Two Hundred A Day - Episode 34: Nice Guys Finish Dead

Episode Date: May 27, 2018

Nathan and Eppy finally venture into Season 6 to discuss E7 Nice Guys Finish Dead. Featuring a returning Tom Selleck as Lance White alongside the also-returning James Whitmore Jr as Freddie Beamer, this comedic episode is all about watching these strong, counterpointed characters collide. Jim and Lance are trying to clear Beamer from being blamed for a murder that occurred right in the middle of a PI association conference! While this episode does have a lot of good gags and character work, it feels to us more like an excuse for the series to have a little fun with its own tropes than a fully realized mystery story. In our second half, Eppy unboxes a surprise, and then we dive into a discussion of out-of-continuity or out-of-tone departures in ongoing narratives, as well as a closer look at the layers (or lack thereof) in this story that kept it from being one of our favorites. 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 Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app 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, Dylan Winslow, Bill Anderson, Adam Alexander, Chris, Dave Y and Dave P! 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.

Jim, Frank, I put a new outlet in the kitchen, I lay in the cable and the box, then I pulled the breaker just like you said, and both of my TV sets stopped burning. What do I do now? Welcome to 200 A Day, a podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Pauletta. And I'm Epi Dyer Ravishaw. Which episode starring a multitude of our favorite private eyes are we talking about today epi

uh today we're we're diving all the way into season six this will be the first episode of 200 a day concerning season six we did record one but it is a lost episode where the audio was not good enough to release to our uh to. Yeah. So this is the first one for our listeners from season six. This is episode seven, Nice Guys Finish Dead. And this is the second episode starring fan favorite guest star, Tom Selleck as the perfect private eye, Lance White. So this is the second appearance of this character on the Rockford Files. And also we have an episode in our archives where we talked about the first one,

White on White and Nearly Perfect from season five. So that is our episode 24. If you want to do a back to back listening of our takes on Lance White. So now the first episode occurred before Magnum PI showed up. Is that correct? Yeah. The first episode of Magnum PI was December 1980. So yeah, Magnum PI started right after Rockford Files went off the air. So there was definitely a gap in the viewers' souls that could only be filled with a private investigator. Yeah, we went into more detail about the relationship of Tom Selleck and James Garner and how this role on the Rockford Files influenced the Magnum PI character and stuff like that in our earlier episode. So I would say in a bald-faced attempt to get people to delve into the archive,

maybe go give that a listen. But I think it's interesting here that he's he's reprising the role. Right. Like we've already seen it once before. So we get to see him again. And we're also bringing in another recurring character, Freddie Beamer. This is also the second appearance of this character who first appeared in season four. The first episode called Beamer's Last Case. In that episode, the plot revolved around this auto mechanic who knew that Rockford was out of

town, was obsessed with PIs and took over his identity and took on cases pretending to be Rockford. So while I think this episode does a pretty good job of introducing each of these characters as a standalone piece, if you've seen those previous episodes, it adds a lot of context. And I think a little bit probably gives you a little bit more to enjoy. I would also mention that Simon Oakland, who plays Vern St. Cloud, this is the third time that Vern St. Cloud has showed up on the Rockford Files. I thought I recognized him too. Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but Waterbury will bury you. And The House on Willis Avenue.

The actor was also in another one, I think in this season. So this is kind of like a continuity heavy episode in terms of, it's basically pulling every other PI that has, not every other PI, because Richie Brockleman, for example, is not in this one. And Gabby and Gandhi aren't. But it's kind of pulling all these other characters that have from their kind of ghosts of Rockford's past. Yeah. Pulled into one episode just to mess with him. And although the episode, again, works on its own, it is good to know that some of these people have passed with Rockford. So you maybe understand why they treat him the way they do. I'm sorry, why they mistreat him the way they

do, because it's a little brutal. So the sixth season is shorter than the other seasons. It didn't run out the full 22 episodes or whatever. And there's a confluence of events that led to that. My understanding is, so James Garner, he was in bad physical shape. He had to get surgery between each season, as we've mentioned before, because he did all the physical stunts. He had only really planned to do five seasons of the show. The network and the studio, Universal and NBC, whatever their relationship was, they decided to renew it for a sixth season.

And in addition to that, and maybe because of the way that they did their accounting, even though the Rockford Files had been extremely popular, it still had not turned a profit in five seasons, which was a surprise to Garner and his production company because from what they understood, they had been making money. And this is what led to these lawsuits down the road that kind of divided Garner from Universal and led to kind of a feud there. But he agreed to come back for this sixth season and then his body basically gave out and he got to a point where his doctors were like,

you can't keep doing the show. He kind of was able to convince the studio to wrap it up because they couldn't keep doing it because he could not keep doing it so kind of a a down note a grim note to to end this uh the show that we that we love so much on well put it on pause for 20 years that's true but then creatively it was really interesting they got all these great guest stars as we see in this uh there are a bunch of great two-parters that are some of my favorite two-parters that we'll talk about in other episodes i know it's an interesting season yeah that's actually kind of an interesting context for my feelings about this particular

episode what i'll say about that now is that this did feel like a late in the series episode where they were like i don't want to say parody but almost like they were like, I don't want to say parody, but almost like they were like, here's the joke we tell with our character. Let's tell it. It was very self-referential. Yeah. All right. So we'll get into it. So I'll just say quickly, the director for this one was John Patterson, who actually, this was one of the first TV shows he directed. He directed some episodes of something else and then this, and then moved on to have a very long list of TV credits. He's been all over the place, including an episode of Magnum P.I.

And then he was a recurring director on The Sopranos for a long time. So those Rockford connections at the beginning really helped him out. The guy who plays Freddie Beamer, James Whitmore Jr., he became a director and ended up actually directing I Still Love L.A., which was the first reunion movie that we talked about in our episode 25. Nice. That said, let's get into the actual episode. Epidiah, tell us about the preview montage.

The preview montage wastes no time in letting you know that the mustachioed mug of Tom Selleck as Lance White will be in this episode. So that's exciting. And then it jumps to a boob joke. That happened. That sure is a thing. By the end of it, you know, there's some action and whatnot. And by the end of it, we get sort of the classic Rockford one, two of somebody saying something

like that's going to be easy. And then right away showing us that it is not going to be. There's no way it's easy. There is a dramatic shot of Rockford hanging off the side of a bus shouting. What about now, Lance? Yeah. So again, it does its job. It makes me want to stay on the channel.

Ready to see where this goes. And I especially want to know the way they opened it up. 200 a day is supported by all of our listeners, but especially our patrons at patreon.com slash 200 a Day. Patrons get to add to the 200 a Day Rockford Files files, help us pick which episodes to cover, and more.

Each episode, we extend a special thanks to our Gumshoot-level patrons. This time, we say thank you to Shane Liebling. If you play games online, you should check out his free dice-rolling app, Roll for Youry, at Roll4YourParty.com. Mike Gillis, a host of the Radio vs. the Martians podcast, 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, find his award-winning gaming blog at AgeOfRavens.blogspot.com. And finally, big thanks to Victor DeSanto and to Richard Haddam, who you can find on Twitter at Richard Haddam.

Check out patreon.com slash 200 a day and see if you want to be our newest gumshoe. We start off this episode at the United Association of Licensed Investigators. It's not a trade show. It's a... Award show, right? Yeah, it's an awards ceremony. All the members of this PI association have gathered together to enjoy a fine steak dinner and give out some awards. And we start right off with Freddie Beamer,

the hapless, maybe a good word. Yeah. Arriving. So I recognize him from the earlier episode that he's in, but I think we immediately get the tone of this character. Right. It does double duty here where if you have seen him before, it says he's at it again.

And if you haven't, it expressly tells you what it is that he's at again. It very much lets you know what you're in for with Beamer here. He has his taped thick glasses and his weird beret that apparently is his fancy his fancy hat and he he has this there's this business with the valet where he doesn't even know what a valet is yeah and he tells the valet you know i don't need a valet just park my car right he's nervous he wants to be at this thing but he's clearly out of place and doesn't actually know how something like an award ceremony at a hotel goes. Right. So he's out of his element. But we go into the banquet hall and we learn that our good friend, Jim Rockford, has been nominated for an award.

He has set precedent in the field of accident insurance and he's been nominated for the Good Hugh Award. I could not figure out what they were saying. Good Hugh? Good Hugh? good you. I don't know. I thought it was just, it was good Hugh. And I assumed it was named after someone. Right. Yeah. There's no other context given for it. Maybe it was selected because it sounds a little bit like gumshoe. Yeah. Good Hugh gumshoe, maybe like just as a joke. Yeah. We learn about what Rockford did for this to get nominated for this award through a conversation with another P.I., Carmine and his wife, who are clearly unimpressed with someone who's done something so unglamorous as track down a time omission in a record keeping of affidavits when Carmine was nominated for his good hue when he took a bullet getting a gunshot wound scar in the name of, you know, taking down some some mobster or something.

