Two Hundred A Day - Episode 48: The Hammer of C Block

Episode Date: April 28, 2019

Nathan and Eppy discuss the first appearance of Isaac Hayes as Gandolf Fitch in Season Two's The Hammer of C Block. Gandy has been in prison for 20 years for a murder he swears he didn't commit, and since Jim owes him money from their time together in the slammer, his first stop is Rockfish's trailer. The plot of this one revolves around discovering the truth behind the murder of Lila, Gandy's ex-girlfriend; but what we struggled with as we watched is how Gandy is, at root, the actual villain of the piece. Content warning! This episode (and thus our discussion) include direct focus on emotional and physical abuse, and suicide. It's an engaging, effective episode that isn't reducible down to a clear "yes, watch it" or "no, don't." As you'll hear in our discussion, the picture in our heads of Gandy from our first encounter (our Episode 6, Just Another Polish Wedding) was of a character who seems to be seperated from this dark backstory. What is the responsibility of a show to maintain character continuity, especially for characters who are problematic but presented as sympathetic? We tackle this, and end up deciding that we'll have to watch the final Gandy episode next to see what happens in that one to really get a handle on the topic. 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, and follow him on twitter @jimlikesgames Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars And thank you to Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Bill Anderson, and Dave P! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us 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.

it's jack the check is in the mail sorry it's two years late sorry i misfigured my checking account and i'm overdrawn sorry i stopped payment on it so when it comes tear it up sorry welcome to 200 a day the podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show the rockford files i'm nathan paletta and i'm epidaeus and we are welcoming you back to season two of the Rockford Files with the episode that we're talking about today. Season two, episode 14, The Hammer of Seablock. Yes. To frame our discussion, I wanted to start by issuing an apology to Epi. Because when I picked this episode, I was kind of kind of thinking oh we've only done one of the

gandy episodes this centers around the the recurring isaac hayes played character gandalf finch uh the first time we saw this character was in just another polish wedding which was one of our earlier episodes going all the way back to episode six of this program. And I think we found that one very charming. We liked both of those characters, Gandalf Finch and the Gabi character. And so I was kind of like, there are a number of these. We should do another one. Let's do the first one.

However, while I had remembered the character and the premise of the episode, I'd completely forgotten the dramatic arc and ending. So while I proposed it in a spirit of let's have a lighthearted fun episode, it turns out that this one is a little heavier than anticipated in my brain. Or at least that's what I discovered upon my rewatch me too i i sat down and i was like yeah this will be fun uh to to give our viewers wait to give our listeners some context uh this is the week after taxes are due it's we're right we're both both coming down from some just stressful work stuff and whatever. And it was like, yeah, it's time to sit back, relax. Good old James Gardner will make everything all right.

Oh, boy. Sucker punch. Yeah, poor choice. As prequels are wont to do. Which is not to say that it's a bad episode. It's actually, I think, a very good episode, but it's a bit of a bummer. And also, content note at the top

that the episode itself really goes pretty deep into an abusive relationship and uses some pretty straightforward language about it. So we will be talking about that. So our listeners know. A physically and emotionally abusive relationship. I was going to say, yeah, content warning wise, domestic abuse and suicide are themes here.

It is not on screen in the episode. Yes. But it is intrinsic to the story and the character. So we'll be talking about it. That's all. Yeah, this episode was written by Gordon T. Dawson, who we talked a little bit in depth about in our episode 45, The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers,

which is only a couple episodes back, because he wrote that one as well. And in that episode, I found a reference to this episode where Dawson says that the name Gandalf Finch came from a typo in his manuscript. He was originally writing something like Randolph and typoed it to a G and just liked how it sounded. So that's how we get this, what I think is an extremely memorable name of Gandalf, spelled G-A-N-D-O-L-F or Gandhi, as Isaac Hayes' character will mostly be called in the episode. And before we get into the nitty gritty of the episode and maybe soil this joke a little bit,

what is probably a reiteration of a joke I've made some other time, but I would love to see Lord of the Rings adaptation with Gandalf as the Gandalf. As Gandalf. Just muscling everyone through things. There would be so much more punching. Yes, just physical threats.

There's no mystery to what And there's just no, there's no mystery to what the wizard powers are. His powers are punching and a lack of impulse control. Yes. This episode was also directed by Jerry London. I say also because he also directed the trees, the bees and TT flowers. So we talked about him a little in that episode as well.

I think we have now tipped fully into he has directed more good episodes than mediocre ones in our overall watch uh and this particular episode has some really interesting kind of discovery shots um of characters throughout and i think generally is going for a you know more gritty if this is more on the on the grittier end of a rockford files uh tonally and yeah kind of how it's shot and uh yeah there's some interesting camera angles that uh come up throughout it um yeah i've got some of my notes here we could talk about them when they come up but yeah we're well into the second season, so they have their stride now. Oh, yeah. So this feels, I guess, more, I don't want to say it's like a departure, but just showing off the spectrum of the Rockford Files rather than trying to find their footing with what kind of show it's going to be here.

Yeah, this really doesn't have a lot of the formula elements. I mean, it's essentially a Rockford helps a friend who's in trouble in a weird way. Yeah, it's not a friend yet. It's also kind of a social issue episode, but it's not really about a particular. It's not about an issue writ large. It's more about what happens when systemic pressures push people into lives that they may be otherwise would not have chosen yeah um so it's not on the nose about it it's more that's more my read uh based on how things come out in the end but yeah it doesn't really have like too much typical rockford uh

notes um it's much more about the it's about gandy yeah and rockford very important he's not around he's not just around for the ride in this one uh it is very much uh uh the two of them are are making it happen in contrast with uh a very polish wedding where rockford is he's got his own adventure going on yeah uh this is um he's very front and present in this one. Well, speaking of Rockford and Gandy being our duo of the day, Epi, what about them did you see in our preview montage? Well, I like that our preview montage has, you know what? I don't know if it's a joke in the cut or not, but like immediately we got Gandy saying,

I want you to find out who killed lila mcgee mcgee right uh yeah i don't remember her well lila but lila yeah so he's he you know gandy is like i want you to find out who killed lila and then we cut immediately to someone to say he killed him no question like and we get a good star trek uh. Bones line. I'm a PI Gandhi, not an artillery spotter. And we get our first mention of Rockfish. Yeah. Yes. Those of you who are big Rockfish fans, this is where this originated.

Yeah, we end the preview montage with Jim's, knock off that Rockfish stuff. It's Rockford. with Jim's knock off that rockfish stuff. It's rock forward. And that's actually a thing, a theme I'll probably be addressing throughout this episode is the status play. Yeah. I think that's one of the,

the great things about this particular relationship. Rockford is the victim of Gandy's bullying throughout. And it's just how it's going to be. Thanks for listening to 200 a Day. This podcast is supported by all of our listeners, but especially our patrons at patreon.com slash 200 a day. If you're digging the show and want to help us keep on making it, you can join them for just $1 an episode.

Each episode, we extend a special thanks to our gumshoe level patrons. This time we say thank you to... In addition to supporting the show, he also sells our games at conventions east of the Mississippi. See where to find him, at JimLikesGames on Twitter. If you play games online, you should check out his free dice-rolling app, Roll4YourParty, at Roll4Your.Party. Kevin Lovecraft. Hear him on the RPG Actual Play podcast, the Wednesday evening podcast all-stars, over at MisdirectedMark.com.

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with an absent Rockford. He has yet to be bullied. We have a really, really fun beginning that's just the camera following Isaac Hayes, Gandalf Finch, or Gandalf Fitch, excuse me. Fitch, yeah. With a T. I keep saying it with an N, but Fitch.

Fitch, Fitch, Fitch. Mr. Fitch, if you will, getting off of a bus, credits rolling as he walks up to the strangely wooden door of Jim's trailer. And this is underscored by a song. Yes. According to, to 30 years of the Rockford files. This is a song that Isaac Hayes wrote and performed for this episode. It's not,

I was, it's not like in his discography anywhere. I was thinking about that. Cause as far as I can think, this is unique amongst the rockford files that we have a song with lyrics yeah i think so like there's even times where they mention songs and they don't do it because they're probably not going to pay anyone for rights to a recorded song right exactly that's what like so i was like oh they're not

so i assumed it was isaac hayes because they already have him. Why not? Yeah. But I had a note where I was like, look up this song. Yeah. Apparently it's just called Gandhi's theme. And he wrote it and performed it for this episode of The Rock for Fuzz. All right. So now all I want is a cut of all of the Lord of the Rings trailers with that song over top of it. Somebody out there, just make that for me.

