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"Heart of Darkness" is the second episode of Miami Vice's first season, and was first aired by NBC on 28 September 1984. Written by A.J. Edison and directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, it featured guest star Ed O'Neill as Artie Rollins, a dealer in illegal pornography, who turns out to be an undercover FBI agent who has embraced his cover as his new life. Metro-Dade detectives James "Sonny" Crocket and Ricardo Tubbs pose as buyers in order to bring him back to the FBI.

Plot
Crockett (Don Johnson) and Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) are posing undercover as pornography dealers, pressuring a producer to introduce them to his boss, Artie Rollins (O'Neill). Other vice squad officers arrive at the scene and arrest Crockett and Tubbs along with the producer and an under-age actress, allowing Rollins to bail them out of jail and take them for a drive. As the vice officers attempt to gain access to Sam Kovics (Hecht), the head of the pornography ring, they are dropped off at short notice, as Rollins, driving the car, has spotted the FBI tailing him.

The actress arrested in the pornography sting is found dead of a drugs overdose at a house owned by Kovics, and the vice squad is approached by a pair of agents from the FBI, whose attempts to commandeer the investigation are resisted. Whilst trying to find information on Rollins, it is discovered that he is actually Arthur Lawson, an undercover agent for the FBI. One of the vice officers, Stan Switek, uses his personal connection with an FBI agent to find out that Rollins had withdrawn from the FBI completely during his investigation, and the bureau are concerned that he may have "gone over", effectively becoming his cover.

After meeting with Rollins again and witnessing his volatile temper, Crockett and Tubbs locate and speak with his wife, who claims that it was the FBI who severed contact with Rollins, demanding he bring Kovics down before he could cease his investigation. When the FBI agents reappear to warn Crockett and Tubbs that Kovics is moving his empire to Mexico, they arrange another meeting with Rollins, who has realised that he is dealing with undercover police. Rollins reveals he has enough evidence to bring Kovics' pornography empire down, but needs more time to charge him for the actress' murder.

During a meeting between Rollins, Kovics, Tubbs and Crockett, Tubbs' wire malfunctions, blowing their cover. Kovics orders Rollins to kill the two officers, but Rollins instead fires upon Kovics, killing him. Rollins is brought in for debriefing by the FBI, where it is implied that he, not Kovics, is responsible for the actress' murder. It also becomes apparent that he is reluctant to return to his previous life. Later, while the vice officers are sharing a drink in a bar, they are informed that Rollins left his debriefing session and hung himself.

Production
The episode is a "pastiche and contemporary urban reworking" of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, from which it takes its title. The character of Rollins, like Conrad's Kurtz, is "built up from [his] long-deferred entrance", in order to infer a sense of unease upon his introduction.

Reception
"Heart of Darkness" was well-received by critics, with TV Guide claiming that television "doesn't get any sexier".

The episode has been described as an "existentialist morality play" of "almost Conradian bleakness". It has been seen as an example of the show's "emphasis on the suicidal nature of excessively risky behaviour". Attention has also been drawn to Crockett's possible identification of himself within the character of Rollins, with Stephen Sanders writing that "Crockett's understanding of what the conflicted undercover agent is going through is based on a profound identification with him". Sanders also notes that Rollins' rejection of his old life represents "the typical noir notion of the far-reaching effects of the past".