This is sort of an ongoing theme when you have other PIs in a Rockford Files episode. Rockford's job in these sorts of episodes is to let the audience know that being a PI is unglamorous, slogging, just sort of paperwork, right? Like everybody else thinks it's this exciting thrill a minute. The whole reason why we tune into the Rockford Files, but the truth is it's going through pages and pages of affidavits, writing down the timing of things so that you can find, I don't remember. It was two minutes and 53 seconds, I think,

or something like that. He was two minutes and 57 seconds. Sorry, apologies to Jim Rockford. And I love this. This is, this is a thing we see, I think probably in the context of our episodes,

when the Gabby and Gandy episode where the whole B plot that is Rockford's plot during that episode is him just doing the day to day work of a private investigator. Like he's just looking for someone who is owed some money and he's just using all the little tricks and tips that he does to do it. He's not involved in any Nazi punching. He's not involved in any Nazi punching. He's not involved in any car chase. He's just doing his daily job. In order to heighten this contrast with how Jim works, we get our first appearance of Lance White. He kind of comes up into this conversation. Lance White. He kind of comes up into this conversation. There's a parting shot,

and this is a theme, a motif perhaps throughout the episode of people saying nice things about Lance after he leaves. So like he leaves with Rockford and one of the people Rockford was talking to goes, there goes a swell guy. Yeah. So Lance White, he is the crime writer's platonic ideal of the narratively perfect PI. His hunches always play out. He always gets the clue he needs when he needs it. The girl always goes for him, but he's always in the name of justice and truth, not in the name of gain for himself. But here's the thing. He knows this about himself. And I think that's played up more

in this episode than in the prior one that he was in. There are definitely some really interesting layers going on with that. The other thing I want to point out here is that Rockford's trick, why he's up for an award is for timing. And we'll find out why Lance is up for an award in a little bit. But what we do know about Lance from the last episode is that time is super important to him. And there's a lovely flip-flop of what's going on with each character here. Time will come up again and again in this episode, and it will be more about Rockford than it will be about Lance, which is interesting. So Lance, of course, was also nominated for a good hue.

But he says that he thinks that Rockford should win because it's setting a legal precedent. This is something that's going to matter in insurance cases, you know, for years and years because of what Rockford did. That's way more important than whatever Lance did, which we'll find out in a little bit. And he's so right. Like this is the infuriatingly perfect thing about Lance is that he's even right about that and just completely magnanimous. And he even says that he voted for Rockford because he thinks that Rockford is his thing was more important. There are a lot of moments in this episode, maybe actually too many, which we can talk about, but there are a lot of moments in this episode where what the characters say are like signposting this is what this character is about

versus this is what this character is about right and we get the first of these here where rockford apologizes he's like well i'm sorry i can't say the same thing but i voted for myself yeah uh and then he follows that up with i always vote for myself and lance says oh well i never do yep here are our two characters here's one of the ways in which they are opposed uh we also learn here that lance got a doctorate uh in evidentiary criminology or something in his free time right going to school nights and he says that free time is a resource. We should use it wisely. Exactly. And, you know, again, telling that he's got a doctorate in exactly the field that Rockford is up for an award for.

Just even even when Rockford's about to be praised, Lance has done it better. So Vern the Hawk St. Cloud comes up to make some remarks. He is the president of this association. He reels through a couple of really bad jokes. Oh, God. And Lance politely laughs and tries to get... He's like, come on, he's trying while Rockford's rolling his eyes. Vern kind of hams it up here with announcing the three nominees, right?

The first nominee is Rockford. And he kind of like... And he did some boring stuff and hopefully the other ones are more exciting and we see the whole room kind of quietly rolling their eyes and politely softly clapping lance he's not been nominated for saving three 10 year old girls from certain death, for which he won a medal from the mayor and was awarded some kind of certification of valor. Everyone in the room is cheering and clapping

and very excited for Lance, for this glamorous thing that he did. And there's a third man nominated who was wounded while tracking an underworld figure, but pushed on to make a heroin bust. He can't be there because he's still in the hospital recovering from the wounds he received. You know, he has also done this glamorous thing that the whole room is applauding for. And so we get the dramatic envelope opening.

And well, what do you know? Rockford wins an award. And the crowd goes wild. Mild. The crowd goes wild. Mild. The crowd goes mild. The room is underwhelmed. There is an awkward silence. We hear Lance like loudly solo clapping in the back as Rockford walks up to take his award.

He comes up. The Vern, the president, whispers in his ear, you know, keep it short. Just say thank you. And let's get on with the dinner. So Rockford shrugs, turns around, just says, thank you, gets off the stage. And then Vern goes, what kind of acceptance speech is that? Just say thank you. It's great.

Like we mentioned earlier, this works perfectly fine on its own. But it also, if you know more of the history between Verne St. Cloud and Rockford, where they're rival PIs, there's some animosity there, I think. One other thing, I think important detail I want to point out in this scene is that Rockford dressed to the nines, as most people there are, is dateless, which is sad and adds to more of the misery of what's going on here. One detail that I liked was that when Rockford sits down with his trophy, he does seem to have a legit smile. He is actually pleased to have been recognized for his work. There's a moment where it looks very genuine on his face to me.

I think we're going to be spending a lot of time talking about the character stuff and the smiles and the body language. Because there's not a whole lot of plot in this episode is really mostly a character portrait and a character kind of uh comedic drama of these characters clashing quite a bit of the plot is delivered through monologue yeah yeah we'll get into that right but the plot does kind of kick off here where uh vern their guest speaker, who is a local senator who. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We've made a grave error. We have not talked about the most important thing about that previous scene, that Rockford's middle name is Scott. I'm sorry, but it's a big, bold print in my notes.

James Scott Rockford. Yeah, I don't know if that's come up before. This may be the first time we hear his middle name. So if you're ever in a trivia contest, so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt the flow, but this is important. That's important. Right. So this guest speaker is a senator with this legislation to tighten invasion of privacy measures. Vern is introducing this as so that's something that we may, you know, that a lot of people here may not like because it may have caused problems for us doing our jobs.

And there's a heckler who yells out, he's going to put us all out of business. Yeah. And there's a little business there while we cut to Beamer going into the bathroom to, you know, wash his hands and primp himself up. And we have the final screen credits playing over this. So this is a little sequence where we hear what's going on in the room, kind of in the background as we watch Beamer sprucing himself up and we see the credits over it. Yeah. We hear the president calling for the senator, asking for him to come up. Hey, is my mic on? You know, is he backstage? Where is he? Clearly, he's supposed to be on stage by now.

And then Beamer turns around and literally trips over a body like lying down in the bathroom. A body he didn't see coming in. Right. So he trips over this body, leans down. I think he's just seeing like if he's dead or trying to roll him over or something. Yeah, yeah. He does examine the body. But then he's clearly kind of panicking and someone comes in. What happened? And Beamer starts stammering. What happened to that guy? Beamer freaks out and pushes past him and then

crashes into a waiter who has a tray of drinks and there's a big clatter. And then the guy that he pushes past starts yelling for help and saying he killed the senator. Beamer's running down the hallway. People are chasing him. We cut back and forth between that and then Lance checking on the body, you know, saying I'll call the police. He's dead. And then the guy who got pushed past to establish Beamer for those who haven't seen him. Right.

That mechanic guy who's always putting the stories in the detective digest. Bummer. And then Robert's chasing after him going, Beamer. Yeah. He pushes past some hotel guards, jumps into a car that a woman has just gotten out of and peels out as the hotel cops take a couple pot shots at him. And they get scolded, as they should, by Rockford. I mean, there are like civilians standing there in between where they're shooting and that car. It was actually a very poor choice by those guys.

So there's a wonderful thing happens here. I write in my notes, car chase exclamation point, because I am thrilled that a car chase is coming up. Rockford jumps in the Firebird and takes off in pursuit of Beamer. On the DVD, it clearly fades to black. Clearly this was a commercial break. Then we come back from the commercial break

and Beamer's out of gas. Yep. A lovely joke to play on the audience. That had me laughing. Yeah, he runs out of gas. Rockford pulls up behind him and we have this whole business beamer still freaked out rockford keeps asking him why did you run you know what do you think you were doing why'd you run and responds with because people were chasing you that's legit

rockford says that well someone i know you didn't kill that senator and beamer once he hears that is the senator that was the dead body, he like really freaks out. He pushes past Rockford. He tries to run away into the bushes. Rockford tackles him down as glasses fall off, which is an ongoing thing for the next part of the episode. Rockford hustles him back in the car. And he's like, I'm taking you back. Yeah.

Once Beamer's in the car, he sees the trophy and he knows what it is because he's basically a detective fanboy, right? He's like, oh, that's a good hue. You want it? That means you're the best PI in the world. You have to help me. You know, without your help, I'm going to go to jail and all this stuff.