But yeah, so kind of underscored by Gandhi's theme. A very sad song. It's very sad. Melancholy, yeah. We have a montage just to establish that he's sitting there for a long time of him sitting on the stoop, going through a whole pack of cigarettes, watching people on the beach. And then when Rockford finally arrives, this is the first of those kind of interesting shots to me.

We see Gandhi through Rockford's dirty window, which again is one of the few times that I can remember his like any shots out of the car looking through dirty glass right most of the time they're just it's for tv so it's you know pretty clean so you can see what's going on but i think this obviously is an intentional decision uh maybe just for tone also there's a line later in a minute where jim has been driving for like 12 hours so like the car is filthy because he's been driving all over california i noted that shot as well uh again i think for the same reasons like it's uh it stands out a little bit because it's different for the show it's something that one thing we'll see in this show is that there's certain themes and motifs that uh they do a really good job of bringing back

and pushing through. I guess I don't want to say anything on it until we get to some of these spots. So let me just shut up right now and we'll continue. All right. Well, I look forward to seeing what exactly you're talking about. Oh, I don't want to create any sort of anticipation. I don't know anything. But, yeah, so we start off our show proper with Gandhi and Jim kind of having their first little interaction here.

Oh, man. How to even describe. So, okay. The basic thing that's going on here. Yes. Gandhi's out of jail. He's been in jail for 20 years on a murder charge. Yes.

Of his lady. They were not married married which is important yeah you know the woman that he was seeing that he loved yes and he went to jail in the 50s which i think is another important thing that'll come up over and over again he just doesn't understand modern the modern world which is 1976 yeah i think it's yeah 75 it aired in january 76 so yeah shot in 75 yeah so he went to jail for her murder um yes you know he has maintained the entire time his innocence that he didn't kill her but he's been in jail since 1955 now he's out and he's come to see rockford there there's a reason but it's leading up to the real reason right uh apparently they when jim was in jail he was in jail with gandy and at some point

jim incurred some kind of debt and owes gandy 1500 now i naively ran this through an inflation calculator but it occurred to me that i don't know when that occurred in the past 20 years. We know it's within the past 20 years and we know it's when Jim was in jail, but we don't know how long ago that was. There is a line about a five-year-old debt. OK, we give that a shot then because we can't. I'm not going to let this go without without having an exact amount here i mean he's asking for just the principal on it that comes out to uh just over about two thousand eighty dollars right so uh he's always like five hundred over five hundred

dollars less than what the actual amount is by inflation, right? Like he asked for $1,500, but if you count for inflation, he should be asking for $2,000 and change. I'm inclined to like Andy at this point, is what I'm saying. Oh boy. Oh boy. All right. Well, Jim is in no mood for this. He just lost a finder's fee for something.

He says he drove 900 miles in 12 hours and he is not having a good day that is a formula uh uh element jim not having a good day yeah yeah uh so jim you know he he's a little short right he doesn't have that money um and then gandy grabs him by the collar and just gives him a solid gut punch showing off his his recourse. Right. If he doesn't get what's owed, as we will see over and over, he goes right to right to his fists. Jim starts listing all the things that he could potentially sell to get this money for Gandhi. But he says that he will take it. He says, yeah, he says hide it he said yeah he says hide or services

yeah yeah and hide or services and jim being particularly uh uh appreciative of his own hide and having services to offer the services yeah and so this is where gandhi i think his true motivation comes comes out he was in jail for 20 years for a murder he didn't do. So if Jim can solve who did murder Lila, that'll settle their debt. I love the way Jim's delivery of service is there. It's a question. There's a weird threat in how Jim, not coming from Jim, but he's either going to beat me up or he wants something else from me. That's gotta be worse than beating me up. Right. Like just the way he delivers that is like,

like, Oh God, what are the services? But no, it's, he's a PI. He wants them to be a PI. So we,

we go from, from here into the trailer. I was perfectly satisfied with the premise of, okay, Jim will do this service and that'll clear his debt. But then we get some, okay, Jim will do this service and that'll clear his debt. But then we get into the weeds on exactly how much he can work for that amount of money that he owes.

This is not a blanket, I'll do what you want and we're square. He wants to make sure that the work he's doing is commiserate with the actual debt that he has. How his fee is $200 a day plus expenses and Gandhi. Yes. Nobody costs $200 a day. And that's when we get the first, it's not 1955 anymore. Yes. And that one for the record is almost 100% inflation. So when he says $200 a day to Gandhi, that sounds like $400 a day. And I have no idea what that would be in our years. Haven't we established in the past that 200 a day is basically like a grand a

day. If we were rounding to kind of, you know, the nearest. Yeah, it's about a grand, but this, so this would be,

this will feel like about almost $2,000 a day for Gandy, right? Like somebody saying, okay, $2,000. It's a lot. So they, they run some math. And so again, about almost two thousand dollars a day for gandy right like somebody's saying okay two thousand dollars it's a lot so uh they they run some math and so again he's like okay so i have you for seven and a half days yes and jim says plus expenses but gandy he'll forget the interest if jim forgets the expenses which i appreciate that handshake uh part of it where it's like okay let's not get too we don't need receipts here right yeah but we we see where gandhi he's really he keeps reiterating uh that

this woman who's killed what's his lady he loved her he didn't kill her kill her he doesn't even i mean this is kind of implied but he doesn't even say that he wants to clear his name he wants to find the person that killed her then we get a a good gag where jim asks where he's going to stay and he says here you have a couch um jim has this whole thing about he still owes rocky for renovating the trailer or something i was a little unclear about what that was about door um but that he can't he can't afford to keep gandy around and then uh gady basically in order to imply i'll stay wherever i want crushes his beer can with one hand jim looks at it says they went to aluminum in 62 everyone can do that now and he crushes his beer can which is something

that i that had always kind of flown over my head as a as that that trope of crumpling a beer can with your hand to demonstrate that you're strong yeah I never realized that was an actual thing that would have been an indicator of strength because it has always been like comedies and stuff and like little kids doing it and stuff like that but I guess that must come from the era of steel cans when like crushing them on your head or something like that when you think about popeye cartoons where he crushed like those are cans that spinach still comes in this tin can and i don't think i could popeye a can of spinach i mean i've been hitting the gym right i mean it shows right yeah you can see i can see it through the internet

i can hear your gains in your voice. Yes. But I'm still not at Popeye. Right. So, but yeah, it definitely like it. I think it probably went over my head as well. That it just isn't a strong thing. Yeah. That it probably was something that strong people could do and weak people would just get sand kicked on them when they tried.

But also that Jim calls out the specific date, I appreciate. Yes. Yeah, that's very Jim. What's delightful nowadays is to see the cans that they are crumpling are so old with the pull top. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're delightful. So Jim reluctantly, as may be, is on the case. So, of course, he goes to see our good friend Dennis Becker about it, as it was a police matter.

It was not in his jurisdiction because it was in Pasadena. But his buddy over there is not happy to hear that Gandy's out of jail. Apparently, he put eight cops in the hospital while he was getting arrested, which is terrifying. We will come back to that later because there's a photo of it that they discuss. That's great. Dennis makes some comment about how it's a little a little strange that he was in jail for so long. I forget exactly how it comes up, but Jim explains that he was too valuable on the inside to let out because. Yeah.

explains that he was too valuable on the inside to let out because yeah apparently when when when new cons came into the jail they'll put him in c block for what they called indoctrination and that no one wanted to be cellmates with gandy again after that or something like that uh so we we get the implication there that jim went through said system and that uh gandy's not a not a nice guy he really likes to beat people up but hence the the hammer of c block as the title title says i think an interesting thing here is so dennis lays out how you know they had him like cold on this murder rap he didn't have an alibi he was known for like beating her up she there wasn't anyone else around he was the last person to see her alive and that she died from a knife wound with his a knife that had his fingerprints all over it

um and jim in this conversation i think we see that he also doesn't really believe gandhi that he's been hired under what gandhi said he's hired him for he's like maybe he wants me to find someone else out uh or track down someone who squealed on him or something like that he says that it's not the first time he's been used as a bird dog oh yeah that's such a great line his choices are either to hang tough until the debt is paid or go visit his aunt nancy in minnesota and then dennis dennis is like just keep him out of my district. Yeah. Dennis, ever helpful, ever concerned about his friend's well-being. I just don't want to deal with him. Yeah. I think there's a question slash current here that I didn't really start thinking about until later

in the episode. So Jim does a lot of keeping Gandhi happy. Yeah. And I think that is not necessarily one-to-one with believing what gandy is saying yes and it kind of ends up syncing up at the end uh or at a certain scene later in the episode now that we're going back through the episode i'm kind of trying to see where and when jim is kind of giving tells of whether he believes gandy or not yeah it's he's playing gandhi because he's he wants to get out of this debt yeah like gandhi it's he's an interesting character a very interesting character at this point right because he's obviously physically threatening and he's willing to do violence and we will learn that uh he had a profession in doing. We'll also find out that this bit about him beating Lila is true.

