Two Hundred A Day - Episode 39: Dirty Money, Black Light

Episode Date: September 30, 2018

Nathan and Eppy discuss S3E22 Dirty Money, Black Light. Rocky finally gets a break and wins a vacation in Hawaii - but once he's gone, starts receiving thousands of dollars in cash in the mail. Jim, worried that he's been tricked into a scam, has to hustle to figure out what's going on and why in this episode full to the brim with crooks, loan sharks, feds, Angel, Dennis AND Beth! One of the Stuart Margolin-directed episodes, there's so much packed into this episode that some of the threads are hard to follow, but many of the specific bits are really well done. In our second half, we talk about the elements that contribute to the "overstuffed" feeling of this episode, including techniques for juggling a bunch of moving parts in a piece of fiction and our thoughts on ways to figure out when you have too much going on. 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 Jim Crocker - keep an eye out for Jim selling our games east of the Mississippi! 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, 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.

This is Toby. I forgot what I was calling for. Your recording is so boring. Spike it with some humor, some personality, something. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Palletta. And I'm Epidiah Ravishaw. We are coming to you, unfortunately, not from a beach resort in Hawaii for this episode. But that is certainly part of what we'll be talking about. Epidaia, which episode are we diving into this time? We are doing the, I believe it's the last episode in season three, episode 22, called Dirty Money Blacklight. season three episode 22 called dirty money black light and uh i chose this episode because i i am at a spot in my life right now where i could use a lot of rocky and i saw that the plot revolved around rocky but uh as we'll learn there's not a whole lot of them in it. He's on vacation for most of it.

Yeah, it's kind of an ensemble episode. We do get all of our recurring characters. This episode is actually really kind of stuffed to the gills with stuff. Yeah. Between all of our recurring characters, all of the various goons and people with an interest in the plot. There's a lot going on. Fun fact, this episode is the second of two episodes of the series directed by Stuart Margolin. So we're getting some angel directing angel in this.

And there's an interesting focus scene that he's the center of that I think we'll probably want to talk about. That's really interesting to me. He also directed two of the TV movies that we have not yet gotten to. In addition to other, he directed lots of TV and stuff in addition to his acting career. Yeah. It's fun to see that. It's fun to see that. And this episode is written by a fellow by the name of David Taylor, or David C. Taylor,

who, as far as I could tell, was not particularly prolific. He did the teleplay for one other Rockford Files episode, did some TV and also some movies, including a Tom Selleck vehicle called Lasseter that I've never seen. But in trying to look him up, what comes up for him now is that he has published a mystery novel at the age of 70. I don't know if it's a career or just kind of what he's doing

now, but I thought that was a cool thing. This particular episode is not very mysterious. I wouldn't really call it a mystery. There's a bit of a conspiracy. There's a bit of a conspiracy. There's a bit of a secret, I guess, but it's not really like... There's some mystery in it, but it is not driven by solving that mystery, I guess. Yeah.

We'll find out as we watch it that there's different people pointed in different ways, and Rockford is pretty much just stumbling into, well, no, I know that's a mischaracterization because he, he does go forth and try and work at it. Maybe, maybe we should save this for when we get into it.

Cause it's not even that he's like the eye of the storm, but he kind of pulls everyone into each other in a way. Yeah. Speaking of Jim getting tossed around, we should get into our preview montage. Right. So my big notes for the preview montage are based on why I chose this episode. Because it's money. Like everyone's mentioning money.

Right. And we occasionally see Angel. It's a bit like everyone's splashing each other with gasoline. And we occasionally see a lit match. Right? Like we're just waiting for that to happen or to go down. But then I have written down, no Rocky. There's no Rocky at all in the opening montage.

He might have been mentioned. I think someone says he left yesterday. He couldn't have taken it. Yeah. I have a big all caps in my notes of goons. Yes. I have some good look at them on the screen and they're clearly goons in this episode. Yeah.

And it has a fun, dramatic, actiony ending to the to the montage where Jim is in a boxing ring getting punched. Yes. getting punched yes i was so upset about the lack of rocky that i had forgotten about that in the montage so that when that scene came up i was like what the hell this episode feels like it should be a two-parter to me oh okay there's a lot of places a lot of people and a lot of stuff i don't think that scene feels like it's from a different Rockford Files episode, almost. 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 Gumshoe-level patrons.

This time, we say thank you to Jim Crocker. In addition to supporting the show, he also sells our games at cons east of the Mississippi on behalf of Indie Press Revolution. Follow along on Twitter at IPR Tweets. Shane Lievlin,

if you play games online, you should check out his free dice-rolling app, Roll4YourParty at Roll4Your.Party. Mike Gillis, host of the Radio vs versus the martians podcast the mclaughlin group for nerds they remain at radio versus the martians.com kevin lovecraft part of the wednesday evening podcast all-stars actual play podcast found at misdirectedmark.com lowell francis with his award-winning gaming blog at age of ravens.blogspot.com dylan winslow 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 today and see if you want to be our newest gumshoe. The preliminaries, the setup, the first act of our story, two guys who are clearly goons of some kind, but they're kind of polite goons. They're tossing Rocky's house, ripping it apart. They're looking for something. We get this through their dialogue with each other. One is kind of driving the action, and the other one is kind of the straight man asking him questions

so that he can explain things so that the audience knows what's going on they're looking for something that that rocky should have gotten in the mail and it didn't come today and if it doesn't come tomorrow then someone's going to be really mad about it there's a moment where the more threatening guy like lifts one of rocky's nice china lamps and then just like throws it against the wall, totally destroying it. Like, oh, no, Rocky stuff. Yeah. The other guy, to my eye, he appeared nervous.

Right. Yeah. I felt like they were telegraphing that they have pressure coming from somewhere and that this guy wasn't altogether comfortable with what they had to do to get what they were looking for. Right. We go straight from this to an establishing shot of a barber college. And we go in and I just think this is such a great, like, let's just start the story here moment where we have Angel getting his hair cut by a barber, explaining to Jim that he still needs to borrow some money and maybe he can go over and Rocky will give it to him.

Yes. And Jim, of course, is like, I'm not going to let you go to Rocky's and pawn his stuff. So it's gone when he gets back from Hawaii. And thus we learned that that is where Rocky is. He has won some kind of sweepstakes contest for a free trip to Hawaii. We get fun business here with Angel being very concerned about his hair and his haircut, which is funny because his hair is always basically a unkempt fro throughout the entire series. There's a bit where he gets the hairdresser's name wrong. Yeah. And I'm not, I wasn't quite sure if that was a setup or a payout for something, but I think it was just an establishing, just establishing that Angel is into, Electric Larry.

Pep tracked him down, and they shake him down right there in the barber chair. He owes Electric Larry $150, and they do a little bit of establishing the difference between the nut and the vic for these loans, where the nut's the principal and then the vicix the interest yeah this comes up again later it was kind of funny to me because they definitely establish it so that they can use it as lingo but it doesn't really matter not only do they do that but later on i feel like they may re-explain it when uh but we'll get to that but like we yeah we will see electric larry later So yeah, we have to. You don't call him Electric Larry and then not meet him.

I do want to say about one of these goons who is probably very recognizable because he's I think he's the leader of the Cobra Kai dojo in Karate Kid. But more recently, if you've been following me on my social media, as you know, that I've been rewatching old Incredible Hulk, the old Incredible Hulk TV series. And this guy plays a character in an early episode where he's a boxer that goes by the nickname Rocky. Oh, really? Yes. Nice. In some ways, there is a Rocky in this episode, just not the one I was looking for. That was Martin Cove. He's got a really good goon face.

So, yeah, so these guys shake Angel down. And Jim, because he's Jim, can't stand there and let his friend, you know, get beat up or whatever when he can do something about it. So he has $100 that Rocky gave him to pay his bills while he was away. So he gives these two guys this $100. Angel still owes Electric Larry $50. They'll be back if he doesn't pay up. Plus interest as the days go on. Yes, interest on the interest.

Compounding daily. So Angel's not out of the woods, but the immediate threat is alleviated. And then we follow them out to the car where jim is going through rocky's mail because now that he doesn't have that just static amount he needs to prioritize which bills are going to get paid yes so he's opening rocky's mail to see what the bills are and that's when he opens an envelope and eleven thousand dollars in cash falls out of it all over his car the the rest of the scene is almost like a it's not shaky cam but it's almost like an action scene because it's like cutting back and forth between

angel and jim uh so that we see angel just sliding hundred dollar bills into his pocket and into his sock when Jim isn't looking. Just picking up a little extra. We also get a little insight into the Firebird. Oh, yes. It has dead carpeting. There's a shot where he clearly, where he puts one of the bills into his sock, and it's clearly shag carpet under his foot. Yeah.

