonshining, and ever since has used the prospect of his early release as an incentive to coerce his family into allowing his lab to be set up on their land.

While Terranova attempts to surreptitiously pull some strings to get Russell released, Mel arrives on the scene personally to order him to kill Jesús, his men, and the Haynes family, and destroy the lab and all evidence linking it to him. That night, Jesús sends a man to murder Terranova and LoCocco, but Russell arrives unexpectedly to rescue them. The three, backed up by a Molotov cocktail-wielding Ernest, then proceed to kill all of Jesús' men and burn the lab to the ground.

Although Mel is enraged when he learns that his men have disobeyed him by not eliminating the Haynes family, he is mollified when Terranova and LoCocco use Malthus and the theory of vertical integration to justify it.

"Player to Be Named Now"
As "Player to Be Named Now" opens, Mel becomes fixated on baseball and, after dragging Terranova and his sister out to a local stadium for some midnight batting practice, announces his intention to buy an American League franchise being formed in Sacramento, California, which he will then move to Vancouver. The team, however, belongs to legendary real estate tycoon Eddie Van Platt (Jon Polito), whom Mel has secretly hated for years since convincing himself that Van Platt screwed him on a cocaine deal down in Mexico.

As part of his bid to get Van Platt to give up the team, Mel orders Terranova and LoCocco to torch a condominium complex that Van Platt is building, costing him $3 million in damage. Mel then invites Van Platt to a party aboard his yacht, where he offers the mogul a blank check for the team. When Van Platt turns him down, and turns down offers as high as $50 million, Profitt reveals that he has enticed various Las Vegas casinos to which Van Platt owes money to call in his markers, and has set in motion a plan, using inside information and sabotage, to cause Van Platt to lose everything he has when a defense contractor's stock plunges. Beaten, Van Platt agrees to sign over the team for a paltry $5 million in exchange for being allowed to sell of his stock before its price collapses.

The episode ends on a down note for Mel, however, as Van Platt agrees to testify against him in exchange for witness protection, and an ad hoc committee of MLB team owners rejects his bid to purchase the Sacramento team. Depressed, Mel refuses to leave his bed, and wails to his sister that he wants to "shut out the light forever."

The Merchant of Death
In an effort to identify the man within the French embassy who has been dealing in black market military armaments, Mel forces Susan to take Terranova with her to a party at the embassy, and there set him up to look like he was attempting to steal evidence of the deals. The gambit is successful, and the arms dealer is identified as low-level diplomat Jacques Lizot (Paul Verdier).

Lizot is not, however, the operation's "Mr. Big." Under pressure, he points Mel in the direction of high-ranking French politician Pierre Coscare (Michael Ensign). At the location where Mel is to meet Coscare, however, Lizot is shot, and expires shortly after revealing to Terranova the location of the documents he had planned to use to blackmail Coscare. Terranova and his superiors then recover the documents, which they plan to use both to bolster Terranova's reputation with Mel and to put a stop to Mel's next arms deal.

Although the recovery of the documents by Terranova impresses Mel, it makes LoCocco suspicious. And despite Terranova's best efforts, 500 Exocet missiles are delivered on schedule to a South American revolutionary paying Mel top dollar.