But at this point, it's up in the air, whether that's part of a frame-up, maybe. We don't know the truth of what's going on with Gandy. And Rockford is almost pulling's, he's almost pulling a, uh, uh, angel here, right?

Like, like angel would be a little more, uh, angel, right? Be a little more squirrely about it. Yeah. But as long as he can keep Gandhi happy and keep Gandhi where he can see him,

everyone is safer. Right. And I think that's what's happening right now is that he's he's doing what needs to be done to keep everyone safe right yeah um gandy wants to see his attorney and uh his his old attorney from when he got thrown in jail uh you know he knows where the place was so he demands that jim just drive there while jim's like we could look him up in the phone book but no no. Gandhi knows better because 20 years ago, this

lawyer was over here. And of course, that storefront is now a... At first I thought it was a strip club, but I think it's just a store. It's just an adult like dirty magazines and whatnot. The old guy

at the counter, however, recognizes Gandhi. He's Rosie. He knows him from the old days. Has this whole litany of all the things that it used to be, which is a little gag. It's like, for me, this was a massage parlor. Before that, it was a Republican headquarters. Before that, it was a stationary store.

Gandhi. Yeah, that's good. But Gandhi asks Rosie to put it out on the street that he's looking for whoever killed Lila, because he didn't do it. So once they get back on the street themselves, Jim, from our preview montage,

you know, what do you think you're doing? There's a killer walking around out there. I'm a PI, not a artillery spotter. He doesn't like the idea of a killer walking around out there. I'm a PI, not an artillery spotter. He doesn't like the idea of a killer walking around and now this killer knows that they're looking for him. That's not a condition he's willing to work under.

And he tries to quit. This is where Gandhi's tactics and Rockford's tactics definitely diverge. Because you can imagine Gandhi this is the fastest way Gandhi gets any information. To go to someone and say, I'm looking for this information and I'm Gandy, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to beat up, uh, whatever I need to do, you know, to saying before, that it's very likely that Rockford is appeasing Gandy to keep him where he needs him. And Gandy does the same thing right here.

And you can see it come across his face where he's like, oh, I got to be nice. And it's specifically in response to Jim being willing to fight him. Yes, yes. You know, we can take care of this right now. Let's go into alley. And he says, I don't need no alley.

And then Jim looks all like nervous, but then kind of swallows and like puts up his, his fist. Yeah. Like, okay, this is going to happen. And I think, I forget if it's now or later, but I think this is when he has the line of, uh, I'd rather spend a month in the hospital. Yes. Now this is it. Like, if you want to beat me up fine beat me up uh and that's what gets gandy to take a step back

and be like okay fine yeah we'll do it your way jim my usual threats won't won't yeah and him backing down from jim lets jim kind of keep a little bit of his pride as he says okay so if you're if you're late let me do it my way I'm still I'm still on the case I think this is where we kind of see the start of their like camaraderie really start building and but it's important to note that uh Gandhi maintains the status right because he still calls him rockfish right like after all of that it ends with whatever rockfish like i'll be nice to you but you're still rockfish and uh i think that's great it's a great way of like we need to move it forward we need that moment that uh that forces rockford to do take the case again uh I'm thinking about Angel and how Angel has done it in the past

by just suddenly turning like, aren't we friends? Yeah. You know, like just a very pathetic appeal. And, but in this case, he's like, okay, I'm not getting it this way. I'm going this way. But I'm also making sure that he knows

that he's always Rockfish to me. The very end of the scene after they pull away in the Firebird is that we have a shot of a suspicious car across the street with a man clearly watching them as they pull away. As the audience, we know that clearly something is going on. Yes. Jim does find this attorney uh they have a whole back and forth where uh he says that he doesn't do anything for free and then as jim keeps asking him questions

he keeps saying like all right you're getting into my time now like you're gonna have to start paying me you know like that kind of thing so this is where we learned that uh gandy used to work collections for local outfits. So he was, you know, he was muscle, you know, collecting debts and whatever for, I mean, the mob implied. Whatever the local crime situation was in the mid 50s. You know, he's known to be violent. He even tried to strangle his own attorney through the wire mesh at the jail uh during the course of their interactions and that this lawyer did did what he could but when gandy ran out of money he went into the b and b file which stands for black and broke which i think is a very intentional piece of language

used here a lot of the message that we're getting is that it's possible that the system has let gandy down and that's why we're in the situation that we're in yeah he only had so much money he could only afford this lawyer who we do not get very much confidence as a good lawyer yeah and then once the money ran out he went you know black broke. You end up at the bottom of the pile, and that's just how the system works, which is systematically unfair. We don't really know at this point whether it is or is not unfair to Gandhi in relevance to what he may or may not have done. So the lawyer tries to fob Jim off, but this is when Jim reveals that, well, he'll tell Gandhi to come down here and talk to him himself. That exchange.

Say, when's he getting out? Yesterday, Mr. Prey. Yesterday. Look at that guy's face. Sweet move, Rockford. And then he opens the door, and there is an ominous fitch. Gandhi is just leaning in the doorway, looming, staring into the room.

He's been there the whole time, which is a good moment. So they go down to the basement to find this file, because all these files are in the basement, obviously. When it is finally dug up, it is very thin. There is not a lot of information there. Jim has a line about, what, is this it? And it's like, well, it was all over by lunchtime. So the lawyer tries to kind of play nice, like, all right, I did what you wanted. You know, sorry again for all the trouble. And Gandy starts getting angry. He feels like he was maybe not betrayed, but that he was you know ignored by this lawyer right like you

took my money and then you sold me up the river and he goes uh goes aggro as i say in my notes uh you know very physically intimidating the lawyer and and and seeming seemingly on the verge of violence um and rockford talks him down in this moment uh ending with uh like he ain't worth it like what are you gonna what is this gonna get you like he's yeah uses some some logical appeals to uh talk down uh gandy as they leave we the camera takes us over to the uh suspicious car that now has a uh a young woman in it alongside the man. So we see, you know, Jim and Gandhi leave and get in the Firebird. And then these two start talking about whatever their deal is. So these are two young black people who are clearly following Gandhi.

This is something to do with him. But we really don't get any details about this. This is just setting the stage for later. The guy's name is Arthur. I forget. We don't hear the woman's name for a long time. I forget what it is. Debbie.

Yes, we have Arthur and Debbie. Arthur saying that he took down the license plate. He'll find out who that other guy is. Debbie is she wants to know what's going on. She wants to know who that is. So they don't know who Jim is. This is about candy wants to know what's going on. She wants to know who that is. So they don't know who Jim is. This is about Gandhi. She's tired of waiting. And they start talking about they want to be, that they're sure of it, whatever they're up to. They're sure it's what they want to do.

And they want to do it right. And we end with an ominous, his time is up. This is the dramatic element here. Not least because they are young. You know, Gandhi is an older man. He's been in jail for 20 years. And everyone that they're going and talking to and interacting with about his past are all his generation for the most part. And then these two who are stalking him are early, mid-20s, maybe younger folk. So that is an interesting question. I'd like to point something out here. We have seen this actor who plays Arthur before. Have we? Yes, he is McCool in I Still Love L.A.

Yes. He's obviously not McCool here. He has a different name, but he plays another cop, the cop that gets the job that dennis thought was yes right so arthur we find out soon enough is a cop yes he then this actor then plays the cop that dennis gets racist mad about for getting his job in the 90s i went yeah i went looking for it because i was like the picture of the actor is an older picture, not from that time.

And I'm like, this guy is so familiar to me. He's in two other of the movies that I think we haven't done yet. But yeah, I forgot that this is his only Rockford Files episode appearance. But yeah, he's in the movies in the 90s. Maybe he changes his name after these events and it is the same character. Yes. Well, that's headcanon. Right.

Yep. All right. So Jim is looking through the file from the trial. He, you know, he lays out how this does not look good for Gandhi. Here's where we get the first mention of Eunice. Eunice was Lila's best friend. There's a lot of kind of like some details about the background that come in different scenes. So I may be forgetting some of the order of events.

