Two Hundred A Day - Episode 20: Quickie Nirvana

Episode Date: October 22, 2017

Nathan and Eppy discuss S4E7 Quickie Nirvana. Rockford's hippie acquaintance Sky Aquarian draws him into a serious problem with a former employer, a blackmail scheme and a bunch of money. A wonderful David Chase script gives us all of juicy characters, good gags and fun mystery-solving action we love so much in the show, and much fodder for talking about how to demonstrate character through actions in our second half. We really like this one! Here's a link to the Meta Rosenberg interview we mention in the show, at the Archive of American Television. Check out the interview with James Garner as well! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Lowell Francis's Age of Ravens gaming blog Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars Mike Gillis and the Radio vs. The Martians Podcast And thank you to Victor DiSanto, Dael Norwood, Shane Liebling and Dylan Winslow! Thanks to: zencastr.com for helping us record fireside.fm for hosting us thatericalper.com for the answering machine audio clips spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for the other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. We are exploring the intensely weird and interesting world of the 70s TV detective show The Rockford Files. Half celebration and half analysis, we break down episodes of the show and then analyze how and why they work as great pieces of narrative and character-building. In each episode of Two Hundred a Day, we watch an episode, recap and review it as fans of the show, and then tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Hey, I saw you're adding a classified. Three African goats for sale. I keep calling all I get's a machine. Is that a typo in the paper or what? Welcome, yet again, to 200 A Day, a podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. And we have a journey to the limits of consciousness today. we have a journey to the limits of consciousness today. Yeah, the episode we're doing today is Quickie Nirvana episode, well, it's season four. So we've gone beyond Hulu now. We've broken the seal. We've started our journey to the later seasons. So this is season four, episode seven, directed by Mita Rosenberg and quite a few writing credits on this one. The actual script writer

is David Chase. And then the other credits I've realized at this point, however many episodes we are now that every episode is credited to Huggins and Cannell, right? Because they are the series creators. In addition to whoever actually wrote it. I feel like every production story is interesting. And this one is no exception. But Roy Huggins was only associated with the show for like four or five episodes before there were personality differences. And he my understanding is he was at first distanced and then like left. So he's credited because he's he came up with the show concept and was the one who shopped the original pilot around. But then after the beginning of the first season, he actually was not involved with the show.

So as you said, directed by Amita Rosenberg, who's the executive producer for the Rockford Files. Yeah. She seems great. There's a video interview with her online that I've been dipping into. By the time this episode airs, we'll have posted links to this interview on our Patreon, or you can Google it. But she was good friends with James Garner, was looking for a show for him to be in.

This script was shopped to her. She decided it was a good match, and thus the series happened, is the Cliff's Notes. Also, she's apparently the one who brought on david chase because she was working at uh universal i think is where this all happened her office was across the hall from the office of someone who already had david chase writing for them so she ran into him and asked him for a script one day and liked his writing and brought him on so uh you know by now season four he's a core part of the creative team uh that said there's a lot of really interesting character stuff in this episode so

we might err on the side of talking about characters and kind of go through the the plot events a little quicker than usual to make sure we have time unfortunately the three african goats from our message do not feature in the episode. The preview montage starts off in a way that is near and dear to my soul as the resident vegan. Where the very first things we hear as we're looking at a fish that Rockford is preparing to eat. Someone will come to know a sky, people should love animals not eat them and i agree with that statement 100 i think rockford doesn't uh it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out but heavily hinted that there will be some hippies in this episode this is a

very i mean hinted and then we see a shot of a field of grass with a bunch of hippies on it. We will transcend our consciousness in a way that only Rockford can help us. And so that we're not mistaken by any of this, the preview montage also gives us plenty of action, including Rockford yelling to Skye to run at the end of it there. We also know that there'll be some sum of money in this episode.

Oh, yeah. It'll be some sum of money in this episode uh oh yeah about 25 000 and we know that people involved with that money have guns oh yeah that's the other bit in the uh opening there not clean money at all no one last note before we get into it you are our resident vegan i'm vegetarian to the extent of not eating uh fish or other things with with eyes there's a lot of food stuff in this episode that's about eating and what that means about people's characters even more than what i'm obsessed with it's actually like part of the text of this episode so we're going to be talking about that and we're also going to be talking about moralizing and making judgments about other people's lifestyles. So I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a warning, but I do want to give a heads up. Right. As people who have made the dietary choices that we have, we have some opinions about this kind of stuff

and it might come out. We'll see. Yeah, this is a good food episode, like a really good food episode. I take it as vindication, personally. 200 a day is supported by all of our listeners, but especially our gumshoes. For this episode, we have eight of them to thank. Thank you to Mike Gillis. Check out his pop culture discussion podcast, Radio vs. the Martians.

It's the McLaughlin Group for nerds. Radiovsthemartians.com Kevin Lovecraft. Visit misdirectedmark.com to hear him on the Wednesday evening podcast All-Stars Actual Play podcast, part of the Misdirected Mark Productions Network. Lowell Francis, check out his award-winning gaming blog, ageofravens.blogspot.com. Thank you to Shane Liebling, Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, and Victor DeSanto. And finally, a big thank you to Richard Haddam for his very generous support.

Find him on Twitter, at Richard Haddam. If you want to get a shout-out for your podcast, blog, or anything else you do, check out patreon.com slash 200aday and see if you want to be our newest gumshoe. Well, to get us kicked off with our trippy hippie vibe here, we have an Age of Aquarius-style wavy cam shot over plunky sitar music to start off the episode proper so we have a moment of that just enough to establish the tone and then it kind of fades out and we see this plywood constructed kind of teepee on the beach uh with our principal guest star sky or, or Jane, or Gopi.

But I'm going to be calling her Sky for most of this because it's really the character name. And then she comes out of this teepee thing and then turns off the music that she was playing for herself on the tape player. So I love that little like diegetic moment where it just brings you from the TV showing you a theme to, and now this is the character. Yeah. It's like a reverse transcendence, right? So it's all wavy and she's in a pyramid and it's all like well-centered and the music is pervading everything. And then, like you said, the pyramid she's in is made out of plywood. And in fact, you can see on the side, it was plywood that was originally used to box up a refrigerator.

So this is like trash plywood. So everything about that scene goes from this sort of cosmic down to the real. I learned the word for that, and I am going to be embarrassingly honest that I haven't known this word despite my four decades on this planet. It's called bathos, and it is when the exceptionally commonplace is put within juxtaposition of a elevated or exalted style or moment. And it comes from Alexander Pope. So it starts off in the 1700s. So while it has Greek origins... It's not a classical Greek term. No.

That we just are too dumb to have known about. Our cousins across the pond might refer to this as taking the piss. Yes, that would be, yes. But that's when a person is doing it on purpose, while this is more just a name for the phenomenon. For me, the click of the tape stopping is the best part of all of it. Like, it's not this elevated cosmic idea. It's someone playing some music they like.

I think bringing this all the way down to the commonplace, Sky goes to, she's on the beach by Jim's trailer, of course, because it's the Rockford Files. And she goes into Jim's trailer where he is flaying his fish to use his phone. There's some play where we learn about them and we'll go into that in a second. But she needs to use his phone to call the office of the job that she just essentially quit. Right. And see if she can get her last paycheck. Yeah.

So we're going all the way from meditating in this kind of elevated spiritual style to I need to get my last paycheck for this crummy job that I just quit by not showing up to. Right. Yeah. This first scene does a lot of work to get the episode going. Right. We find out who this person is, her relationship to Rockford, and the situation that is going to get us going. Now, I have a food theory starting off right away with the first scene, if I may.

You may. When she gets in here, she starts eating what I think is an Oreo. Yes. And the way she eats it is she picks up a spoon and starts scraping out the innards of the Oreo. So as someone who pays attention to Rockford's Kitchen, it's canonical that he has Oreos in that cookie jar. Yeah. Along with his gun. But the way she's doing it is mirroring. she's disapproving of what he's doing but she's doing the same physical actions to get the sweet innards of the oreo and i i that's going to be important in the latter half of our episode i think that all of these little details are 100 on purpose in this episode yeah this episode like the story isn't the most creative or out

there. There's not a lot of tension because it's a more funny episode than anything else. So it's maybe not as memorable as some other episodes in the grand scope of the show, but it is exceptionally well-crafted, I think. Yeah. We'll try not to get too bogged down in lots of these little details, but I think that's a good example of in all of these scenes especially the ones where there's a conversation between two or more characters there's lots of little character bits and action and movement that all play into to the story and what's going on with the characters she's at the beach because she got uh totally hassled by some bill collectors waiting for her when she went home the night before after leaving this crappy job. So she didn't go home and she's calling the job to try and get her last paycheck sent to Rockford's trailer instead of her place so that she can evade these bill collectors.

