Two Hundred A Day - Episode 23: The Aaron Ironwood School of Success

Episode Date: December 10, 2017

Nathan and Eppy discuss S2E1, The Aaron Ironwood School of Success. When Jim's former foster brother turns up in L.A., it's not just to promote his business empire; he has a problem and he needs help. It turns out that Jim may trust Aaron just a little too much as he's brought into a swindle, and has to figure out the angle before it's too late! The chemistry on screen elevates this episode over a slightly illogical script, and the psychology of the action sequences give us a lot to talk about in our second half! Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Victor DiSanto 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 Dael Norwood, Shane Liebling, Dylan Winslow, Bill Anderson and Adam Alexander! 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.

Hi Jim, we couldn't reach you so we went ahead with the job and I know you're really gonna dig it. But if you don't, I suppose we could always tear it out. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. As per usual, I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epi Dyer Ebershaw. We have yet to switch roles. For now, we remain who we are. And we are back to talk about another season two episode. Epi, why did you pick this particular episode for us to talk about?

I picked this particular episode because a longtime listener and a close friend of mine, Sam Anderson, brought up the whole pizza gag, which we'll get into, went on about it at length. And at some point, I realized it had been too long since I'd seen the episode and I didn't quite get the context of all of it. So I thought I'd watch it. And what better way to watch The Rockford Files than to watch it for $200 a day? So this is season two, episode one. So starting off our second season of the show, The Aaron Ironwood School of Success, second season of the show, the Aaron Ironwood School of Success, which I also remembered the pizza gag and also recalled that there's some good Rocky interactions in this one.

Yeah. And I don't think that I was disappointed. This episode is written by Stephen Cannell and I think has some of the hallmarks of what I'm starting to think of as the Cannell style, which is these slightly more outlandish setups for a lot of his scripts, or maybe less rooted in

how things actually would work, and a little more fantastical in setting up problems for Jim to solve. Juanita Bartlett is credited as story consultant. This is prior to her kind of coming on as a full-on writer, but the script shows, I think, the typical tightness

that we'd associate with both of them being on the writing team. And it's directed by Lou Antonio, who directed an episode that we've covered previously, The No-Cut Contract, which is also a strong season two episode. Did Cannell write that one as well? Let's find out via the 200-Day Rockford Files files. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so Cannell wrote The No-Cut Contract as well.

And also that one has a guest star of probably higher notoriety than the guest star in this one. Kind of the center of our story in this episode is played by james hampton who has been in a lot of things that i recognize but have never seen myself but that you might such as the 80s teen wolf series he was in the longest yard he was in the china syndrome kind of all these older classic genre films and was just in tons and tons of tv shows through the the 70s and 80s as was his hair which is important because his hair should get its own billing in this episode.

I'm not sure if it really is up to the Rob Reiner's mustache level set in No Cut Contract, but it's still pretty good. And also this one's season two. This is airing in 1975. So this is another good episode for peak 70s fashion. I want to just point out, if you've not seen the episode yet and you're wondering, in your head, you're envisioning all sorts of weird hairdos. I could put your mind to rest.

It is precisely the hairdo you would find on a Lego, gentlemen. It's almost exactly, might have been the model before it. Somehow it has been shellacked without actually being shiny. I don't understand. It doesn't move even when he gets into fights later. When you look at it closely, there is an interesting and tight weave going on. Anyways, this episode is not about his hair, but if you have a chance, pause and examine closely. At least we do get to see the first sight of his coif in our preview montage. Yeah.

The thing about the preview montage that stood out to me is that it is all about the money. It's all about the Benjamins. It's $200 million. It's $100 million. It's $20 million. They just keep stating over and over again these massive quantities of money which delight me because the more the money the less likely rockford is going to be able to hold on to any of it right also we get to see beth and it's been a while for 200 today since we've had like a good beth episode

this actually isn't a good beth episode but there is beth in this episode so it's a delight and then it wraps up with a good old-fashioned someone's threatening to kill Rockford. But they can only kill him once. We got lots of money, we got Beth, and we got someone's out to put Rockford in the ground. So I think we are already in. We are in.

200 a Day is supported by all of our listeners, but especially our gumshoes. For this episode, we say thank you to Mike Gillis, a host of the Radio vs. the Martians podcast. It's the McLaughlin group for nerds. Radiovsthemartians.com Kevin Lovecraft,

part of the Wednesday Evening Podcast All-Stars Actual Play podcast, found at misdirectedmark.com. Lowell Francis, with his award-winning gaming blog at ageofravens.blogspot.com. Shane Liebling, Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Bill Anderson, and Adam Alexander. And finally, big thank yous to Victor DeSanto and to Richard Haddam, who you can find on Twitter, at Richard Haddam.

We've recently updated our Patreon with new opportunities for sponsorship, so check out patreon.com slash 200 a day and see if you want to be our newest gumshoe. This episode has a lot of exposition delivered via dialogue, especially in the first part to kind of get us up to speed with why we should care about various characters. around a little bit because of that it's just to try and do do summaries uh instead of belabor exactly when certain pieces of exposition are given i would like to point out that a lot of this exposition via dialogue follows the rather uh straightforward rule of don't let your dialogue do just one thing which is great because almost all of it is not just exposition. It's exposition and revealing the relationship between certain characters or it does double duty throughout. Yeah, absolutely. We start off in Rockford's trailer as he's getting ready to get out the

door and he is on the phone with his dad, Rocky. Rocky's been waiting for him. He's kind of in a tizzy because he feels like they're running late. They have to be at the airport at 2.30 to pick up old Aaron. Rockford is obviously not as stressed out about this as Rocky. He tells him to grab himself a beer and turn on some roller derby. Be there in 15 minutes.

I like this insight into how Rocky might relax in the evening. I would not have pegged him for a roller derby fan. I don't know if he's a roller derby fan or if Rockford is, you know, making a pop culture reference at his expense. But yeah, he heads out of his trailer and immediately is intercepted by a couple of goons in nice dark suits holding guns underneath folded newspapers. All of our visual cues for mob guys. They invite him

into the car before he can get to his car, but unfortunately their engine's flooded and they can't get going immediately. Rockford is very helpful in this scene. He's trying to give advice To help get the car started

And no one will listen to him To their detriment This is Chekhov's flooded car engine It has been introduced now Keep it in mind Comes back later But some helpful passerby come by To ask if anything's wrong

With the car And these abductors um clearly don't want to you know be flashing guns in front of the public or whatever so rockford thinking on his feet uses the opportunity to uh like oh well i'll go and call the mechanic you guys stay here gets out of the car uh and starts starts leading them off on a merry chase uh notably as he's heading off he can't go into a full run because he's limping uh so this limping will will get to textually in the episode in a little bit but this is a an opportune time to remind everyone that James Garner had to have knee surgery in between every season of The Rockford Files.

And so since this was the first episode of the second season, he was still recovering from his knee surgery during, I guess, the production of these first couple episodes. surgery uh during i guess the the production of these first couple episodes i think i remember we talked about this a little bit in the gear jammers two-parter because that's also early that's season that's episodes three and four and he was kind of limping in in a lot of those scenes as well yeah but yeah he he was so active doing the active part of his role and he had bad knees because of football injuries that he just got surgery every year uh which is intense yeah it's fun it's like a holiday well he limps through the uh the snack shack on the beach the uh and manages to get to pizza dan's little volkswagen that's all outfitted with the we deliver sign on the front and really gross looking pizza decals on the hood and side.

The pizza decal on the hood is so horrifyingly realistic. It's like bad food photography is what it is. It's what food really looks like, not what food photography makes food look like. And it's not like an abstraction of a pizza. No. It's just a bad drawing of a pizza. Dan is getting into the car. He pushes Dan away and says, sorry, Dan, got to borrow your car.

And toodles out in the pizza delivery Volkswagen. Our goons pursue. They do get their car started, but he's able to lead them on a merry chase through the parking lot onto the sandy beach and their heavy sedan gets bogged down and he's able to get away. And then we have the titles for the episode over a little montage of him kind of off-roading back to the highway and getting to go to Rocky's. This is a fun, tiny little, you know, Rockford car chase, but it has that sort of hallmark where Rockford assesses the situation and is like, I bet they can't follow me here. Also, I really enjoy that musically, it's banjo time.