They all work for this crime boss, Runkin. Pebbles, if you will. But so Eunice and Lila were both prostitutes. Or Eunice was still one and Lila was one. But then Gandhi didn't want her to be. Something like that. And Eunice was still one and Lila was one, but then Gandhi didn't want her to be something like that. And Eunice was Lila's best friend and Gandhi doesn't like Eunice. And as we find out, Eunice does not like Gandhi either.

And it was Eunice's testimony that Gandhi, uh, uh, beat Lila, uh, you know, was violent and that it was his, you know,

and that he was the only one who would have been there essentially her testimony plus the fingerprints that sent him to to jail gandy says he doesn't have an alibi that he can prove he was in the back room of a bar sleeping off a bender at the time and i think through this jim keeps throwing each like element of like here here's the testimony here's the evidence you know and gandy basically just keeps maintaining his position. You know, I don't care what they all said. I didn't do it. I loved her. I couldn't have done that to her. And there's this bit where I have another note about how we kind of see their see their friendship grow, even as they're kind of sparring here. has something about, uh, I'm only,

I only have like this much patience with you or something like that. And he holds his fingers apart and then Gandhi smiles and holds his fingers apart just a tiny little bit. He's like, all right, we're doing better. It used to be this far. You're coming around. We're getting somewhere with this.

Um, and so maybe Jim starting to believe him a little more, at least that he believes his own story. Yeah. Uh, but Jim wants to talk to Eunice. So she used to work for gandhi's old boss pebbles who gandhi says is the only man that he was ever afraid of

pebbles has a great name pebbles runkin aka charles pebbles runkin yeah so they go to find him and they have a bit about how there was only one runkin in the book and in the phone book and it's just like big kind of corporate building that's the charles ronkin building he must have really done well for himself so we have a pretty pivotal scene here between jim uh gandy and uh mr ronkin um who's played by alan rich who's one of those actors who's been in everything but uh i specifically noticed both an episode of mrs colombo and an episode of the incredible hulk so oh which episode of the incredible hulk he's also in a magnum pi and he's been in a million things but oh wait no he's not this guy

is he i assumed he was in other rockford files because he just has one of those like yeah older mob guy faces but now this is his only rockford episode i have not seen this episode curses ronkin's gone straight obviously right like this is his he has an actual business um he doesn't he doesn't employ muscle anymore just lawyers he remembers uh eunice um that she didn't like Gandhi because he stopped Lilo from working and there's a bit made about how she's one of the only people

that Pebbles would have let stop working because Gandhi was involved is what it sounds like. Yeah. But that he heard that Eunice died in a car accident somewhere in the Midwest. Gandhi, you know, is not particularly happy to hear that. He makes a play to to to to Runkin saying he wants to come back to work.

He can still be muscle, but he doesn't employ muscle anymore. Your kind of muscle is just obsolete. If you need someone to strong on someone, he pay some guys to come from out of state for two or three days and then leave. That's that's how things work these days. Yeah. So, sounds like this is the 70s mob, not the 50s mob. Yes.

They're smarter about this kind of thing. Jim tells Gandhi to go wait for him at the car. Runkin wants to talk to Jim alone, and he gives him a bunch of cash to give to Gandhi. Give him some new threads he'll feel better in some new clothes and Jim is suspicious of this whole thing right yeah like what is this conscience money and so here I think we see Jim just throwing out ideas just to

see which way uh Runkin's gonna jump because at no point have we established any of these as possibilities I think this is just him seeing what happens when he pushes a little bit about some of these ideas um so he asked why he why pebbles let gandy get sent up get sent up the river as he says um you know if he was so important to your operation and you liked him so much why did you not interfere with his case and at first he's kind of like there wasn't something i could anything i could do blah blah blah and jim doesn't believe him all right so the truth was that the cops wanted him off the street and they went off off the street so bad they were causing they're chipping away at his uh at his business in other ways and so when this landed in their lap it was just like a perfect storm kind of situation he didn't even have to do anything

all he had to do was stay out of it we're making the case right now for it being a very convenient arrest right like again the the system has let gandy down it's worked against him um and so jim applies more pressure by saying that he'll well he'll tell gandy that uh pebbles framed him for the murder and then he can explain in person. Runkin says, all right, take a seat. And then we cut from that scene. Yeah. So clearly there's more to the story.

We are not going to be privy to it at this time as audience members. So we get a little dramatic tension there. There's a line in all of that dialogue. I think it's right after right jim asks him if it's conscience money and he says i don't even owe you a goodbye uh runkin says this right and this is this is one of the motifs that keeps showing up in this like jim owes gandy money gandy's job was to collect on debts i don't owe you goodbye but here's money that you know like this guy feels that he owes gandhi something it's just one of the things i want to kind of put out there because it's going to kind of come to a head near the end about how all that's going to get together

we cut to gandhi sitting uh on a ledge around a fountain looking sad jim finds him unis is dead and gandhi is sad about that because he thinks that she's the one who killed Lila and so really what he was doing here was he wanted he wanted Jim to find Eunice to to to prove that it was Eunice but he's known the whole time that Eunice killed Lila and but if she's dead you know he can't get his revenge yeah We're establishing here that Gandhi wanted to find her and kill her. Yes. Very specifically. Yes.

But now he can't because she's already dead. This is, again, this is one of those lines where at some point he says, I've never killed no one in my life, so I had one coming. Right. He's done the time for killing someone. Right. So he's owed a death. And he intends to collect on that yeah let's see uh ronkin gave gandhi a grand to get some new clothes jim hands gandhi a wad of cash gandhi

pulls a couple bills off of it and gives it back to jim says, don't tell anyone to try to stiff you out of a finder's fee. And then they say so long. I love the thousand dollars to get some clothes. And he's like, I could buy a whole department store. Yeah. Jim says, you haven't gone shopping in a while, have you? Yeah. Yeah.

There's this kind of mid kind of act break, right? Where it's like, all right, from what we know, Gandy's his motivation has been curtailed. He can't do what he wants. He got some money. He and Jim are square, but we're, you know, halfway through the episode. So clearly, we'll see what else is going on. My notes say specifically, well, that was a quick episode.

Epi, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the information superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at Epidia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to worldswithoutmaster.com where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games. And if you like role-playing games, maybe you want to check out digathousandholes.com where I publish all my other role-playing games.

Oh no, I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games, including the Worldwide Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpaoletta. Looks like you're back. You ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there, Eppie? I'm back. I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into Rockford's books again. All right. Well, I'm done with this delicious avocado taco.

Well, let's get back to the show then. otaku well let's get back to the show then i would like to say some sort of eulogy for this very next type of scene where we see a car pull up curbside outside the house and then someone get out of the car and walk up to the house we don't see those anymore those are done those are those are out of our vocabulary when it comes to watching things we don't have enough time to watch people get out of our vocabulary when it comes to watching things. We don't have enough time to watch people get out of cars. Let's just stop and watch a person pull up, park the car, get out, and walk to the front door. Why cut right to the front door? Why can't we just have, just enjoy the moment, people? That's my lament, I should say.

That's my lament of the state of things now. Eppie's lament. Yes. So shall it be called forevermore. Well, as you say, we see Jim pull up, park curbside, get out of the Firebird, walk up to the door, and knock at a nice house. Nice looking house. That's it. We've established something. We've established that this is a nice house. It's a nice looking house. That he had to drive to get there. That it's a pleasant walk up the driveway.

The door is answered. Jim asks for a certain name. The woman says that's her. And then he says, I know that you're Eunice. And she seems surprised and startled, but also is willing to talk to him.

So we quickly establish that this is indeed the Eunice that we were told is dead. So Eunice is played by Lynn Hamilton. My understanding is she is a very well-known actress in many things, but I have never seen any of them. So I would I would not have noticed in particular. of them so i would i would not have noticed uh in particular but i think if you are more well versed in cinema and tv than i am you may recognize um recognize her uh she was in sanford and sons she was in roots she was in the waltons she was in an episode of night rider she was in starsky and hutch for an episode yeah she was in she was on the practice um yeah just just throwing that out

every so often when i look at it when i look at someone's credits i'm like oh yeah this is someone that someone knows that other people would know who they are i just don't they've been out there yeah she's great she seems well i'd say that her the portrayal of this character is perhaps oh yeah the most uh soap opera isish element of this episode especially at the end and she carries it off well uh no he's good but yes they they go inside and we stay outside with the camera to see uh the woman debbie who has been following them all over the place pull up outside this house see jim's car and she herself parks curbside gets out and walks up to the door see see you have a scene like that then you can follow it up with a brilliant

scene like that that's all i'm saying is just invest in some of the mundanity some of the day to day and i think the manner in which this is shot and her body language is such that she's just coming here and sees the car and it's like what is going on so it's like she's coming home or she hasn't been following jim but this is like her house or she has some relationship to right so inside we get uh jim jim and eunice talking her deal is that she wanted to get out of being a prostitute. She quit the business. She found a doctor to marry her.