And to his credit, Rockford is completely down with that plan. He's like, I've been there before. Yeah, that's no problem. In the kind of establishment banter while we're finding out those plot details, she talks about how she got rolfed, which is a practice to bring your body into full alignment. Yes. And mentions how everyone's body is out of alignment. And for example, if you're like, dad really gave you a lot of grief, your head's lower.

She mentions a dad. This comes back. In this conversation, it becomes apparent that like Jim and Skye know each other. They're friends. But probably no more than that. There's really no romantic angle in this episode. My assumption here is that they met on the beach. Yeah.

That she's just kind of like a member of the community. Yeah. This is where the description of Jim, which I think might be my favorite description of Jim in all of history, is sweet, hang loose, and kind of a fascist. Yeah. It is a great description. That comes towards the end of the scene where they so this conversation carries you know she makes her call uh they continue talking they go out of the trailer and uh all of his trash cans have been knocked over yes so he

goes what i refer to in my notes as he goes full dad he's so just frustrated and angry that the no one observes the leash laws and so these neighborhood dogs have knocked over his trash can brings up dogs which comes back later uh and also his frustration with the leash laws is what brings sky to the comment that he's kind of a fascist yeah it's it's great he's clearly being inconvenienced by people disregarding these laws. And his complaint about that is what, in her mind, makes him a fascist. Right. We're going to see a little bit more of that come out.

And I think this episode doesn't lay that all on her. I think that this episode kind of does a good job of being like, yeah, no, she's flaky. She's a little trippy. She's a little too far out there. We love jim but come on jim but jim also is a bit of a a bit of a cranky dad in yeah a lot of these moments uh she says that he he should just uh use positive affirmation just say that the dogs aren't going to knock over his trash and they'll stop and that she learned this from someone named gordon yes who is apparently really attuned in being someone that she clearly admires at some point she also mentions uh calling

an ashram which yes again will come up later so the scene kind of gives us all these little nuggets that are going to then seed the next couple scenes but yeah it's great it's pretty long um it's super fun their chemistry is really good, I think. Yeah. James Garner and the actress playing Skye. Valerie Curtin. She's great. She was in various kind of TV shows and a couple

movies, but she's also a writer and, fun fact, wrote the movie Toys. Oh, really? Interesting. I guess she was married to Barry Levinson, who directed that movie, among many other movies. But yeah, she does a great job in this episode. Yeah.

So we learn that she was trying to get her last check back from this law firm that she was working at. We go to a car with two amazing gorillas. These two extremely sharply dressed black men. Who have great 70s hair and paisley ties.

And just great casting throughout. Yeah, oh, I love these two. It sort of breaks my heart that the whole episode isn't about them. They've discovered from the cafe owner that Jim's a PI. She's brought a PI into it. But they're just going to see how he plays it. So something is going on. Rockford drives away.

They follow him. We have our credit sequence as they drive through the hills of lovely seaside California. And then I like the directness of the scene where the camera's in front and we see Rockford's car come around a turn and then he just pulls over and just waits.

Yep. So clearly we didn't need to see any action or dialogue or anything. Classic Rockford chase. Yeah. He clearly knows that he's being followed. The two guys kind of give each other guff over not following him well enough. They go ahead and follow him over. They want to know what Jane Patton has told him, what she's up to.

Right. We have a little back and forth to find out that Jane Patton has told him, what she's up to. Right. We have a little back and forth to find out that Jane Patton is the birth name, government name, if you will, of Sky Aquarian. Jim comes up with a quick story about her going to see some relative. Some wedding. Something to that extent. I can't remember, but it was just, it's a very good Rockford thinking on his feet moment. There's a few of these in this episode where he just,'s like oh i've got a lie for this that's no problem i'll just put that out there they don't believe him the the bigger guy there's a big guy and there's like a slightly smaller weasley guy we learned their name their names later dijon and eddie yeah i don't remember which

is which though uh the bigger one you know hassles rockford tells him to tell it like it is or he's gonna break his face extremely direct and then we get what i refer to as a meaty fight yeah there's a lot of very thumpy gut punches and jaw punches where we see for rockford fight a lot of straight up punching each other until someone falls over yeah There's a great moment early on in the fight. Rockford gets the drop on the big guy and we get a close-up camera shot on a kidney punch or something that Rockford does. Punches him and then we cut back to the other guy who says something like, hey, a tiger. Like, he's excited. Let's go.

This one's a tiger. And he kind of sneers and takes his jacket off because he's going to go fight. And then he just gets immediately thrown to the ground by Rockford. They exchange some blows. Rockford manages to knock the other two down, scrambles away and knocks their car into either neutral or reverse real quick so that the car goes backwards as he jumps in his car and peels out going up the slope. Because they're on a slope, this game that works and the car rides away

yeah just a tiny choice that just makes the resolution of the scene effortless this is a variation on a rockford theme because he'll he'll do things like he'll grab the keys and throw them or something like that i thought it was kind of a fun reckless version of it because they're on a slope and that is a car you're putting in reverse uh rockford looks up this ashram that sky referenced um because maybe she's there and goes to check it out and we get a great conversation scene where he talks to the woman who answers the door at this scare quotes ashram uh which looks like a house there's a broken down fridge in the parking lot you know there's somebody in a sleeping bag out in the yard it's just it has the feel of a squat right

i think here i mean we kind of saw it in the first scene but here we really see the show's orientation towards this kind of hippie spiritualist slash burnout kind of hippie, spiritualist slash burnout kind of community, I guess, or lifestyle. Similar to how in our episode about Oracle wore a cashmere coat, how that episode has an opinion on the role of the psychic. This episode, I think it's measured. There's sympathies for the hippies themselves but not the the gurus. Or the the community the larger lifestyle that is kind of enabling some of the dropout burnout behavior. This brings up an interesting question and one that we've decided we're going to explore

for every episode. What is this? Is this Jim in trouble? Is this Jim helping out a friend? Is this an issue episode? I mean, I don't think it's that, but I just want to present like the Venn diagram that I see happening. Yeah. I think that the core of this episode is Jim helping out a friend.

Yeah. Because that usually implies or brings along with it, he gets into trouble himself. Right. Rarely do Jim's friends get into trouble in isolation. And then it does have a little bit of the, I mean, I guess it has a little bit of the issue, but I think it's not really like a social issue. It's more a, we're going to look at this idea through the Jim Rockford lens.

And that lens is one that doesn't like frauds. Yeah. It's taking the opinion that a lot of this lifestyle is hucksterism and fraudulent, while being a little more sympathetic, I think, like you said, to the individuals. It doesn't really like the structure. Well, I mean, we'll talk about this when we get to the end, but I think the very ending of this is what lays the most doubt about what subgenre of Rockford files we have here. It's clearly a friend that's in trouble with a little bit of the issue thing.

And then the very end of it is a little bit more a Rockford sucker punch to the field. Yeah. So yeah, so Rockford's at the ashram and is talking to this woman who answers the door, who kind of gives him the blow off until he describes Skye. And then this person recognizes her as Gopi. Yes. Which means cowgirl devoted to Krishna. I don't know if that's true. Apparently she was not on board with the vibes there and was too selfish for their selfless way of life and turned her back on the community. And through this, we see and then it gets reinforced that this woman just doesn't like her.

Like her and Skye just didn't get along. Yeah, it's delicious how petty this whole scene is. It's all of the accusations are trumped up in a much larger, much more elevated, uh, she didn't let her have the window seat on the bus and that ruined her chances for self discovery. There's no way that sin is that big. Right. It's just, yeah, she was was a jerk she didn't let you have the window seat she also mentions that she's gopi says she's 32 but she's really 40 which is both a petty thing and also comes back later yeah we see through all this that this woman just is kind of like glad that she's not there anymore and kind of felt like she won, basically, whatever conflict they had. Rockford is regretful about this because he claims to have a load of organic vegetables for below cost because he had an overload. And he promised Skye that he would sell them to her if this ever happened.

So that's why he's trying to get in touch with her. Great Rockford thinking on his feet moment. I wrote this down like Jim can read a need. I mean, this is an angel quality, right? Like he's like, oh, I know exactly where to put the pressure. And in this case, you're hungry. You're going to be hungry that if you are in this flop house that is, you know. And you see her eyes light up when he says extra vegetables. And then he lists out a menu of vegetables, which are things that are in my cupboard and I eat all the time, like avocados and tomatoes, well, hydroponic tomatoes and bok choy.

Bean sprouts. I think we're going to spend a lot of this episode saying, later on, we'll talk about this. But I am going to put a specific pin on this because later in this episode, we're going to end up at a falafel stand and i want to talk about all of this when we get to the falafel stand all right the takeaway here once uh she has a reason to help him out is that gopi is probably up at the sunfire institute in berkeley because she got along with the people there but they're a bunch of frauds that's the wrong way to enlighten right we end the scene with her talking about how you can just tell with some people oh because because rockford's like well i really have to talk to her because i prompt first because i promised he's like well that's i

forget the line but she basically says oh you can just tell when some people are like this and that and you just know where they're coming from like you for example that part i wrote down i was like you know who you remind me of? He's like, your father? How'd you know? Call back to Skye talking about her father as the go-to example for giving you, you know, harsh and on your mellow. I mean, I think we both can also just vaguely identify, because there is something either paternal or avuncular about Jim Rockford.