And he won't listen to Rockford. So Rockford gets so frustrated that he grabs it away from him. And he just says, it's a dumb statue. It doesn't mean anything. And he throws it out the window of their moving car so he takes this good hue that he just legitimately won tosses it out of the car just to get through to beamer uh he says like you're in some trouble but if you turn yourself in they'll make you take a lie detector test just tell the truth

yeah you'll be fine uh beamer starts freaking out again because he's no good at tests rockford says something about this test. Maybe that's where he just says, all you have to do is tell the truth. And he's like, oh, I can do that. Obviously unaware of what a lie detector test is. Yeah. He's like, I can do that. And then we cut to him with the electrodes on his fingers, Lieutenant Chapman over his shoulder, badgering him about what his name is as he's giving this lie detector test. And in my notes, I just say, he does not do well. No, he doesn't. Yeah, I mean, it's precisely what you would expect.

He fails on his name from there on out. Is your name Fred Beamer? He can't answer yes or no because it used to be something else, but he changed it because he likes the sound of this better. In one way, his name's this, but in another way, his name's that. And so he can't give the straight answer. From there, we go to a quick moment of Vern St. Cloud giving a press statement about what's happened.

Fred Beamer is not part of the association. It's very important that everyone understand that that man is not part of our group. But the police have the guy who did it. It's obvious that Beamer killed the senator. They're trusting the police to follow up on the evidence and do the right thing. And then we get a little coda from Larry St. Cloud, his nephew, who has this very technical statement. We're setting up an information center in this room of this hotel. We're setting up an information center in this room of this hotel.

The Hopalong Cassidy room in the, I don't remember, it was some Gene Autry, some sort of cowboy hotel. We'll issue further statements from the information center. We have nothing more to say at this time. So the uncle is this avuncular, loud talking, casual guy. And then the nephew is this more kind of not by the book but more like serious straightforward yeah uh operator solid head of hair yes uh he's he's played by larry manetti who will go on to co-star magnum pi with uh tom selleck so there's that so as you may imagine freddie did not pass the lie detector test. Chapman kind of hustles him past Rockford to book him, ignores Rockford to get into his office where Lancer is waiting to talk to him.

How's tricks, Chappy? Again, if you haven't listened to our previous episode, I think one of the best schticks in that episode is just how accommodating Chapman is to Lance. And they're almost romantic. Chapman loves Lance. Yeah, yeah. And you can see, again, this episode does a great job of just showing it to you. But it is breakneck 180. Like, he's exhausted.

Yeah. I could use some help on this, Lancer, as opposed to how he would treat Rockford, which would be to try to get him arrested so that he's not in the way. Yeah. Get out of my face. You have nothing to add to this investigation. Yeah. We get a little plot nugget here, which is that there isn't enough evidence to hold Beamer for murder, but they can hold him for the hot car, for stealing the car, and hope that he doesn't make bail while they figure out what's going on. Lancer, of course, agrees to help. It's been a hard one for all of us.

You know, I'll do whatever I can. And this whole back and forth I thought was really neat is in this extreme shot-reverse-shot close-up. And it reminded me of a technique that's maybe used more for like daytime soap opera or something like that um where it's enhancing how they're looking at each other yeah the rest of the episode doesn't have those kinds of shots it was just this scene and i thought that was a clever little thing that really made that interaction where rockford's not present right this is just those two characters and it made that feel like it was in a different show a little bit. And then after Lance leaves,

the camera stays on Chapman while he says, hell of a guy. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Rockford bails out Beamer. He puts up the pink slip to his firebird to get the bail money. But when Freddie comes out, Lance is there waiting for him. And we get the first real interaction between Lance White and Fred Beamer. This is another bunch of dialogue kind of establishing their characters. So the difference in reaction to Lance, right, between Rockford and... Rockford's always incredulous. Like, I can't believe that you talk this way, that you think this way. Beamer just like lets it wash over him like he does everything else

and just cherry picks the things that he wants to respond to and lets the rest just, yeah, you know, bounce off him, which is kind of an interesting counterpoint to the Lance character. There's a moment later on where he says, I just love the way you talk like that. Yeah. And Lance is like, I just love the way you talk like that. Yeah. And Lance is like, I know everybody does. That's why I do it. Yeah.

And that's kind of the crux of one of my thoughts about this episode. Yeah. We see the seeds of that start here. I have a dark theory about Lance, which we'll go into later. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so for here, Beamer still doesn't have his glasses. So he's walking into things. Yeah. And Lance Well, so for here, uh, Beamer still doesn't have his glasses. So he's walking into things and Lance is trying to like help him. He, he apologizes for taking so long because he

had to go get his gun. He has this thing where he says that he carries it, but he never loads it because he doesn't want anyone to suffer because Lance White was on the case. Lance White's the best. I'm sorry. Lancer. So then Beamer goes into a thing about like, oh, well that's what, just what you tell the cops, right? So that you can keep your peace. He waxes romantic about the danger of being a PI. Right. And, you know, how you always have to be on your guard and be ready to shoot before you get shot.

But then he runs into the bumper of a car because he still doesn't have his glasses. Lance helps him up. He wants to take him back to his place uh to have some cognac listen to some classical music and talk it over uh beamer of course would prefer a beer and a steak but uh there's a there's a power of the human mind that can be unlocked by these techniques um and maybe he will be able to recall more than what he thinks and that'll help them out with the case but with the glasses lance is like we know where you pulled off the road because there's a police marker there we'll go find them so lance is going to take beamer to go

find his glasses which he says that rockford already tried to do and couldn't find but they'll try anyway then is they're like oh where isford anyway? Which is kind of what I've been wondering during this scene. He'll turn up. He always does. And then they get in Lance's car and pull out of the parking lot as Rockford comes out of the door with two cups of coffee because he'd gotten one for Beamer. And they just start yelling after them, Lance, Beamer! Spills on himself, angrily shouts, spills on himself some more, and finally just throws the two cups of coffee in the trash in disgust. There's a couple of things about this. One, this is a callback to the champagne or whatever they were drinking at the award ceremony.

Right. People kept patting Rockford on the shoulder and he spilled it a little bit. Yeah. But also it is certainly it's not out of character for Rockford. Like you have to assume that half of Rockford's wardrobe is covered with some kind of stain. But it's also part of a thesis of this episode here about imposter syndrome. We have Rockford who is up for an award. And the thing he keeps saying when people talk to him about it is that well really the nomination's the award and uh there are different takes on that a lot of people like no the award's the award whatever nobody remembers the nominees but lance totally is like you're right the nomination is

the award which is real easy for lance because he's got seven others tucked away somewhere so part of what's going on there is that this is Rockford receiving some recognition for being a good PI. Rockford is objectively a good PI. We've watched five and a half seasons of Rockford at this point. We can say he's a good PI. But here he is, he's up for recognition. And all we can hear is the criticisms of that yeah you didn't do anything glamorous you didn't do anything dangerous just before we see rockford in this scene we have uh lance and beamer and there are two ends of this spectrum right like

beamer is a total wannabe he idolizes uh pis but he himself is not particularly good at it. And he's very clumsy. Lance, however, is an idolized PI. And things just fall into his lap. Beamer just fell into his lap right then and there. He wasn't there bailing Beamer out. Rockford was. Rockford's spilling the drinks here. Like, I don't necessarily think of Rockford as a character with imposter syndrome or anything like that.

But if you're reading it as this, he's being clumsy he thinks he's the beamer right and you have this lance who just you can't understand why everything just works out for this guy uh but if we watch carefully throughout this episode rockford is doing the work and i believe that's how it played out in the previous episode too or it's very similar like yeah they both play on this trope of this sudden coincidence where Lance telegraphs it and then it happens because that's how Lance works. Things just happen for him. This episode leans on it a little heavier and there's less real detecting to do. Yeah. But I think you're right that Rockford's the motive force. He's the one who keeps things going. That said, so Rockford, you know, we see him angrily throwing his coffee away and we have another scene of just writing and lance in lance's car where lance monologues about you ever think

about the trillions of miles the sunlight has traveled just to illuminate this makes all of our problems see seem insignificant doesn't it and i think uh beamer is not comforted. They find the spot where the police markers are. Beamer says, look, Rockford, look all up and down here. You'll never find my glasses in these weeds. And Lance immediately just walks a couple feet, reaches down, picks up his glasses. It's a good gag. Once he puts them on, Beamer goes, oh, you're Lance White.

He's just been riding with this random person this whole time without really listening. Right. Or paying attention. Yeah. So it's another good gag. And then Lance says that now let's go do what I like to call a little skull work. Oh, my God. What a great phrase for it. I am going to try to incorporate that in my daily routine.

And then touching back on the award oh yeah they're they're pulling out again and beamer tells lance that rockford threw his award away and said that it didn't mean anything and lance says i'm proud of jim for knowing that hey isn't that jim's car rockford has come out here and he's clearly digging through the side of the road yeah looking for the award that he threw away. There's a bit of business where he pretends that's not why he's there. But then Lance is like looking for your award or looking for your good hue. Like, well, I think I displayed in the trailer.