That she wanted to marry and that wanted to marry her. And that she asked Pebbles to put out the word that she was dead around when they got married. So that she could have this new life. Leave the underworld, if you that she could have this new life, leave the underworld, if you will, and live this new kind of legit life.

So now that you know, you probably want to blackmail my husband, but he knows all about my past, so that's not going to work. Which I guess is a fair assumption. And it sounds like she's encountered this before. Maybe. Like she's handling it. To preempt this kind of thing if it ever came up. Yeah. Or he told her husband.

But no, Jim doesn't really care about that. He wants to know if she killed Lila. She he makes a mention of his client and she she asks. But it's clear that she kind of assumes or knows that this client is gandhi you know she's scared of him and doesn't want jim to tell gandhi that she's alive for just the reason that we heard because gandhi will come and kill her but jim uses this as leverage to push her more uh which i think is kind of interesting he says well tell me who killed lila or i will tell him that you're still alive. So she gives in. She says that she was Lila's only friend.

Every time Gandhi asked Lila to marry him, she said no. And then every time she said no, he would beat her up and then leave and go on a bender or whatever. So we're getting more authenticity for this other possibility. Right. That Gandy is guilty. Earlier in the episode, Jim did ask, like, asked him straight out, like, did you ever beat her up or something like that? Yeah.

And Gandy kind of deflected. He didn't deny, but he was very shifty about it. Right. And so now in this moment, I think we get a lot of, yeah, as you say, authenticity coming from coming from Eunice. Like she kind of has tears in her eyes. She's does not seem like she is lying or dissembling. We don't get any of those tells us audience members.

Right. They seem pretty, pretty legit. And Jim says that he believes her and tell and tells her, you know, just so you know, it's a long shot. But if Gandy ever finds out you're alive, he does want to kill you. And then she asks, how did you find me? And we cut from there. So it's not a joke in the cut,

but it's a transition in the cut. Yes. Where she goes, how did you find me? And we go to Jim talking to Dennis about how he found her. Yes. I want to go into that in just a moment. But one thing I want to point out is the weird

note about the crossword puzzles because she says specifically in her sort of soliloquy about why she could never kill uh lila uh is that she's best friends with her or whatever and like her only friend basically her only friend yeah and and part of her evidence for this was that she got her hooked on crossword puzzles. And this stuck out to me because this, I don't, I'm not going to complain about this, but this definitely had this feeling of dear mystery fan, here's a clue. Pay attention to this. It wasn't well seated, I guess, is what it sticks out it's a little it's a little rough but i'll also point out that that trips me up later on i i place way too much emphasis on the crossword puzzles than i than i should later like there's another conversation

where this is a callback or not a callback but it's kind of important to the flow of the conversation this little detail about the crossword puzzles and i was like okay i mean to me it was more like oh here's a an interesting detail to add veracity like to add some kind of lived in this to this yeah world it didn't stick out to me quite as much as pay attention to this so you're just too suspicious you're just looking for clues everywhere i am i am always on the lookout for clues um so jim's talking to dennis that he basically he i love this scene so so we get to see jim doing some some pi work here right right so he uh wired for the the vital statistics from 1956 because he knows that she got married a year after lila was killed and we know that was 1955 and we know that she married a doctor.

So he found all the MDs who were married in L.A. in 1956, and the ones that were still in L.A. He knocked on all the doors until he got to the one where she answered to the name of Eunice. Yes. She was the eighth one, the eighth house that he went to or something like that. This is like a youtube magic trick right where this is this is a this is definitely a uh uh not magician's choice but it's a this is a magician's head fake where they're like i'll i'll show you i can flip heads on this coin every time 10 times in a row and what you don't know is that they just filmed hundreds of hours of flipping a coin until they got that row of 10 hits and then just showed you that footage.

Yeah. The seven people that are the seven women that he was like, and I know you're Eunice, whatever. And they went, no, I'm not. And he's like, yeah, thank you for your time. Right. Until he got to the one who was like, oh, my God, you know, and it seems like he's this brilliant, this brilliant detective. And he is a brilliant detective. Yes. But it's through the legwork of all those of all those negatives. This is one of the things that sets Jim apart from a lot of detective stories. It's not that he's smart. It's just that he's he's willing to do the work. Yeah. He just does the work he says uh what another thing i love about this scene i mean i know what you love about this scene and we will definitely go there but before we do another thing i love about this scene is the idea that jim and dennis would sit down and have lunch and just talk about work problems yeah yeah, yeah. We do this.

Before every time we do a podcast, we sit down and we're like, okay, why does it suck publishing role-playing games? Let me tell you how it sucked for me recently. Yeah. And, you know, just like. Yeah, no, you're just kind of like talking shop and catching up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I just like I'm a sucker for those moments in television shows in general when you show why a wellstanding relationship between two characters exists. Right. Because if it's wellstanding, we just take it for a given that it exists. And oftentimes television shows are based on the tension between the you know, in that relationship. And certainly Dennis and Jim is no exception here like those two are at odds

in this episode in every episode they're just always at odds so the moments when they show them as like oh that's right this is what they're like when the drama is not doesn't require the camera right like this is this is their normal thursday afternoon lunch jim happens to be around so he drops by to like yeah get lunch with dennis or whatever much like how i did a eulogy for the pulling up the car or a lament for that being gone i would also make a plea for this and maybe a stronger plea for more of these i just the casual everyday oh this is why these people actually like each other why they talk to each other and of course what i love about this scene is that when dennis asks

hey do you want any chili jim says i've had plenty yeah yes i don't think that means anything i think he literally has just like had too much chili yeah we should point out the the few viewers who have not watched the episode and are just listening to our commentary on it that they're sitting there eating chili out of cans like hormel canned chili or something like that and they've both finished one and dennis is ready to dig into another one. This scene is so real to me that I can smell the canned chili when he opens it up. Like, I'm like, oh, God, I know what that's like. And I haven't had it for years. So now we have a mystery, though, of, like, who killed Lila, right?

Jim is now on Gandhi's side here where he's like, okay, you didn't kill her. I get it. And now he's kind of like, so what happened? So he doesn't think it was Runkin. He doesn't think it was Eunice. He doesn't think it was Gandhi. And he has this line where he says, and it probably wasn't the cops,

or it doesn't make sense that it was the cops or something. And Dennis is like, what? Yeah. It's a possibility. This is great. Yes, it wasn't cops. And Dennis gives him a glare and he's like, it could have been. It could have been.

I don't think it was, but it could have been and uh that was great um so dennis wants to know why he still seems so worried because you know he's out from under it gandy thinks unis is dead he's done with what he wants then of course uh by the law of dramatic timing the phone rings dennis answers it and uh they picked up fitch for loitering and attempted assault of an officer. Oh, God. It was only attempted assault because the officer had mace. Oh. He mentions that they set his bond at $10,000 because they don't want him out on the streets.

So Jim pulls out a $100 bill. I'm going to need to give this back to Gandhi because he's going to need the full $1,000 for Bond. So now we've established that Gandhi gave Jim $100. Yes, his 10% finder's fee. Right, and now he's going to need it back. Dennis says, you're not going to have a single friend in Pasadena. And Jim says, what about the one I have there now? Yeah, all right.

Ooh, loving this moment not gonna love it that much when we get near the end i know but this is a good like jim is a good friend sometimes he makes bad choices about who he's friends with yes but if he feels that bond he'll be there for you uh we go to the uh police station in pasadena where jim has helped gandy pay his bail uh they're leaving the the station there's a line where gandy's like no one told me they have mace apparently another thing that was not around in the 50s one more way in which gandy has gone obsolete right so fun fact Mace apparently was invented in 1965. Oh, there we go.