I have to imagine that was just shot somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. under his foot. Yeah. I have to imagine that was just shot somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why would you have shag carpeting on the passenger seat floor of your Firebird? I mean, maybe he does. It was the 70s. It was the 70s.

Anything was possible. So this money clearly is going to set us off on our merry way. We then go to see to Jim trying to call Rocky. He doesn't answer. He leaves a message for him at this hotel in Hawaii. And while he's doing that, he's counting the money. And then he looks up at the end and goes,

angel. And then we cut to angel at the bank where he's breaking these a hundred dollar bills. And as one might expect these, these are not clean. This is not clean money. Oh, no. The teller very helpfully has a big printed out list of serial numbers and checks one of the hundreds against it.

And we see that it is on some kind of list. He says he needs to go get some tens or something for the change that Angel wants. And asks them to fill out a ticket for their lottery for a color TV that they're raffling off as a promotion. A 19 inch color TV. I just, I mean, that would be a glorious size to watch the Rockford files in a nice 19 inch cathode ray tube, full color television.

I love the business here with Angel and the pen. Yeah. The pen is chained to like bank pens used to be chained to, they didn't want people running off of them. That's before they realized they could put the name of their bank on it and use them as advertising, I guess. I haven't seen that chain thing in a while. And he tucks it into his shirt pocket as if he can walk.

It's just a good bit of physical humor here that he's doing. Yeah, that's hilarious. This whole business, it's funny because he, so, you know, the stuff that happens here is that by filling out the ticket, then the bank has his name, which leads to him getting picked up for this later. But the humor here is that Angel doesn't seem to have the idea of a raffle in his mental model of how the world works. So he's really suspicious and he keeps on snapping at the teller and asking if it's some kind of scam.

And even to get to the teller. He pushed past some woman. Yeah. So Angel. But he does fill out the lottery ticket. And then we see the teller talking to someone who's clearly a manager or something. I did write down this quote because I thought this ending with his exchange with the teller was great. Because he's suspicious of the whole deal. And the teller responds with, you're a very cautious man. And Angel says, thank you.

Yeah. with, you're a very cautious man. And Angel says, thank you. Yeah. And then we get another short scene where Jim is opening more Rocky's mail, and there's another envelope of money. So this is some kind of ongoing thing. So this episode, I'm trying to kind of see where it kind of breaks into beats, right? Storytelling beats or acts, as I like to think of them.

And this episode has more of a gradual escalation and less of a sharp, like, end of one, start the next to me. But I think this is where we kind of transition into the next one because we, you know, there's this mystery money and it's clearly hot, right? It's on this list. And now Angel is wrapped up in it because he's tried to pass these bills that they're looking for. And then after we see that there's more money coming

to Rocky, we go to a morgue and Becker's there talking to a couple of feds about John Doe, who I guess fell out of a window. The teams in play we have right now, we have the two guys who are um working over rocky's apartment the the ransacking rocky's apartment we have the two guys who accosted angel and took the money that the gym offered them uh you know that that are working for electric larry uh now we have dennis and like at this point there's no indication that this is related in any way. But, you know. Except that it's in the show.

So clearly. Through the magic of television, we know that it's related. And the feds. Yeah. So local and federal law enforcement. Two sets of criminal. And then free agents, Angel and Rock. This is going to get a little bit more complex as it goes along.

I think I like the way they handled this. We could talk about that a little bit later, but like right now, like they're just piling up the interested people right now, the people that have that we don't even know what everyone's interested in yet. There's money involved and everyone's kind of looking in that direction, but some people are interested in the actual bills and some people are interested in the value of the money. It's I love this. And that gets even more complicated in a bit. But yeah, here.

So we see the typical the feds have no respect for the local cops interaction where they just want Becker to do it, you know, to tell them what they want. And he's like, you already know everything I know. Yeah. Maybe if you tell me what this is about, I can help you. And they're like, no, we're not know to tell them what they want and he's like you already know everything i know yeah maybe if you tell me what this is about i can help you and they're like no we're not going to tell you um yes but there's one detail here other than mentioning that he fell out of window or was thrown or something it's unclear uh the other detail here is that he has a uh in his effects he has an ink pad but no stamp yeah they ask well did you find the stamp dennis says we found the stamp it would be in with his effects which is great but uh that is something that comes back kind of at

the very end yeah and i remember in the moment being like all right wonder where that's going to go and then i completely forgot about it uh other than establishing these two feds who are very uh grumpy and unfriendly that's mostly what this scene is for. And also someone has died. We're going to find out a little bit more about the feds and why they're grumpy. Yeah. Which is one of the more interesting things to me. Yeah. It's not an important part of the show or anything like that. It's just like, we've got grumpy feds. Let's, let's make sure you know why. Yeah. But now that we've seen seen so we've had uh jim obviously angel we know where rocky is becker has shown up and now in the next scene we get beth hanging out in her

bright red convertible waiting to meet rockford at his trailer as he has asked her to come consult with him uh essentially about what's going on. He lays out that so far, Rocky has received $44,000 in cash in the mail. And also, he's been calling and leaving messages for Rocky in Hawaii, and he hasn't been getting, he hasn't been connected to him, and he hasn't gotten any calls back. Yeah. At this point, I'm very nervous about this. Right. And so Jim, which is a perfectly legitimate concern

and also very in tune with this kind of story, either someone is not telling him that I'm calling or he's not able to call me back. And those are both ominous possibilities. So Jim's theory, which is perfectly reasonable, is that Rocky is the friendliest man in the world and he'll agree to anything so you know he thinks he's he's talked himself into some scam and he wants to find out

what's going on before rocky ends up on like the receiving end of some badness right which beth is like okay yeah you should tell me everything that's happened yeah yeah beth is absolutely down with that theory as per usual once rocky once Rocky is threatened, everyone pulls together to try and figure out what's going on. So we get a brief piece of tradecraft, I suppose, where Rockford, using the cutting edge technology of a magnifying glass, determines that there are not forged bills. Yeah. But he did get an ultraviolet scanner to check for marks on the bills. Early, a little early for Iron Maiden. Because the one he gets is the kind that I remember seeing mounted on a wall over top of a poster.

Look at my completely normal Iron Maiden poster. Turn out the lights or turn this on. What? Yeah. Look at all those skeletons. Yeah. But anyway, they very specifically say oh you got an ultraviolet light if you look for marks and sure enough uh these bills are marked

so he doesn't know why but the feds mark bills for all kinds of reasons like paying off the kidnapping or doing some kind of mob sting but the man caught with the marked bills is the man who goes through the slammer. Yes. Angel. And we all breathe a sigh of relief. So Beth and Jim go to Angel's place to try and get to him before the feds do, I guess, because clearly he has not been responsible with these marked $100 bills that he stole. They come in and our loan shark enforcers are already in there and we get a brief ass kicking scene beth's reaction like jim goes in before her and then there's like a yell

or something and then she like slams the door on the other guy who has a gun and slams the door on his hand so he drops the gun so good isolating jim and uh our cobra kai leader where jim belts him a good one and subdues him um but uh yeah they were waiting for for angel but uh they saw him get picked up across the street so they came up to see if he had any cash you know stashed in his place and uh we go to the next scene with a good joke in the cut where we end with Rockford saying, Angel knows how to keep his mouth shut. Yeah. And we cut directly to a close-up on Angel's face

going, you want to be talking to Jim Rockford and his father Joseph. That's Rockford. R-O-C-K F-O-R-D. At some point in there, he refers to them as the Rockford gang. Yeah. Before we go hardcore into the scene, because we're going to go hardcore into this scene.

I do want to point out that as they're leaving the apartment, Jim just drops the gun that they wrested away from this goon in the trash. This is what I think about firearms. Yes. Yeah, so this scene is super, it's a fun scene. Yeah. What's happening is that these two feds that we saw earlier with Dennis are interrogating Angel, and they're in this small little room, and he's

in a spinning chair, so they're spinning him around. Yes. And there's also a grill in the ceiling, and occasionally there's orders from on high that come. Yeah. Which is super weird to me, actually. We first get some camera angles from up there yeah right we get camera angles from up there and then we also get a couple shots from

angel's perspective as he's swung between the two guys yeah and then this disembodied voice from on high is telling them what to do and yeah i don't remember if the voice comes in because he leaves at the end i remember angel looking up at it though oh man okay so yeah in addition to angel totally spilling his guts except he doesn't really have anything to spill his guts about right all he knows is that he's been picked up for something and that rocky was getting some cash but he's spinning out this whole thing about the rockford gang yes and that And that Joseph Rockford is in Hawaii. Yes. So you're going to have to get him from Hawaii.