Oh yeah, he reminds me of my grandfather. Like I have said this before. And like I said, he went full dad earlier in the episode with the trash cans. Like he is a very fatherly figure in a lot of ways. That said, Rockford heads up to Berkeley. His car overheats. We learn later a rock hit his radiator. It's not really important other than it's going to stick him in in berkeley for a night this particular thing hit me in a weird way because this is a horror movie setup he is heading to uh what is uh some sort of compound where there's a different understanding of how the world works and there's clearly a spiritual leader there. And his car breaks down.

For me. At this point. I mean I wrote my notes. Oh this is isolation. This is good. It is now. What's happening here. Is we're just getting the Rockford grind.

Little things keep happening to him. To make his day worse. While he's trying to solve this problem. I mean I love that there is a rock for grind and I'm not complaining, but I did find it very interesting that like my mind immediately went to this place where we're going to trap him here in Berkeley. We're going to trap him on the Sunfire Complex and something weird is going to happen there and he's going to be made vulnerable by this, but it's not the case instead of him getting isolated we do just get him getting a ride to the sunfire consciousness collective from some like

farm truck we get our shot from the preview montage of a lawn covered in hippies and then we cut to sky and rockford in what has to be a what i'm starting to identify as a david chase signature uh visual gag the two of them are talking behind Skye. Well, she's sitting in Rockford Standing. Behind her is a sign that says Silent Garden. So the two of them are talking from the Silent Garden. And then if you look at that sign, there's a shot later where you're a little closer to it.

And at the bottom it says Individuals Only. So we have two people talking in the individuals only silent garden. Love it. Beautiful. Love the little gag there. But Rockford wants to know what is up with her and that job because he was threatened by guys who knew her name and that she worked there. She doesn't know what's going on. that she forgot that Alan, Alan Bayliss, the lawyer at the firm, asked her to deliver a package the night before. But because of the bill collectors scaring her off, she forgot about it.

Rockford is nonplussed. Yeah. But yeah, she's like, I think I threw it in the back of my car. So let's go see if it's still there. Oh, the back of her car. On the way out of the compound, they run into Gordon. Was it Gordon Borschers? I think it's borschers which

during the episode i kept hearing as borgers they run into gordon the the guru of the uh sunfire consciousness collective who's clearly a sleazebag yeah and sky introduces them and talks about how great gordon is gordon uh asks if uh jim's there for the pre-death, which is then explained as a sensory deprivation experience. Yeah, I do like that that doesn't get explained for a while, though. So pre-death just gets thrown around quite a bit before that. And one of the things I love about it is just everything that we experience as living beings is pre-death. So's it's a wonderful term for it i think sky later claims that this guy gordon invented this practice right it's a quick little interaction to introduce the character and also as an audience member i was like okay so here's our scumbag like here's

the bad guy yeah this is the bad guy right is nice nice because there's a little bit of complication to that. But I definitely, that's what I thought once he appeared on screen. They go to Skye's car. The package in the back is indeed there and is full of cash. $30,000. Although right before the commercial break, Rockford says there must be $25,000 in here, which is what we get in the preview montage. And then we come back from the commercial break. It's $30,000.

In another scene full of great one-liners and back and forth, we learn that Skye, she remembers now, she's supposed to give it to someone in a fur vest by the falafel stand down on the boardwalk in Venice Beach, I think. She can't remember his name.

It was very unusual. Another one of her memory problems. Maybe it was just a business deal. And Rockford's like, legitimate businesses don't do cash drops to a guy in a vest by a falafel stand. Yeah, that's... He becomes very the voice of normalcy and reason throughout the scene. I do want to mention, as a child of this era,

a child of the Midwest during this era, I would have had no f***ing clue what a falafel was. None whatsoever. As a modern-day vegan, thanks to Dr. Falafel and Professor Hummus, I can eat anywhere in the world. But back then, that probably would have stood out as some sort of exotic food to me. I don't know if that's the case for everyone during that time. Obviously, they knew what it was. yes now we get harmful but yes where this goes is that sky thinks wait a second maybe this is all just the working of the great wheel and we're supposed to have this money or i'm supposed to have it or you're supposed to have it right and this is when we get rockford's line about people

have guns who want this money right and she talks about karma and i think this joke might be what this entire concept for this episode is built around i think that david chase came up with this line this is just my theory came up with this line and went how do i work this into an episode and that was the genesis which is forget the karma and get in the car right just wakes up in the middle of the night, writes it down, or says it to his kid or something. Forget the karma, get in the car. The whole episode spun out of that one line.

That's my theory. Don't tell me I'm wrong. I like it. This is also where we get Skye explaining pre-death, which is the sensory deprivation experience. And Rockford's saying, oh yeah, the Air Force experimented with that. And she's like, no, they wouldn't do that. Gordon invented it.

Yeah. Not those militants. But the key takeaway is that Rockford is stuck in town for the night because his car, because of the rock in his radiator. They're going to go back to L.A. the next day. Give back this money. Don't tell anyone about it of course we go to the next scene where sky is experiencing pre-death which involves lying in a pool with a bunch of swimmies on a blindfold and nose plugs but she can't get into it there's there's too much materialist stuff hassling her consciousness so gordon over this microphone which is creepy like just over a

squawk box that's in the pool. Yeah. It's like, all right, well, let's rap about your head. What's been happening? And then we cut. And so this scene is why the radiator is damaged. She doesn't get the information and get to stay behind unless Rockford can't drag her away. We see the car heading back to L.A. the next day. And then we cut to Bayliss's office where he's on the phone rockford

is calling him from rocky's house which is great to confirm that he got the package from the messenger service so rockford didn't even take it back rockford had it dispatched via messenger yes and then drove to la it's never mentioned but i don't know if you wondered how much it cost for him to send it by messenger faster than he could drive it. When it comes to being Rockford's bookkeeper, there's a lot of times I would just write down a variable, X amount of dollars, gas. And so far I've done X amount of dollars, radiator repair, X amount of dollars, tow, X amount of dollars, gas, X amount of dollars, hotel room for the night, X amount of dollars radiator repair, X amount of dollars tow, X amount of dollars gas, X amount of dollars hotel room for the night, X amount of dollars messenger. Like we have no idea. But he is getting paid nothing for any of this. And almost guaranteed Skye is not paying for any of it.

She just doesn't have the money. So Bayliss says, yep, I got it. Everything's fine. Rockford says, all right, we're out of it. Enjoy your money. Don't spend it all in one place. Great. Plot's resolved. We do see that the two, our two heavies from earlier are in the office with Bayliss. So proof positive that yes, he sent them and whatnot. When the guy is incredulous that Rockford sent it by messenger, Rockford does say, you know how it is. Some days you just don't feel like being shot. Just in case.

Yeah. At the end of this scene, we get just a great piece of business with Rocky, Jim's dad. His only appearance in the episode, but it's so good. He's having tea with Skye, and then comes over and says, Miss Aquarium, not Aquaria, Miss Aquarium. Yeah. Miss Aquarium told me

that she knows a professional golfer. You've been working on your swing. No, no, you misheard. She meant rolfer. And then we get Skye explaining to Rocky what rolfing is, while Jim just does the equivalent of the Simpsons Homer fading into the bushes shot. Right. He goes into the kitchen and he closes the door and it's got like a windowsill between the kitchen and

the room they're in, and it's got shutters, none of which can really block out the noise. Right, but just the visual of him just fading away. Yeah, that was good stuff. Alright, so Rockford and Skye head back to his trailer because, you know, everything's taken care of,

but then our guys, our two heavies, show up before they can go into the trailer. Rockford is incredulous, but turns out that the envelope was full of newspaper, not dollar bills. Rockford says, well, someone obviously switched it. Why would I tell you that I'm sending you your money and then send you newspaper? But these guys are not here to listen to reason. That's not their job. That's the sort of curse of Rockford, right? And this episode is a great example. We're going to get more of it in a moment, but they're not going to listen to his reason because why should they trust him? Skye isn't ever going to listen to his reason. She's not a fascist like Rockford. And very soon now, we'll find that the cops are not going to listen to his reason and that is the natural

state of rockford to know the truth and have nobody pay attention to him the look on rockford's face when sky tries to de-escalate the situation by saying let's all be very mellow is fantastic she's like let's try and remember that we're all humans oh it. But no, they want to go in the trailer and talk about it. Rockford says, okay, well, my dog is going to freak out. So let me go in first and calm him down. He's a huge German shepherd. He's not going to be happy. So he goes in and starts calling for his dog, Sergeant.