Yeah. So, while they're, you know, having, we're hearing their dialogue, but we have another of these really kind of ominous discovery shots. We're seeing this from like a ground-up angle, and in the foreground is this pair of boots, like a uniformed cop

standing there, and kind of moves into the frame and then stops and it's very clear that that they have stopped because they are watching jim and gandy leave and there's even this moment where gandy kind of like looks at them like over the camera and jim's like leave it like let's go keep walking. Yeah. As they leave, the camera pans up and the cop turns and takes his sunglasses off, which he's wearing at night. And it is our young man from earlier, Arthur. I have a moment with this. I guess the reveal here is that Arthur is a cop, right? But I had this brief moment where I was like, is he disguising himself as a cop to watch over? Like it just felt.

In their first dialogue, Arthur and Debbie, in my notes, I was like, is he a PI? Cause he's like, I took down a license plate. I'll find out who that was.

Yeah. And then I'm like, Oh, he's a cop. Okay. Yes. Yes. But yeah,

it was UPI pretending to be a cop. Now we're getting like ninth dimensional chess about something that is not actually a mystery. He just is a police officer. Yeah. So Gandy says he wants to check out some things. He's been talking to different people and he's heard all these different stories about Eunice. She went to New York. She died in a car crash in the Midwest.

She died in a car crash in Louisiana. And so he's a little suspicious it sounds of this story um he says that she's smart enough to fake her own death because she knows that gandhi would come looking for her and we kind of see the like fear in jim's eyes right this is a really good like body language and kind of facial expression acting sequence where jim clearly is like oh my god i have to keep him from doing this because he's going to find her. Jim's in a tight spot twice over here, right? Because he doesn't want anything bad to happen to her,

but also he has found her. Right. And as far as Gandhi knows, Jim is off the case. Yeah, he is lying to Gandhi about the fact that knows that eunice is alive and where she is he asked if jim wants in and jim says for what accessory to murder yeah and jim throws out a couple different gambits to like get gandhi not to go off without him right now it's like let's go play some pool he's like no well i want to talk to you about who killed Lila. I have something. We'll talk about it. Just stay with me. Stay with me. So they do go to play pool.

They apparently are betting and there's a moment where Jim's offering a double or nothing on a shot. Yeah, he's trying to earn his debt back here. They do finally get around to talking about the case. And so Jim, I think here here it's interesting because it's like what what does he actually have to talk to to tell gandhi right and so he actually just starts asking gandhi questions and he asked why lila never married him um the important stuff that comes out of this is that he he admits that that that he would beat her after she would refuse to marry him that she left a couple times and he didn't know where she went.

And she was gone for six months one time and seven months another time. But she always ended up coming back. Yeah. We see him getting a little suspicious about how Jim found out these very specific questions to ask. Like, oh, well, I was talking to Rosie and, you know, because he remembers Eunice from the old days. And he mentions something about the, the crossword puzzle. Like he told me that she was always bringing those, those puzzle books in to Lila and Gandhi has a moment where it was like, yeah, she got really good at those too.

It was like, he uses that little detail to establish some kind of authenticity about his, his story. This is, this is a tough conversation. It is a tough conversation. It is a tough conversation. Okay, so this show is from the 70s, and they're threading a very fine line here that today would probably go a very different route. It's definite now that Gandy had beat her, right? Like, that's just the thing. And there's two ways to read what's going on here. That Rockford is helping a friend out or Rockford is trying to maintain control of a possibly explosive violent situation.

I mean, it's kind of both. Yeah, it's somewhere in between. Because they have like more moments here of like kind of like laughing at jokes. Yeah. Having these moments where it's like Jim does want to make things better for Gandhi. He likes Gandhi. Yeah. And we're seeing that solidify even as we're hearing how Gandhi is a violent man who beat up his girlfriend and would not take no

for an answer and refused to let her go and to go anywhere right so she had to like disappear on him and all this stuff and it's like this is an abusive man yes he did bad things but we're seeing jim we're seeing more of their fondness for each other also coming through and how they're physically interacting. It's very weird to me personally. I mean, so one thing we do know is that abusive people can be charismatic, right? Like that's a fact. And one thing this show, this episode has done is shown that a lot of people genuinely like gandy yeah rosie likes gandy pebbles offers money that he doesn't have to offer to to help out gandy um

jim would definitely subject to some of that as well right like this is just uh uh he's a personable dude who's definitely got problems and uh this is where the show goes from like it just it keeps hinting all along that it's going to go here and then when it went here i like yeah it set me back a little bit i was like oh that's right oh damn it yeah and and the scene ends with gandhi straight out saying if un is still alive, I'm going to waste her. Yeah. This guy is the villain of the piece. And I don't want to say it's hard not to like him.

But it's not like Isaac Hayes isn't playing him likable. They're presenting this character that is both the villain of the piece and also like if you're not careful you can overlook that so one of our episodes from um the beginning of this year uh episode 44 kill the messenger that's the one where dennis has to investigate the murder of his boss's wife essentially right and we talked at the end of that one about how characters can be framed uh to be more or less sympathetic to the audience yeah how a show frames the same set of actions with the agenda to increase buy-in to them by the audience or to create distance from the audience and this episode is all about creating buy-in for gandy in terms of how he's framed i think yeah um which is uncomfortable yeah we'll get to why at the end uh for sure but

on the one hand i'm all for complex characters who go through change and make mistakes and have to make good for things they've done or or realize that their actions have consequences or whatever but on the other hand at the end of the day there's some people i just don't want to feel sympathy with yeah yeah exactly and the fact that this episode is like you should feel sympathy with this guy who has been mistreated in many ways but he also has done some pretty unforgivable things so yeah, yeah, that's where this scene is, where that really like snaps into focus. And I start and I start realizing that I have to actively resist the sympathy stuff like this, the way that the episode is framing him as sympathetic. Yeah. Personally, or else it just gets too grim for me.

Not to say again that it's bad. No, it is not poorly done. It is not ham fisted. It is not. I don't even think it's I think it's bad no it is not poorly done it is not ham-fisted it is not uh i don't even think it's i think it's intentional like they cast isaac hayes to be this character and it's a charismatic person playing an interesting character but the the media landscape of the time i think allows for this in a way that would be it would stick out like a sore thumb today if this show was if this script was shopped to a show right yeah um all right all of that said uh we still have a mystery here who killed lila so we have a short talking to folks montage where we see uh arnold and debbie following uh gandy and jim around as they talk to people on the street.

They end up at a bar. They talk to someone else who says like, oh, I heard that she died in a car crash. And then the bartender gets a phone call and comes over and says, is one of you looking for someone named Eunice or something like that? We cut back and forth. There's no mystery here. It's Debbie is calling from a pay phone and tells gandy that if he wants to know where eunice is he should go you know stand

on this certain corner by a gas station um and she will take him to her jim of course is suspicious she specifically says to ditch your friend you know come alone but gandy is not willing to pass this up even though i think he probably knows there's something going on. We have a moment where Jim says that, don't worry, he'll watch Gandhi's back. Yeah. And then a quick bit about settle up this tab. You know, where's my change? Assuming drafts haven't gone up to 250 a pop.

Yes. So Gandhi goes out to wait. Debbie picks him up. Yes. We see that Jim follows, of course. Gandhi asks why she's doing this. 250 a pop. Yes. So Gandhi goes out to wait. Debbie picks him up. Yes. We see that Jim follows, of course. Gandhi asks why she's doing this. She says that Eunice wants to talk to him too.

Your friend talked to her yesterday, but he wouldn't set it up. And we see Gandhi look not happy that Jim knew about this. So my note here is is she setting eunice up like is she bringing gandhi to eunice so that he will kill her and then go to jail like that's kind of what i was thinking in this moment we've not gotten much about them or their motivation uh they do have a plan for gandhi one that uh if i if i may quote uh she specifically asks her partner did we ever plan to do it wrong when he's like i just want to make sure we do it right do we ever plan to do it wrong like this is a thing that they they've had in the works for a while right again it's been a while since i've seen this episode uh i don't remember the twists and turns and i have uh gotten this

moment in mind where i'm like wait a minute is this like a really weird thing where eunice is really lila yeah yeah something like that yeah and and that's me grabbing the thread of the crossword puzzle and just unraveling it as much as i can and going it's like is she a criminal mastermind they say i'm gonna have a tv show based on me at some point epi pi where we just completely over complicate things yeah exactly yeah but no they do not go to unis's house they go to a park um she takes gandy um to kind of a playground area and we have this really uh dramatically framed shot where they come around this corner into arthur in uniform holding a gun gandhi of course is surprised she leaves gandhi and goes to stand next to arthur takes out a gun of her own out of her purse arthur says that uh i heard

her screaming you were trying to rape her i had had to kill you to stop you or something like that. And Gandhi, of course, is surprised. And he's like, I don't even know you. Like, who are you? Right. And they say that they know him and they've been waiting for this for a long time. And then we have a Jim to the rescue as he leaps off of a wall and onto our cop. This is an extended action scene here.