And they start threatening him because they're saying that he's looking at 5 to 10 for fraud, 5 to 10 for conspiracy to commit tax evasion or whatever. There's a couple like white collar taxi crimes. And you're looking at life for accessory to murder. That really freaks him out. And you're looking at life for accessory to murder. That really freaks him out. I think maybe that is when we get the voice from on high.

That's like wrap this up or get everything out of him or something. Yeah. And the taller, older fed his body language and everything is very impatient. And, you know, I don't believe anything you're saying. He just stands up super straight and looks up. I forget what their what her name is, but he's like, my daughter has a recital tonight that I want to get to. You don't know what it's like having, having responsibilities or something like that.

I want to get this done quick. Yes. It's so weird. So, so we get an idea of like that this fed is, you know, his job is like any job, like his boss is demanding and micromanaging him. And it had this moment of like it felt real to me like yeah surreal definitely well the whole scene is very surreal

between the the various camera angles and yeah all the back and forth it's very much like a little claustrophobic room setup but this exasperated moment and like you don't know what it's like i just envisioned his boss as being 20 years younger than him yeah uh his trying out this new technique where he watches for you know what i mean like this whole business doesn't seem like business as usual for the fed it's but the show will never tell us that right at this point it's a mystery that we have to fill in with our own imagination uh as to what's going on here except that it's just bizarro and weird it's always nice to see a little roundedness to these one-off characters and this indication that they have a life outside the plot

yeah but in this case there's so much going on that it's kind of like a weird little moment like why is that even in there because it's not like we need to explain his motivation. His motivation is that this is his job. Yeah, it's a, what should I categorize this as? When I plot this down in my brain, is this something that I'm just going to be like, oh, this is characterization for this character? Or is this something that's going to be used

by somebody later on to get some kind of leverage? Where does this fit in the little map that I'm piecing together at the episode? But it's not anything that connects to anything else in the episode. So it's not a setup for anything. It also isn't like thematic with anything else in the episode. I think also as modern day viewers, we might be having this situation where we can't figure out if this is Coen Brothers or David Lynch. Sure. It's definitely weird and out of place.

Yeah. Like, is this supposed to be funny? Like, are we supposed to be like, oh, this guy wants to see his daughter's recital? Yeah. There's such a hilarious contrast with them being a buttoned up federal investigator. Like, it wasn't a gag to me, but maybe it was supposed to be. I don't know. We've already spent too much time trying to explain this detail.

Enjoy the scene. Right. It's a fun scene and that's a fun little moment. But in an episode that's already stuffed to the gills. Yeah. It just led me being a little puzzled. In the end, they send him out because he's in jail. So like to go back.

And the other guy uh rolls his eyes and says something like i've seen guys spill their guts before but oof yeah yeah and then we get the voice from on high being like you need to get joseph rockford back from hawaii immediately and so in our so our next scene we go back go back to Rockford's trailer and we have our original two goons who are tossing Rocky's place, kind of picking him up as he comes home. I made a note about this might be a break.

Now we know the feds are directly looking for Rocky, angels in jail, and now our goons that we know are bad news and want this money have followed it to jib is this the first time we've returned to these guys yes so that's interesting too yeah i i think it does feel like because they will as we find out they'll kind of be the instigating force of this whole

plot yeah so i'm expecting them to like hustle into a car or something, right? Yes. They're actually very low key and it's a weird vibe. They do just want to talk. They have a gag about I'm Jones. That guy's also Jones. We're brothers. They refer to themselves as a local business concern. Yeah. And like that seems coded for mob. Right. And that's what the scene feels like but we'll learn a different truth later on which is interesting they they tell jim that they'll give him a 10 recovery fee

to just give them their money that was inadvertently uh sent to rocky and one of the things we're getting in this scene is that jim uh is not reading them as goons as we are we're sitting there being like okay Okay get free money. Give them this money back and everything will be fine. Because we know that Rocky's okay. Yeah. Right. At the time I thought that.

Yeah. Rocky was fine. Because we have not seen anything in the episode. To show that Rocky's actually been threatened. Or kidnapped or anything. Right. But Jim thinks that he is in trouble. He's like I'm not going to give you any money.

Until I know that my dad's okay. And they don't know what to do with that. Because they're like, he's in Hawaii. He's fine. I think he says like, what's going to stop me from just keeping the money? Yeah. Yeah. He says like, I can just keep it.

I don't need to give it to you. And they're like, well, we can make you or whatever. And he's like, you don't have the style and you don't have the weight. Yeah. This line, I love this line because of what happens maybe five minutes from now. But go on. So Jim's like, no deal until I know my dad's okay. They're puzzled by this.

And then there's a phone call. It's Beth telling him that Angel's in jail and that the feds have a warrant out for Rocky on these same fraud and whatnot and attempted murder charges. This clearly concerns Jim. our brothers jones if you will yes they say that if they don't have the money returned they have uh stiffer penalties than the government and that's when they call in tony and tony clearly has both the style and the weight this is he's extremely tall uh the actor is mike Lane. And I'm checking his bio. Oh, he wrestled. He was a professional wrestler from the early 50s.

Tarzan Mike. Huh. Six foot five. So yeah, this gentleman is a big man. Tony has a gun and follows Rockford very closely. As Rockford says, I have to get the key. That's the safe deposit box. Yes.

And there's this whole little gimmick where he goes to go under the sink. Tony doesn't believe that he just has a key under the sink. So he's going to check it out himself. So he goes down there and then he puts his hand into a mousetrap. So here's the question. Does Jim just keep a mousetrap under there for just such occasions? Or does he have a mousetrap for mouses and he remembers that there's a mousetrap under there for just such occasions or does he have a mousetrap for mouses and he remembers that there's a mousetrap he's like oh i can get this guy to right get his hand

down there i like to think giving jim the benefit of the doubt that he had several plans in action here if he lets him go down and reach under there he'll grab who knows what well yeah he has a frying pan because he hits him in the head with a frying pan once the guy yells because his hand just got snapped yeah but like underneath the kit underneath the sink you know there's cleaning chemicals down there so maybe jim would was thinking about grabbing one and just throwing it like up in his face or something like that uh which would have been pretty graphic for jim and uh the rockford files. But maybe Jim thought he can get him to look under the sink and then he would

just grab the frying pan and do it. And then he just lucked out because this guy wasn't going to look away and just put his hand right in that mousetrap. It's a, I do like the idea that I think this is born out through multiple episodes. Everything in Jim's trailer is a potential trap, right? Like it was the one where like pops a champagne cork into a guy's eye many times where

he hits him with the freezer door because they don't realize it opens one way or the other and speaking of the freezer that is in fact where the money was as he pulls a briefcase out of the freezer and books it so he goes over to rocky's place and it's all torn up. We get a shot to show us what he's looking at, where he has the brochure for the trip that Rocky won. And there's the name of whatever company in like a receipt or something in there. This is really where I'm not sure if there's like a real act break, but it's kind of the escalation continues to ramp from uh yes from when our brothers jones show up through through this because in our next section here we have a good definitive rockford food moment oh yes where jim goes to see dennis dennis is getting lunch at a taco stand jim gives him some some business about how uh his wife told him not to

eat so many tacos or something no he was he was on a water diet yeah which i assume meant you just drink water during the day it sounds like fasting yeah like it sounds like hell it's that's what it sounds like to me and jim just straight up reaches over takes a taco off of dennis's plate and casually munches it while uh dennis glares at him it's okay so this happens but also what we get in this scene is an unprecedented level of cooperation between dennis and rockford right i think it makes sense because dennis like dennis is pissed that the feds are messing with him. He says something about like, what do I know? I'm some dumb local cop, so I don't know.

So they're not going to tell me anything. So I think he sees no harm in telling Jim what's going on, which is that this warrant on Rocky. So he says that they brought Rocky in. So he's back now. And it's on this heavy, heavy stuff that somehow this dead guy was connected to something that the feds are up to.

So whatever's going on, Rocky's in real trouble. So part one is the taco. Part two is that. And then part three is this kind of introduction of a new element, which I think this Rockford just says this. I don't think this comes from Dennis. I think this comes from Jim. Do you know this loan shark, Electric Larry? And Dennis does. Dennis has been trying to arrest this guy. That comes from Jim. Do you know this loan shark, Electric Larry? Yeah. And Dennis does.

Dennis has been trying to arrest this guy. That comes up later. Yes. And Jim, for some reason, wants to go see him. So we go to quite the psychedelic pad. Yes. Okay. The Velcro balls.