Sergeant, easy boy. Nice militaristic name for his giant German shepherd. But of course, this is a ruse. Rockford distracts them by being like, here he is. And when they're both looking down at the floor, he sucker punches one of them, yells for Skye to run. And then they run out of the trailer because they were outside and he was unlocking his door. I think he left his key there. So it was still locked because they run out, the door closes, and then the guys take a couple seconds to open the door. Oh, yeah. I think that was just physical business of him

leaving it locked before they went in. Another little moment, but just the little moments that make the show so great. Rockford survival tips. They go to the gas station. I think we come into the ongoing argument they obviously have been having. Right, yeah.

Obviously, Skye told someone, and she admits that she told gordon or he gordon wouldn't take the money and so rockford does not believe that but also gives her a little bit of a bone and is like or well then he must have told someone else and she's like yeah maybe someone else may he told someone else but that's not his fault so here's the other another one of these great details that i'll talk about more in the second half, but he hands her window cleaner and asks her to clean the windshield. And she thinks about it for a while and cleans her own glasses instead. I'm just going to leave that there for now. This scene is essentially Rockford

being righteously indignant that she didn't listen to him. He gave her a very specific instruction. She didn't do it because as an idealist and someone who's somewhat weak-willed i think this she's presented as yeah when gordon asked her what the problem was she told him she but she won't believe that he could have had anything to do with it right uh she ends by quoting some very confusing dylan lyrics which seems 100 in character but then we head back to sunfire as rockford wants to track down gordon because he must have been the one who switched this money uh however when we get back to the sunfire consciousness collective we find out that everyone is rejoicing because gordon went to

india to study with quote the holy man yeah so there's another person telling Skye about this. Skye is responding to her and Rockford is watching Skye. And we see Rockford's face as Skye realizes that Gordon must have skipped town with the money. And then we see his face as he realizes that she just had this earth shattering realization and is now deeply upset. Yeah. All in the facial expressions. Yeah. We see the sympathy for her as a person in this moment,

which I think really helps balance out some of the other ways in which she's presented. Go to, oh man, one of the greatest cuts in Rockford Files history. We go from Rockford feeling this sympathy for this poor person who just had her world turned upside down to Dennis Becker in a pizza stand uniform taking orders for beachside pizza. This is a role for Dennis Becker to play. I mean, Joe Santos is great at it as Dennis Becker in this role, but this is Dennis Becker to play. I mean, Joe Santos is great at it as Dennis Becker in this role, but this is Dennis Becker's role. He has the little peaked hat and the apron.

It's beautiful. Rockford and Skye cut the line to come up and talk to Dennis. And you can see the people behind them giving them the stink eye. Dennis tries to keep up the act. He's on a stakeout. Yeah, the up the act he's on a stakeout yeah the the act here is he's he's on a stakeout he's undercover along with several other cops yeah and so he keeps

calling orders as if they're ordering while he's talking to them including yeah pizza with anchovies and the orders all contain one or more words that rockford, Rockford's not talking to him about food. He's like, I got a big problem, and he's like, two big pizzas, you know, or whatever. It's just like he's trying to incorporate what Rockford is saying into the character here that he's desperately trying to maintain. Rockford got the address from Peggy, his wife,

because Peggy has no reason to lie to Rockford. They're staking out a major numbers running or numbers drop or something. A gambling sting, essentially. Yeah. And Becker doesn't want to be bothered because this is a major operation. They have all these agents there. Rockford's of the opinion that gambling is a victimless crime and that, you know, someone with guns wants this money and they need to get Gordon back to give it to them. Rockford's impending murder is a more important crime for Dennis to investigate.

This is one of the few times where Rockford's request does seem just unfeasible to me, which is you need to get him deported from India and sent back here. Right. He's blowing Becker's cover to get him to do something he clearly doesn't have the authority to do and never would. Like, it's just not a thing that he'll be able to do. So Dennis, not able to help. Cut to our lawyer, Bayless, denying all these allegations. It's a beautiful shot where the camera starts on Bayless.

We hear him denying all these obligations. It pans out to show his office. And we see Rockford and we see Skye. And then the last person we see is Lieutenant Chapman. Who's pretty happy to be there, I assume. I mean, it looks like he's really enjoying himself. Not only is he always enjoying himself, he loves being involved with Jim Rockford. So we get what you might reasonably expect.

We present this accusation, which sounds crazy. This person who's a straight-laced attorney denies it, implies that Skye is, you know, because she's a habitual pot user. Right. Casts some aspersions on her memory and her story. Calls her a space cadet. This all takes place over an enormously ugly, red, deep pile carpet filling the entire office, which I noticed in this scene and then just couldn't stop looking at. We get Rockford calling for an end to the stale old pot booze debate. I love that in 1977, Rockford's like, I've had enough of this debate.

Whether pot or drinking is worse and we get a bunch of good Chapman chewing out Rockford and Rockford defending himself from Chapman well the new thing the stuff that we actually learn here is that Rockford sees some gold records on the wall and he points and was like oh Maceo

Prentiss don't they call him the Duke of Soul and Bayless is like oh he's a client he's a crossover hit He's a crossover hit. He's mainstream now. Yeah. And Rockford's like, well, all I've heard in the news is that he's being sued because he ran over someone at the Starland Club parking lot. Bayless is like, your facts are wrong. That person was intoxicated.

The charges will be dropped. And Chapman's like, okay, let's get out of here. This isn't going anywhere. Right. So this is introducing some new stuff into the episode this is rockford's pi senses right so this yeah because what's happening here is that there's a guy who's making a delivery of thirty thousand dollars cash and there's no clear reason for why he's doing it. And I think that Rockford is fishing in this moment. Yeah. Or he doesn't know why it is, but he knows that by looking at the wall here and putting together

what he knows about this new story, that one of this guy's clients is in trouble. So it's not clear from the scene that Rockford has figured anything out yet, but it's definitely a scene where Rockford is stirring the pot. He's trying to take a swat at the hornet's nest to see if anything comes out. And I think we see from how Bayless responds that this is something that he's worried about. Yeah, he's a little too interested in this singer's reputation. Right, and then we end with Rockford saying, so okay, this money doesn't exist. But if it did, we don't have it. Right.

And this guy Gordon has it. And he went to India with the money that doesn't exist. So if you want it back, which you don't, you have to talk to him. And then Skye, in her pretty much only real aggressive moment, does this weird thing with her arms. He goes, you're probably going to be squashed by the karmic backlash. Yeah. So I appreciated angry Skic backlash. Yeah. So I appreciated angry Sky here. Yeah.

We now go to a scene explaining the backstory to why this is all happening. Right. But in a way that is so fun. Yeah. We meet Maceo, who is the recording artist. He's talking to his lawyer, Bayliss, and our two goons are there as well. They are not the lawyer's goons. They're Maceo's goons.

Right. Eddie and Dijon. Maceo is wearing this enormously great mesh shirt. He looks great. Yeah. All right. So this scene is relatively long and there's a lot of character kind of dynamic. So I'm just going to kind of run down the high points for me and

then see if there's anything else that you like that sure in there and with the universal caveat watch it bayliss wants him to forget 30 g's because the police are sniffing around they should just drop it they're being blackmailed and so if this blackmailer hasn't gotten the money yet and hasn't gone to the cops yet then he's probably not going to go to the cops. What this is all about is about this car accident, which was, in fact, a murder. So there's someone named Joey. This is the person who was run over. He stole Maceo's girl and then dumped her, and then she killed herself. This enraged Maceo so much that he ran over Eddie.

He did happen to be on coke at the time, but he still did it on purpose. He was like, no, I wanted to kill him. Bayless is the voice of reason here. He's like, look, if you weren't high, you wouldn't have done it. The blackmailer, the fur vest wearer. Yeah. His name is Mac Grunning and he saw it happen and he saw them arguing. So that's why he's blackmailing Maceo.

Therefore, they were going to send this money and pay him off. Sky forgot. Maceo. Therefore, they were going to send this money and pay him off. Sky forgot. Now they're out the money and they're worried that Mac is going to go to the cops before they can get it back. So that's the premise. That is why this plot is

happening. But what we also learn is that this quartet, these four guys, have been together the whole time. They all came up together. The three of them, Maceo, Eddie, and Dijon, all sang together. And then Maceo, Eddie, and Dijon, all sang together. And then Maceo's like the breakout star, and now they're kind of his bodyguard slash Goomba, you know, whatever. But they're his best friends.

They all came out of the Bronx. Bayless was a schnook, as he says, who just came out of law school and attached to them before they were anything. So they have this camaraderie together. Right. And Bayless is trying to play on that to talk Maceo down from killing anyone else. Because he's like, look, just let the heat die down. We'll be okay.