It'd be good for business. And Lance says, well, you'd think that. But I have seven of them and I just keep them in the closet. It's what you learned along the way that's important, not the award itself. And then we have another reprise of the you'll never find it in all these weeds and lance just walks walks a couple feet and pulls the award out of the grass one two one two we've recovered all of the lost items and returned to lance white's office for some skull work good old-fashioned skull work so he puts on his classical music and he starts remembering the detailed movements of everyone in the room in the minutes leading up to the uh to to the event

and rockford is completely like i i say incredulous a lot i don't know if there's a better word rockford is just like no one has this kind of recall right no one remembers these details no one remembers this amount of stuff about something that happened the night before. And Lance is like, well, I do. I have total recall. I just remember everything. So here's a question for you, Nathan, if I may pose this to you. You may. I think it's pretty clear that Lance exists as a character who just gets these things right. Rockford is incredulous, right? But does Rockford think it's a show that Lance is putting on?

Or is he incredulous that the universe works this way? I think it's the second, both because there's nothing in the text of this episode that would indicate that Lance did have some other way of knowing all that stuff. Like that's not telegraphed or shown to the audience. And also I think it's because that first reaction, we see that in an upcoming scene, but applied to Beamer, right? Where Rockford's like, he's putting on a show. He's just making this up.

And I think those exist. It's the same reaction, but they're for those two different reasons for the two different characters. I think you're right. Like, I definitely think that there's this thing about the character where in the world, it must appear almost supernatural. Exactly. He's touched by God.

Yeah. And we talked about that in the last episode where it was, where like Lance White, he has some kind of power in the world that other people don't just as a narrative conceit. But I think we see that here as well. Lance is just a little like, gets a little meaner about it as the episode goes on. But yeah, Lance goes through this whole thing, recounting all these movements of people. And he comes to the conclusion that he doesn't think that Fred had time to kill the senator based on when the two of them left the room and whatnot. This leads up to a moment where I think Beamer says like, wow, that's perfect or something like that. And Rockford goes, Lance is always perfect. And then Lance responds with, well, you clearly still have some bad

feelings from the last time we worked together. Yeah. Because, you know, after our last encounter, Lance got the girl, got the father's company and got $5 million while Rockford got bad shrimp at the wedding. But as it turns out, poor Lance, two months after they married, his wife died. She was sick. Apparently they had a couple of perfect weeks at the end because they knew she was going. But then she passed. And of course, he gave away all that money that he had inherited to the Boys Club of America because he's just that good of a guy. Even in tragedy, he has a storybook romantic tragedy. Like it's even in tragedy.

It's not tragedy. It's enough tragedy to give him depth, to create sympathy for him. Yeah. But to get back to the case, you know, if Freddie Beamer didn't kill a senator, who did? And this is when we get right into what you were just talking about. So Lance literally says, it's about time for another clue to pop up. Right. Rockford goes into, that's not how it works.

Clues don't just pop up. And then Freddie says, oh, you know what? I remember something. Pass someone on the way to the bathroom, but I don't just pop up. And then Freddy says, oh, you know what? I remember something. Pass someone on the way to the bathroom, but I don't remember who. Well, there's the clue. It popped up. And Lance has a hypnotist friend

who owes him a favor because he saved her life once a long time ago. So they should go to the hypnotist and she will get Beamer to recall who he saw on his way to the bathroom. So the three of them head out and they run into Vern outside. He has a newspaper that has a big headline about how like the PI convention hosted a murder, basically.

So he's mad about this press coverage. It makes us look like a bunch of bongo players. So Vern, the language that he uses is like first and second season Rockford file language, which I really appreciated. I felt like that was really tying it into the show a little bit because he's using all these like weird turns of phrase that I'm used to hearing from slicked back goons and gum chewing thugs. Vern and Larry think that Beamer did it and they're going to prove it. They're going to get the get the evidence so the police can put him away from murder. Vern, you know, insults Beamer, calls him names and takes him down a peg. So Beamer does a whole put him up.

Pugilist puts his fists up. Vern kind of laughs, half turns away and then just turns around and gives him a big punch across the jaw, sending him flying and then uh takes his leave rockford scolds him you never say put him up what you do is you get them to drop their guard and then you sucker punch him when you're not when they're not looking while lance says you always say put him up that's that way they know that you're that they're going to be in a fight with you that way they have a chance rockford uh he just doesn't think that hypnotism is going to work um lance doesn't understand why and it comes down to well what's the one thing that beamer is going to need to do concentrate right it's not going to work so we go to brandy the hypnotist yeah we uh we have the

the medallion swaying in front of beamer's eyes and saying you're getting very sleepy and all the very tv hypnotism things right but then in the reverse shot we see that he's clearly looking past the medallion at brandy's cleavage which is on display uh i think for this gag and for the opening montage can i tell you where my eyes were during this whole scene that art on the wall this was an extremely this was like a six days hopping pad yeah kind of decor in this uh in this apartment i was absolutely loving it but yeah there's this whole sequence where he says no no i'm going under really i'm feeling sleepy i think you you're really putting me under and she's like you need to concentrate come on like she kind of breaks character like you're getting very sleepy and like gets frustrated with him which is pretty funny she calls him out like stop staring

at my chest and stare at the medallion so good uh so he finally seems to be really concentrating his eyes are tracking it like one of those uh cat clocks with the eyes that track back and forth yeah once he is hypnotized air quotes hypnotized so this whole time lance is like smiling and nodding like yeah mm-hmm oh see there he goes while rockford is rolling his eyes and shaking his head uh once he's under he starts describing a man he's six foot four muscular yeah bald he's wearing nice clothes a green jacket blue, blue slacks, hat with a feather. I started to get cold sweats when he started his description. Six foot four, bald, huh, muscular.

Yeah, he's talking about me. Green jacket. I've never had anything break the fourth wall so thoroughly. I'll be honest with you. I literally was there when he went to the bathroom well i have yet to see your hat with a feather it's true i don't have a hat with a feather and so brandy kind of gives up if he's wearing a hat how do you know that he's bald so rockford is seems to be correct in his assumption and his feeling that that beamer's just been playing along and just making it up they're like okay this is this is enough and it says like well we know more than we did before like he saw a man

uh and this scene ends with uh or lance asking brandy so what do i owe you and she says that well she'll take dinner we'll settle for dinner but he's he's so busy he doesn't have a lot of extra time again more with time and they asked the other two to leave and they have a little again like a daytime soap style yeah maybe someday we'll be able to be together but right now i'm on a case etc etc oh another piece of insight into the world of lance white forever unattainable oh but what a treat he would be and i like like Rockford's line here where he was like, well, I'll take you to dinner. But it wasn't like a creepy line.

It was like... It's kind of puncturing. Yeah, like that's not what you really want. I know what you want is Lance. But then Beamer follows that up with his complete crush on her and assumption that she has a crush on him. Yeah, so while they finish up that conversation, Rockford and Beamer are hanging out back at the car waiting for Lance to come back.

Rockford clarifies that he put up Beamer's bail. So don't think that Lance is on the hook for this. I'm on the hook for you. Right. Beamer says again that she really put me under. I really felt it. I was really under. We cut to two gorillas in another car watching them.

One of them saying, the guy with the glasses, that's the one. So he walks back out into the street and this car screams in from off screen to run him down. Lance has come out by this point. He sees this coming. He pulls his gun out and he runs out in front of Beamer. He takes a stance, points the gun and shouts, stop in the name of the law. gun and shouts stop in the name of the law and then rockford tackles them both out of the way because the car does not stop and would have hit them both they go rolling down the side of the road and we end this scene with beamer going lance i think you better load that gun because as we

know no bullets in lance's gun right the plot thick plot thickens. Yes. From here, we go to Rockford's trailer where he is making sandwiches for lunch. White bread, ham and mayo with potato chips, right? Ridged potato chips. Yes. He's cutting them on the diagonal and taking these plates over to serve

everyone lunch. And here's another differentiating their characters moment rockford is making lunch for everyone beamer is watching what seems to be looney tunes on the tv and getting so excited the cat just ran underneath the that rock is going to fall on him or like whatever is going he's narrating the cartoon lance is reading a book standing up and casually reading a big thick book, but would like Rockford to turn on the news or like the Boston Pops or something. Rockford wants to turn on the ball game so they can watch that while they eat.

While, of course, Beamer wants to finish watching the cartoon. The three kinds of men. Yes. So other than the business with the tv this is the next point where lance then announces here's what's going to happen right rockford says we might as well watch the game we don't have any leads and lance says something like another one's about to turn up that's how it works right um and rockford says that's not how it works leads don't just turn up out of thin thin air and then beamer puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a photograph.

He says, oh, I forgot about this. This was in that guy's pocket. And it's a picture of someone that none of them recognize. Then Rockford very specifically says, okay, let me make sure I'm clear about this. Ten seconds ago, there were no leads. Then you said there would be a lead. And then he pulls a picture out of his pocket that he's been forgetting about for 18 hours. And now we have a lead.