We had those. That was such a troop down memory lane. So it's like darts. But the problem with darts is that if you miss the dartboard, you ruin your wall. So how do you solve this? You put Velcro straps on a ping pong ball and you throw it at a felt dartboard of sorts. And it felt like the kind of thing that people would have in their office. Back before we had smartphones and apps that would distract us, you know, social media, you had to while away the hours somehow.

So trying to hit the bullseye with a ping pong ball was the way to do it. I also like to think that someone who lives a life of crime doesn't want to have a bunch of sharp things lying around where anyone could just grab them. Yeah, but this office is fully... Oh, yeah. Like, you know, Electric Larry, I think, is coding to the psychedelic side of early 70s culture. There's lots of colors. There's lots of stripes. There's lots of patterns.

It's a nice break, I think, from the everyday of Jim's life. So, uh, and our two goons who we last see saw got getting beat up by Jim are there keeping an eye on him while they wait for electric Larry. And they have a, some dialogue about, uh, you know, you don't hold a grudge, right? Yeah. So we said earlier how they established a bunch of lingo. Right. I guess that's so that we understand what's going on in this scene. Yeah. What we're getting here, this is, I think, the end of Rockford's investigation and the beginning of Rockford's attempts. Yeah.

To disentangle him and his loved ones from what's going on. Right. So Rockford has a plan. It's kind of hinted at in the other scene before, because, you know, Dennis is like, if you need money and he's like,

no, it's not like that. Right. He doesn't need money because he needs cash. He has, he clearly has some scheme that involves getting money from this loan shark. Though. And I,

I will state as Rockford's unofficial bookkeeper, he needs money. And we'll get to that later. So he's asking for $20,000. Yes. We don't know why he's asking for $20,000. $20,000 is a weird sum of money based on what we've seen so far in this episode, right? So we have Electric Larryry come out played by

uh oh god i forget his name but he's big on magnum p.i oh yeah yeah roger mosley uh yeah no and i love electric larry he's so good and so personably threatening yeah he seems like a legitimate threat and a little crazy like he seems a little unhinged. He like goes from super friendly to super threatening and back like really quick. And we'll see just how unhinged he is a little bit later. Yeah. But he won't let Jim say that Jim knows the deal. Jim kind of just want to be like, yeah, I know what's going on.

Let me just borrow the money and he won't let jim do that because he wants to go through the threats right even down to like the day like it's it's 50 interest due in a week but every day you owe him 1400 and on the last day 1600 which is it's great it's just this wonderful like here's the spreadsheet right of misery that i'm giving you right now it does this great i mean we've spoken in a recent episode about status play and whatnot and we have this thing going on where the two guys the joneses who uh messed up Rocky's house that are looking for this money. Jim is kind of higher status than them every time they're in a scene with him.

He's like, I know more about this criminal enterprise, you know, blah, blah, blah. The two goons, Jim has the upper hand on status wise every time he's in a scene with them. He's paying them off or Beth is beating them up for Jim. But here now we get somebody who puts Jim in a place beneath them. So we, we have like, this is the timer for the end of the episode, right?

Like, okay, you have this long go. And I think Jim plays into that. Yeah. I think this is part of the performance that, that Garner does in this scene where I'm watching it being like, oh, Jim is playing like he is scared. Yeah.

He's pretending to be more scared than he is. Yeah. I think that's topped off by at the end. So Larry throws him this another briefcase full of money and he starts counting it. And Larry's like, what are you doing? And yells at him. He's like, get out of here. Are you trying to call me dishonest and all this stuff?

And Jim scoots. But I think he's playing scared so that he has an out, right? He can just go and it's not weird. Yeah. There's a thing, too, where Larry won't let Jim explain anything about the need for the money. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I don't care.

Yeah. Then when he leaves, Larry's like, follow that man. I want to know. anything about the need for the money yeah it doesn't matter i don't care yeah yeah then when he leaves larry's like follow that man i want to know i want to know where that money's going yeah he clearly feels like something weird is going on but not enough not to potentially get his his interest yeah so finally we see rocky yeah in a hawaiian shirt shirt, I will add. Yes. My notes literally say I was so worried. But he's fine. Don't worry. Rocky's fine.

They're at the federal building, I assume. He's been arrested. He doesn't know what the guys are talking about. And he just wants Jim to clear it up so that he can go home. Yes. Which I love. It's like your job is to fix this because I don't know what's going on. And I want to go home. We get here that the reason that Rocky never returned any calls was that he was

just having such a good time with a lady friend that he met on the plane over there. This great library is like, we're having so much fun. I never could go back to the hotel room. Yeah. You get it, Rocky.

So by this time in the show, we know that he's quite the casanova right um so now we get a kind of a weird scene where it's one of those like information chicken you tell me what's going on and i'll tell you what i know no you tell us what's going on and we don't have to tell you anything so often this show doesn't do that yeah um that i kind of was waiting for it to get through the like preliminaries of all the posturing to just get to like people telling each other what they know my notes are a little vague on the scene but i do have this using i feel i have a line in my notes that says uh this fed is a person is this the moment where we hear about his daughter we may have mixed that up with the earlier scene. We might have.

You might be right. We had the earlier scene and it wouldn't have had that moment. And now we get it. You know, I think you're right. I think this is in this scene and not in the earlier scene. They're both in the room with the great above it. Or the, yeah, with the mystery voice. No, yeah, this was in the scene.

I have a note about it too. So all the stuff that we said about that, it's the same. It's just in this scene, not in that earlier scene. It's in the same room, and it's triggered again by the voice from above. So the feds are like, just give us the money. And Jim's like, I'm not giving you anything until I know what's going on. And then the voice says, just get on with it. And that's when the guy has the moment where he's like, you don't know what it's like.

I just want to get out of here on time to see my daughter's recital. So I guess with that cleared up, okay, I guess we'll try and get this done quicker. So we'll just tell Jim what he knows, what we know, what this is about. So this is about an amount of money that was skimmed from a casino in Vegas. Yeah. And the feds had a courier who I guess was supposed to, you know, courier this money and then turn over the identity of his meeting. Right.

And he was stamping the money. And he was stamping the money to market. And then he got thrown out of a window. Yes. So there's this money and that's the money

that they think Jim has brought them. Right. Cause Jim's like, I have $20,000. I left it downstairs. But it's, it's not the money that Jim brought them because Jim's trying to figure out the federal angle on this.

Well, he doesn't have the money, right? Like he, well, so here's, okay. Yeah. So first of all, I'm a little confused. I feel like this whole thing is a step more confusing than it needs to be. But anyway, I think the whole point of that is that they can all agree, now that this information is out, that Rocky doesn't have anything to do with this. Yes. But I think as a leverage on Jim, they are still going to keep him for the 48 hours that they can before actually charging him.

So Rocky's still in jail for another day or whatever. Yeah. Jim says that he brought $20,000, but he left it downstairs and he's not going to tell them where it is until he knows that Rocky's out of it. Great. They try to get it out of Beth, but she very cleverly has not paid any attention to what Jim's been doing. Right. She's like, I don't know.

He didn't tell me and we didn't and we arrived separately. So I don't know where his car is. So he goes to his car, gets the suitcase that Larry had given him, brings it to the feds. They check it under their ultraviolet light, and it's not marked. Yes. We're going to process this money and make sure you didn't chemically scrub the marks. If it's clean, you'll get it back in a week or whatever. And then this ends with Jim getting irate.

He had nothing to do with it. I'm going to bust this case for you and then stuff it down your throat. Yeah, I don't need your help. But I guess the play here that's never really stated is going back to Jim's line about whoever is found with the bills goes down for the crime. Yeah. So he doesn't want to turn over the marked bills because then he and Rocky still had, you know, quote unquote, are involved with the marked money. So it turns over this clean money. So they can't, I guess, link him to the marked money.

For a brief moment, I thought this was an angel level scam to walk away with the money. Yeah. Because then you just go, you know, pay back the I mean, Angel wouldn't pay back. But let's he goes off to solve the case himself yeah and so here we get into our last uh not our last act but i'm solving the case part of the episode yeah the unraveling of it all larry's goons call him back to tell him that jim took the money into the federal building uh larry does not like this of course so he wants him to go pick jim up and bring the money back then we go to jim calling from a payphone and a little bit of classic gag business of a guy outside the payphone clearly needing it and jim making multiple phone calls not giving it

up but um he's trying to track down what company sponsored the prize trip to hawaii yeah and the secretary on the phone won't tell him. So he looks him up in the phone book and finds her address. There's a moment when she doesn't tell him and he's like, okay, thank you. And I was like, what?