And Maceo, encouraged by, I think, Eddie, is like, well, no, now we just have to kill him. It's too late. Right. He's a pillhead. He could do anything. And because Rockford and Skye are now we just have to kill him. It's too late. Right. He's a pillhead. He could do anything. And because Rockford and Skye are involved, they need to go too. And yeah, so it's great.

I love how there's kind of just a sentence that connects each person to the other person. Yeah. So after like four sentences of dialogue, you understand their entire dynamic and why they're acting the way they are. It's great because they give Maceo a motivation that's a little more detailed than they would have to. Right. There's the motivation for the crime.

Right. But then there's also this longer term. You see that he's been hungry for success and now there's something threatening the success. Yeah. And it's not so much that it makes him a sympathetic character is that it makes him more of a real character and not this, we need a bad guy. Let's just wave our hands.

He's an up and coming musician who killed someone that he was angry at. We're good. We get why he's angry. And even the reason why he's angry at that person is complex it's not even that the guy stole his girl it's that this woman committed suicide because of this guy and so it i mean we've said it many times the characters on the rockford files have actual lives uh and this is one of those cases where just presenting the backstory we don't get a whole lot more about these characters as the rest of the thing goes out but we get enough to just make it this real

thing moving forward i really like what this scene does for bayless which is it shows us that he's between two equally difficult pressures he's come up with these guys their success is his success but they're also friends but he also doesn't think that murder is right he even says no matter how horrible of a guy joey was and he was a complete garbage like like he wasn't even human right but he didn't deserve to be murdered yeah so he has this like deep conviction about murder being wrong that is pushed up against his helping his friend and preserving his own way of life it's just picking a couple things and putting them in tension and seeing this guy squirm as he's trying to manage these competing pressures

on him so yeah that scene does a lot of character work in a relatively short amount of time and pulls the mystery together too like for the audience at this point uh rockford has been on his heels the whole time just reacting to how things happen. As a member of the audience, you're getting a little bit about what's happening, but you don't quite know it. And then this just says, all right, here's everyone's motivation. This is why these events are occurring. Now that you know that, keep that in mind going forward as we watch what happens next with Rockford. Which is that they go to the boardwalk to try and figure out who she was supposed to give this money to.

And they go to the falafel stand. This entire scene could be set in 2017. And the only thing out of place would be Rockford. It is crazy. It's like he traveled to the god damn future. It's a falafel stand. It's also a skate rental place. Which is not a thing I'm used to,

but I'm assuming people rent skates and go up and down the boardwalk. The guy behind the counter is so 2017. Like his jewelry, what he's wearing, his beard. So I got kind of obsessed about this. If you go onto IMDB, this guy's name is Aesop Aquarian. This is the real person. Did you look into imdb this guy's name is asap aquarium this is the real person did you look into his credits yeah he was in lord of the rigs he was in the yeah he was one of the voice actors in the uh the back she the back she yeah the ralph back she went oh my god like which you would expect when you look at him sky does not look like she wouldn't be out of place in 2017. Also earlier when Rockford

is suggesting all the foods, if you went online and you asked people foods that millennials eat, the avocados, brown rice, it's just all come around again. But this particular scene, I remember just watching this, realizing how modern it looked. There's two real differences. One is that Garner is out of place in that scene. And the other is that he would have to be offering a $100 bribe instead of a $20 bribe

to get this guy to tell him something about someone who might be wearing a vest. He says, there's a lot of people around here, I haven't seen anything. Fur vest died out when Sonny Bono went network. But for this $20 bribe, he's like, oh yeah, there's a guy who wears a fur vest around here. His name

is Mac. He lives nearby in the Ritz-by-the-Sea. They find Mac Grunning's name on a mail slot at the extremely gross-looking hotel. They knock on the door. There's no answer, but it's open. We have some ominous harmonica music

as Rockford heads into the apartment. Yes, it's a great music cue because everything else about the music is spooky, but there's the Rockford harmonica theme threaded throughout it that just gives it that, let's say, Rockford edge. Rockford sees a bunch of pills and he finds a Starland glass in the sink. So these are tying into what we know of this guy. And then Skye, who's wandering around in an extremely human seeming reaction,

she kind of like screams and then stuffs her fist in her mouth human seeming reaction she kind of like screams and then stuffs her fist in her mouth uh because she finds mac running's body hanging in the bedroom which is a little gruesome but we do get this camera shot of the legs up and we see the fur vest yes the the scream there is great because most of this episode has been comedic right everything has been played for like a little but the topic there's a cold-hearted murder at the center of it. So it's not like this should be all that light-hearted. And this scream is that

moment where... It gets very real. Yeah, it's like, oh, s***, people are dying. We cut back to Chapman is on the scene with the cops investigating. Rockford points out the glass and that this guy had every maceo prentice lp on his record shelf it's tying him to macy he basically spins out a theory which

matches what we've heard as audience uh what if this guy saw something and he was being he's blackmailing maceo etc chapman of course isn't willing to listen to crazy theories he's a pill head and he actually has an extremely dark take on the whole thing the guy was a loser he did a bunch of pills and took the big downer happens every day chapman too real chapman's seen some shit he he kicks rockford and sky out of there So we go to the burger joint, which is I think the last of these scenes that just has like so much going on in it. Yeah. And I'll try to hit highlights. Rockford's on the phone while Skye, they ordered burgers or whatever. So they show up while he's on the phone. He sits down and she picks up her burger. She says this poor animal died. So, you know,

so we could eat this or something a little prayer like almost and this sends rockford he's had enough he's sick of as he says her philosophizing and her moralizing and her whining uh goes into full-on lecturer mode i pulled a couple choice quotes out that i thought were the the key ones A lot of this is about responsibility and how her life is about abdicating responsibility. Yeah. Your alternative lifestyle comes out of someone else's pocket. He doesn't have a problem with her believing what she believes, but she keeps on saying, I'm a quester after truth.

And he's like, yeah, but you don't do anything. Right. What do you actually do? And she can't really answer him. Right. The quester after truth line is interesting because it comes right after her. Like, I'm not hardwired to solve puzzles like you. What was interesting, I think, about those two statements in a row is that the first one is about a thing. Rockford has a skill that he's applying that we see throughout each this episode and every episode we watch you know this is her questing after truth there's no skill being applied there you

know they're both questers after the truth right Rockford's literally doing it but he's doing it based on a methodology that he has developed where she is just opening her mind to experiences. She says it like what she's doing is different from what Rockford does. But that phrase applies to both of them. Yeah, exactly. Also, his quest after the truth is about finding the truth. He wants to find out what's happening and solve the problem. But he points out that her thing is all about the quest, essentially. He doesn't use that phrase phrase but she's bouncing around from yogi to yogi from methodology to methodology

trying everything and finding nothing right this is where he drops the title of our episode as he says there's no quickie narvana yeah it's really interesting because rockford's not wrong but he's also being kind of a jerk like he's so exasperated with her that he's like i'm not gonna be nice to you about this anymore right she says that she wouldn't eat meat but she's hungry right and he's like if you really believed in this then you still wouldn't eat uh you know eat this burger but she's hungry so she will she just goes with whatever the problem is she's hungry so she'll eat what's in front of her instead of taking some kind of step to solve that problem. How she eats the burger is interesting too,

because what she does is she eats the only thing on her plate that is meat. It's the burger, not the bun, not the lettuce or any of the fixings. She just pulls the burger out and just eats that, which takes me back to the Oreo where she's just eating the inside of the Oreo. I'm probably picking up on this as a non-meat eater who has been a non-meat eater for quite a few years, starting off in Wisconsin, where it wasn't easy at the time. So you would end up eating what has been affectionately referred to as the Wisconsin salad, which is every vegan bit on the plate that isn't the meat. She does the exact opposite of that because that's what she wants to do. And he even takes it out of her hand.

She takes a bite and then he's so fed up with her that he takes the burger out of her hand. We do see him taking some bites of his food. That's good. Rockford needs nourishment too. We actually see him eat. He needs his burger. Again, trash food. Hot dogs, tacos, burgers, pizza. This is the Rockford diet. The button on this is about her age. Yeah. Where she said, I think I've done pretty well for myself. I'm 32 and this is my life. And he's like, well, I know you're not 32, you're 40. I've seen your driver's license. And she says that it's positive affirmation. She's youthing. thing right and then she says in a slightly more

serious tone of voice that seems very real i don't want to get old yeah it's a very honest moment yeah and he's like well join the club and we get a little bit of rockford realism where he's like no one wants to get old but we all deal with it and that's the core of his thing we all deal with these things and you're not and you don't deal with them in a way that hassles other people that makes it inconvenient for other people to live their lives particularly rockford because he's been drawn into this by her avoiding responsibility again we we see the the the focus of the episode this person has understandable motives but her choices are not sustainable choices right yeah we also get that pull and push that's inside Rockford,

where he's got sympathies for her throughout. Like we get that right in the very beginning of the episode where he says, oh, I've been there. You can go ahead and use my address, which is his fatal error to begin with. To this, where he wants to shove the BS away, or at least what he perceives as bs because that's that's his survival mechanism but he also wants to help her out he does have sympathy for her and her condition

he can identify with not wanting to get old he can identify with having economic troubles but um which i like i like we get a lot of that throughout this whole episode and i think this scene is a good scene for that because every time you feel like he goes too far gets a little too rough with her you also see him then dial it back maintain his distance but become more sympathetic to what's happening the conversation does turn to what will we do next. Rockford called a friend, his friend at the airline, and that no one by Gordon's name went to India on the day that he said he did. He's probably just went south with the money. She remembers him having some connection to a, to La Cuesta, some kind of plastic beach club. And maybe he went there.