And Lance is like, yeah, that's how it works. So we're getting more and more into the spiral of like how ridiculous Lance's situation is. I think even more so the last episode the last episode with lance everything was like a coincidence and everything turned out for him but it wasn't as over the top as what's happening right now i feel like this one gets a little more hammy yeah kind of starting from when he said like a clue is going to come up right uh a couple scenes ago accelerating through to here and and onwards it's a little cheesier and it's a little more on the nose about Lance gets everything that he wants. All he has to do

is say something and it'll appear. That plausible deniability of the coincidences kind of is gone. Now the joke is, what is Lance going to announce and then see what happens? Right, exactly. Which is still fun, but I think it does make this one less, a little less compelling for me overall. Yeah. I was thinking about that too. I mean, let's get into it right now. Yeah. The episode's funny and it's fun to talk about, but as far as Rockford Files episodes go, I wouldn't even characterize it as a good example of the Rockford Files. Like, it feels to me a little bit like what a Mad Magazine parody of the Rockford Files would be. Maybe not like that far, but like in that zone,

everyone is true to their character, but all we're getting is situations that accentuate the funny bits about those characters, right? Yeah. Let's see these funny characters bounce off each other. Yeah. And it's not really in service to a mystery or in service to a more interesting plot. Not to spoil the ending, but one of the IMDb reviews, most of them are positive. I think it's a fun enough episode. Yeah. It's got a pretty high rating on IMDb. Yeah. It has a high rating. I think if you know the characters, it's fun to watch them, right? But there's one that's like the mystery

revolves around the murder of someone that no one cares about for reasons that we never understand. And I don't think that's wrong. Right. It's just that that's not what the episode's about. The episode's about these three guys. There literally could be no mystery. Yeah, exactly. I think that I would recommend this show, this episode, only to someone who has watched five and a half seasons of Rockford. Because it's a fun celebration of some of the jokes in the Rockford Files. An interesting thing about a body of work of this size is that you can allow for episodes like this that shouldn't even be kind of graded on the same scale as the other episodes because they're more like a breather. They're like a, you know, it's the

end of a long work week. Finally, the Rockford Files are on and this episode came up. Yeah, it'd probably be really fun, right? You're like, oh, I remember Tom, you know, I remember Lance White. Yeah, I think it's self-referential in a way that is more for, quote unquote, for the fans in a way. I think celebration is a good word think it's self-referential in a way that is more for, quote unquote, for the fans in a way. I think celebration is a good word because it's not bad. Like, it's not a bad episode. Right. The writing is good.

The jokes are good. But it's not about the story. Right. It's about the characters in a way that is doubling down on their most outsized qualities in a way. Yeah, yeah. There's not really an emotional center of this episode. Exactly. And like that review said, there's no mystery.

Like even this clue, this lead is a ridiculous lead. We'll go ahead and run through the rest of it and maybe circle back to some of these ideas. But yeah, so Lance recognizes that the person must be a bus driver because he's wearing a bus driver uniform, which he knows because when he doesn't need to be somewhere, he takes the bus because it's more environmentally friendly. I love Lance. Rockford takes a bite of his sandwich and turns the TV to the news where we see that Vern is on TV again, accusing Beamer of this murder again. Vern is on TV again, accusing Beamer of this murder again. This, I believe, this is one of the two moments that I think were the lazy moments during this episode. And I can't tell if this is an intentional joke based on the timing bit that we just got from Lance, right?

Like, Lance is like, it's about time for a clue. And he's like, oh, I've got a clue or a lead. Here's the lead. Yeah. Suddenly the news is precisely about the information that you need. Yeah. There's an argument to be made here that this is intentional and self-referential. But I would absolutely believe that they were just like, we just need to get this in there. So this is how we're going to do it.

Yeah. I mean, it is paying off a little bit the establishment of the information center. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like that gag with the funny name of the room, whatever it is paying off a little bit the establishment of the information center. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like that gag with the funny name of the room, whatever it is. The Hopalong Cassidy room. But yeah, I mean, I think this is a convenient moment to get things moving again. Yeah, Vern is accusing Beamer of the murder again. And so Rockford's like, he needs to stop doing that. So he calls to talk to Vern and finds out that Vern's actually at the hospital.

So this must have been recorded previously. Vern's actually at the hospital. So this must have been recorded previously. Yeah. Vern's actually at the hospital because his nephew Larry got beat up. And so they're like, all right, well, let's go to the hospital, talk to Vern to get the heat off of you, and then we'll follow up on this lead. Sure. Through this sequence, at some point, Lance says, every cloud has a silver lining. And this is when we get Beamer having what you were saying earlier

this is where he has the line oh yeah i just love when you talk like that it's great and he's smiling and kind of like and then lance says i know that's why i do it yeah he is self-aware he specifically says uh i know everybody does that's why i do it and maybe this is just me i read a little bit of tiredness in that. A little bit. Yeah. It's hard being me. I'm just so relentlessly great all the time. Right. I have to hold the world up with my optimism. I see that. And also I see a little bit of darkness in the Lance character. In the previous

episode in White on White and nearly perfect i think we talked about they walk that line really well of him being infuriating but not someone that you want to see taken down right yeah he's still like a person you want to see succeed even though he's bumping heads with rockford who's like our our friend yeah yeah our guy. Yeah, our guy. In this one, I don't really care if Lance succeeds. He's kind of a jerk. And he, on some level, is self-aware of how he acts, which I think is that key distinction. In his first appearance, he seemed more genuine, I guess, as a character. Naively genuine in a way. Right. I would co-sign that. There's not too much more, you know,

that we see of that element of him. Uh, it was kind of late in the episode at this point, but I think that's where I was kind of like, ah, Lance, they do go to the hospital. Vern

is eating. I noted he's, you know, eating off a tray of that good hospital food. While, uh, Larry's laying in bed and he has all these bandages on his head. Vern says that he got roughed up on a tray of that good hospital food while Larry's laying in bed. He has all these bandages on his head.

Vern says that he got roughed up on a surveillance case that they were running. And Larry just wants them to leave. He's like, hey, get them out of here. Just just get them out of here. Clearly acting weird. Rockford threatens Vern with assault and battery charges if they don't lay off giving Beamer the what for on TV. Because every time they do that it turns up the heat and makes it harder for them to find out what actually happened you know lance and i are

both witnesses to you punching him so you know we'll do it if you don't lay off which seems fair yeah we cut to the the elevator door opening as we're leaving the hospital but beamer suddenly remembers who he saw leaving the bathroom that that person that, uh, who is not wearing a feathered hat. It was Larry. Larry St. Cloud. That's the man that he passed on his way to the bathroom. I would argue that you might be able to describe his hairstyle as feathered. So the three of them get back in the elevator, go back up to the room.

But when they get there, Vern's on the ground with the serving tray and all the food scattered around him. The bed's empty. It says that Larry hit him and took off. Doesn't know where he went. Again, the plot thickens. And at this point, I was kind of equally like, OK, I don't see how these connect, but they'll bring them together. And also kind of like, I don't really care. Yeah, no, that's exactly it. There's something about how Larry St. Cloud is first presented that comes across as like, I bet you he did it. Like before you even know a crime happened. I think if we watched it back, there's some shot in the opening part where we see Larry go somewhere.

Yeah. I think that's telegraphing this, that he's part of whatever this is. He is clearly presented as like, this is a suspicious guy. But I like Vern. I want to see more of him this is. He is clearly presented as like, this is a suspicious guy, but I like Vern. I want to see more of him. Yeah. And also just in terms of screen time, we've seen more of him. There's a thing I don't get here. The fact that he had the beat out of him and he's in the hospital has nothing to do with the plot. Oh, it does. It's in the monologue at the end. Oh, okay. All right. I think I know why I missed it then. We go to a bus depot where

apparently they've been showing this picture around. The dispatcher recognized the picture and they've learned what the man's name is and what bus he drives. Yeah. So they're going to go track him down on his bus route. Lance thinks that the bus driver had something had something on the senator. Maybe he was blackmailing him. Maybe the senator was having an affair with his wife. And Rockford says, you know, there's no evidence for any of this. Why do you think any of that is true? Lance says, it's a hunch. This is how it works.

We have hunches. They turn out to be right. And we solve the case. Perfect. That's all you need. I have a note that this is delivered in a way where he's kind of being like, come on, Jim. What are you, an idiot? Yeah, it's great. And then we cut to this bus at the end of the line. Delivered in a way where he's kind of being like, come on, Jim. What are you, an idiot? Yeah.

It's great. And then we cut to this bus at the end of the line. Everyone gets off. And then we see Larry in a hat, sunglasses and a gun and with a bandage on his chin confronting this driver. It's one thing when you barf to me about the senator and your wife. It's another when you barf to everybody about our arrangement. So, of course course Lance is right. This is the moment where I was expecting some kind of subversion where Lance said a thing, but it was wrong. He misinterpreted the situation. And then when that didn't happen,

I was kind of like, okay. Like that first episode that he's in, there's times where he says stuff and while it may be technically correct, it's not the right thing that's actually happening. Right. And Rockford's the one who figures out the actual thing. Yeah. And we don't really have that in this episode. In this episode, it's Rockford doing a lot of the dirty work and then things just falling into Lance's lap.