Hold on. That's not very Rockford at all. Yeah. And I think he can tell on the phone that this woman would not fall for any of his tricks. He has to do an elaborate double play to get in there. So he shows up to this office, and I guess the name on the slip of when he found the brochure was this company or something.

It's a little unclear to me why, like Mr. Carroll, and specifically is the one that he needs to figure out. He comes into the office with a rug shampooer and overalls, and is posing to be from the rug clean company. And there's business about how he specifically is supposed to clean Mr. Carroll's office first. It could be that his name was on the receipt for the sweepstake because this is that's what's leading him to this. Yeah, I guess I didn't get a good enough look at it because it's like two people on the company name, but like whatever, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. She's like,

we didn't order cleaning. He's like, we didn't order cleaning. He's like, oh, well, they sent me out here. So someone ordered it. Mr. Carroll ordered it himself. I don't have a record of it. So he says, go ahead and call the company. So she calls and a woman picks up and tells her, yes, we did have an order for this. This is a date and time.

And she's like, oh, well, if the company's telling me, I guess it just never got to me or whatever. And I thought first that what had happened was that Rockford had made a false call to a real company to schedule it. But then we cut to the other end of the phone and we see a woman in her bathtub. I think she actually asked to talk to him. Like, can I talk to the employee or whatever?

Yeah. She's like, did I do a good job, Jim? And then they make a date for dinner. Yes. I wrote down in my notes that this had all the hallmarks of a good Rockford con. Yeah. I should be here. Walks in with the confidence that this is the place he should be.

Time pressure. He has a lot of places to be and they always overschedule him. There's a time constraint. I'm just a working stiff and then help me out. That's it. That's all it takes. Like the confidence that you should be there, the idea that you're, you're exasperated and you're running out of time. You can get in trouble and you person that I'm talking to

can help me out, can make my day better. And I've got a smile. And she doesn't want to make his day better, but the phone call apparently talks her into it. We have some business about, you'll want to keep the door closed because this thing's so noisy. And then he turns it on and then he rifles through this office. In an appointment book, there's an entry for the flight that Rocky took to Hawaii. And then he picks the filing cabinet lock and finds a folder. And there's a letterhead of something called the Heritage Land Development Company. This is all very vague to me. I guess

he's tracing some kind of trail through like a shell company. This is my understanding of it. And maybe, dear listener, you can correct me if you find me to be wrong. Jim realizes that the money's coming to Rocky while Rocky is out of town and Rocky's out of town because of a sweepstakes. Right, right. So he thinks this is on the end of the sweepstakes company, that this is a scam. Yeah. Which I will point out in a wonderful little motif moment is exactly Angel's suspicions at the bank. Oh, right. Well, this isn't a scam though. So this is an actual sweepstakes and there's a company running the sweepstakes

for another company. And he was calling to find out what that other company was and they don't give that information away. So he has to go into the office to get it. And that's the other company that would know addresses of people who've been sent to Hawaii.

So, yes. So the heritage land and development company is the one who actually sent Rocky off to, to Hawaii and has his address. Yes. Unfortunately for Jim, he gets grabbed by electric Larry's goons in the parking garage as he's

trying to pack the, the rug shampoo or into his trunk. So question for you, how much do you think he's out renting a piece of industrial cleaning equipment for a couple hours? That is on my list because he doesn't end up well in this episode because he's also out Rocky's $100 for his bills. So these guys grab him by the strategy of pinning his legs to the back of his car with the front of their car. And they take him to see Larry at a boxing gym.

Again, so this is a fun scene where there's a bunch of business of like Larry being really excited about this new prospect. And he's watching him work out. And then the prospect ends up getting punched out because he doesn't keep his hand up high enough. And, you know, Jim makes a crack about maybe his has low blood sugar and then larry starts yelling at the trainer like the sugar in his blood's too low yeah which is all kind of fun but um he wants to know from jim why he took his money to the feds jim says don't worry about it you're gonna get your you're gonna get your money back i know what i'm doing so now jim is being confident and not like scared yes but larry very smartly thinks that jim is setting him up for something and so when jim won't tell

him what he's doing he makes the guys put boxing gloves on him and shove him into the ring to go around with honey boy and we have some boxing which does not go super well for jim no i love that it doesn't go well for Jim. I like it would have been too much if it did. He's getting worked over. He's not going to get murdered. I don't get the feeling that they were going to murder him here. They're just this is a physical threat.

And this is kind of kind of showing that Larry's a little crazy. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, let's let's just beat you up in front of all these people until you tell me what I want to know. And it's kind of a twisted kind of way to beat someone up to get info out of them. But Jim, with his situational awareness skills, manages to stagger over to the corner where Electric Larry is, where there's a tray of talcum powder, I guess. Yeah, I'm wondering what that was. But that makes the most sense.

So he falls over and then comes up with the tray and splashes talcum powder all over everyone's face and then breaks the tray over honey boy's head and then runs out and grabs i wasn't quite sure what it was like a jump rope right that's what i'm guessing he starts swinging around his head so that no one can get close to him and then he runs out of the boxing gym with the gloves still on. Two things here. One is that there's a guy at a desk right at the front. And he starts applauding as Jim runs out.

He just starts clapping. Yes. Like, yeah, you go, you know. Not everyone there is a crook, I guess. And the other is that he runs across the street, and then there's a freeze frame on him running out of the frame. Like, yeah, he made it. There was a freeze frame earlier in the episode, too.

I mean, I assume they're commercial breaks. Yeah, that's probably for a commercial. But, yeah, they both stood out. So now we come into what I have here as perhaps my act six of our story. Jim, having escaped Electric Larry, hightails it over to the Heritage Land and Development Company and beards the Brothers Jones in their den. This was another kind of weird scene to me.

We confirm that, yes, this whole thing was tied to the contest. And now he's like, OK, he says he'll take that 10% that they offered him. That's $4,400. And he wants it in cash. They don't want to give it to him until they have their money back and he says that they should just mail it and if he doesn't give their money back they can come get it because they know where the mail's going okay this is an agreement between them so that rockford knows that the he because he's like there's a mail slot right out there right so i can

watch you put that in the mail we don't have to trust each other i can watch you put it in the mail so i know it's coming to me and you know where it's going so if you don't get the money you can come and get that this you know but then after they mail this money then he's like well i'm not going to give you your money yet because i want to make sure that none of this rebounds on me or Rocky. Right. You shouldn't make a deal before you know all the terms. Right. Something like that. I was kind of like, so couldn't they just go get their money back? They mailed it though, right?

Yeah. No, because they physically go and give it to the secretary and they're like, mail this. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They could just be like, hold on, don't mail that. Yeah. Or like, we'll go wait at your trailer.

Yeah. I mean, whatever this insurance policy of mailing it is, doesn't make sense to me. What happens there then is they mail the money and he says, you're not getting it until, you know, I figured this out. Then they might as well wait to see if they get the money. Yeah. It's out of their hands. Yeah. They stand to make more money than they stand to lose. This might just get back to something I don't understand about the whole mail thing, which maybe we'll talk about at the end male used physical it used to be like i think in addition to that um okay all right well so so now jim's like okay i'll give you your money but i need to know what's going on so that i know that i'm safe right so he knows that it's money

from vegas that was getting scammed i had this courier brought it and they say that well they found the courier marking the bills. And it's like, oh, so you killed him. And they're like, no, no. We had an argument. And he tripped and he fell out of the window. Yeah, because that's what happens. It happens all the time when people have arguments.

I mean, but that seems to be... I read that as they were being honest about that. Because in this scene, they seem kind of like they don't really know what they're doing. Yeah, there's... Like, I don't think they're lying about one of them the guy who seems a little bit more cutthroat they be more intentional with a lot of it than the other guy right like but yeah no i agree with you like it's it's hard to tell whether you're supposed to accept this excuse they seem a little too innocent to not be innocent, I guess is what I'm saying. And so Jim's like,

okay, so you had $200,000 of marked money. I think that came up earlier that this total amount was $200,000. And you have a dead courier, so you panic. Yeah, and we have all these names of all these contest winners because we run this contest. I think this was the first time I realized that it was a legit

contest and not a con. I was thinking it was a con too, like we need to set this contest. I think this was the first time I realized that it was a legit contest and not a con. I was thinking it was a con, too. Like, we need to set this up. Yeah, like, we do this every year. The feds or whoever it was were coming, and they didn't know what to do. Right, and they didn't know what to do, and they had all these addresses of these people that they knew weren't home. They're just sitting on the desk, I think he said. Their plan is just to send this money to these places so that the feds won't know where it is, right? And that's the

extent of the plan. I think now Jim, armed with this knowledge, I'll let you know when I'm going to give you your money back later. And then he leaves. And I might have missed this because I was taking notes, but I'm pretty sure that how it's framed is that he leaves as the more serious guys. Like you better be straight with us or else. And then the door closes. Then he's like, we'll kill you. Yeah. And again, it's hard to tell if we're supposed to take that threat literally, but they did

have Tony. They did have Tony. That's the thing. It's like they are involved with the mob. They are getting, they were getting this payout from this skimming operation. Yeah. It's a little ton totally all over the place for me um jim jim calls dennis uh offers to give him larry i'm setting something up where you can arrest electric larry be at this building at this time okay great trust me doing this yeah just trust me uh he calls larry to say i'm going to give you your money back be at this office at this time so then

we cut to that night i guess at this office he calls the brothers jones and it says he's sending their money up he's not stupid enough to come up himself he's sending it in the elevator yeah so he puts a briefcase in the elevator sends it up and that that's when Larry and his goons, who came early, come in. See that he did that. And now his line on Larry is that he's buying counterfeit bills. That he's getting 200,000 counterfeit bills for 20 real bills. Larry doesn't believe him. And Larry's like, I don't want you to pay me back with phony bills.