Good enough for Rockford. They grab their burgers off the table and go. So even though we saw Rockford take a couple bites, we do not see him finish the meal, and they both take their food in hand and leave the scene without completing their hamburgers. And one last little visual detail. As she's leaving, she knocks a bunch of crap off the

table and just leaves it there. So we cut to Gordon, obviously not our main bad guy, but still a jerk. Yeah. With a tropical drink getting a massage. Rockford just walks in, wraps a towel around his throat and starts choking him and asking him where the money is. I

love how much the masseuse is A-OK with this happening like she's like yeah she just walks away gordon's like uh the money's in my car as they leave the room sky's there and she's like gordon how could you because she was legitimately betrayed by this guy right yeah she really believed in him and he just straight up was a fraud. And he slaps her. Yeah. And in probably my least favorite part of the episode, not just that he slaps her, but then Rockford calling back to a much earlier scene where Sky was like going through a bunch of kind of generic yogi-isms.

Yeah. Well, that's the sound of one hand clapping. Right. Which is both a commentary on like this fraudsterism. Like that's what you get at the end of the day is you just get someone who's a phony and a jerk. But it's also like just a mean thing to say to her. It reminds me of the Rockford we see in Just by Accident, right? Little too mean. And this could be the alternate to your earlier theory. If this was the joke? Yeah, this is the joke that he had where he was like,

Oh, I know the sound of one hand clapping. Yeah. Somebody getting slapped. I choose to believe that that was not the Genesis of this episode. Cause that's a bad joke and it has not aged well. It hit me too. No pun,

but that moment I was like, ah, okay. Yeah. We're getting into our conclusion now. Yeah. Rockford calls Bayless is like, I really have, okay. Yeah. We're getting into our conclusion now. Yeah. Rockford calls Bayless, is like, I really have the money. I'm going to give it to you myself because I can't trust anyone else.

He wants to give it to him directly so that one of his goons doesn't take it and then say Rockford never gave it to him. They agree to the deal. And then Maceo, who was listening on the other line, is like, go get the money. We'll kill him. Get him to tell us where the girl is, in the other order. And this is where he mentions that Dijon wanted to party with that dude, Rockford, anyway.

So that's why I think Dijon's the, hey, a tiger guy. So we go to the exchange. Rockford set it up, of course, to be by the pizza joint where Becker is on stakeout. So we see Becker, see Rockford arrive, go and give a paper bag to someone underneath the streetlight. And then two guys come up, one of them clearly with a gun and take Rockford away to their car. So he grabs his radio and calls it in. There is a firearm. And then the, the cops who are all on stakeout around this for three weeks, all break cover and swarm in on the car. It's heavily implied that, that Becker is the one who actually like

shoots out their tire. Yeah, yeah. So Becker brings the car down and our two heavies get pulled out and arrested. Becker is aghast. Three weeks worth of work down the drain. Are you satisfied? Oh yeah, I'm satisfied. Freeze frame. And so here we're like, yeah, that was great. The framing is on Rockford himself. He's smiling. Everything freezes. End of episode. Oh no, there is an epilogue, my friends.

The last thing I do want to say about that though is how it's a really great example of something the show does a lot, but I think it's just so clear here, which is Rockford uses his knowledge of a adjacent situation to solve yes his problem he never got becker involved until he forced becker to be involved because he knew about the stakeout it's simple but it just works yeah no it's uh one of those moments that just absolutely delights the audience. Because they're like, oh yeah, Becker was there.

Yeah. Sometimes the joy is what's unexpected. And then sometimes the joy is seeing the thing you wanted to happen, happen. And this is definitely that. But in our epilogue, we see Rockford is coming out of some building. And we hear her voice first. And then we see Skye. But she is no longer Skye.

She's Hester. And she is now a born again and you get that immediately from her voice because she's on and on about jesus this time rockford's like sky it's been what four or five months so established our time lapse she says oh no i'm hester now and she's all she's you know in a cardigan and her hair is in a bun and, uh, she's very severe and unexpressive. Um, and she's shilling the book of the Reverend Joe Goodhue at $7 a pop to pass her by,

by this like train station or whatever it is. Roughly $35 in 2017. Well, and she says... Yeah, how much do you spend on your soul versus how much you spend on your belly? Which I think is a great commentary on the food aspect of this episode. And behind her is another member of this church who is watching her very intently. I find that to be one of the most ominous bits about this particular scene. So what this scene is doing is showing us that Skye has learned nothing,

right? Like she, she's gone through the phase of looking for transcendence through meditation and whatever. And now she's found another strong male leader. She is doing something, right? Like she's actively engaging with people trying

to sell this book. I guess, ironically, that is more of an active role in society than when Jim was mad at her for being a leech, essentially. But she has no free will. Jim is like, let's take a moment and have a cup of coffee and catch up. And she's like, I can't. I have to be here until dark. When our prayer reminders are going to come collect us. Yes. So the implications here are all that is some kind of cultish, you know, closed community kind of operation. And we also have the implication that, oh, this guy's another huckster because Rockford mentioned San Francisco.

And she says, oh, well, the Reverend saysuckster because Rockford mentioned San Francisco. And she says, oh, well, the Reverend says that it's a terminal city. It's going to be destroyed by an earthquake. And Rockford's like, didn't he say that after they closed down his church that was up there? And then she looks away so that she's not matching his gaze and doesn't look at him in the eyes again

for the rest of the conversation. It's harsh. It's a sad ending. It is. It's a sad, sad ending. And it's really interesting in comparison. Like we said before, what kind of episode is this? And it's not really an issue episode, but this bit where the rest of it is pretty funny, this bit cannot be played for laughs. I do get a laugh when part of her patter with the audience is,

you sir, you look like a sinner. But yeah, it's a very interesting decision to end what has been pretty funny throughout with this fatal moment, right? It reminds me of one of our first episodes, Countess, where that ended with almost this mission statement of rockford talking to his uh his his counterpart the woman that was in that episode about how the whole world we live in it's everyone's just being fake and you just have to choose where you're gonna you know when to take advantage of it and when to just roll with it and was tonally pretty different from

the earlier episode it's kind of like that where the thrust of the opinion isn't just that like oh all that hippie stuff that's all bull right it's more about this individualistic you need to make decisions for yourself throwing yourself in into any system whether it's a yogi or whether it's this reverend you're still abdicating your personal responsibility and being a net drain on the people around you instead of a net positive that's the most uh ideological message i think of the episode no i think you're you're you're absolutely correct there i like it does change how you look at the earlier parts. Well, first of all, she has different names throughout. Born Jane, became Gopi, and then Skye, and then Hester.

Like, in the beginning, it would be easy to watch and think, oh, Gopi and Skye, that's just her being hippie. But those are two different disciplines. And then this final one, I think, kind of says it. Like, we're not talking about a specific worldview here. We're talking about this character inability to find herself. So she's just going to throw herself into whatever presents an easier solution than what she currently has. Yeah. And this is brought home by just looking at Rockford's face as he listens to her.

Like we see him wanting to reach out to her and he kind of makes an overture. She rebuffs him and he's just kind of like, I mean, what else can I do? Yeah. He's not going to drag her away. He's not going to, unlike people like Gordon or this reverend, presumably, he's not the kind of person who's like, let me force you into being a certain way. When presented with this choice, then he's like, all right, I tried. And you're your own person. And this is the choice you've made. And I'm a little sad about it.