Yeah, there's not really any music until he gets into the car. Right. He pulls up to Rocky's place in Dan's pizza delivery vehicle. Rocky looks like he's going to either a wedding or a funeral. He's clearly in his fanciest suit. Rockford gets out of the delivery car, and I will note, he is munching on a slice of pizza. Yes. yes clearly dan was going to go on a delivery so

we clearly see rockford eating a piece of stolen pizza that he i would imagine never actually pays for i was thinking about this too because this is grand theft auto and pizza theft i don't know if pizza qualifies as grand theft but but this is, for a start to an episode, Rockford is in deep already. Rocky is not happy. Not only are they running late, he wants to impress Aaron, and he's

like, we can't go to the airport in that. We're going to have to rent a sedan. And Rockford kind of talks him down. Look, before we go, I need to go in. I need to make a phone call. This is the first reference to his limp, I think, as he's going into the house. Yes. Rocky asks him what he's limping for.

This is where he was fishing and fell off the pier. Is that his excuse this time? Yeah. I think the term for this is lampshading. Is that right? Where it's like, here's a thing that you're going to notice in this episode. Right. So a character just says it yeah like like to make it obvious that we know he's limping right in the show everyone is wondering

why he's limping but yeah rockford uh puts in a call to our good friend sergeant dennis becker right other than rocky our kind of standard cast appearances here are pretty sparse, but this one is very memorable because Dennis is super excited because he took his lieutenant's exam and he placed fifth on the list, which means that he's way closer to making lieutenant than he thought he was going to be. There are some ups and downs over the course of his career as he attempts to become a lieutenant dennis's career as background material is great stuff but i love this exchange because jim has just come from being abducted by mobsters let's say and uh then he had to steal a car to get away from him and nobody he talks to cares they all have their own exciting news to tell. Yeah. Rocky's too concerned about getting

to the airport and then Dennis is too excited about his lieutenant's exam. Yeah. And so Rockford keeps no-selling the enthusiasm. He's like, yeah, that's great, but I need to tell you this. Yeah. And Dennis just kind of steamrolls over him with all of his exciting news. But then finally, Rockford does acknowledge, that's great. I'm very happy for you. Now, will you please take down this license number so I can find out who jumped me? And I think because Dennis is in such a good mood, he's like, all right, no problem. Yeah, we'll take care of this. One of the few times that he just does what Rockford asks. So in our first kind of example of some exposition doing multiple things. He's telling Dennis about it on the phone.

Rocky's overhearing him say, I had three guys jump me. And Dennis was like, make sure you tell Rocky. Okay. Yeah. He hangs up and is like, Rocky,

great news about Dennis. And Rocky, of course, is concerned about Jim and wants to know when he's going to give up all this fool business because he's just to give up all this fool business because he's just putting himself in danger. And now Rockford is the one who's like just ignoring what he's saying and talking about what a great thing it is for Dennis and how close he is to making Lieutenant now.

Yeah, it's this great opportunity to change the subject. And he keeps attempting. And of course, Rocky's not having it. He's worried about Jim. But what I like is how these conversations plug into each other. Yeah. You know, he shows up and all Rocky cares about is how bad this is going to look when they arrive at the airport to pick up Aaron.

And then Jim gets on the phone. Rocky hears that Jim has been in trouble. Dennis doesn't care that Jim's been in trouble. And is telling him about all the great news that Jim has been in trouble. Dennis doesn't care that Jim's been in trouble and is telling him about all the great news that Dennis has. He gets off the phone. Rocky now wants to berate Jim for leading a life that would lead to this kind of trouble. And so Jim's using Dennis's great news to try and push that off. And then I think the very next moment is where we get like kind of the culmination of these

threads yeah these all come together where rocky starts using aaron as the counter example to jim yeah look you know you could be doing so much better look at aaron he had no parents and now he's worth a hundred million dollars or more so those threads all kind of come together to tell us a little bit more about aaron who we still don't know anything about that he had no parents but now he's a big success he's worth a ton of money and the reason that rocky is so nervous is because he wants to impress aaron so all these signifiers of like not being wealthy like right this pizza delivery car are embarrassing you can't show up with a car with words written on it. And he's like mad at Jim for not wearing a tie and like all those kinds of those kinds

of things. I think it's this is the conversation where he also goes on and he has these verbal daydreams about Aaron giving Jim a job. Yeah. His company has a trucking division. Right. Yeah. So you could you can drive truck like you've always wanted to.

The next scene is just the two of them in the in the pizza delivery car going to the airport and continuing this conversation yeah where rocky kind of breaks down for us a little bit also you know aaron has all these projects uh may he'll hire you his real estate company he has a school of success and then he also starts reminiscing about like remember back when he came to live with us so we finally get that's the connection yeah aaron ironwood his parents died when he was young he bounced around between foster homes and for a while he stayed with uh rocky and jim when jim was a kid back in the day and that jim and aaron they were tight back then yeah they ran around together i love this look into their past, by the way. This

is another piece of the Jim Rockford puzzle that, as this episode unfolds, we'll find out that Jim has always been a bit of a ne'er-do-well. And so a question maybe to ask by the time we get to the end of this episode is, who's responsible for that? We'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. Through all these accolades that Rocky is putting on aaron we see jim getting more and more mad about it and he finally kind of snaps and he tells rocky to shut up yeah and then rocky gets mad yeah it's like why are you being mad at me jim makes the very appropriate point based on what we've seen in the episode so far you're talking like i'm not worth anything you don't think i'm worth spit is what he says. And Rocky, he doesn't really apologize. Well, he does.

He kind of apologizes. And he says that he does. He is proud of him, but it's just like different. Yeah. They just live in different worlds. Rocky's worried about him a lot of the time. That kind of stuff. It's a really good scene.

I think it's good because of how uncomfortable it gets. I think that Jim and Rocky have argued many times. They're always kind of at odds about things, but it's always been a little ribbing or, you know, it's never been this intense that I know of. Maybe during Gear Jammers, when. You see Rocky and Jim's relationship through the lens of here's this very successful person, as we'll kind of get to. And then in Gear Jammers, it's Rocky needs Jim in a way that he didn't before. Yeah. This conversation kind of fits into a lot of what we talked about, their father-son dynamic in that two-parter. But we do end it with after Rockford snaps, they kind of snipe at each other and then grumbling apologize, kind of. Not really, in so many words. And then

Rocky sighs and is like, oh, I love you. It's like, oh, fine. I still love my son, but he still wishes that he'd worn a tie. Yeah, yes. We get some good one-liners as they check in at the airport.

A little guard stand to go out to meet Aaron's private jet, because that's something you could do at this time. Just drive out in a pizza den, Volkswagen Beetle. And yeah, they fly out to the private jet and we get the first appearance of Aaron Ironwood and his magnificent coif. And we have what I call in my notes a full-on down home family get together everyone seems happy to see each other aaron has a twang that i associate with jim doing an oklahoma character they talk about how it's been too long there's not enough room on the back of a christmas card to really talk about what's been going on with everyone and then we kind of have a little beat where he really like takes a step back

and looks at Jim and looks at Rocky and just says that he's waited too long to come visiting. Yeah. And then he seems excited to get into the pizza delivery car. He has his fancy car follow them. And he asked Jimmy, are you in the pizza business now? There's a thing about how he's conducting the conversation because Aaron is in

charge of the conversation. When he shows up from that point on, Rocky is a little bit in awe and Jim is keeping that sort of analytical distance that Jim will do when he doesn't quite trust what's going on. And I don't know if Jim is suspicious of anything in particular at this point. Jim is suspicious of anything in particular at this point. But I do find that the way this conversation goes down is really interesting because there's no outward lie happening. But you can feel the way that Aaron is controlling the conversation is how people attempt to control a conversation when they don't want it to hit on a topic where they have to outwardly lie. Sure, sure. I think this is done well it's kept to small talk in a way where i think as a viewer you're kind of like all right let's see why he's

really here maybe part of jim's distance in the scene is also like he's resentful that rocky is so excited about aaron's success when he's right there yeah but he's not like unfriendly or standoffish it's actually quite warm. Despite everything I just said. It's well done. They have good chemistry. Like these three actors have good chemistry. Yeah. You feel like this is a reunion of some kind.

I think some of that distance might be reading back into it. Because we already know what the story is going to be. That could be true. Yes. Yeah. We go to Rockford's trailer. They do the thing where people on TV don't talk when they're in the car. That could be true. Yes. building a beach house construction starts next week and rockford very declaratively takes a beat and then says this is my house i live here permanently and i like it just fine yeah rocky

stop doing this yeah aaron this is my life i'm not ashamed of it which i like a lot i like that jim's like i don't need to play this game with you it's it's interesting and maybe this is like a broader thesis rockford's approach to lying. Because he's accomplished at it, and he will do it whenever he needs to. But then he has this almost haughty dedication to the truth in matters where he doesn't think a lie is necessary. And I think it's really interesting to see that. Yeah, I think he has, I don't know, the pride of his convictions, essentially. We've talked about this a lot, how he clearly lives a life he wants to live.