Right. So he insists on coming up in the elevator with him to see what the hell is going on up there. After the doors of the elevator close, then Becker comes in complaining about how he's late. He was supposed to be here by now. He doesn't see Rockford. So he's like, what? Let's just go in. I trusted you.

And he has a shotgun, by the way. And then we go back up to the office and we have this kind of fun little scene where Larry's goons kind of scope the place out. And then Jim goes over to the doors. And then he just busts them open and then dives to the side. And both parties start shooting at each other. Where Jim is rolled under a desk and is just waiting to see how things come out. You know, one guy on each side gets shot, basically. One of Larry's goons and Frank.

Right. The Jones brother who was nervous about all of this stuff. But Larry ends up with the upper hand and he has a gun and he finds Rockford under the desk. And he's like, I've had enough of this. Yeah, come on out there. I'm going to put you to sleep. And then Becker and the feds run in shotguns akimbo to

save the day. They sweep everyone up. I think Larry's like, can't pin anything on me. And Becker's like, well, how about unregistered firearm and intimidation and assault? And how about just being ugly? Yeah. I do like that little subcurrent of like, like Becker really has been trying to arrest this guy. Yeah, yeah. This is one that Jim just handed to him. And so the feds, we have the guy who just wanted to see his daughter's recital, which I guess he's not able to see because now he's doing this job. Unless it was earlier and then he came back.

I don't know. But he's mad because sure, they got the money, but you blew the case. Yes. We can't associate this marked money with these guys. And then Jim's like, well, you said you didn't find the marking stamp on the dead guy. I bet if you use, you know, your phenomenal federal investigation powers and you find that stamp in this office, you'll be able to make your case. So Jim spells it out for them. Right.

But he wants them to send his dad home first. Yes, so do we all. So we end the episode in our little epilogue scene with Rocky cutting Angel's hair. Out on the beach. This scene squigs me out. And let me tell you why.

Is it Jim's plate full of raw hot dogs? Yes. That they're trimming Angel's hair that close to where you're grilling your food. So, well, yeah. So he has this plate of raw hot dogs that he's going to go grill. And Rocky goes, hot dogs again?

And then Jim says, think of them like tube steaks. Right. You know, I'm a little tight for cash or whatever. I did not realize till i said that that this was supposed to be an indicator that jim did not have any money because jim loves hot dogs it's a garbage i thought they were celebration hot dogs i didn't realize they were like sad i'm getting out the good hot dogs the best vintage of hot dogs uh rocky of course is uh a little grumpy because he should be in Hawaii. It's the only contest he ever won. And he legit won it.

And he wants to know, how did the feds know where he was? Yeah. And Angel's like, oh, well, it's good to know that the federal government's doing their job because I didn't tell them anything. I stonewalled them. Then our feds show up. The excuse to get them into the scene is that there's a transcript of Jim's statement. The excuse to get them into the scene is that there's a transcript of Jim's statement. But they also, since he's there, thank Angel personally about all the useful info that he gave them that led to finding Rocky, among other things.

They leave. Rocky glares at him. Angel says, look, I mostly stonewalled them. They probably got me on one of those trick questions. Yes. And then we end the episode with Rocky angrily cutting off a huge chunk of angel's hair this is the most violent i've seen rocky it's assault it's wonderful he's so mad it is a incredible convenience to have the f the feds show up at that very moment uh but it's in playing with like the two or three you know know, angel won't talk.

He's too smart for that. Cut to angel talk. Yeah, no, it's, it works. Cause it's the whole point is to, it's a bus angels chops and like,

I'm fine with that. Yeah. And so that's the end of our, uh, of our episode. He is out at least the a hundred dollars that angel had to pay electric Larry. I doubt anyone got that money back he is

also out the rental on the four cleaner right unless he happened to have one lying around at this point i would reasonably think that rockford had a friend yeah who was a janitor it's probably like a handshake economy for that kind of stuff yeah uh but he's certainly out a dinner that he owed the woman bubble bath and it looked to me like he bought that ultraviolet light yes saying yes especially to look at those bills but they did mail that 4400 dollars to him right yeah so that is the big question like shouldn't he have gotten that in the mail because that was clean money were they waiting on it is he strapped for cash right now because he's waiting for that money

to show up in the mail? How long does the mail take in California? Maybe it's a Sunday. Maybe that all happened on Saturday. Oh yeah, that's true. So in the end, he may have made money off of this one. It's very hard to tell, as always with it.

Right. I feel conflicted about this episode. I like a lot of the one uh it's very hard to tell as always with it right uh i feel i feel conflicted about this episode i like a lot of the stuff in it but it was hard for me to understand some of the reasoning behind the money stuff in the center of it so it didn't really come together for me as a satisfying story i like thinking about it in conjunction with the one where he tries to pull off the shell game at the end. Chicken Little is a Little Chicken?

Yes, because in Chicken Little is a Little Chicken, he fails to pull off that shell game, but he talks up a big game of being able to, right? Like, Angel can't follow what he's going to do and is fairly certain that something's going to go wrong uh and then it does fail like he doesn't end up with what he wants

he still succeeds but he doesn't you know win the way he expected to win this one i felt like i kind of knew most everything that was going on at least by the end there were parts in the middle like when he borrowed the money and then took it to the feds, I was like, oh, he's doing a desperate thing to get Rocky out of lockup. I guess it was just, for me, there was an unclear relationship between what the money was for and the motivation of whoever had the money. And that kept swapping back and forth for me. Like, I understood why he got that money, but why did he get $20,000? Like,

where did that number come from? Was it just so he had a lot of it? Yeah. And not the 44. Cause there was $44,000 in play, but that didn't really matter because that was just a smaller part of this $200,000 score, which was all marked.

So like they mailed marked money to people so that the feds wouldn't find it that they had it but then they were going to recover it but then it was still marked so what were they going to do it then yeah like i understand that it's like a panic decision like they kind of make that clear but um yeah that's an interesting dilemma there and then the other bit is just the joneses the feds are coming after the Joneses because the skimming of the money. And the question is, are they mob or are they stealing from the mob? That's true. Yeah, that was a little unclear.

Yeah. I mean, this episode just maybe was also because I was taking notes while I was watching it. I mean, I have seen it before, but not in a while. And I just didn't really find anything that really pulled me in viscerally because there was so much stuff and it kept each scene was a new set of characters. Yeah, there's a lot of juggling happening. So I kind of appreciate the artistry of putting that much stuff into it and still having it work. Like it still works. Like it's a fun enough story, but I just, it's not one of my favorites.

I did enjoy it. It's like, I'm going to say it's worth watching. Absolutely. I think I finished it feeling more confident that I knew what happened. But now that I've talked to you, I feel like I don't know anything. I mean, maybe I just don't understand it and I'm not hearing it when you say it. I think my brain was saying you understand this part, so don't think about it and we move on. But yeah, should we take a break and go to our second half

and talk about some of the lessons that we learned? I think we should. We hope you enjoyed that discussion of another wonderful episode of The Rockford Files. Here are a couple 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 dig a thousand holes.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. So you can see more about that at ndpdesign.com slash zine 2018. And it is available through my Patreon at patreon.com slash ndpaoletta.