Yeah, this is an extended action sequence. And it this is an extended action sequence and it's pretty well i mean it's pretty good it's not a beach it's like a sandbox or yeah it's like a playground in the middle of a yeah of a park playground with very convenient blind blind you know like walls that block line of sight and yeah no it's good jim jumps arthur uh and they're rolling around on the ground right yeah and like it gets his gun has kind of has the drop on debbie he has arthur's gun you know i'll shoot if you don't drop your gun so debbie drops her gun so we get into an equilibrium where we have gandhi and jim standing next to each other jim has the gun and then the other two are standing across from them.

The first thing that happens is that Gandhi accuses Jim of talking to Eunice. Jim denies it. And he says, I wouldn't know her from my grandmother or something like that. She wouldn't know her either. And then Debbie says, of course I know her. She's my mother.

And that's when Gandhi just hauls off and plows a haymaker across jim's face sets a cartwheeling oh yeah it's a good it's a good moment and also like gandy is his executive faculties are not the strongest suit it's like you've been lying to me i'm gonna punch you even though these two are trying to kill me this is how we're solving it right now boom so we have another scuffle there's yelling in this scuffle uh he jumps uh arthur and starts beating him up he like body slams him into the ground which is pretty incredible um while jim scuffles for the gun with debbie why and so some of this dialogue is while all this action is happening right yeah why do you want to kill Gandhi? Because he killed their real mother. Dun, dun, dun. Jim yells at Gandhi to stop before he just like, you know, beats Arthur unconscious.

So he's your father. And they're like, no, he's not our father. They're raised out of state. But he made our mom a prostitute and then killed her. You know, Gandhi's like, I didn't kill her. Right. I never did. And so there's all this confusion, all this yelling back and forth.

I'm just making notes i'm a little unclear about what is being like what is what is legit and what is according with what we already know and what's new this is very chaotic um we end the scene with with uh jim still in control essentially and gandy looks at debbie and says that uh she has lila's eyes yeah jim says we'll find out when we ask Eunice. Oh, yeah. Dun, dun, dun. We have a big, big sit-down dramatic reveal to discover the heart of our mystery here.

Inside Eunice's house by a roaring fire. This has a feel of a murder mystery. I now have you all together. We're going to find out who really did kill Lila. When I say this has a feel of a murder mystery. I now have you all together. We're going to find out who really did kill Lila. When I say this has the feel, I mean, the setting of this scene has the feel. The rest of the episode doesn't lead to that.

Nobody behaves like that except for maybe Eunice, but the setting itself is exactly the kind of setting where you would expect the ending of a clue game to take place. Yes. So what we learn is that, so these two are in fact Lila's children. Eunice wanted them to be safe, have a good life, and hate Gandalf Finch as much as she did. Oh, yes. So the two times that Lila disappeared for six months and seven months, those were when she was pregnant and she went back to stay with her family because she was scared that Gandhi would force her to marry him if he knew she was pregnant. But then once she had the child, her family kicked her back out because she's this prostitute that they don't actually want to have around, I guess. So then she goes back to L.A., ends up back with Gandhi.

The system repeats. And here is where they talk about the newspaper clipping. She shows them the newspaper? So that's how they know what Gandhi looks like? Oh, yeah, she sent it to them when he got arrested or something? Yeah. Okay, we're about to get into some dark, dark s*** here. Yeah.

yeah okay we're about to get into some dark dark here yeah but i will note that the jim's description of this newspaper clipping is the one with gandy having one cop under his arm in one in each hand by the hair and i have to say i do like that image yeah this is the one like little moment of levity in this whole sequence yeah yeah but uh arthur says that they looked that picture a lot yeah and you know and so gandhi stills you know is like i didn't kill her right like right uh but eunice has a letter that lila mailed the day she died and debbie says i'll read it she's about to hand it to jim yeah and debbie's like no i'll read it i'm like hell yeah you will like this is in jim's place right and also eunice is saying i i was hoping this day would never come but i must have thought that it would someday because i still have

this letter right like that's kind of the soap opera element here eunice's role in this moment is of that murder mystery character right Right. Like, but yeah. So not going to go through this blow by blow, but basically this letter, which Debbie reads in its entirety and she starts crying and it's very disturbing is a suicide note. Yes. Lila writes that she's at the end of her rope.

Essentially she can't stand living with Gandhi and all of his jealousy. Either he has to die or she does. And so she's choosing to take her own life to get out of this situation. You know, she's going to take her own life, making sure that it looks like he did it. Yeah. She wants him to be blamed for it. Gandhi caused every tear. He never kissed one away.

Yeah. Let's get into the grimness here because so this is horrible. You spend most of the episode. Well, I shouldn't say you, but I spent most of the episode thinking, yeah, this is going to be Gandhi. Yay, Gandhi. Gandhi's fun. And then slowly it dawns on me oh gandy's a and then this where it's not just suicide like because she stabs herself with his knife yeah maybe we don't want

to go all the way into this with our episode here top level it's not just i can't take this anymore i'm taking my own life this is this is a a final statement that is irrevocably making the case that Gandhi is the one who drove her to this. That she does not love him. Right? Like, that's the whole thing. He's like, I've loved her. I kept on wanting her to marry me. She said no.

I kept on coming back because I loved her so much. And this very specifically is like, I do not love him. Yeah. Yeah. coming back because i loved her so much and this very specifically is like i do not love him yeah uh yeah it's it's taking away the whole foundation that he has for his own conception of what their relationship was in a way that does not absolve him of anything anything it makes it worse and gandy hears it yes like that is a thing throughout this episode uh you can kind of get him to play along with you for a while, but he can't hear you. Right. Like he's not believing the things that you're saying or he's going to do his thing. And this is the first time he actually hears something. And it is hard, hard news to hear.

Credit to Isaac Hayes, who is near the beginning of his acting career here. It's not like he's been in lots of stuff. And there's a lot of subtlety to his physical reaction to hearing these words. And we see as audience that he is feeling his whole foundation wash away of everything that he thought about this relationship. Yeah. And this dawning realization of how there's no like light at the end of this tunnel. There's no one to blame except him. He's been operating for so long on this whole like, I am blameless here.

I did not kill her. Therefore, I am not at fault. And it's like, no, you are at fault. Like 100%. And you're at fault for precisely the reason you keep giving for why you aren't at fault. Right. Right. Yeah. It has the, it's not in the sense of beauty, but it's a poetic justice.

Yeah. Like it's, I mean, it's not really justice either, but it's the, the symmetry there is, it is a well considered, well written resolution that totally makes us a character that i feel bad for having liked yeah i made a mistake as an audience member investing myself in this character yes it's how i how i feel here so yeah and then the end of the scene is he just gets up and silently walks out of the room and out of the house with his head bowed crushed under the weight of this revelation. Yeah. Good times.

The episode takes a turn there. Yeah. And then we have a little final scene, which is actually probably the most problematic part of this episode. Yeah. So the scene is Rockford and Gandy, right? And it's Rockford.

And they're just outside the house. Yeah. And he's, he's trying to, he's trying to comfort gandhi and that's i think part of where that problem comes in right uh i i keep mentioning throughout there's this motif and having something do and this is the i guess kind of the thesis here where where where it comes together because you know gandhi's already stated that he's done the time for a murder now i think rockford tries to make the case that, like, well, you've done the time for the murder.

Now you need to, you know. But, yeah. Oh, man. The way that he tries to comfort. So, the motivation of, like, I want to comfort my friend who just experienced something devastating. That is understandable. Yeah. I get it.

experience something devastating that is understandable yeah i get it but what he chooses to comfort gandhi with is trying to kind of absolve him of responsibility yes and that is not even that that hasn't aged well like i think that was that's a bad call in this episode and it's a bad call now he tells gand Gandhi that it was her choice to kill herself, that it was her choice to come back every time that she left, and that means that Gandhi can't blame himself? Yeah, that's not good at all. That is, I mean, that is victim blaming. Yeah, yeah.

Those are words of someone who just does not, has not experienced and has not thought about or been told about uh how abuse works that's you know that jumped right out as i was making my notes i was like jim no no that's oh no bad that's not it's not okay so that sucks and i kind of i wish that this episode did not have those lines in it because I think they are irresponsible. Yeah, I guess is how I would is how I characterize it. I don't think it's a huge character flaw for Jim.