Yeah. He could have other jobs, but he doesn't want them. He's comfortable in his own skin and his own lifestyle. So when people criticize him for it, he's kind of like, I don't think that's bad. This is what I chose. Yeah. And that comes through very clearly here. And Aaron, for his part, is like, I wouldn't expect anything else.

But Aaron does know that Rockford's a PI and he thinks that's just fine. When Rocky seems surprised, he has this line that starts playing into how we learn what his character actually is. It ain't my way stepping on other people's dreams. We cut to seeing Aaron Ironwood, motivational speaker. We kind of cut from the trailer to a conference room. He's pitching his motivational speaking success course,

the titular Aaron Ironwood School of Success. Rocky and Jim are in the back watching him do his thing. He's introduced as an American success story. There's a giant sign behind him that says, Dare to Win, as that is the title of his program. And then he launches into the cell text, right? Yeah, yeah.

The pitch for his Pull Yourself Up by the Bootstraps program. We see Rockford looking extremely dubious in the back row and rolling his eyes at certain lines. But the kicker is that all you have to do is believe in yourself. The hardest part of getting to the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom. If you dare to try and dare to win, you can make a million dollars in a year and he'll tell you how it'll only cost you $5,000. Yes. So now we know precisely the sort of person that Aaron Ironwood is. There's no doubt in the audience's mind at this point. So this thing, motivational speaker, this program will get you to success.

Yeah. Like I know that that's existed for a long time. Yeah. Was this new? Is this that that's existed for a long time. Yeah. Was this new? Is this something that's always been around? That's a good question. I mean, I'm sure it has a proud tradition that goes all the way back. Jim refers to it as snake oil. And I think that, you know, there's something in that. But it is definitely something I associate with my youth in the 80s, like kind of along the same lines as maybe the mega churches and things like that. Yeah, if you just give a little, we'll fix everything.

And I think they're craftier these days. The modern version of these are these programs where you have some kind of product. It doesn't really matter what it is. They're like energy bars or they're like vitamin waters or, you know, there's some kind of like lifestyle product. Yeah. Theoretically you're selling those, but what you're really doing is recruiting people, you know, to become salespeople. Yeah. The pyramid schemes here. Yeah. But it's the same kind of pitch where it's like, you're the only one responsible for your success. So if you step up and believe in yourself and, you know, just take this tiny, this tiny risk, the payoff is going to be so much. And then it doesn't work out for lots of people. I mean, like Trump university,

there's like real estate programs that still do this literal thing where it's like, come to our seminar, it will cost $10,000. And we promise you that using our techniques, you, you'll make a million dollars in commissions on your real estate deals. Right. Like that kind of stuff. Yeah. I think that they, they are often now industry specific because I mean, these are specifically like believe in you. We'll teach you to believe in yourself, to become the better version of yourself. They're different in flavor than people saying we will teach you to be the best real estate seller. Yeah, it's, it's, I remember them being sort of epidemic during the 80s. Now that I think about it, I don't really see that that often. What I was trying to think of earlier,

the term for it now is multi-level marketing. Yes. It's when you see those like spam comments that are, you know, I made $17,000 in a week using Facebook, like that kind of stuff. Those are usually for these multi-level marketing things. What they want you to do is spam all your friends so that they sign up for whatever service you provide because no one actually sells the product really. Yeah. You get commission on getting your friends involved and they get commission on getting their friends involved you pay money up front to get products and then you need to recruit

other people at this point it's a lot of it's preying on the fact that people are underemployed yeah it's like here's something you can do in your spare time to make some money and it's less about this kind of self-improvement because this is kind of like a prosperity gospel kind of feeling right yeah no it's it's predatory it's a nice scam yeah good job if you can get it at the very top but in the context of this episode i think the nature of his business ties directly into the plot of the episode right which is a nice thing as we'll see at this point in the episode you know we we're seeing rockford his his bulls**t detector is on full auto yeah i mean the note i put in my book here was just uncomfortable jim you could see him yeah like just oh so we go from that from that scene to

rockford and aaron arm wrestling in a bar. Yes. They're reminiscing. They're spending some time together. Aaron tries to cheat by accident and Rockford stops him and then wins the arm wrestling contest. Or I should say he lifts his arm, which you're not supposed to do in arm wrestling. And it is hard to tell whether he's doing it on purpose or not. Right, right. Which doesn't really matter other than it's kind of a metaphor for the whole episode. Which doesn't really matter other than it's kind of a metaphor for the whole episode.

And then we kind of get a pretty extended conversation between the two of them that is part reminiscence and part why he's actually here. And it kind of goes back and forth for a scene of two people talking for a while. They have chemistry. There's a sense of humor. It's very watchable. It's a very good piece of television. But yeah, Aaron is kind of going back because he apparently bought the land where they used to live. And he went back there and went back to this little area that they used to build a fort. And what do you know that our fort was still there?

And I just got lost in memories and I was rebuilding it. And they started crying because he thinks that he thinks that everything that he has, he's not going to have forever. Yeah. It has to end sometime. Rockford kind of gives them a little jab about his, his American success story. Your,

your business is doing fine. If you're getting people to pay, you know, 5,000 a pop for your school. And he says, I like this a lot. He says, I believe everything I told those people.

Yeah. The human soul is the greatest resource of this nation but the country's in trouble oh we're talking about this and we're talking about how he's clearly running a scam but it's worth pointing out the differences between aaron and angel here sure aaron has a certain type of charisma that can pull this scam off right like you can see angel doing this and you can see the crowd starting to get upset with him but when aaron says i believe every word i say you want to believe that he believes every word he says and i think there's a scene at the end of the episode that tells me that he does he

does believe in himself yeah he might not believe that what he's selling is actually going to help anyone but he does believe that he himself like he has a line kind of about like i dared to win and like once i started believing in myself that's when things started changing and i think that's true yeah because that's what he what he's done but he does have some problem rockford is the only one that he can trust and that's really why he's there uh rockford says that uh he doesn't buy his his whole philosophy even as as a kid, he was long on bull and short on cash. Which is equally true. Like, he does believe in himself, but Rockford is also correct. But Aaron says that really what's happening is that he made a mistake.

He had a night out with a prostitute while he was on a business trip. And there are pictures. And he feels terrible about it. But now he's being blackmailed. He doesn't want his wife to see those pictures. trip and there are pictures and he feels terrible about it but now he's being blackmailed uh he doesn't want his wife to see those pictures and what the blackmailers want are to buy his company for 20 million dollars which is a tenth of what it's worth yeah at multiple points someone has mentioned that he is worth 200 million dollars he wants to give rockford the company so that he no longer is in control of it

therefore the blackmailers won't get anything if they send these pictures and therefore they'll drop it and he can solve his problem that way and if this is making you feel uncomfortable you can be damn sure it's making jim feel uncomfortable but he's considering it uh this is a testament to james hampton the actor in this scene it sounds much more reasonable coming from him as he talks to jim than it did just now when i gave you the bullet points it's the uh well when it's on paper. Of course it doesn't work. There's a big question mark. And Jim does say, if it was anyone else asking me, I wouldn't even think about it. It is just because they do have this history and some kind of bond that he's even thinking about this weird deal.

this weird deal. There's a moment coming up where I want to address this more directly, but they do a great job of presenting this guy as a person who we as the audience should be skeptical of. And Jim, who is highly, has a highly tuned detector is still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And you can see that bond between them.

Like you were saying, the chemistry between the actors is great. They just really do feel like old friends or brothers who haven't seen each other in a while talking about things and one of them bringing up a problem that he needs the other one to help him solve. It all feels legitimate, But also lets you know. There's no way in hell this is legitimate. Like this is just. So it's really well done.

Well Rockford isn't going to. Just blindly walk into this of course. He does want to make sure. That it's all. That the paperwork at least is legit. So Rockford and Aaron are going over. The contract with Bethh in a brief but uh always appreciated appearance in this episode she's looking over this contract which seems relatively simple for uh you know taking over a company but i don't know

i don't know how business works she's looking through this paperwork she says that it's legally fine while she's looking at it rockford's like, so who are these people anyway? And Aaron says that there were some partners on like an oil deal that went south and everyone got stung. But since he put the deal together, they've been out for revenge. Yeah. You never thought they would go this far, but here we are. Rockford takes Beth aside to kind of confirm with her that the contract looks okay. She says that it's okay to sign legally as long as he trusts Aaron, which is, again, kind of the thesis statement for this episode.

