Summary
“Captain Fields” depicts a bunch of different agendas and historical forces creating major crosswinds in anticipation of a heroin shipment that will define Harlem’s short-term future.
This recap of Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 4, “Captain Fields”, contains spoilers.
“Captain Fields” is named after Captain Reggie Fields (Derrick Williams), the new head of the 27th Precinct, which is coincidentally the same one housing the detectives in Law & Order, despite the real-life NYPD possessing no such precinct. Either way, Captain Fields is Black, which is either a good or a bad thing depending on where you’re standing. Joe Colombo thinks it’s about optics, a way to quell African-American dissent in the wake of the Harlem Riots. And it better be, since Monsieur 98 (Isaach De Bankolé) of the French Connection is due to land in the U.S. any day now with a record-breakingly large shipment of heroin.
Joe needs control of the shipment to wrest power from the other Families. And Bumpy Johnson needs it to retain control of Harlem and keep the Italians out of his and Jose Battle’s business. Since nobody will be selling any drugs in Harlem without having the 27th on their payroll, the new appointment of Fields is a major concern.
Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 4 Recap
Mayme thinks Fields is a good, honest man, and since she has nothing to do after resigning in Episode 3, she proposes Bumpy meet with him, but it doesn’t go well. Two uniformed officers of the same precinct have just shot up Bumpy’s club, the Geechee, clearly on orders of Colombo, but Fields isn’t interested in doing anything about it. So, Bumpy resolves to instead. He speaks with Midtown Captain Gary D’Alessandro (Nick Chinlund) to dig up information about the uniformed officers, but when he starts asking questions, Colombo has him killed, showing Bumpy his corpse in the trunk of his car to make the point.
Why doesn’t Stella rat on Colombo?
Things aren’t going well for Colombo. The other bosses don’t take him seriously. Bumpy has rejected his business proposals multiple times and embarrassed him in front of the Families with his refusal. And Stella can’t seem to stand him either, despite him doing her a favor by keeping her safe. She almost proves his undoing in “Captain Fields” when ADA Pike asks her to link him to the incoming heroin shipment in exchange for a new identity and passage to Paris. She hides a recording device on a shelf, invites Colombo to dinner, and pretends to be relaying a message from her father asking for details of the shipment. Colombo provides them. But he’s so kind to Stella, and perhaps so pitiable in his admission that he doesn’t really have any friends and is as lonely as she is, that she destroys the recording and tells Pike he’s clean.
Bumpy is able to regain his leverage anyway since the two uniformed cops try to arrest him (again on Colombo’s orders) and are thwarted by Fields. He addresses them by name, which means Bumpy can have his own men track them down and kidnap them. He does, and he and Battle torture them both until they reveal the names of everyone on the Italian payroll in the 27th. He takes their signed confessions, letters of resignation, and badges to Fields, whose name was on the recipients of Colombo’s pad money. Bumpy tells Fields that, until further notice, he works for him now.
Who poisoned Malcolm X in Egypt?
The other big subplot of “Captain Fields” is Malcolm X’s continuing adventures in Africa, now with Elise in tow. They’re in Egypt, though Elise is confined to the hotel room since the country has much more stringent policies about women than West Africa did. Malcolm busies himself with meeting Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara (Arturo Del Puerto), who essentially big-brothers him into using his upcoming speech at the Pan-African Conference to make a plight for global liberation rather than keep his message relevant only to unjustly persecuted Black Americans, while Elise is strongarmed by a man named Gregory Reynolds, apparently of the U.S. State Department, who would much prefer Malcolm to make no speech at all, let alone one in support of Communism.
After dining with Guevara a second time, Malcolm develops an upset stomach and almost sleeps through the speech. Elise surmises, probably correctly — and in keeping with history — that he was poisoned, and the obvious suspect would be the U.S. government, particularly the CIA, whom Malcolm immediately surmised Reynolds was really working for. Nevertheless, he wakes up just in time for the speech and gives it, which is spliced with archival footage and the scenes of Bumpy and Battle torturing the cops, just as Malcolm is talking about the persecution of African-Americans at their hands.
“Captain Fields” ends with Monsieur 98 arriving in the United States, which at this point doesn’t bode well for anybody.
You can stream Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 4, “Captain Fields” exclusively on MGM+.
Additional reading:
- Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 5 Recap.
