Two Hundred A Day - Episode 50: If The Frame Fits...

Episode Date: June 16, 2019

To celebrate our 50th episode, Nathan and Eppy discuss the third 90s Rockford Files TV movie: If The Frame Fits... This feels like the first true reunion movie, as it features not only Angel and Dennis, but Chapman, Diehl and, triumphantly, a returning Beth Davenport! Jim has been framed for the murder of another PI, and this movie hums right along just like the best of the 70s shows as he figures out what's going on while on the run from the law. Our favorite so far! While the story and script are snappy and have all the hallmarks we love from the 70s era, the real joy of this movie is that the character work and chemistry on screen is as strong as ever. It even winds in an in-character tribute to the passing of Noah Beery, deftly serving the story as well as us as audience members by integrating the fact that Rocky is gone into Jim's emotional journey. 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, Dave P and Bryan Perera! 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.

Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show The Rockford Files, but also the 90s TV movie franchise The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Palletta. And I'm Epidaeio Ravishaw. And we are celebrating another podcast milestone of 50 episodes, 5-0, with this recording where we will be talking about the third 90s Rockford File TV movie, If the Frame Fits. tv movie if the frame fits i would uh just like to take a moment and just let if people were expecting episode 22 of season 2 of the 80s murder fiction series murder she wrote which has the same title and is what i came across on imdb by accident when i was looking for it uh also the original title for this for was Suitable for Framing, which I believe is a Columbo episode.

It's as if they ran out of frame puns for all these detective shows. You know what? Murder, She Wrote is a detective show. I'm just going to say it. Just put it out there. She's a detective. I'm so brave to speak such truths now that the hot takes are out of the way yeah yeah we like to to venture into the tv movies

uh every so often if you have joined us recently the background on this is just that uh you know the rockford files was very popular uh after it went off the air. There was a there was a lot of bad blood between James Garner and Universal, who was the TV studio right at the time. But the show immediately went into syndication and did very well. And at some point, CBS ended up with the ability to make a new contract or something. They were bitten by a radioactive angel. And so they contracted with basically the original production team to write and produce a series of movies. The original contract was for like four,

and then there was an option, and they did, and they took it, so they ended they ended up doing six or maybe it was six and then they did two more for eight there there are eight of them total yeah uh yeah they basically have the same producers uh Juanita Bartlett is in charge overall uh and also uh Charles or Chaz Floyd Johnson who's been a producer of the entire show we just don't talk about him much because he never wrote anything as far as, you know, he was really producer, producer. Garner, of course, they brought back a lot of the directors. They brought back a lot of the production staff. And this is all, you know, 20 years later. So all these people have moved on in their careers and in some in some cases came back into their original roles.

in some cases came back into their original roles, like, you know, being an assistant director or something when, you know, at the time their career has, they're directing their own stuff or whatever. So it sounded like it was very much a, uh,

kind of a family affair in terms of getting everyone together. And so this is the third movie. And this is really the, the real true reunion movie. Oh yeah. This is the first one that has basically the entire supporting cast from the early 70s all in the movie uh yes we're gonna see both uh chapman and deal and i can't recall if that has really occurred before in the series.

Usually one or the other is harassing Dennis for his relationship with Rockford, but not often both of them, right? Right. I think we could do the forensics to see which, if they both appear in any episodes. A deal was in the early seasons, and then Chapman kind of came in and then stayed through the later seasons as this the lieutenant at the police station who is kind of an antagonist to Rockford and also you know ends up being a source of pressure for um for Dennis Becker and a big fan of um Lance White right right the last episode that Deal was in was in season four, and he was only in like six or seven episodes, while Chapman was in like 20 episodes. Yeah.

So we have seen him more in our show as well. In addition to our lieutenants, who have both gotten promotions, of course, we're going to be dealing with Captain Chapman and Commander Deal. Yes. In addition to Lieutenant Dennis Becker, Angel will make an appearance here. And for the first time since the fourth season of the show, Beth, due to a contract issue, Gretchen Corbett was not able to go back into the show after the fourth season. And she apparently was not available for the first couple of movies.

And so this is the big return, which which is they talk about it in the show like this yeah yeah there's a moment in in this yeah this movie uses a lot of real world absences as fictional absences uh as this is also after uh noah beery who or barry oh yeah still not sure how to pronounce his last name uh you know the the actor who played um rocky he had passed away and that is actually a big plot point in this movie it was mentioned in the second movie i think oh god i can't remember now because i i do vaguely recall the first movie referencing him but not as if he had passed away right he couldn't be in the movies because i think he was like too infirm uh not well i think maybe at the end of the second movie they did like a like a in loving memory screen because he passed away kind of around

when this one was being shot this was apparently shot as the fourth of the series that they you know they kind of did all as a package but it aired before the third one so this was the fourth one shot the third one to be aired so the next movie also talks about rocky uh passing away because that that was when the timeline synced up but as we'll see that is they use that to great effect in this movie as a pretty significant both plot point and like emotional beat do you have any any overall thoughts before we dive in i really enjoyed this episode actually this was uh i i think we've said before i've not seen the movies so i am watching these for the first time right Right. Same here. Unless I actually saw them in the 90s, which I don't recall. Like there's a chance that that happened.