This is the second limp callback, I think. This is where he says that he fell off a skateboard, which is clearly the biggest lie of the excuses that he gives. For all the times we have seen Jim on a skateboard, I've never seen him fall off a skateboard. I've never seen Jim Rockford fall off a skateboard. Just saying. He thanks Beth, and she says that she'll send him a bill. Now that he's worth $20 million, maybe he'll actually pay it before Christmas.

Worth $200 million. Ah, yes. Now that he's worth there's worth 200 million sorry she heads off into her into the courtroom she has you know business to do there rockford heads back to aaron finally signs these documents but does make it clear if aaron has not been straight with him he's going to sell that company right out from under him so we get a little story about when they were kids and aaron stole jim's catcher's mitt and sold it and cut him in for half and at about when they were kids and Aaron stole Jim's catcher's mitt and sold it and cut him in for half. And at first when they tell this story, I'm like, well, I mean, that's still a dick move, right? I stole something of yours and I sold it and I'm keeping half the money is, I mean,

I guess better than I stole something of yours and you're getting nothing for it. But the sort of other end of that is that he did it for the good of their team we had to get you from behind that plate you're always better as an outfielder or something like that yeah jim kind of begrudgingly gives him that like okay like yeah you're not wrong that was for the betterment of the team so yeah that's it both reinforces kind of their history and also the nature of their relationship i think it's also a nod to like aaron every so often got one over on Jim because a lot of the other anecdotes have been about Jim protecting Aaron from people who wanted to beat him up and stuff like that.

Yeah, actually, I think that's kind of another thing maybe to just bring up at this point. But we have gotten at this point a few stories about, maybe not explicit stories, but just mentions that jim has beaten up people that have uh somehow bullied or dealt poorly with aaron when they were kids uh i enjoy this vision of jim as a gorilla when he's a kid yeah but as time goes on as we hear more stories how many of those are because aaron did something right yeah we'll see how it goes as things heat up pretty quick here uh as rockford and aaron go to a hotel to meet with these mystery partners who want to buy his company we get a final mention of his limp as

they head down the hotel corridor he went out dancing and he dipped and then slipped they knock on the hotel door and who opens it but one of the goons who was originally abducting Rockford from in front of his trailer. Who I believe... Is this Nino? Yeah. This is Nino, our secret surprise guest star of the episode. We just discovered moments before starting this... Our episode of the podcast is played by jonathan

goldsmith at the time he was credited as jonathan lip jonathan goldsmith is known to most of our listeners as the world's most interesting man it's uh it is a interesting dichotomy yeah between nino the gun-toting goon and and the world's most interesting man. So there's just a little fun deep cut for our listeners. So Rockford clearly is already not feeling good about this. And then when the actual buyer, Vito, comes out of another room, they recognize each other. And Vito says that last time he saw Jim Rockford, they were both serving 20 to life.

Yeah. says that last time he saw Jim Rockford, they were both serving 20 to life. Yeah. So con buddies, jailbird buddies from Rockford's jail days. Things are getting pretty weird pretty quick. Aaron says that Mr. Rockford here is my silent partner. And then Vito's like, oh, he's the one who won't sell. So I remember the first time I saw this episode being kind of confused in this scene. Right.

But what's happening here is that Aaron has a different story for Vito than the story that he told Rockford. And that's not telegraphed super clearly. It's been a while since I've seen it the first time, too. And watching this one, because I had seen it once before. There's a thing that happens with me in Rockford Files episodes. The first time I watch it, or if I haven't seen them in a while or whatever, I get rolled up in just the majesty of it, let's say. Just how charming the characters are and the action and all that. And I often let the, not the plot itself, but the plot of the scam.

Yeah. Whatever the crime is, I let that slip out of the back of my brain. And I'm watching it this time. And I definitely understood that there was a different story told to Vito. Because of the way he said it. I was like, well. And Vito seems to have, like, because he says right away. If he's on this thing for more than a week, I'll eat my shoe.

Or whatever his line was. He was just basically, like, he's like, I uh for more than a week i'll eat my shoe or whatever his line was he was just basically like he's like i know you're feeding me a line of of bs yeah but yeah definitely i think the first time i watched it who all was being lied to about what just passed right over me yeah it's kind of a tangle that gets untangled later in the episode yeah but yeah so aaron says that he presented rockford with the offer but he refuses to sell one of the goons probably the mob lawyer looks at the contract he says you know this is clean he owns it and rockford tried to talk to aaron was like aaron we need to talk alone and aaron's like no no no hold on yeah so then rockford's like okay veto let's talk outside

rockford finally can take a little bit of control back of the situation and and see what's what veto i think kind of probes about like if you've owned this for longer than a week or whatever it's like well i own it now so yeah you're dealing with me and he says that he'll sell it for 22 million not the 20 million so this is this is a good rockford swerve where his whole deal is not to sell it. And he's like, oh, wait a minute. It's the mob. I'm selling it.

Right. Aaron told him, I'm giving it to you. Don't sell it. And then they'll let this whole thing go. And then as soon as he walks in, sees Vito, knows that they're mob, he immediately goes to, how can I sell this? How can I get out of this situation with the mob? Vito holds at $20 million. That's the offer.

And Jim says, and a good price it is. And so he agrees to sell Aaron's company for $20 million to Vito. He signs the stock transfer thing over. He gets a $20 dollar cashier's check yep like you do like you do and uh the company sold we cut to the elevator and aaron seems very mad and he's like you weren't supposed to sell it and rockford equally mad because he knows that he's been lied to he knows that something is up. He's like, you don't say no to these guys. They'll kill you. As they go out into the lobby, Aaron wants his check and Rockford's like, this doesn't add up. I want you to tell me what's going on before I give you

this check. Aaron gets more and more angry about it, threatens to take it away from him by force, takes a swing at him in the middle of the lobby, but Rockford sucker punches him in the stomach and gets out of there without having to turn over this $20 million check. I love when Aaron goes down and the random white loafers in the lobby come to help him out and he's like, get away from me. There's something about that that speaks so true to me. I've been thinking about this lately.

speak so true to me. I've been thinking about this lately. Like there, there's this moment in, in when you, when you've hurt yourself, where anybody asking you a question feels like an assault and an interrogation. Even if that question is, are you all right? Right? Like, if you hit your head and you're like, are you all right? It's like, hit my head. No, I'm not all right. Why would you ask me that silly question? So yeah, some, something has happened happened we're still not quite sure what the story is we have a quick shot of rockford uh heading back to his car and he's being watched by a new person a new goon looking guy yeah car and then we cut to rockford and rocky hanging out on the pier later that night yeah chatting well this is where they go over like you know don't worry about it i we both

have fallen for things that that aaron has blah blah yeah so so rockford called aaron's wife turns out that they've been divorced for two years so that whole story about the pictures was clearly baloney he has the line about he wouldn't have done this for anyone else yeah he makes the point that the mob clearly a Aaron had this whole thing planned because the mob knew that he was the silent partner because they picked him up before Aaron ever arrived. Yes. Or they tried to pick him up. So if they knew that he was involved, then the only thing that makes sense to Rockford is that Aaron wanted him to sell the company. Yeah.

So this is the interesting bit about the exchange in the elevator and the lobby. Aaron is hurt that he sold the company, but that is not at all. Like Aaron was expecting it. So he's hurt as a performance to try and get the money out of Jim. Right. That's interesting. I like that. And yeah, what he actually wants is his check.

But there's an interesting thing here where just kind of in passing, Rocky's like, well, you can't keep that money. And Rockford's like, yeah, I know. And I was like, why not? I mean, it's just his sense of honor. Right. Yeah. I don't think there's any narrative or like plot or legal reason why he can't keep that money. Right, right.

As established, he was the legal owner of the company and he sold it. And now he has a check. He could just keep it. But Jim Rockford's, I guess, sense of propriety is such that he's like, yeah, I know. It's his sense of propriety, which clearly comes from Rocky, right? Yeah. It's very clear to Rocky. This isn't money that you're allowed to have.

Yeah. And I'm with you. I'm like, are you sure? I think you might be able to. The next couple seasons might have been real different if you just kept that check. Well, Rockford calls Aaron. He wants to talk to him about this whole thing.