And both of those effects is what drives it forward. But yeah, it is definitely different. So yeah, apparently that is what was happening. And so the driver's like, look, you never said you would kill him. And Larry, apparently it happened. It was an accident. And now the bus driver's a loose end. So he's going to have him drive, covers him with a gun and tells him to drive.

And our three Ne'er-do-well heroes arrive at Lance's car in time to see the bus pull away. So now we get our dramatic action sequence where Lance wants to pull the bus over and board it. So Lance's car is an open top convertible, right? It's this white car with this red leather interior. So we're on the road. They're chasing this municipal bus. Rockford wonders, how are we going to board a bus? And of course, an ambulance and a police car with sirens on pass on the opposite side of the road just then.

Well, there's our moment because the bus pulls over because that's the law. Like, yeah, it would get pulled over if it didn't. Yeah. The driver says, you know, to keep us all in that loop to avoid suspicion, he has to pull over. So Lance pulls up him rockford gets out runs up and then the bus takes off before he can get to the front door so he jumps on the side door and is perched clinging to the bus as it pulls back into the street and we get our preview montage shot of him shouting back at the car now what yes now what lance lance tries to get them to stop by aggressively honking, which does not really seem to work. The bus pulls off onto a side street.

Another car pulls out in front of it and they slam on the brakes, which sends Larry flying and brings everyone to a stop. The driver opens the doors because he knows people are following them. Lancer and Beamer get up into the into the bus to confront Larry. Larry grabs the gun comes up lance yells put him up larry is stunned and kind of raises his hands he has an open shot for lance to punch him directly in the face perfect nearly perfect he he said put him up uh so well done jim uh sits this whole thing out as he's just collapsed onto the ground next to the bus and as they all come out beamer ends the scene by saying, Lance is just wonderful, isn't he? He is. So we end our

episode back at the convention hall. Apparently there's another night of this ceremony or something. Vern is up at the podium to apologize to everyone on behalf of Larry. What happened was Larry didn't like this legislation that the senator was going to introduce. He thought it would impact their business. So he started surveillance on the senator to dig up some kind of blackmail material, which he did. He did discover that the senator was having an affair with his bus driver's wife. So when he confronted the senator with the evidence, the senator wouldn't deal. He wasn't willing to be blackmailed. Larry lost control, ended up killing the senator by accident. And then when Beamer was

getting the attention, he hired the two guys to take out Beamer. But then there was a dispute about payment. And that's why Larry got beaten up. Right. Because the two guys he hired, he wouldn't pay them or whatever. That's right. Yeah. As Vern says, we know the rest. Except why that senator has a picture of a bus driver whose wife he's sleeping with. But that's fine. That's fine. Whatever. Maybe like this is the man whose wife is sleeping with. Yeah. I also have the photos of you and her. Maybe. Could be. Could be. But yes, we know the rest. But there are two final pieces of business. One is that Freddie Beamer is admitted to the association. Of course he is.

Just because he hung around long enough. I mean, it's kind of an apology. Yeah, I beat you up. Yeah, we accused you of murder. Okay, fine. You can join the United Association of Licensed Investigators. The other piece of business is that he ordered a recount of the Goodhue votes. And as he suspected, there was an error in the count.

Lance White actually won. So he got his, I suppose, his eighth Goodhue, if we're keeping track. And we end our episode with Rockford shaking his head and saying, the nomination is the award, as I always say. And then freeze frame on the three of them smiling. is the award as I always say, and then freeze frame on the three of them smiling. So yeah,

again, that monologue at the end was a little, well, we had a story here. Here's the plot. You weren't watching it for it anyway. So here it is. Yeah.

I think we actually kind of covered how we felt about the episode partway through. Yeah. I don't have too much more to add. I guess it's hard to know how i would feel about this without having seen white on white nearly perfect yeah i would definitely recommend watching that one before this or if you're only going to watch one watch that one yeah um also just watch freddie beamer's last case uh if you're only going to watch one beamer one um though he's his character is more consistent from what i remember of yeah that i think it stands out

to me so much because the lance white character is such a needle to thread if you will yeah to do without being just a parody uh and in this one he's more of a parody than he is in the in the first episode the first episode they were doing something and and uh i mean i like your needle and thread thing they just threaded that needle very very tightly because it's a hard thing to do. You want to hate them, but you can't. That's what they need to do with you is to put you in that uncomfortable spot. So they do that in white and white and nearly perfect. But this one, maybe it's the addition of Beamer that does it.

This one is just like a little more slab sticky. And so the character slips over into the fantastical realm yeah the the sort of weight of all three of them pull them in that direction so rockford isn't as grounding as he normally is in episodes like this right normally rockford is the the tether yeah we don't really get to see him do the good rockford things yeah there's no con. Yeah, like he's kind of in the backseat, right? There's a big guest star. And then there's another important secondary character. And I think as an actor, it's laudable that James Garner was like, this episode isn't really about Jim, right? So, you know, he's not fighting for screen time with

them or anything, which which he never does. And that's one of the things that people really liked working with him for that reason. He was always very giving and respectful of having other stars be featured in his show. Cause like it was his show. What does, what does he care if someone else gets a good episode out of it, I suppose.

But yeah, we don't really get to see him figure anything out or be smarter than someone else or put clues together before someone else can put them together or outsmart someone. Yeah, exactly. But definitely interesting to talk about. I think watching this one casually is probably more fun than doing a deep dive on it. If it's just kind of on, there's a lot of good gags and it's fun to watch the three of them just kind of bounce off each other. But yeah, I think I actually kind of like it less after having talked about it than I did after having just watched it.

That's interesting. I think I went the other route. Maybe I infected you and you infected me. You think you like it more now than after you watched it? So I think part of it is when I was watching it, we have an assignment, you and I, and that is to do a podcast episode about it. And I was trying to find lessons to learn in it.

And I have a few lessons to learn in it. But I think sometimes when I'm presented with that before I know that there's something to learn, I start to get frustrated with it. And I'm like, ah, teach me something. But after it was all done and I put it in the context of the whole show, I mean, I can think of other shows that had episodes that just

kind of did a wacky thing for just an episode just to try it out or whatever and this one didn't go as wacky as most of them it was all a dream you know so i think that this is it's not that far out there but it is out there it's fine it's not bad there aren't like huge flaws with it it's more of for what i really enjoy about the rockford files and all the things that they get right in the best episodes this one seemed a little a little lazy just in the sense of like this is just for funs and that's fine but uh i think the lack of a real emotional core of the episode is probably what keeps me from like really recommending it unless you know you're in the mood for just a fun kind of slapsticky

tom selleck going goings on and beamer i think that's another thing that that was a little elseworldly about this chappy as i like to call him is the only other reoccurring cast everyone else here is a guest star from a previous one but we don't get rocky we don't get angel we don't get beth because it's the sixth season and we don't get beth uh we don't get dennis so that's another part that that ungrounds it a little bit. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Well, I'm glad to hear that you did draw some lessons in the end. So perhaps we should go ahead and take our break and then you can tell me all about them in our second half. Excellent. We hope you enjoyed that discussion of another wonderful episode of the Rockford Files. Here are a couple of ways to support us that will keep us bringing this podcast

to you, our fellow Rockford Files fans. First, you can rate and review us on iTunes or whatever else you use for podcasts. Second, you can support us directly for as little as a dollar an episode at patreon.com slash 200 a day. And of course, both of us have other projects. Epi, what do you have going on right now? As always, I'm working on the next issue of Worlds Without Master. You can go to www.worldswithoutmaster.com or just patreon.com slash Epidaya. Or you can go to digathousandholes.com

where I talk about my other projects, including non-sword and sorcery games and fiction. How about you, Nathan? What are you working on for the year of 2018? I am doing a monthly zine project called Zine 2018. Each monthly issue is a collection of essays, art, photography and a game in each one organized around a central theme based on the month. and a game in each one organized around a central theme based on the month. So you can see more about that at ndpdesign.com slash zine2018. And it is available through my Patreon at patreon.com slash ndpeoleta.

In addition, you can check out all of my games at ndpdesign.com, including the Worldwide Wrestling Roleplaying Game and the forthcoming Trouble for Hire, which may be interesting to some of our listeners. So that's it for now. Thank you again for listening. We very much appreciate your support. And now back to the show. Welcome back to 200 A Day. We just watched Nice Guys Finish Dead, a little bit more of a comedic episode and during this second part of the uh podcast we like to talk about some of the lessons that we may have learned uh from that episode and how we can apply it to the fiction that we create in our lives whether that is putting it down on paper putting it up on the old cathode ray tube or if it's uh playing it in a role-playing game

at a table which is something that that Nathan and I want to do. So before we get into that, I have a special treat because we're on the internet. And if I know one thing about the internet, it's that the internet loves an unboxing. Something came in the mail today. It's a nice white bubble pack package addressed to one Epidio Ravishaw. It is a gift to me from you, dear listeners, from our patrons. One of the many things that you support when you sign on to our Patreon is allowing us to replace and occasionally upgrade equipment. Poor Epi has been laboring under some failing earbuds

for a while. Specifically, they have exposed wire that is lying along my ear. We decided to splurge and pick him up some new earphones so that we can record in comfort and safety. But seriously, though the the fact that we're able to spend a little money on these things and keep the show going in that way is a big deal to us and so we thank you patrons for supporting us and if you want to check that out patreon.com slash 200 a day is the place to do it ah son of a of a... Do you need to get some scissors? Oh, I see what's happening. There we go.