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Welcome back to 200 a day uh we just got done talking about the uh madcap adventures of dirty money and black light episode 22 season 3 this is the second part of our uh show where we talk a little bit about the lessons that we've learned watching this that we can apply to our narrative and fictional endeavors, whether they're things that you write or things that you play at the table. The first thing that I just realized is why the title is the title, because the UV light is a black light. Yes. For some reason that escaped me until just now. So I have one thing I wanted to throw out there looking at these as uh composed of of narrative acts this episode really has more of a blended transition and escalation uh from one part of the story to the other with a couple kind of step ups that are more hard breaks

so i think one of those is when we go from jim opening his or opening rocky's mail and finding more money to becker at the morgue um i think that's one like solid like transition of like this is getting more important and there's more stakes to this yeah and then it kind of like ramps up from there as people we've seen before come back and jim gradually is trying to figure out what's going on there's another harder one uh again when we go from jim at rocky's place to dennis getting his tacos there we're bringing uh we're bringing in this gambit with electric larry starts at this point when he goes to the the brothers jones in their office because that kind of kicks off the last. So in one way that's kind of three acts, I guess,

but within each of those, I feel like there are a set of scenes that are kind of around one topic. And then that moves to another set of scenes around another topic. Yeah. Yeah. We essentially have three groups plus Jim. So maybe that's where I'd start seeing like, is each of those around one of those groups

or is it about something else? I think it's fruitful to think about this structure, like from the side of, let's say you're, you're going to make this story, right? You're going to write this story and you know, you have a lot of activity going on. You have, like you said, the three groups, the feds, joneses and electric larry's and then our regulars are kind of caught in the sway of it right like rocky is caught up in it but only because he just happened to win a win uh sweepstakes angels caught up in it uh and his bit brings electric larry into the whole uh thing if you think about like you've got a lot of moving parts here that you want to make sure you you pay attention to breaking it up into sections like

that and then saying okay in this section uh i want to make sure we hit each of these elements at least once but so you you don't you know introduce something in the beginning and then drop it and then bring it back at the end and go, ha ha. You can keep reminding people of it. You can see how they're progressing along. And that may fit precisely where you were doing the breaks. It's pretty close.

So the feds aren't in your first act. Looking through my notes with that in mind, in our first act, we get the Brothers Jones and Electric Larry. Our second act has Electric Larry and the Feds. And then the third act is

Brothers Jones. I kind of just have that as the whole thing when they come to threaten Rockford and everything. How I've kind of made my notes here is that that scene is basically its own little act. I guess you could put that into the earlier one and then you would have

all three of them in that act. And in the next one we finally meet Electric Larry and we see the feds. And in the act after that we have Larry tracking down the Brothers Jones and then the last act is where they all come, all three of them come together.

So they do kind of revolve so that you're getting at least two of these units. And then, you know, you might have one continuous one through two acts. And then the other two come, you know, like there is a back and forth where you don't have anyone absent for more than one act. Which I think must be intentional. Yeah. absent for more than one act, which I think must be intentional. Yeah. When you have all this stuff going on, you need to make sure that no one just straight up forgets about Electric Larry's good.

Right. Exactly. I often think about the show Land of the Lost. Go on. Back in the 70s, they did a bunch of remakes of it, but the first season of Land of the Lost, I think, had something like 17 episodes. It was made for kids, but if you watched it, they had like a bunch of kind of big name sci-fi writers writing some episodes and they had structured it so that they said, here are the main characters. We're going

to do an episode focusing on each of them. Here are one element of this weird world, and that's the dinosaurs that live in this world. So we'll have three episodes each dealing with the dinosaurs. Here's this other element of this weird world, which are these alien species, the sleastex, which live in it. We'll have three of them there. Here's another element, which is

the prehistoric humans that also happen to live in this real world. We'll do three episodes with them. And then three episodes of just visitors, people that come from elsewhere and show up in this. For two seasons, they hung it on that structure. They were like, we have a beginning episode, an ending episode.

And each of these five groups, they're each going to get three episodes throughout. And we just scattered them so there's no two back to back or anything like that and as a whole it felt really good you never felt like you were in a pattern unless you sat and really thought about it and the world had a lot of complexity to it even though you could really reduce it down to five uh five types of stories each they do three times you know you. In a longer form piece of fiction, that is one totally legit way to do it. If you have discrete elements within it,

focusing, just doing a simple one each or mix them up, just don't put them back to back, but each gets the same amount of time. Then you get that feeling of that larger complex world. So to bring it back to this episode i feel like this episode is like a longer running piece all stuffed together into one like hour episode i'm buying this theory now like i i saw you laying the groundwork while we were

uh doing the first half and now i'm like yeah i dig it yeah i forget if i said this or not but this seems like it could easily have been a two-parter yeah you you can make the first half and now I'm like, yeah, I dig it. Yeah. I forget if I said this or not, but this seems like it could easily have been a two-parter. Yeah. You can make the first part about getting Rocky out of jail. Yeah. And then the second part, making sure no one dies because all these other parties are going to clash and come down on top of you.

And you wouldn't have to change a whole heck of a lot. I mean, you would pad it some. Like kind of what I would want to see in that is a little more of each of our groups and why they're doing what they're doing like a little more from the brothers jones about what exactly the deal is with the skimming operation and what the pressures are on them i guess maybe that's what it is is like so you know so many of these episodes we talk about how the pressures on everyone right make it a really either realistic or like compelling like oh i know why they're doing this thing both of our like villains and our protagonists yeah in this one we were talking at the end we weren't sure if the joneses were hooked up with the mob or afraid of the mob i mean in the very

first scene they said something about like if we don't get that money then you know we're gonna get in trouble with someone above us or something like that but again because they need to account for it or because they owe it to someone or because someone's on to them uh i think electrical larry i guess is fairly clear because he doesn't really want to get scammed uh and he just wants his money but i think it would just be fun to see a little more of him yeah yeah you know yeah there's nothing wrong with that you got a good character there and not only it'd be fun to see more of him but it'd be fun to see more of him and angel yeah see why angels into him in the first place so to finish this thought and then the fbi we have that one thing about that one guy's daughter

and him wanting to make sure he gets to the recital. But what's with that voice from above? Who is that? Why is that such a big deal for them? Why is that person calling the shots? I feel like there's a story there that maybe just didn't make it into the episode. So each of those we could see more.

And then, to get back to Orchard Clary, I think there's something about why does Jim go to him? And kind of, yeah, so each of those we could see more. And then to get back to Electric Larry, I think there's something about, like, why does Jim go to him? And kind of the stated reason is so that he has the clean money because he wants to keep him and Rocky as out of it as possible. Fine. But I guess the other thing is also by doing Electric Larry specifically, he has this long game to help out Angel. Larry specifically, he has this long game to help out Angel. Because if Larry gets caught up in this and gets caught, then Angel isn't going to be threatened by him anymore, right? Yeah, like the two reads that I had on that was what you just said,

or just that he doesn't deal with loan sharks that often, so he doesn't know Electric Larry any electric most recent one he heard of right like because he's talking to dennis about electric larry and it also helps out dennis because dennis wants to this guy so i think in a longer version of this right maybe we see how dangerous larry is and that like angel is in like real like you know concrete shoes style trouble it's it's something that easily could be in a longer piece right yeah so my theory about the weird fbi if i may you may okay so rockford files the rockford files can have a problem with men in suits yeah uh it's it's quite often a story of a bunch of dudes in suits so this this sort of

telling these characters apart you have the joneses you have uh electric larry's guys and you have the feds and you may not be able to tell them apart if you aren't paying attention like those so one of the things that they do and this is just acting this is just good craft you know you make the characters characters right like you you give them something to sink into so cobra kai's character is distinctive in many ways he's a little hot-headed he's a little hot-headed but also kind of dumb yeah exactly like like electric larry yells at him on the phone for being dumb at one point uh so you're like okay that's a group of goons right there. The other two, the Joneses, they're the least distinct of all of them because they're supposed to be there.

I think they're office guys, right? Like they're not supposed to be this thing. So how do you distinguish the feds from those guys? And one of the ways you do is this bizarre voice from above and you're like wait yeah this is the guy who hates having the voice from above so you just give them a little something to hold on to and we always always talk about how great it is that the rockford files gives incidental characters just a little something, a little story to have. But Jim does it with his characters. When he goes to clean that carpet, he sits down on that desk

and he plays with everything. It's this great physical business, no real reason for it other than it's entertaining and establishes her character. But that's not who rockford is that's who rockford's playing right so the unsatisfying part of my theory is it doesn't in world explain anything about the voice from above right it just says we need to set these feds apart from the goons in a way that you're going to they're going to stick in your brain. So let's do this. It's so, yeah, it's just kind of weird to me. I mean, I think it's supposed to be weird. Yeah.