He'll wait for him in the alley behind the hotel and he'll have the check. So Aaron goes down to meet him. Rockford just wants to know the truth. He'll give him the check if aaron just tells him what's going on aaron doesn't want to tell him what's going on he'll fight him for that check and aaron goads rockford into a fist fight he takes his watch off he takes his ring off he sets both of them on that like you used you always used to be able to lick me but not anymore

you know that kind of stuff this fight this presages they live 13 years later, right? Like this is the rowdy, rowdy Piper and Keith David are in a alleyway with some dumpsters. The Piper, whose character's name I don't remember, has a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the aliens that are taking over our society. He wants Keith David to wear these sunglasses. And Keith David said, no, this is a historic fight. It's a big, long, like six minute fight sequence. This one in the same vein as that fight, this is a wonderful brawl. There's nothing polished about this. Right. Yeah. There's a real sense of reality to this. Yeah. I think there's a subtlety to it. That's really well done. Rockford doesn't want to fight, but he's clearly a better fighter.

Aaron angers him enough to where he's finally like, okay, we'll fight. But that gives Aaron a couple like hits in early. Yeah, to the face even. That actually brings them closer to each other's level. And then they immediately tumble into a pile of conveniently placed cardboard boxes. So their actual kind of rolling around, brawling stuff equalizes them. Yeah. And then the end of the fight comes when Aaron gets a trash can lid.

Rockford fakes him out and then punches him in the stomach, but then gets hit in the head with the trash can lid. Both of them are too beat up to really continue. So it kind of ends in a draw. It's such a good draw too, because it's not just both of them bleeding and breathing heavily. Rockford is leaning over a railing with the splitting headache you would get if somebody hit you over the head. It's a very real feeling, I think, that everything about this fight looks like an actual fight between brothers. Yeah.

Like they're reliving a fight that they had done when they were kids, except now they're adults. They're angry enough to fight. Right. But the goal is not to kill each other. Exactly. Yeah. It's to make a point. They're both trying to make a point. Yeah.

At the end of the day, Rockford is just, I think he's so fed up with just dealing with Aaron. Yeah. That he's kind of like, fine. And he pulls the check out and he shoves it into Aaron's pocket with an attitude very much of, we're done. Yeah. This is the last interaction we're going to have. And he leaves. And then we see Aaron really like give in to the pain of being beat up so bad by Rockford.

Oh, good, good stuff. So even though Aaron is clearly not physically more capable than Jim, even though he kind of quote unquote wins, like he gets what he wanted, but Jim doesn't look any less tough. Right, right. Yeah. From there, we go to Rockford in his car. This is clearly the end of it for Rockford.

He's pretty clear. He's done. So he's in his car somewhere else. It's not really clear. It doesn't really matter. And we had the quick shot of this guy in a car following him earlier. That guy rolls up to his window. A classic.

Someone following Rockford just pops in while he's not paying attention. It's when he's looking through binoculars at the other people that are following him. Yeah. So he pops into this window and then he shows that he has a gun. You're coming with me. Rockford gives him some pithy line he says we're used to dealing with barf bags like you and that's when rockford knows that he's a cop yes i love that there's a moment where he's like oh okay you're a cop so yeah this guy

he's he's federal he's a federal cop of some of some kind uh it's never specified but fbi yeah rockford asks to see his tin and he's like, I'm not in the mood. So they take him to the federal building downtown and Rockford is being interrogated by this guy who we learn is Pat. No, no. Agent Patrick. Yeah. So the feds have been on Aaron because his company is basically a pyramid scheme, which means fraud. Yeah. So they have charges of fraud

embezzlement and illegal trading and securities all these franchises that aaron's been selling are fraudulent yeah and they've they've been building the case against him so the pieces start to fall into place for rockford and he asks like do you think he knows that you were about to get him you could have it's possible it's like okay now it's all starting to make sense um aaron knew he was going to get nailed and so his desperation to get this 20 million dollar check that's his cash out agent patrick makes the point that uh veto and the mob are not going to be very happy about what they just bought from rockford sold him a bag of sand so he should cooperate i guess this is they don't really have anything they need from rockford, sold him a bag of sand. So he should cooperate. I guess this is, they don't really have anything they need from Rockford. Right.

Yeah. This is kind of finding out whether he's a patsy or not in the pyramid scheme, I guess. And, and they also want to find Aaron. They're like, where's Aaron?

He's like, well, he's at the hotel. They say that he's not there. And you know, he has some good lines about, you know, it's not his fault.

If their stakeout guy was spending all his time in the gift shop i like how he addresses the glass like he addresses the one-way mirror directly so can i go yet uh you guys don't have anything on me and the guy behind the glass is like yeah all right you're free to go oh that's so good he leaves the federal building gets in this cab with a great um side character who clearly has an entire life that's just briefly intersecting with Rockford's here. I just love this character. Again, like you said, this is a character clearly with an entire real life. She's off having her own adventure that Rockford just intersected with briefly. So she's driving this cab.

She has this great hat. If it was New york right like it would just be this stereotypical new york taxi with the cab and the hat and everything uh so she notices that they're being tailed and she asks rockford i can lose them for you for 10 bucks you know so they have banter about movie and tv cab things and he ends up with like nah i like having him back there she's like all right suit yourself yeah she takes him back to his place uh the fare is two dollars and fifty cents and he gives her a tip we're not sure how much but it's apparently a tip that she appreciates the thing i love about this cabbie is just how quick she was to recognize they have a tail because i mean rockford's beat up right now, right?

He's made some comments about it. He looks like he's been worked over. Yeah, he has bruises on his face from the fight with Aaron. So she's probably, from the get-go, suspicious, recognizes they have a tail, and then is so willing to just, like, hey, for 10 bucks, I'll lose it. Like, you want this problem to go away? This is one of the services we offer. Rockford is happy to be be tailed.

And I think like the audience has not really shown who is tailing them. No. Like we just see a car, but we don't really see who's in it. So it's either the mob or the cops. We're far enough through the episode that there's probably not going to be

a third party involved. Rockford goes to bed. So his tail's outside. He makes sure that they're out there and says something like, have a good night or something. And just goes to bed. He goes to bed but unfortunately he is woken the next morning, still in the same clothes, by

Nino nudging him with a gun. Rockford asks if he'd be up for a little light breakfast. Maybe something with some eggs. But Argoon is taking no nonsense. Puts Rockford into the car with Aaron already in there. So the mob managed to snag Aaron before the feds could get to him. Vito is in the front of the car and he is not happy. He said that everything's frozen.

All the assets of the company are locked down. What are they going to do to make this right? Rockford has a line here about like you know we tried to get you not to buy and vito's like you should have tried harder and that echoed to me what happens in the next episode of the season the farmsworth stratagem where rockford desperately wants to get the mob not to buy something and he's truthful with them about it and they buy it anyway he's like i just want to go on record. I was against this. Aaron's like, we can just return your money. And Vito says, you know, I told you everything's frozen.

Like your bank account is frozen. You can't give me your money. Which I like that little kind of nod to some logic about why that's not going to be satisfactory. Before they can get rolling, the car floods again. But it becomes clear once uh neither rockford nor aaron can give a substantive response to uh what are we going to do to fix this that they're going to be taken out into the countryside they go for the ride we stay with them in the car as they make

it explicit that they're going to be killed rockford and aaron start swapping childhood reminiscences in a way that is both calculated to annoy their captors and also kind of send some coded messages, I think. They're like referring to things that happened with the clear intention of that's something we should do to get out of this situation. This annoys Vito.

He tells him to shut up and Rockford gets his line from the preview montage where he says that you can only kill me once. I don't think you want to do it here, which is totally fair. It's great. This is this again. The chemistry between Rockford and Aaron is great. They're both calm in the face.

You know, I keep comparing Aaron to Angel, but they're both old friends of Rockford. Yeah. Angel will be freaking out. Right. Yeah. And like trying to cut deals and making excuses. Throwing Rockford under the bus. Instead, Aaron's working with Rockford. So this is not necessarily redemptive of Aaron, but this shows us that there's a true legitimate relationship between these two. That they have

history. Aaron probably didn't want to get Rockford killed for what happened. Right. He thought Rockford would be able to muddy the waters enough for him to make his escape and be done with it. And then just how both of them are so cavalier in the face of death. Like, I love it. Rockford's like, what, are you going to kill me twice? You can't tell me to shut up anymore. Why?

You've already... Yeah, it's like, you don't have any more leverage over me. I know that you're going to kill me. So we're just going to talk. And it's great. Yeah, they talk about how these goons don't have any more leverage over me. I know that you're going to kill me. So we're just going to talk. And it's great. Yeah, they talk about how these goons don't have a sense of humor. Rockford calls them a set of third grade dropouts. And then Nino reaches out and slaps him.