Yep. Almost every episode we end on James Garner's smile. This one, we end on his sad face. Yeah. And that's the episode. Yeah. Uh,

so before we, uh, wallow further in the ending, that's uncharacteristic of the rest of the episode, should we take a quick break and then come back and talk a little bit about some lessons? Sounds good. We will see you in our second half where we're going to talk about some of the character decisions that we found so compelling in this episode and how they impacted the story and the overall narrative. While we have you here, there's three ways you can support us. First, rate and review on iTunes or whatever

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Epi, what are you excited about right now? I'm excited about swords and sorcery. The type of swords and sorcery you find at worldswithoutmaster.com. And my new project, codename Lincoln Green, Robin Hood role-playing game. You can find all you need to know about that at digathousandholes.com. I'm excited about your stuff as well. Oh, that's so nice. As always, you can check out my catalog of fiction and role-playing games at ndpdesign.com,

including the worldwide wrestling role-playing game. If you want to see my newest stuff, check out the playtest page. That's where I have free downloads of all my fun new projects. Thanks yet again for listening. As always, we deeply appreciate your support. And with that, back to the show. Welcome back to 200 a day. We were just talking about Quickie Narvana, I believe is how it was pronounced. That's how Jim said it. Yeah, from season four, episode seven of the Rockford Files. What we're about to do now is we're going to talk a little bit about the lessons,

things that we learned during the show about the craft of fiction, whether that fiction is something that you write down, you film, or as we often do, play in a role-playing game at the table. Yeah. What I have to start off with is probably more applicable to the kinds of things you write down and film than it is to what happens at the table. But let's not worry about that. Let people make up their own minds.

The wonderful background details that take place around the character of sky that clue you in to her internal being even just formulating it that way gives me a path to how to think about this for games so i'll throw that out and then we'll go into the details but often in a game if you're playing an individual character, they have an internal life and an external life. Yeah. Some games give you tools or some people just do this naturally, which is where you create or discover this rich internal life of the character. structured or the way the spotlight's moving around you only have a limited amount of time energy or ability to express those things to the other players so sometimes people get hung up into this thing where they end up with this very rich internal play experience but other people at the

table don't get to see it and that's kind of a net negative for everyone it would be more fun if everyone could have seen what your character was going through. So maybe some of these things that we're going to talk about are suggestions for ways that you can just throw a detail into your narration about whatever your character is doing to tip off everyone else to some of this internal stuff. Right. So the examples that I pointed out in the first half, the first one we get is, I mean, we get a lot of them, but the first one that I want to talk about is the Oreo. She comes into Rockford's trailer. Rockford is opening up a fish. She disapproves by telling us that people should love animals, not eat them. And then she takes an Oreo and eats it in a way that mimics what Rockford is doing. Rockford himself is not eating. He's preparing a fish by, I guess, deboning it. My ignorance here is showing, but she eats her Oreo with a spoon and she uses that spoon to scrape the stuffing out and just eats that off of it. I feel two ways to read this. Number one,

it's her mirroring of Rockford and we're going to get that. And we talked about that throughout, how she's kind of looking for someone to present her with a way to be. But there's also this bit where she'll go through the trouble to eat what she wants out of it. The sugar. Yeah, the sugar. She doesn't eat the cookie part of it, near as I can tell, or we don't see that. It's not that people don't eat Oreos this way. You twist them. There's a whole commercial.

But you rarely see someone use a utensil. So I don't think it's an accident. So a general thing about TV and film analysis and criticism, right? Not that I'm claiming to be some kind of really smart guy in this regard, but everything you see on screen is a choice. And sometimes the choices are intentional and sometimes they're accidental or brought about by, you know, something else. The Rockford Files in general, and this episode in particular, I didn't feel like there were any accidental choices. All the choices seemed very intentional,

whether they were character choices like this one. I mean, who knows where the choice came from, if that was the actress, if that was the direction, if that was in the script. But someone made the choice that this character eats an Oreo now, and this is how they eat it, and that resonates with other aspects of the character someone made the choice that this character eats an Oreo now, and this is how they eat it. And that

resonates with other aspects of the character and resonates with the visual structure of the scene. So all of these details that you're going to talk about, I don't think we need to wonder about how, whether they're intentional or not. It's more about like the choice was made. It's a strong choice for whatever reason. And for our purposes, we might as well just assume they're intentional. Right. And that's the thing. When you're writing, you are making choices. When you're playing a character, you're making choices.

Yeah. How do you make choices that carry maximum weight, right? It doesn't have to be dramatic weight. It can be irony or comedy weight. But how do your choices communicate something on top of whatever the choice is about my favorite of all of these is uh when they're at the gas station and rockford hands her the the window cleaner and the the something to wipe the window down and asks her to wipe down the window and because your comedy reminded me of this because this is a good bit this is a good gag

she stands there she talks with him for a while you're like, she's not wiping down the window. And then eventually she takes her glasses and cleans those. And that's what she does with it. And so it's funny. It's a nice funny gag. But it's also the characterization of her. It embodies the narcissism that she has going, right? She doesn't get out of herself enough.

She's not responsible for the things that happen to her, right? If you tell her to clean the windshield, the closest she can get to that is the glasses that are on her face, right? Like, that's as far as she can see outside her own being. Her character is one who does that. But also it's playing up this running, it's not a gag, but this running commentary about how she's forgetful. Whether that's drug-induced or not is kind of left up to the viewer but yeah she's always forgetting things you don't want to

like overplay it but i think they hit just the right level with this because it's you don't have like a whole lot of attention drawn to them they're not like dun dun dun but there is attention drawn to them late like in the beginning the oreo one isn't the oreo one sticks out only because she's using a spoon and you're like what but later on the the the windshield one is a gag so it gets pointed out that way and then the meat one is with the hamburger is also a gag which is great because it also draws it enough attention to it but the true meaning isn't like really focused on it's more like here's a funny gag or here's a way to show her hypocrisy. But then like further down, the fact that she just pulls the burger out of the bun, you know, it's not like she's on a gluten-free diet or anything like that.

She's really just eating the meat. It raises really interesting questions. Well, okay, one way way and i don't subscribe to this but one way this could be read is that she's sort of imprinting on rockford at this point like rockford eats meat rockford's solving the problem we just proved that my hero was a douchebag gordon is a jerk who's her new savior and it could be she's looking to rockford and like i said i don't particularly subscribe to that but i do think that that's a legit read of what's happening there. And then following that up with that when they leave, knocking the condiments off the thing.

Again, that's her whole life. The symbolism is clear, right? It's like she's just knocking things over and literally leaving it for other people to clean up. Yeah. This gives you something to chew on while you're enjoying it. It gives the reader something to puzzle out and think about while the rest of the stuff is going on. In general, I enjoy that, right? Two things I want to say about this.

One is that these details, I think, work best when they're a little open-ended and can be read in a couple ways. The Oreo thing, when you add up how she's Oreo with how she's the hamburger, they both have a different role in those scenes as individual actions. They can also just be read as she's kind of a picky eater, and that kind of plays into her being kind of flighty and kind of persnickety in her own way

and not really making firm decisions. She just kind of eats a little bit here and eats a little bit there. That rolls into her character just as seamlessly to me as underlying these other things that she's talking about in the individual scene with how she eats the burger. And I think if details like that emerge out of how you understand the character, they'll probably do that naturally. They'll have those multiplicity of inferences.

So I think when it emerges from the character and then it's a thing that's consistent but not the focus of the scene that's great yeah but when you pick a character tick and that's the only thing your character does that's the like negative version of this where it turns from communicating something about the character and then you get to see it happen in a fun way in different contexts to the only thing my character does is touch the thing that's in the scene but i don't interact with it or i don't have context for it just as soon as i walk into a room i go and touch something like that's not fun to watch or read about or or probably not the best thing to to add to your gaming table

if other people are you know trying to interact with you if anybody has spent any time taking any classes on writing or anything like that that this is pretty basic stuff but i think that this episode does a great job of illuminating it i talked a little bit about how i don't know if it's a great episode of the rockford files but it's a great episode as a unit and i think it's because like the craft is very strong and it's not groundbreaking in any way it's just well executed you know these character details are well executed you know showing someone who might be the villain but then they're actually not you know there's a different villain that reveals well executed giving us in a very short amount of screen time, a group of villains and their motivation. And then you're waiting to see them get, get their comeuppance. I think that's well

executed. So this is a good example of like, if any of these things are interesting to you, take some notes on this episode. You could model yourself after much worse. Yeah. So speaking of that group of villains, that was something I wanted to talk about. Yes. The way in which that scene, which we spent a very good amount of time talking about, so I won't try to recap it, but the scene where we meet Maceo, and then we see him, the lawyer, and his two buddies, or our goons, all interacting, and we've learned that they're the real villains here. He's the real villain, and then everyone

else is kind of the instrument of his will. That scene happens after the halfway point of this episode, kind of kicks off the third act. So unlike other episodes where we meet those villains early, and so we have time to see their motivation develops, like we see their motivation unfold as the episode goes on. We meet them, we find out the motivation, we find out the backstory, and we discover their relationships to each other in this really succinct way. Big ball of exposition that I was excited to hear and then on board with from that point on. And I think the mechanism through which that was achieved in that scene was just this very simple, I'm going to say something about you about our past, and then you're going to say something about him about your past. And then by the time everyone has done that, we have this