Fortunately, I have a pair of tweezers that will take care of this. Okay, here we go. These look nice. Wait, how's that... Okay, there we go. Okay, let's find out what it means to listen to Nathan's dulcet tones without fear of electrocuting my earlobe. Wonderful.

Oh, yeah. It's got nice bouncy highs and nice mellow lows. I don't know what audio quality is, but that is certainly better than my other pair of headphones. So we win. We win. Thank you, patrons. Thank you very much, patrons. So let's talk about this. What lessons we are going to learn here? So for me, it's kind of interesting because it's really, like I said, in our first half, it's hard for me to envision this episode, not in context of the first Lance White episode. A lot of what we talked about with his character and how he works as a narrative device, we covered in that

episode. But here, I think maybe an interesting wrinkle is that since there's three characters, they create more of a spectrum of characterization. And I would say you could probably arrange them in different ways depending on what you really want to look at. But generally, I think the intention is that you have Beamer over on one side as the like, wannabe loves the idea of being a PI, but it's not actually a PI doesn't actually do anything just gets into trouble. Right? And then you have Rockford, who is a PI knows what he's doing is successful at it, but doesn't necessarily get accolades. Even when he gets an accolade, it's taken away from him. He doesn't have the good things in life that one would associate with being good at your job. And then Lance is on the other end. He's a

PI. He is good at it as far as we can see, but more because he has this superpower of getting the things that he needs when he needs them and not necessarily because he actually is a great detective. Yeah. So there's like a gradient of characterization there. Lance is the PI that Beamer thinks he'll be? That Beamer thinks being a PI is? Yeah. Yeah. And so in some ways, It is? Yeah, yeah. And so in some ways, Rockford is judged on how he falls short of that, which is a nice irony because I think the audience judges Rockford by how he differs from that, right?

Sure, sure. He stands out to us by not being this sort of characterization of the PI. sort of characterization of the pi but also i think characters like lance exist only after a genre is established they they become a commentary on the perception of the genre right yeah and i think beamer is also a commentary on the perception of the genre in respects all three characters are right like rockford is as well in his own way yeah uh but i think that like specifically beamers uh here's what the wide-eyed naive person this is how they would look at the genre and sure uh lance is how they would expect the good hero of the genre to be yeah i think it's an interesting like you said spectrum yeah i'm not sure what to do with that

idea but i think i don know, there's something there, I guess. Well, so there's a couple of things, right? Like you can accentuate a certain character by establishing characters on either side. Right. Right. And that's kind of what's happened with Rockford here. And in the sense of this being a guest star driven episode, that also means that Rockford's

kind of pushed to the back as a protagonist. But you could use that to push him forward and show up the flaws that are in both of those idealized archetypes. Right. I think one very functional thing you could take pre-existing characters and put them together and then find the axis of want upon which they kind of sit for the sake of a single episode right like or a chapter or an examination or one session of a role-playing game or whatever but to take it and say okay we really want to look at in this case how these three characters relate to the perception of a fictional pi, like what the world thinks a fictional PI should look like. So how can we take these characters and make them best accentuate that role? In this episode, that's an obvious thing to do because that's what they've

done with Beamer before. That's what they did with Lance White before. But that kind of axis pops out once you see all three of them. Yeah. But that kind of axis pops out once you see all three of them. Yeah, yeah. I think. Again, kind of like I said, I think each of the other two episodes are stronger episodes because they're more focused on how Rockford and that kind of person, how they interact and what that means. But then by putting all three of them together, then you see kind of the wider range a little bit of those ideas exploring the PI archetype.

And then you also get the opportunity to watch the extremes bounce off each other. I think that's where a lot of the joy of this episode is, is actually watching Lance and Beamer interact. Yeah. They're from two completely different worlds and they intersect through Rockford. I think that kind of thing is more effective if you have that linchpin character. Right. I don't really want to watch an episode of The Lancer Files where he has to deal with Beamer. Right. I don't think that would be as fun as having that reason for them to be together as Rockford, who already has his pre-existing relationships with each of them. And then

they also show him up in certain ways. And it'd be kind of a fun exercise. And I'm sure there's episodes like this that we'll come across or we'll be able to interpret this way. But like to take three other characters, like imagine Rockford on a spectrum between Angel and Dennis, right? In some ways, whenever all three of them are together in an episode, it's just going to happen because they are the characters that they are. But if you can find what it is about that that you want to accentuate, a question about whether we should do something by the book or not, you know, you have Dennis on one side and Angel on the other and Rockford somewhere in the middle, constantly trying to get Angel to do the legal thing and always having to twist Dennis's arm to get him to

bend the rules a little bit to get something done. Or you can put Angel and Rocky in an episode with Rockford in the middle, and it's all about outward facing empathy, right? Like it's all about on one side, Rocky just naively assumes the best in everyone. And on the other side, Angel always assumes the worst in everyone. And Jim sits somewhere in the middle. And it's actually one of the, I guess, features of the character of Jim in the Rockford files is that he is oftentimes in the middle of these sorts of extremes. Although they're not always played to this comedic bent. I mean, I think that's a testament to the Rockford character, how he works in so many

different contexts like that. Should we talk a little RPG shop here? This might be fun in a role-playing game context to sit down as players and just find an axis through which your characters can be on and attempt to play that out in a particular session or what have you. I think there's a specific tool for taking characters and giving them attributes that cross in some ways and not others so that they end up in a spectrum kind of like this. And I'm thinking here of a very basic, I think's usually called a four by four so it's a grid we have two things along the top and two things along the side so you have four squares right and

those squares are where those two things intersect so in this episode maybe you have good pi and bad pi along the top and then along the side uh maybe you have romantic and pragmatic right so our characters here we have beamer is a romantic bad pi right lance is a romantic good pi uh rockford is the pragmatic good pi and then maybe um saint cloud saint cloud then is kind of in that pragmatic bad pi category mostly because he's not even interested in looking for the truth he just assumes that beamer did it yeah but he is also clearly very pragmatic it's about not shaming the association and it's about maintaining his authority and his reputation so there's a grid there's your four characters right each of them has a connection

along a different axis with each other character. But then you end up with kind of opposites, right? The two corners that oppose each other. They don't necessarily have to have strong interactions or anything like that. I like that. I mean, I like that structure there because it does. It's more dimensional than just two dimensional, right? It's not just a straight line there. So I guess it is two dimensional instead of just one dimensional. It's not just a straight line there. So I guess it is two-dimensional instead of just one-dimensional. That's what I was trying to get.

Yes. Yeah, and I think that's an exercise that can be used proscriptively or descriptively, right? Yeah. We had characters we wanted to talk about and I kind of pulled those attributes out and then saw where they fell. You can make a grid,

take the ideas you want to talk about and then come up with characters that fulfill each of those spots to create, you know, a set of characters that has that kind of interplay maybe. And you can take characters that already exist and throw them into those spots for the sake of a single story or just as a thought exercise to figure out something more about those characters, right? Because it's unlikely that's what they did to do this episode, but it's certainly something we were able to do just now, right? Like it's a way to think about fiction that already exists and kind of clarify some understanding about it.

Yeah, no, I like it. There's a technique to steal. The one thing I wanted to bring up on this is just this concept of, I wish I had a good word for it, but an out of character episode. This isn't exactly that. We've talked several times before about how hard it is to actually nail down what a Rockford Files episode is, right? And part of that is because it does subvert itself from time to time and you get episodes that are harder hitting than you expected, or you get episodes that just happen to be wacky. It's kind of refreshing from time to time to do that. If you have a long standing thing, whether it's an episodic television show or a series of short stories or just a chapter in a long series of novels.

Cause nobody writes a single novel anymore or in a role playing game. If you've played a long, a continuing campaign, it is fun to take, take a moment and do something out of genre or, or just a little, a little weirder or a little more horrific if it normally isn't or a little like a lot of TV shows do this for their holiday

specials of some sort like they're usually a little more magical like they'll do a halloween one where everybody just goes over the top with scaring each other and it looks like a character has actually died but they haven't because it's halloween uh or a christmas episode where it ends with was there really a miracle yeah that kind of thing or like a musical episode where it ends with, was there really a miracle? Yeah, that kind of thing. Or like a musical episode. Right, yeah. This episode felt like that to me. Part of what made it feel like that is that, and we've gone over this throughout, but it's how Lance, it's no longer just coincidence.