And then he just slaps him back. Yes. You should ask your boss before you go shooting people in his brand new car. I'm sure he wouldn't like that. We see the charm and the sense of humor in that. And also Rockford's unwillingness to give an inch if he doesn't have to. But they do drive them out on the highway out to a deserted area. They walk them far away from the car. The staging of this whole sequence is a little weird. Yeah. Right. It's kind of like slightly convenient. Yeah. It's very convenient for how it all plays out, which is that the guys in front

kind of go around a little bend of this high brush area, so they're out of sight. Rockford and Aaron have both loosened their belts unobtrusively. That moment is filled with such menace. There's something about it, like, I would not have

picked watching two guys simultaneously and stealthily undo their belt buckles and walk around with these undone belt buckles. I was like, when they did it, I thought, okay, they're going to use those as weapons.

Like that's a thing. That must be from like their little coded remember when conversation, but it's such a weird thing that had such menace because it was so weird you had to think through how are they gonna like are they gonna whip these guys with them what is this for what what horrible thing do they have planned well turns out it's not super horrible no it isn't so aaron fakes a seizure yeah which is strange but okay nino goes over i'm just gonna do him right here but he gets close enough that a can kind of sucker, he kicks him. Rockford takes advantage of the confusion to get a couple swings in and the gun that Nino was holding goes off into the bushes.

Then everyone's looking around for the gun. Vito finds the gun. Rockford and Aaron, who have wrapped their belts around their fists, so they're basically just better at punching, run off into the brush, and we get a little chase through the high grasses. Vito is no fool and sends one of the goons back to the car. This guy, he's the driver, but as we get a nice little shot of him just sitting on the car looking around, waiting for something to happen, we see that it is, in fact, Louis Delgado, who plays... Sergeant Billings....in many other episodes of the rockford files so we see a villainous turn from him as he's waiting at the car for something to happen um rockford sneaks up on him from behind gives him a good shot in the mouth laying him out and then rockford and aaron jump into the car but wait it's flooded they can't

get it to start the mob guys come out of the bush with the guns. They start shooting. But then finally, the cop cars arrive as they were being tailed by the feds the whole time for just such an eventuality. And they are saved before anyone gets shot. Criminals are brought to justice, but also Aaron himself is arrested with glee by our fbi agent pat no agent patrick so our last scene here is rockford and aaron in a cell rockford is giving some hard-earned advice ask for c-block it's the best one most of the fish or greenies as they're also called usually go to d-block but c-block better facilities. So this little bit of lingo adds a little to our knowledge

of Gandhi and Rockford because it refers to him as Rockfish. I mean, a Rockfish is a fish. Yeah, but like, it's not like, it's not a particularly demeaning. Yeah, it's just like taking somebody's name and saying,

it's very schoolyard if it's just taking someone's name and saying something else that sounds like it. Like if I just called you epiduty right exactly except there that's an even better insult because it's there's duty in it but if it's if it's a reference to when rockford first comes in like when he's a newbie in the prison he's a fish he's a rockfish i think that there might be something there maybe a Aaron is making the best of his situation. So this is getting back to how I said, I think he does have some measure of believing in his own pablum.

Yeah. He's saying that from Rockford's description, the prison system isn't really all that great. It could really, it could probably stand some reform and we're better to reform than from the inside. some reform and we're better to reform than from the inside. Before we get too deep into it, Rocky appears as he has probably paid Jim's bail or whatever, done whatever needed to do to get Jim out of there because he's not actually being held for anything. His body language is very uncomplimentary to Aaron, but Aaron apologizes. I know you must be disappointed in me and I'm sorry. I forget what Rocky says. He doesn't exactly say this, but it's implied that Rocky is disappointed in him

because he lied to Rocky and Jim, not because he's in jail. Right, yeah. Because he says something like, it's disappointing to see me in this state or something like that. And Rocky says, that ain't why I'm disappointed in you and you know it.

It's a very touching moment, I feel like. Given all that that's happened, I feel like, given all that that's happened. He says it, but then Rocky is Rocky. And forgives him immediately at the first sign of contrition. Yeah. I mean, Rocky really does consider him to be family. Yeah. So when we see that in that couple sentences, Aaron says that it's just so hard for him to admit that he's not perfect. Yeah. That's his character flaw, that he's just not perfect enough. But he's going to be. He just has to keep working at it. Rockford's final advice is to keep his nose clean.

Don't talk to people. Just keep your head down and you'll get through it okay. But Aaron sees a new career in it almost. He thinks he can really make some positive changes, get the old philosophy going. And what he's going to call it is dare to be free. End of episode. On brand. So that. End of episode. On brand. So that was that was a fun episode.

There's one bit about it that I have a couple of questions, some for the audience and you and whatnot. But one in particular is the only bit that I didn't see is particularly tight was I loved the whole phone conversation with Dennis. But nothing came from that. Yeah. I remember thinking partway through the episode, oh, that must come back in the save. Right. Yeah. Or something.

But then it doesn't because it's the feds who make that save. It's good because it makes that whole first sequence, not just Jim and Rocky. Right. And it gives another vector, like we talked about to get more information about aaron and why rocky cares so much and blah blah blah but that would actually make more sense if dennis had said since i just took my exam i don't want to i need to keep my nose clean around here i can't run that for you jim and then yeah exactly or if it somehow came out that it went he did it and that information went to the fbi instead of to jim or you know whatever but right or even if he's just there at the end with the fbi yeah but yeah

you're right that never comes back and that's a little seems like a missed opportunity and it's you know uh it's rockford files so it stands out that it doesn't rather than it's just like oh okay that happens the other thing that kind of stood out to me in that way was, other than muddying the waters, kind of as you said, why did Aaron need Jim to sell the company? What is Aaron's plot? What was his plan? How did he envision it going down well? Right. Well, that's the thing, right? If Jim had given him the check immediately, he could have just gone and cashed it i guess but they froze all of his assets it could be that he intended jim to not sell right away and then he would leave town and leave jim with the wouldn't make it with the bank because he wouldn't get any money getting money out of it yeah i mean aside from muddying the waters i mean i guess pointing

the mob at jim instead of himself kind of makes sense. Or it could be that he had invented this silent partner and then needed a silent partner to fit that invention, right? So it could be that Jim is there to... Make true a lie that he has a silent partner? In that case, then, he would be not trying to. So, yeah, there's some, I don't want to say convoluted, because it's not necessarily convoluted, but there's... The endgame of Aaron's plan is never stated. So it's a little hard to see what the goal of the mechanism of getting Jim to own the company and then sell it was.

I like it because thematically it works with the overall idea of, like, there's one person that Jim would trust in this way who abuses that trust. That's the story of the episode. If it was anyone else, Jim wouldn't even get involved because it's this one person. Right. Yeah. And that's fun to watch. The emotional story of this episode is great. The mechanism of like why this has to happen is less clear than in some other

episodes to me, at least to focus on that emotional arc. Then let me offer up this question for you and you, the listener at home or in your car or wherever you happen to be, uh, washing dishes while listening to a podcast. That's something that I normally do. Is Aaron Jim's origin story.

This is the thing I've been thinking about. There is a possible story here where Jim grows up to be a trucker because he's a big kid because he defends Aaron. He plays something like the role of the goon or the gorilla in Aaron's life. But Aaron is introduced and Aaron gets into all these scams. Aaron is introduced and Aaron gets into all these scams. Does this hone Jim's understanding of how scams work so that he learns how to do them and how to spot them, how to be suspicious of them? And does that lead him down this path of ne'er-do-wellism, if you will, that leads to Jim Rockford, private investigator, rather than Jim and Rocky's trucking show? That is a good question. I mean, this is the farthest back in Jim's life that we hear about, I think, throughout

the series. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's an open question. If anyone has any thoughts about that, feel free to let us know. You can find us at all of the places that will be listed in our intermission, as well as wherever you have procured this podcast. Speaking of intermission, I think maybe we should go ahead and take our break. And then we'll come back with a couple more thoughts on lessons and tools and tips and

tricks that we found particularly interesting to steal for ourselves from this episode. See you then. While we have you here, there's three ways you can support us. First, rate and review on iTunes or whatever service you use for podcasts. Second, you can support us directly for as little as $1 an episode at patreon.com slash 200 a day. If you want to help us shape the direction of 200 a day, the Patreon is the best place to go. And finally, both of us have other projects going on pretty much all the time. 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 Linking 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, the podcast where we talk about the Rockford Five. If you've made it this far in the podcast and you don't know what we're doing. You know what we're doing. But in the second half, what we're going to do specifically is we're going to take some lessons, tips and tricks and whatnot from the episode we just talked about.