You know, like it is clearly in context of this episode and this moment. And it's what what our writer, Gordon Dawson, decided to put in here. And I think it was a port. It was an inappropriate choice. and decided to put in here and i think it was a port it was a inappropriate choice um this is also touching on kind of the systemic stuff where it's like you went out and collected a rotten life and just ate the balloon payments which is a very rock fruity kind of phrase but it is a little bit like yeah the system tricks against you man like that's also kind of not your fault which is fair um but then we end here with jim saying that's all over we now

know what happened you can walk out and be free and clear of all of this if you want to be and then i think in an appropriate final line we end our episode with the camera on gandy if i want to be and we freeze we freeze frame there i guess guess my read on that is Gandhi is not automatically jumping at this idea of absolving himself of responsibility. Yeah. It adds to the complexity of this. Yeah. It's, it's a tough one to look at,

right? Because he isn't. Jim's in the, the sort of in the situation trying to make it so that nobody does any more harm to each other, maybe, you know, like as a generous read on what's happening here. Well, and also like there's no revenge to be had, right? Like you've been looking for revenge, but there's none to be had. And now like your slate's kind of clean, right? You don't know anything. No one knows you. You can move on. It's at least a good sign that Gandy is willing to own this. Not ready to just straight up forgive himself because the whole time his story has been that he's innocent. And that's changed.

And I think that's part of what makes this episode very interesting as as difficult as it is uh going back over it like and seeing where they laid some groundwork for it where they let you know early on that there's some hints about this the fact that gandhi is always throughout a physical threat to to people right like he's um though the only person he actually beats up is rockford yeah well i guess and arthur at the very end in that last like yeah and that scuffle um so i guess the thing that that when i got done with this where this left me sitting is i was like this is missing from future episodes with game beginning right yeah we just kind of move on with him as a little more of like the goofy character. Yeah.

And we kind of drop this background. We get like the Gamby from the, before the first commercial break of this episode, right? Like, you know, that, because, well, I shouldn't say because, but you can see that there's a chemistry there. There's a show to be had there. This felt like an episode

that was one and done right like this episode felt like oh we're gonna tell this tragic story here and that's it and then they're like we really liked having isaac hayes on set yeah yeah right which is fine like that's not the worst from a production standpoint it's kind of a neutral reaction it is weird that not weird because it is an episodic show right it's not yeah these long-term story arcs so it is kind of like what about this character is fun to watch yeah because we don't want to retread this story over and over no yeah um so it disappears and i have i forgot completely about it i know you did too sure did uh so it's interesting to see that that sort of shift and it's something that shows up a lot in uh a lot of serial fiction right like a lot of times this

happens with comic book heroes all the time they'll have like a big dramatic beginning and then that will have like a certain bend to the story. And then they're like, well, now we've got our I'm trying to think of a generic superhero name here. Possum Woman. And we're going to tell possum woman stories about somebody with those powers and just ignore this weird origin story that we had to write because we just wanted to tell a weird origin story. They wanted to tell this story. And then when they got done, they felt there was leftover material. I don't know. I'm babbling now.

No, I mean, I think it's like, again, you know, I don't think it's ninth dimensional chess. It's yeah, we like this actor. We like this character. Let's bring him back. And like, here's another here's another story that he's in. And this show is not beholden to its previous episodes in the way that a Sunday comic strip, you know, like Peanuts is not really beholden to the last year's Peanuts strip. Sure, if you read them all back to front and go through them in order, there's stuff where it's like, this kid moved and now they're back or whatever.

And it's kind of like, yeah, that was never intended to be a long term thing. So we're saying that in context of having seen the second episode that he's in, right, which is, as we said, the Gandhi and Gabby one, which is essentially it's a backdoor pilot for those two characters that they decided not to do anything with and it is more of a humorous episode it's kind of a romp so the third episode which is um called second chance so so two things first of all it's with diane warwick so that's pretty cool but so a is called second chance it's about Gandhi, who has gotten a new job and has a new life, falling in love with this new woman. Right. But then the plot revolves around she's kidnapped by an old, by her ex-husband. Ah.

I don't remember all the ins and outs, but between it being called Second Chance and it being about Gandhi in a new relationship that is then threatened. Yeah. And it's also written by Dawson. It's the same screenwriter. I wonder if we should actually watch that one next. Let's do that. So that this one's fresh and we can see how much continuity there is of this character. Just Another Polish Wedding, is that in between these two or it's after the second one?

It is in between these two. All right. There's this one, which is season two, Just Another Polish Wedding is season three, and then Second Chance is near the beginning of season four. Yeah, let's do that. I think that we definitely have a more informed thing to say about all of this after seeing that episode i think kind of my reaction at the at the end there was like i felt like the the episode was kind of building up a redemption arc right for gandy like okay he beat her up he was abusive but he did do all this time where is this going is this going to him mastering his violent impulses so that real justice can be done for

whoever did kill her right like yeah i kind of see that arc of of some kind of redemption story and i'm like i don't know if this is the kind of character that i want to see get a redemption story but and then we see that that's not what this is this is a it's not even a twist it's not a gotcha but it's if you look at this character's story with all of the information he is not he is a villain right like he is he is the bad guy here but he doesn't really know that until the end himself and that's a weird place to be as an audience member like because you kind of want it's framed so that you're rooting for him yeah right you want to see him overcome these obstacles uh and then it's like no he needs to do the work to overcome his own issues in a way that is not going to create more harm right

yeah i will say this i think it's a good episode yeah what i'm stumbling over at the end here is just having things to say about it because it is so fraught. And the handling of it, like, OK, let me say this. It was a very well crafted episode. And I do find myself doing some mental gymnastics to have to look at Jim in a good light by the, at the very end of the episode. Right. Right. I think he made a mistake.

Right. Yeah. So, okay. So Jim Rockford isn't a real person. Right. So if he was a real person, this would be a more,

this would matter more what we thought about what he, about his, his opinion here at the end. Right. Yeah. In the context of a single episode it's like i see what the point of it was in terms of paying out the the idea that jim and gandhi have a have a friendship have a bond and that jim wants gandhi to move on like jim's trying to give him the tools

to absolve himself and move on and i just think the way that he chooses to say that are with words that are not an appropriate way to respond to abusers. Yeah. I don't, that doesn't mean that Jim's a bad character or that he's, you know, like he says lots of, he says sexist things. He's not a paragon of.

No, he's fallible, definitely. Yeah, he's fallible. So my mental gymnastics are more about like, you've got me invested in gandy as an interesting sympathetic character yeah but he turns out to have done things that i do not want to be in sympathy with yes and i think it is it is wrong to frame uh to frame media in such a way as to as to make that to make an abuser a sympathetic character. However, as someone who, you know, also believes in restorative justice and the ability of people to change,

he's also being set up as someone who has gone to prison, done all that time, been subject to systems that dealt him a bad hand, right? Those things don't counterweight, like those things don't cancel out what he did. But in this third episode do we see him demonstrate growth and change right i am i'm cautiously optimistic that i will be able to allow him back into my sympathetic heart yes if that if that care is given to the writing into

the character you know it's a it's a weird, and maybe I'm not expressing it very well. No, no, I see what you're saying. I think I'm right there with you. Yeah. What I'm trying to do now is sum this up so we can bring it to... So we can end the episode. Yes, yes.

So I guess to be continued? I guess so, yeah. We didn't intend to go into a two-parter. And it's not really a two-parter. But yeah, our plan, as you've heard in real time, will be to watch Second Chance. And we'll come to it fresh with our experiences from this episode. We'll try to take it on its own terms, of course. But also see how this character is handled and how the story is handled.

Yeah. And see what happens. Because just because the Rockford Files was a great show doesn't mean that it always hits it out of the park or that it's always on the right side of history. And this is a great episode with problematic elements that I think is certainly worth watching. But also you kind of have to keep an eye on what it's doing. Yeah. Or else it puts you in a real weird place right at the end. Watch from an informed standpoint. Certainly worth watching, but also you kind of have to keep an eye on what it's doing. Yeah. Yeah.

Or else it puts you in a real weird place right at the end. Watch from an informed standpoint. All right. That said. Does feel like we earned our 200 for a day. Yes. I certainly, even if it has gone up to 250 a pop, I'm ready to go get my draft beer from the bar at the end of this one. So as always, we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the Rockford Files.