little nugget of backstory and a little relationship map, for lack of a better term, between the characters. I just thought that was a great technique and was, again, well executed. Yeah, I think the placement in the story is really good too because uh when i think about this episode i think about it as a character yeah right it's about rockford and sky so the plot is driving the changes in that relationship which is kind of being created too because i i assume they just sort of know each other and they get royal rolled up in this so that scene hits right when you're you've been watching all of this finding out about how who sky is and how she's in all this and you know and it hits roughly at the point

where you're like wait a minute right there's a mystery going on here oh okay thank you you know like right when you start getting worried about that mystery, right when the pressure really, really hits for what's happening. A scene like that can be dangerous because it can be just, all right, we need to barf a bunch of information into the waiting baby bird mouths of the audience. And that's not what you want to do. But yeah, I'm trying to parse out what it is, because often I the formula of, hey, don't we remember when we did this? Like that's a very kind of like B movie. Yeah. Construct the relationship between these characters. Let me tell you about a thing that we both did, which feels artificial. Right. Right. Like, why do I need to like, hey, Epi, let me tell you about that time that we did a podcast. I don't need to introduce it that way. I can just start talking about it because we did it. We already know. And this didn't strike me that way,

even though it's kind of the same mechanism. And I think why this works a little better for me, other than just grading on the Rockford curve, which is everything in the show, I think is great. Let's be real. Yeah. Is that first of all,

that exposition happens later in the scene like the plot exposition happens first maceo needs to explain to baylis why baylis needs to be on his side and and why he's right right and because baylis is doubting him and we already know that it makes sense that he's let me lay this out for you to get you on my side this is why it was so important um and then serves a secondary goal of giving Baylis a reason to say that murder isn't ever worth it but that happens first and then we do the like look we came up together don't you remember the Bronx right I think why it works here and why it works here and why it's become a trope that's a little hackneyed. You and I have a moment where somewhere in the future, I've killed a person and you recognize that I'm talking crazy

when I'm saying we have to kill again because I've killed this person, we have to kill again. You want to bring me back down to when I was fairly reasonable. You remember when we were talking about Quakey Nirvana in our podcast? Yeah. So I think that's one of the reasons why it works in the scene is that you would want to bring them back

to an earlier point when they wouldn't actually kill. And the stakes are high. When the stakes are low, when the stakes are introduce the audience to this new character and why we know each other, it's different.

Right, exactly. This happens, I think, all over the place is that a scene like that are introduce the audience to this new character and why we know each other it's different right exactly this happens i think all over the place is that a scene like that will work for someone and someone else will see it and be like oh that worked we can do that now without examining why it worked so then you go and reproduce the scene and it's out of nowhere you know i feel like it wouldn't work as well if bayless was already on his side, right? Like, it works because Bayless needs to be convinced. Yeah. There's lots of games that do this.

A lot of Powered by the Apocalypse games in particular with a set of questions, usually during character generation, in order to establish relationships and give you something to go on as you play. But this could also be used mid-game even to connect you to, you know, like the GM brings in a character, how do you know each other? Or give me a sentence connecting you to this person

or just something where you want to deepen your connection or complicate your relationship with someone. Just kind of doing a little round robin of like, we did this thing. We came from this area. We, you know, know each other because of this can be really effective. I think that that's absolutely true. And this is one of those interesting moments where i do think a lot can be forgiven yeah at the table that can't be forgiven in crafted fiction right when you're playing the game you don't have to worry about if that sort of thing is awkward because whatever we're in the moment we're playing the characters in the scene you can go ahead and be a little awkward it's it's forgiven using tropes in play i think works because they're tropes for a reason because

they have a function and when you're playing the function is what's important and witnessing the artifice of it is not because you're already in an artifice like you've constructed an entire artifice for you guys to play in so or you you folks to play in so go to to get a little too deep into theory about that i I think what happens is the whole suspension of disbelief is going on where if you're playing a role playing game, your brain is working harder to suspend disbelief than when you're watching a television show. So your brain is more capable of overcoming the awkwardness. I'd agree with that so yeah my last contribution for this conversation will appropriately enough be about epilogues yeah so this episode features

an epilogue uh i i don't know how to go about defining what is and is not an epilogue when do you cut the story when do you say we did it we're done this is a thing that in again to get into role-playing games this is a thing that uh I deal with when I play Swords Without Master because the game tells you when you're done. The game says, you've done this. You're done. Stop. And the challenge of the game is to bring the story to a good close

the moment that happens. And there are definitely times where that occurs. And that's the moment when Jim says, oh, yeah, I'm satisfied and smiles at the camera. Cut. And we're done. And then there are other times where you do that. And then everyone's like, oh, there's just one more beat. Like, we need to just say one more thing.

And in this case, we need to say something about what happened to sky i think what differentiates this one is that a lot of the time it's about the resolution of the mystery like the last little bit is almost more of a button or a stinger i would say where it's kind of like turns out that they were actually laundering money so they're going to go to jail forever like because that wasn't germane to the plot, but now that they've been arrested for whatever was germane, that was the motivation. And now we know, and we have closure while this is,

is literally just about, but what happened to sky? The whole episode, as you said earlier, has been driving the character dynamic of Rockford and sky and how she's reacting to him and possibly changing. So how did that work? Where did it go?

And then we find out where it went. I think what makes this epilogue particularly interesting is where it sits in juxtaposition to the rest of the story. It is sad. It's an unhappy ending after kind of a rollicking story. And I think that that's an interesting application of an epilogue. You could definitely overdo it, but I think that this is like one of those moments where

it is kind of neat to have just one more beat that adds a little weight to what happened before. I used the dirty word ideology earlier, but it makes the ideology apparent and clarifies for us as audience what the world of the Rockford Files and the people making the show, what they value in how people interact and what they don't value and what they think is not appropriate. Right. And it's not in a punishing way where it's like like Sky isn't punished for her choices. Like Skye isn't punished for her choices. We just see the natural progression of those choices and where they brought her and how that makes Rockford sad and disappointed. Yeah. Yeah, I think you bring up something interesting about how the epilogue can serve different purposes.

One is to tie up the loose ends of the plot. Like we've kind of achieved the satisfactory victory or defeat, whatever it was. kind of achieved the satisfactory victory or defeat, whatever it was. But there's still some details that just for our own sense of narrative pacing and closure, let's just wrap those up. And then there's the epilogue of, so the story happened. What does that mean for the characters usually? Or maybe the world or whatever. But like in my gothic horror game, Annalise, there's a dedicated epilogue little phase at the end of the game. You play the game and there's, you know, you use the mechanics and you find out what the nature of the vampire and what it's doing and how you all react to it and how you change and what you do and what actions you take.

And then once you've completed the story, once you're like, we we had the confrontation it is over for good or for ill yeah then the game says now you're going to play the epilogue where everyone has a turn to say what does that mean for your character where do you go next and that could be oh well i died so this was the impact it had on the people around me or it could be this is how this character's life changed afterwards or it's whatever is. But the point of that is to give every player a dedicated space to reflect on their character journey and decide, oh, there's a little bit more that I wanted to show, or this is what the implication is, or this is the aftermath of my character story. It's also interesting in the context here because it's part of an ongoing series, right? So Rockford Files doesn't have, you know, the big story arcs and whatnot that we're kind of used

to today. But still, if you end it with him smiling, you'd be like, okay, next week we'll come back for another adventure. But this epilogue makes this feel like the ending of a chapter. But this epilogue makes this feel like the ending of a chapter. We're leaving you with now sit with that. And I think that that's, in Annalise, that that epilogue has that same sort of function where it's like, okay, we've been doing this where we keep coming back and telling this story. Now it's time for us to say we're sitting with what's happening or with what has happened. And I think that's interesting.

I think that's a neat way to apply it in something that continues and i think something that it achieves in the rockford files in this episode which is neat uh is that it underscores the idea that the choices made in the episode impact the larger world yes and that there is a larger world that jim lives in so yeah and we see that implied through lots of moment to moment action of an episode but because there aren't these long narrative arcs um the way that that's achieved is usually by like the you know characters feeling like they have real lives outside of rockford and then moments like this where we see four to five months later you know what the fallout of the events were for this character. Yeah.

Another element in the living, breathing Rockford Files world that we know and love. Do you have anything else to say about Quickie Nirvana? Nirvana. Yeah, it was a good episode. Again, fun, very fun to watch. You know, I'd seen the episode before and the moment the preview montage started, like I remember thinking I'm in for a funny time. Oh, wait, this one's sad. Both of those emotions were achieved um it's good another one that

really rewards the act of watching fun to watch just to watch an episode uh and then just has lots and lots of layers and details on the act of watch so yeah to sit and just kind of piece out what's happening and and the performances are just stellar like we didn't really talk about them specifically because we're talking about all the details but i think across the board great casting and just good chemistry and well done uh and so yeah so with that i'd say we have earned our 200 for today even though rockford was out who knows how much for all of his escapades oh my my god, a giant variable. So yeah, so that'll be it for us. Thank you all again so much for listening.

And we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the Rockford Files.