the episode we just talked about and see how we can apply it to our own fiction whether that is stuff that we're writing stuff that we're producing or directing i haven't i've never directed anything but uh or that we're bringing to the table as we play role-playing games in the first half we talked a lot about the specific ways in which this episode does a lot of the things that we generally always like about the show, right? Like using the exposition to do multiple things where, you know, conversations are both exposition and explaining a character relationship, the ways that it used backstory implication to build the relationship between Aaron and Jim and Rocky. The characters that have full lives outside of the episode. We have covered those things in more detail on other episodes um so i don't know there's a whole lot more ground to cover here

on those elements but you mentioned and i think you're right that the fight the the fist fight is actually a pretty interesting set of of stuff to talk about and i was like oh i didn't really think about that because the episode as a whole is not very actiony like i don't think of it as a action-packed episode it's more about this con game that aaron's running and then rockford's relationship to it but there are two good action sequences in it that are done in a way that are are interesting and worth going into in more detail and uh all y'all are in for a treat here because nathan literally wrote the book uh we're gonna we're gonna get a little

into pro wrestling here which is a category that nathan knows enough about to have written a role playing game based on it so with help from my friends uh yeah so i was uh so i said two because i think we maybe can jump back and forth but we can compare and contrast the handling of of aaron and jim's fist fight and then aaron and jim fleeing from the mob at the uh in the final sequence what about this jumped out to you as specifically wrestling relevant uh what's happening here is, in particular, the fist fight. So they're in this alley and they go to tussle. And everything in that scene that leads up to it and how it plays out and how it ends

is about their relationship, right? It's not about the stunts. You know, it's not about they do you know like you said they fall into this stack of boxes that are going to be there because you're in a warehouse and you need some place to fall it starts off by being very open about the situation here aaron says you know you used to be able to whoop me when i was a kid but that might not be the case anymore. So he's restating their relationship. We were friends as good as brothers when they were kids and they would have gotten into fights as kids.

And obviously Jim is going to win these fights because he's bigger than Aaron. So Aaron takes his ring off. He's got this honking, like rich man's ring that he takes off. And he takes off his watch. And this is so that they can fight without really hurting each other. There's a sense of fair play, right? Where it's like, he's taking this stuff off because that's a symbol of, let's do this.

But I don't want to. Well, I mean, first of all, you can really mess up your own hand if you're wearing jewelry and you punch someone right but i there's kind of a schoolyard element where i'm ready here's the symbol of me being ready to fight you but again it's not a duel to the death yeah i'm not going to take your eye out and like you said the starts off jim is trying to talk sense into him as aaron gets into like a boxing stance and takes two jabs at Jim's face. And it takes that to get Jim to be like, all right, I'm going to whoop your... Thinking about this in wrestling terms, right? There's this sort of setup where they state what's at stake here.

This is not about whether or not Aaron's going to get the money. Aaron's going to get the money. And it's not whether or not Aaron's going to tell the truth because he's not going to tell the truth. This is just them working out this sort of situation they had as kids. Yeah. So those are the stated goals, right? Yeah. Whoever wins this is going to get the championship, right?

Where it's like that is an external frame. Rockford wants to find out the truth before giving him the money and if he doesn't find out the truth i'm not going to give you the money that's the reason they're there but what the fight's actually about is this dynamic where aaron wants to prove to jim that he has grown up in certain ways that he doesn't need the kind of protection that jim used to give him. Jim wants Aaron to back down, right? Like Jim wants Aaron to acknowledge that Aaron has done something wrong. Yeah. And the way they're going to settle this is through is through fisticuffs. Yes. And then the fight itself

is not like it takes to the end for any one of them to pick up a weapon, even though they're in a place that is probably festooned with weapons like there's there and yeah there's like piles of boxes and everything so what i like about it structurally is and i talked about this a little bit in the first part where just looking at them you know the tail of the tape on them uh essentially is that rockford should win this fight he's bigger he's stronger he's more experienced but because he doesn't want to fight aaron is able to equalize the playing field by getting a couple shots in first and just angering jim to where it turns into a brawl jim already got him once right he sucker punched him in the in the stomach and yeah by aaron putting it on a we are going to fight now kind of formality

level that takes away jim's advantage of being able to like sucker punch people and and get those shots in but then at the end of the fight jim manages to get his best shot in when he fakes aaron out aaron raises the lid to like block and then yeah jim gets him in the stomach instead echoing that sucker punch from from earlier but that leaves jim open to getting wanged in the head with the trash can lid and then they are both at parody again where they're both injured right yeah neither of them wishes to continue yeah there's that moment where jim i don't remember what jim says but it's like do you want me to teach you more of a lesson or something like that and he's like look at you yeah you can't do that any more than i can um and that's great and i love

that like between those two spots where he's taking jabs at jim's face and then when the trash can comes down on jim's head poor jim's head it's mainly grappling right it's mainly trying to control the other yeah it's not about striking and hurting and that again has that kind of schoolyard feel to it. Yeah. And I think that that's really well done. I think that, like, I would be surprised if they didn't think that out. I mean, and it looks pretty practical.

Like, it looks like the two of them were rolling around. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't really seem very stunt-double-y or anything like that. At the end of the fight, you know, Jim basically gives up the the check which implies to me that even though they you know the fight's a draw essentially but aaron kind of wins right yeah i think aaron wins the respect may not the respect actually but aaron makes the point that he was trying to make which was i can take care of myself right yes exactly Yes, exactly. He's put Jim in a spot where Jim is probably can more easily be convinced of that because he's also less likely to put up a fight anymore. His head is ringing.

Yeah. But yeah, I think that that's absolutely true. I think that it's easy while watching a Rockford Files episode to start assuming that everyone who isn't Jim is in the wrong and is incapable of handling themselves. And this is, I mean, he is in the wrong, but he stands up to Jim and they gain equal footing, which is necessary for how the last part of this whole thing plays out, right? Yeah. So before we get to that, I think I also want to highlight there's a there's a bit of subtlety or appropriateness to Jim going ahead and giving him the check then also, which is that why did he not just give him the check in the first place? Because he wanted to take care of Aaron. And he can't take care of Aaron if he doesn't know the situation.

So with that fight coming out to Aaron proving the point of like, I can hang with you. I don't need you to protect me. Then Jim kind of gives up this idea of I need to know what's happening because he's saying, I don't need to hang out. Like, I don't need to protect you if this is how you're going to be. Here's the check. I don't care anymore. I think that there's actually like a really good point. And it reminds me of an interesting wrestling matches that I've seen where, so you have

the stakes set at the beginning and they're pretty explicit. And like you said, here's the belt that we're fighting for. It's whether or not the check is going to go with the truth or not. But then there's this underlying thing that's part of the backstory that we've gotten before this match has happened that kind of fuels why that's important to begin with. And then we have the match. match just resolving what has been set up. Instead, I'm referring to it as a match, but you know, instead of the fight just resolving what has been set up, it changes the dynamic so that something new is there, right? Yeah. What's really interesting about how it ends is not the question of whether or not he's going to get the check or Jim's going to get the truth. It's that what you just said that we've Jim now his relationship to Aaron has changed

over the course of this fistfight. This fight has catalyzed the change in their relationship. Yeah. There's all sorts of things. If you're going to put violence of this sort in your fiction, you can always make a fight have higher stakes. That's super easy to do. It's not particularly interesting.

You can just say, okay, now instead of fighting for this, they're fighting for a warhead that's going to blow up downtown LA. Can I give an example of that from my recent media viewing? So I happen to have, over the last couple days, rewatched both The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded. You may or may not be familiar with these texts, but something that really stood out to me watching them. I didn't watch them back to back, but I watched them over the span of a couple of days. And in the first Matrix movie, each of the fights has its own little internal narrative in addition to whatever role it plays in the story and that's really well done i think it's handled really well generally in that movie and then in the second movie i find that most of the fights are the fight from the first

movie but with more people in them yeah like they don't have their own yeah reason to exist they're more like just turning up the volume on the thing that we already know happens in this world. So the difference between Neo fighting Agent Smith in the first movie and awakened Neo fighting the army of Agent Smith's in the second movie is just saying, here's this, but more. But the reason that fight is happening is so much less interesting in the second movie than in the first movie, even though the stakes of how many people are involved and how much of the fabric of the city is going to be impacted and that kind of stuff is turned up. Yeah.