He's literally breaking reality, right? Yeah, he's just summoning clues. Right, yeah. reality right like yeah he's just summoning clues right yeah here's a game reference for this the game gumshoe where you which is an investigatory game where the directive is basically do you have the thing that can find the clue then you find the clue right um if they're playing gumshoe lance has all of the skills he has a doctorate in it he's just like well i'm sitting around i don't know what to do next bring me a clue and then one falls out of the air, which is not really how gumshoe works. But in the frame of that game, there's stuff that you're doing and you find things. This is kind of

a, almost a parodic version of that. I need to go to the next place in the story, bring me the justification. And then it arrives, which is kind of funny in its own way. So there's an expectation thing that's happening, right? When you do these, these sorts of, I'm just going to keep calling them episodes just because we're talking about a television show, but the writers will often, or the creators will often clue you into it early on so that you don't have the wrong expectations, right? Because I think that's kind of a vital part of it. Like early on in this one, we start off with Beamer, the whole business with him and the valet where it's just like, okay, this is going to be a comedy

episode. We've got some laughs going here. And then we cut to Rockford and it's just laughs again. got some laughs going here and then we cut to Rockford and it's just laughs again. And then, oh, of course, Lance White. And at this point, if you know Rockford files, you know that this is going to be about how Rockford doesn't live up to the Lance paradigm. But even if you don't know, you've kind of just been put into this spot where like that feeling and attitude hasn't, won't change throughout the whole episode. It's just letting you know, this is how this is going to be. That's a good point. The like framing and telegraphing. Yeah. Let's take this on its own terms and not have these expectations. Maybe one reason that I came off a little cool on this episode is because there wasn't enough

of that for me. I think you might be right. Yeah. Like I was kind of expecting it to get more serious at some point for whatever reason. And it didn't. I mean, we mentioned the IMDB review that was like a person we don't care about was killed for a reason we don't. Yeah. I think that may have been sort of the mistake here because a senator was murdered. Yeah. been sort of the mistake here because a senator was murdered yeah if you look at just the story that's taking place for uh the saint clouds that's a different story that's a that's a dramatic

story full of skullduggery and betrayal right exactly the son beat the out of the dad so he can escape the hospital because he's got to kill this. His nephew, technically. Bus driver. There's definitely something there that doesn't match the tone of the rest of the story. And I think that that might be one of the areas where they didn't quite commit to their premise. It's an interesting maybe compare and contrast with the episode we did with Jess Banks, the So Help Me God. Right.

Which kind of has a similar thing where the crime and the mystery is very secondary to the actual point of the episode. You know, Rockford is called to testify in this case. He doesn't know why. And it's because this mob guy ran off with this pension fund money and then faked his own kidnapping to get the heat off of him. And that's the crime. That's the mystery. Who did that and why? But we wrap that all up at the very end in a similar way to we wrap this all up at the very end. But in that one, the bulk of the episode, the issue that it's about is compelling and dramatic. And you're watching it to see how that plays out. So the justification doesn't

need as much weight, I guess. I'm sorry. I don't mean to just be complaining again, but I think that that idea is not necessarily, that's value neutral, whether that mystery is well resolved or not. It kind of depends on the rest of the episode. Okay. So let's say the Senator didn't die, but Beamer thought the senator died. Lance and Rockford chase him and they want to clear his name, but none of them figure out that the senator hadn't died. He just passed out or whatever. Yeah, like that newscast could be like, we're looking for Freddie Beamer for questioning.

Right. And it could be vague about why and that sends him off again because he's like, oh, they want me. Some of those set pieces could still be used. Right. And it could be vague about why. And that sends him off again because he's like, oh, they want me. Some of those set pieces could still be used. Yeah. I'm not saying the resulting episode would have been better, but it certainly would have been telegraphing more of this ridiculousness. Knock it off kilter just a little bit more.

And then. Yeah. One thing about it is that there's not really tension. There's kind of a question that you're waiting to see what the answer is but it is very much that character interaction episode right yeah there's not like a compelling sense of tension uh that's drawing you in one thing about the framing an example of this done well i think is in there's a there's an anime that i like quite a lot called uh samurai shampoo um it's by the guy who did uh cowboy bebop it's quite good um so it's kind of a edo period

japan with these group of kind of wandering ne'er-do-wells they're on kind of a vague quest over the arc of the entire series but each individual episode is very specific a thing that is happening where they are there are a couple episodes that are very much departures from the overarching meta plot and one of them it starts off with a narrator doing a voiceover. A, that's not what happens in a normal episode. Right. And B, it's not one of the three main characters. It's a new person that you've never seen before.

And so the one that I'm thinking of here is there's an episode where they need to cross from one like prefecture to another and they need travel papers and they don't have them. But it's all narrated by this guy who's like who was a young gate guard at the time and he's narrating it all as a flashback as a story that he's writing in his old age it gets pretty wacky they set a field of hallucinogenic material on fire by accident and so the entire area is blanketed with pot smoke, essentially. And everyone decides to just have a big party. As you do. And there's like frogs dancing and like animals start dancing and stuff. And people are taking masks off and taking their clothes off. And it just gets weird. And it ends with like, and that was one of the most memorable days at

that gate or something like that. And then the next episode just picks up with them in the next prefecture at the next place that they're going and it is never spoken of again it's part of the overall story it gets them from a to b but the voiceover and that character that never come up before and we never see since really telegraphs this as a like here's a weird one so that's maybe a way to do it go even further push harder with like here's a different thing we're doing i for a while was running a usagi yojimbo game speaking of samurai but uh one of the things i was doing with the game was every other session i tried to make it much shorter than the normal size to fit what goes on in usagi yojimbo comics which is oftentimes he'll have these long story arcs and then he'll punctuate

that with tiny little tales in between. And quite often those tales will be of a supernatural nature or just a cutesy thing. Like there's one where you just watch like a tiny little roadside shrine and every frame is just that dead center as people walk past it and leave things behind. And eventually all of that accumulates into a little tale told just before Usagi walks into the foreground. But I tried to do that with the role playing game and it was a lot of fun. I would just say, we'll get back to the Ronin's running around, cutting each other down with swords in a moment. But right now we're going to play out a little scene scene and my only rule for this scene is that nobody is allowed to talk in character all you can do is to describe how your character is acting or speaking

but you can't say the actual words that your character is saying and then we just played out this scene where this kid was trying to get his kite back you know we played it out in a matter of 15 minutes it was like fun and a little adorable and it just made a nice almost palette cleanser yeah the so a couple things i like about that uh other than the kite obviously uh adding some kind of structural change uh like you can't talk as your character i think that's you know a very strong like this is going to be different way to do that and yeah and just using it as like a pacing thing where I think we talk about the pacing of an individual story within an episode.

But if you're doing continuous stories, you can pace the stories, the pace at which you go through units of story. So recently I got to see the modern day classic film Rampage. The Dwayne, the Rock Johnson video game movie? Yes. I saw a trailer for it and I was like, I'm going to watch that. I will watch a giant monkey beat the shit out of anything. So I watched it and it delivered. I recommend that film. It was fun. It had enough neat things that kind of referenced the game. But one thing they did in that movie, there's a moment where they need to describe the Rocks

character to his co-star, to Naomi Harris, and Naomi Harris's character to the Rocks character. They just needed to barf up a bunch of exposition. And there was a few times in this episode that we just saw where that comes up. The person that delivers it is St. Cloud, right? He either is on camera doing it through a TV broadcast or he's at the podium just before he's about to take a trophy away from Rockford. So what they did in Rampage is they had Jeffrey Dean Morgan dean morgan do it and if you're not familiar with him he's negan from the walking dead he is a person who can chew up the scenery like he just you could just watch him talk forever there's just a certain brand of performer that can do that like james garner can do that right when i think about that i often think about vincent price you could just

sit him down and have him recite the phone book and you're good. In this case, so St. Cloud, that's Simon Oakland. Yeah. Who has been on a million things also and definitely has that quality. Where it's like, just let him talk. Just delivering exposition like that. Like the younger St. Cloud says, barfing it out.

It's not a good thing. You don't want to do that. You don't want to write that into a script. But sometimes you've painted yourself into a corner and it needs to happen. Make sure you got casting like that because in the case of Rampage here, what was happening was that there was a bunch of status play going on as well, which is nice. That's the thing. You have something else going on in the dialogue, so it doesn't just feel like you're downloading the Wikipedia page for each character. At the end of this one, it just doesn't just feel like you're downloading the wikipedia page for each character

like at the end of this one like it just doesn't quite come together in this episode he needed just one other thing like either to lament what happened to his son or like it's not that i needed him to do it it's just one more thing would have made that a little more seamless yeah well i think that is a good place to wrap this up. Speaking of giving a bunch of exposition to finish a story. And even though Rockford did not earn anything in this episode, at least we have learned our $200 for the day. So thanks again for listening to us talk about this episode of the Rockford Files, even though perhaps not joining the Valhalla of favorite episodes.

Still a fun watch and a lot of fun stuff going on in it. Tom Selleck, what's not to like? But we will, of course, be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.