It just seems unnecessarily weird. It's not doing anything other than just being what it is. Like nothing about the episode changes if the other fed guy was like, hey, we need to wrap this up. And the guy has the same thing about his daughter. Right. It feels like something that had an intention behind it,

but maybe in the editing process that got cut or who knows, but it's part of that overstuffed feeling for me. Maybe that's something to touch on is like, when do you have too many things in your story? I'm thinking about this line that's being to touch on is like when do you have too many things in your story um thinking about this line that's being drawn here where you want to give the feds some sort of character or maybe you have a whole nother plot element that needs to be uh cut and thrown away where do you trim that right like you were just saying like there's nothing wrong with leaving the audience with some questions i think it's the type of questions that you leave the

audience right yeah because there's plenty of episodes where we kind of end up with like and we didn't really know why that happened but who cares because you know it all thematically resonated and was fine and made sense on a character level. And this is kind of the opposite where it's like, you explained lots of things, but it didn't cohere thematically. I can see that argument. Yeah, that's actually, that's where the stress is, is that it's not that they did a weird thing.

It's that they did a weird thing that doesn't fit the... The other weird things that are in the episode. It doesn't feel in parallel with uh electric larry and his goons right like electric larry is not a voice on high is not a contrasting with a voice on high there's no you could say that there's a boss and two employees but that's where your comparing contrast kind of falls apart i I think. They're not different enough to be contrasting one another. Yeah. And they're not similar enough to be a motif.

you can totally pull it in thematically by doing a thing where like electric Larry insists on only communicating through like a voice intercom. And then people just keep going into his office, right? Like which would fit. And then he would get upset about it or whatever. It really does feel like, even though they're all united by this question of like where the money come from,

where did it go? But you basically have three stories in parallel. Yeah. They happen to have a plot mechanic that connects them, but the three stories themselves don't seem to have a relationship to each other. So, uh,

one story is the story of angels, money, and the loan shark. Yes. One story is the, uh, the Joneses and the, shark yes one story is the uh the joneses and the uh the marked money and then the third one is about a father trying desperately to make one of his child's recitals despite a work schedule and a completely inhuman and uncaring boss. Basically. Okay, I just want to make sure I have this. Well, I mean, I guess what I was thinking was like,

the one story is the Brother Jones is skimming the money and then they have to get rid of it somehow and then they have to scramble to get it back. One is Electric Larry and Angel and one is the FBI trying to make a bust yeah right and so they're connected by the plot convenience of the the bust happens to be the same money that's being skimmed yeah and that happens to be the money that angel got popped for but those stories don't really have anything thematically resonant i could see like uh to just to throw

out a contrast maybe to illustrate what i'm trying to get at if electric larry as a character and that plot was not in this episode then the story is it's a race right like it's a head-to-head between these two these two factions each trying to recover this money before the other one right and then whatever the consequences of that may be then it's one story with two protagonists and less boxing and less boxing unfortunately that's another thing that's a great scene i love that scene it did not make any sense to me why that scene was in this episode again like i think a lot of this stuff is all like character establishment and it it only does that duty right like it doesn't do the double duty right it doesn't do any other lifting yeah there there would be ways to wrap everything kind of back into itself

without making it all coincidences like you don't have to be like oh and the boxer's going to box in vegas where the money was stolen or that scene is the one word where rockford goes to get the money yeah all of those interactions with larry are at the boxing gym yeah but you don't get rockford running off with the clapping man but maybe he runs off with the briefcase right like tell us what you're going to do with this money no okay it beats him up a little bit and then he makes his escape with the briefcase, right? Like, tell us what you're going to do with this money. No. Okay. He beats him up a little bit, and then he makes his escape with the money anyway. Right? Sure, that's a different ending, but like, could be that. So, at

the risk of, like, ragging on it too much, because it's not a bad episode. No. I think this is maybe pointing to some of that, like, overstuffed stuff, where it's like, is it that there's one too many interesting characters? Could some of these characters just have been incidental characters instead of having extra characterization even

though we like that yeah is it that the stories have too there are too many divergent stories is it that the plot is too contrived in some ways you can think of it as being understuffed in that like a lot of the things that we're looking at and we're like, well, why is this or why is that is because it's not doing anything but making it weird or making it, you know. Yeah. Single duty scenes. Yeah. Yeah. So that feels like, you know, like to use a dieting metaphor, like empty carbs. You'll feel stuffed, but all you've eaten is a plate of spaghetti noodles, right? I mean, I totally agree with you. I think you can go either way with it. I think you can slim it down a bit and just be like, okay, let's pick one fun thing rather than six fun things, you know? Or you can go the other way and just say, all right,

if you really want to do this. Like, let's really work this in. Did you want to talk about pulling it together at the end? Because it does pull these threads together in the finale. I do enjoy the way that this episode ties it all into itself, even

though these are separate stories. These are people who aren't necessarily going to or have engaged with each other if it weren't for the fact that they all collide with Jim. Right. Yeah, and I think this episode does do a good job of here's how it all comes together at the end. Like, that is a satisfying ending.

Yeah. So I think a lesson to learn here is sort of that economy of it, where let's say you don't have Electric Larry in your earlier draft of the story. And you're sitting here and you're thinking, all right, we've got these Joneses and we got the feds and the feds have a hold of Rocky for something that Joneses have done. And Jim has to figure out what's going on and you have written yourself into a corner because you need to give Jim an amount of money to hand over. You could have a scene where he gambles it and wins non-marked money, you know,

or you can have a scene, like, there are ways that you can have Jim launder this money. But, you know, if this is the case, if this is the draft that you have, is you think, okay, well, we've got Angel who's always owing this money. But if this is the case, if this is the draft that you have, is you think, okay, well, we've got Angel who's always owing people money. Angel knows some loan sharks. Let's get some loan sharks in on it. And then we can't just use them to get this money here. Right. Have to bring them back at the end to show that Jim is now is off the hook for this huge amount of money he just borrowed from a loan shark.

Right. Exactly. And so to that extent, what you need is you need Electric Larry. You need a loan shark that's a little wacky, that is not trusting, and is going to meddle in whatever Jim is doing. So you build Electric Larry into the beginning. And then you have this satisfying arc at the end where he's fundamental to how it ends. And also, Electric Larry brings in Angel and Dennis. Yeah, and kind of just as a narrative device, getting two opposed forces to run into each other in order to def diffuse the threat of both of them. That works out very well here.

And Jim primes it, right? He makes it happen by bursting through that door. Um, he knows that that's going to happen. So like, there's something about, even though it would be nice if there was a more kind of resonance between

these two groups of people, the device of constructing the scenario where Jimim has played all sides to his favor like that's really well done here um yeah i feel like that's a very gameable thing you know like yeah that's a very tabletop relevant uh approach both from like the if you're playing protagonists where you're like all right let's figure out how to get all of our enemies to fight each other right but also if you are running if you're you know a gm especially at like a short form game or like a convention game or a one shot the idea of all right let's bring everyone together at the end to have the climax of this game uh that's a technique that worked really well for you know short games and figuring out the logic of all right what set pieces do I need?

So it'll make sense for me to be like, okay, you get a phone call to go to this place to do this thing. And your friend says that they'll meet you at this place. And this place happens to be the house of this person, right? Okay. So now I have a framework for throwing out those little hooks that make sense with the characters and make sense with their agendas so that it feels a little less artificial to be like all right here's our big climactic showdown to end our session yeah so yeah i think that's that's a very uh a fun thing to do at a gaming table also something just i like i would encourage people who are running more traditional style games to let their players do it. If the players start formulating a plot where they start pitting sides against each other, it's fun.

Let that happen. It can escalate in ways that they won't expect and it'll be fun. In this case, it didn't. In this case, it wrapped everything up. But that's not always the case when those happen. they won't expect it. It'll be fun. Like in this case, it didn't, in this case, it wrapped everything up, but like, that's not always the case when those happen and it makes for interesting bedfellows. Right.

Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts coming out of dirty money? Black light? Well, I would have loved to have seen Rocky's like just a montage of Rocky. Yeah. With his lady friend. I mean,

not, I don't need the details but like if we if we'd started the episode with uh one of those nice helicopter shots over hawaii and seeing rocky at his ease and then just cutting back to his house getting ransacked yes right like just a little bit of rocky enjoying his vacation we have a lot of opinions about how we would have rewritten this episode, apparently. Not a bad episode. Not a style that is my favorite. Though, the stuff with Angel,

Stuart Margolin directing himself as Angel is super fun. I love that initial interrogation. From the joke in the cut to the spinning him back and forth and having the camera be either him or one of the FBI agents, or as we find out near the end, a voice that's staring down at him.

Uh, oh, that's good. Well, I guess we'll never find out about that. Uh, $4,400. No, but, uh, I think we have earned our $200 for this day. We'll see if we win any sweepstakes to take us to Hawaii. Whether we do or not, we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.