That just struck me as an example of what you're talking about, where it's like, you can just add more stuff, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a more interesting fight. Exactly. You can either, yeah, you can ratchet up the stakes or you can in again referencing uh the matrix here you can add kung fu right like you could you could make the fighters better fighter you can make them like more visually dynamic to watch um than this these two uh pudges that are wrestling around. But really what's happening here, what's making this scene work is not these individual moves, but the fact that they work in concert with a change in story.

Right. This fight is not very interesting out of context. Yeah. Like if you just watched Jim and Aaron and aaron rolling around in boxes in you on youtube it is meaningless but in the context of the story it's it's a big transition and so i think that this is kind of the core of what what we want to get across is don't just use the fight as like here's where we have the fighting beat this is the moment where this happens yeah it's like what is the transition that this fight is encapsulating yeah Yeah. And it could be a plot transition, right? Like if you need to get across the bridge and fight the ogre or whatever, right? Like, right. Right. But at

least there's still a transition that at the end of the fight, there is a new place that you're going to be that through the, through the fight you get there. And then in this case it's more of a character relationship transition. This is probably a worn out trope. But I never tire of it. And that's the fight that ends up with the two primary fighters earning each other's respect. Yeah. Whenever a wrestling match ends in a handshake. If they get up and shake each other's hands.

I'm like yeah they're friends the point is is that uh that shift in dynamic i think is really where yeah what puts that out and you can deliberately do that you can take a look at your your fights and if you're going to have a fight and go do we want this relationship to change because of this or do we want to specifically show that the relationship won't change? These two will continue to fight each other. Yeah, definitely. And one thing that we can look at is also how does this connect to that second action sequence,

which is not a fistfight, but it's still a fight, a chase and fight, where we go from Jim and Aaron fighting each other to Jim and Aaron need to fight together. Yeah. And would that second one really be possible without this one? In that second one, they are able to transmit some coded messages to each other through their shared past. Yeah. But then they both need to trust each other to do the thing that they think the other

one is going to do. And they do and yeah that's the the key to them getting away from from the mob and evading the being shot and all that stuff there's an interesting bit of that trust which i i really like in the very beginning so they they've undone their belts right which is going to be code phrasing for me from here on out, too. I'm ready for a fight. They've undone their belts, and Aaron fakes his seizure. During that, Aaron can't see what's going on. He can't know what's going on. Rockford does the whole schoolyard, gets on his hands and knees behind, I think it's Nino?

Mm-hmm. And then shouts out, like, Aaron now, or something like that. He just shouts his name. He just goes, Aaron. And He just goes Aaron and Aaron kicks. Kicks right up. There's something just kind of beautiful about that because that can't happen spontaneously. That has to have come out of their story. And they do.

They do say a little bit like they would have taken us apart at the knees. And there was like an emphasis on the knees, which I assume meant that James Gardner was going to hurt his knees. There is a moment in that sequence where they're running. They run through the stream, which first of all, like looks like it probably is not very fun. But then they crest a hill and James Gardner slides on the way down. Oh, my God, that poor guy. They've been calling out how he's been limping the whole episode.

And then in that sequence, you see him just tear his knee up more. It's hard to watch if you think that this is a real life human being doing these things under this kind of pain. Yeah. But there is like this level of trust. Like, again, let's swap Aaron out for Angel. Angel fakes a seizure. Jim gets down on his hands and knees. He says, Angel now.

And Angel runs off into the grass, right? Like that is what happens there. We've seen in other episodes how Angel acts in these things. And what happens is he'll try to get away and he'll bump into someone. And that's what will cause the disruption that Jim can capitalize on. Yes. Or he'll try to run away and open a door and hit someone with the door who he didn't know was there he's never portrayed as being in on a plan yeah so this this sequence has many more beats to it right than the first one so we have the the lead up where they're slowly

being you know led off into the wilderness to be to be executed we see them do their belt thing so we're like okay something's gonna happen and then there's a long moment while we see them wait until the opportune time and then we have the fake seizure and then we have the scramble for the gun and then they run off jim gives aaron sass about not getting the gun and they have like banter about it and they get shot at and that sends them off into the stream. And then we have them running around in the bushes, cutting back and forth to the car. So we establish that they're racing back to see who gets back to the car first, them or the other goon. They get to the car first.

The driver are, let's say he's undercover in this one. Yeah. But our driver's waiting, but he's not paying attention. Then Rockford sneaks up on him, punches his lights out. They get in the car, but then Chekhov's flooded radiator goes off. Then they get shot at a final time and it hits the windshield and then the cops come. Yeah. After the windshield shot and before the cops come and also while the cops are there,

there are quite a few gunshots that go off. Yeah. And that part's a little... Yeah. The cops are arriving. They're shooting while the cops are pulling in. Right. And then one cop shoots right near them. And that's when they surrender. It's a little awkward at that point. But looking past that. So it's a lot more fine grained, right? Of not only are we seeing the action of them escaping the situation we also get to see them have some character interplay we get to see rockford being better at making snap decisions there's more threaded into it as a sequence as opposed to kind of the fight that's just about

who's going to make their make their big point because the goal of this scene is actually just to get us to the end of the story for the most part yeah it's still a nice payoff for the sort of relationship arc that we've had through this right because we see them have trust each other and work together for the first time in the episode like straight down to when rockford divvies up their responsibilities when they're going to go to get to the car he's like like, I'll punch this guy out. You get in the car. So it makes me wonder about that decision in light of like, is this Rockford doing the thing he's always done for him? Like fighting the fights?

Because when has Rockford let anyone else drive? Or now that he's taken a couple of Aaron's's punches does he know that he should punch the guy yeah uh i also want to create a little bit of a fan theory about this actually being billings undercover who is undercover with them because dennis ran the plate that's all how it all connects that it's billings undercover but they never communicated with the fbi and that's why billings isn't actually paying that much attention, because he doesn't want to shoot Jim. It explains why when Jim taps him on the shoulder,

he just kind of politely turns around like, hey, what's up? Bam! Like, it's Billings, you idiot! That is our new fan theory, that Billings was undercover this whole time. It also explains why Agent Patrick was going to charge Rockford with... With assault and battery. Yeah.

You beat a cop up, you idiot. I like that. That's our new theory. But yeah, so just to touch back to what I said earlier about transitions. So this fight is about transitioning our protagonists out of danger. They're going to get executed, and at the end, they're safe. which is as good a reason to have a fight as a big character revelation. But I like that those two things, because they have a different kind of transition, they can both live in the episode and it's not like, oh, another fight. What makes this fight fun is the setup in

the car ride over. Yes. I mean, there's fun things that happen. And of course, some bits of it will be even more nonsensical if you hadn't seen the car ride over. But it's them formulating the plan and both working together to annoy their captors. Right. They use their sense of humor as a weapon. Yeah. It's almost as if they're enjoying what's happening. They probably do on some level and don't on other levels. There's a bit of fatalism to it that is pretty enjoyable to watch. Yeah. We're going to get killed. That's the worst case.

So we might as well try and have some fun while we're doing it. Because what? They can't kill us any deader. They can only kill us once. So for a character- driven episode, this one has some good fighting things in it that I'm glad you decided to highlight for us.

The last bit, I'm trying to, okay, this has nothing to do with anything we've said before. I just have, like, a question. When Rockford first got the cashier's check, he went to a loan office, right? So he walks out of a building that says savings and loan on the side oh so i assumed that was a bank but he doesn't deposit it because

he gives it to aaron so maybe he put it in a safety deposit box that could be yeah okay because there was a moment watching the show where i was trying to figure out if Rockford was going to somehow work some interest out of it. So he shoots for the $22 million. I'm sure he knows at that point, whatever the $20 million is about, he's not going to end up with it. So he wants to get the extra $2 million out of it. And then if he doesn't get that, I was like, if he uses that as collateral for a loan, no, he just loses money there. I was trying to figure out if you had $20 million for what, two days, a day and a half. Yeah. What can you do to get money out of that without like gambling or something like that? Just wanted to bring it up because it was stuck in the back of my head. Aside from that. Aside from that, feel like I've covered what you wanted to say about this one?

I think we've earned our $200 for the day. I think so too. Not our $200 million, unfortunately. No. We're not running any prosperity gospel pyramid schemes over here. Not yet. But if you did want to give us some money, you can always check out patreon.com slash $200 a day.

Not saying, just saying. Dare to win. Dare to be free yes well with that i think we're pretty much done here so we will come back to you next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files