I was in fact alive at that time. They're a little bit more of a nail biter. Anytime a something comes back after a long absence, you wonder if they've still got it. Like whether it's a band or it's a show or it's the next book in a series or, you know, whatever. Like things have happened in the meantime that may have changed the creative direction of all those involved. And I would assume that if you have a lot of people involved like you do in a TV show, that that takes you in odd directions rather than brings you back to the center. But it felt very much like this one came right back to the center. This is a Rockford Files episode set in the 90s with Jim and everyone else being older.

Like it just really, really hit it. Yeah, it feels like the Rockford Files. It is of the three movies we have watched so far and same here i have not watched any of them that's kind of one of our fun things as we get to see these things with fresh eyes this is i think probably the strongest of the three as a story to me and also is the one that feels most rockford-y um and we'll talk about all those elements but it has all what we often call classic Rockford moments, right?

Stuff that just feels like, yeah, that's how this is. That's how he is. That's how this world works. It doesn't feel like it's engineered for a 90s audience either. Right. No, very much so. But the other thing I wanted to kind of say as an overall thing

is I found myself wondering what it would have been like as a Rockford Files fan in the 90s waiting for this show to start and watching this show. Right. Because this is an experience that I've had. In fact, just before the show started, we were talking about watching. No spoilers. Avengers Endgame. But we've you know, you and I have read comics for since our youth and there was a point in my life where I looked forward to seeing comic book movies which implies that there's a point in my life where I don't

but like where I was like why can't they do a good Iron Man I think an Iron Man would be a good movie and then that just by accident happens to be their breakout movie and then that just by accident happens to be their breakout movie that sets this all into open motion i feel like this would have been one of those very satisfying moments you you watch the rockford files when it originally aired maybe you watch it in syndication you hear that the new ones are coming out and you and you perhaps have seen

the other two but when you tune in for this one you get i think transported back still set in the 90s but you're pulled back to those original uh that original sensation that feeling yeah yeah totally agree that said this is the first one to drop one of our favorite elements which is the answering machine message yes at this point they just they just gave up they were like we can't we can't come up with anything else we're done and of course uh as the tv movie format uh it does not have a preview montage so we really don't know what we're getting into well we do know a little bit of what we're getting into because it has an amazing synth score and this i think is the moment that lets you know you're in the 90s oh yeah i mean i think we talked about this for the

first movie because i'm pretty sure this is the same score yeah from the other movies and yeah the the synth uh aspects of the original score are very, very 90s. Not even like early 90s, like late 80s, early 90s to me. No, it definitely felt like the 80s trying to predict what the 90s music would be like. So it was good. I enjoyed it, but it felt very much of its time. And actually for this movie, it feels like it's a holdover from the earlier ones because this one actually aired in 96 right so like the first you know the one that aired in 94 or whatever

it's like okay this seems about right and now i'm like now it sounds like a holdover from the earlier movie so maybe maybe get some of our our younger listeners and uh a context here this is after nirvana hit the scene right like this is if you want to talk musically uh where we are at at this point there's a lot of grunge there's a lot of alt rock uh it's not uh synth yeah new wave synth is not uh really on trend um just quickly this this uh movie was written by juanita bartlett and directed by Geno Swark. Yes. Who has directed many of the original series episodes and also the last movie, I think.

And Juanita Bartlett wrote the first movie. I feel like here is really getting back to form. Oh, yeah. movie i feel like here is really getting back to form oh yeah uh jeno uh did two into 5.56 won't go and so help me god which we've both done thanks for listening to 200 a day we have some news in addition to this podcast we're launching plus expenses which is all the stuff we talk about that isn't the rockford files we talk about movies we're watching, books we're reading, and games we're playing. Plus Expenses is a new feature for our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. The main show will remain free to all for as long as we do it, but if you want to help support us and get access to the new Plus Expenses audio feed, you can become a patron for just a dollar an episode.

As always, each episode we also 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 conventions east of the Mississippi. See where to find him at JimLikesGames on Twitter. Shane Liebling, if you play games online, you should check out his free dice rolling app, Roll For Your Party, at RollForYour.Party. Kevin Lovecraft, hear him on the RPG Actual Play podcast, the Wednesday evening podcast all-stars over at misdirectedmark.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Bill Anderson, Dave P., and Brian

Pereira. And finally, big thanks as always to Victor DeSanto and to Richard Haddam, who you can find on Twitter at Richard Haddam. Help out the show by leaving a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts, tell a friend who you think would like it, and check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you and uh yeah but we start off with our synth score over what i think might be the first time we've seen this

which is the nighttime la shot like this helicopter uh this kind of a sequence of helicopter shots of LA at night. Yeah. So that feels very contemporary, fancy. Credits play as we see this LA skyline, all the fancy lights and there's a sports stadium and all this lively nightlife going on. But then we start in right with the action as the camera comes down to Jim's fancy built out trailer. Yes. It's much more much more of a home at this point in his life.

But a number of cop cars are rolling up. And in the first of our many classic Rockford moments, Jim is woken up by someone pounding on the door at three o'clock in the morning. Because this is the first one to have done it. And we don't know what's going to happen in the next ones i will give them the benefit of the doubt and call this an answering machine gag the cops raiding his home to be fair that's the kind of message he would get from an answering machine anyways but yes they uh make short work of his door um a bunch of cops pour into his place, pull him out of bed,

tell him he's under arrest and start reading him his rights as they put him in handcuffs. This whole sequence is, you know, mostly watching this happen. There is one moment when the guy starts reading him his rights where you see Jim's eye, like give like an eye roll.

Yeah, yeah. He's throughout this episode, Garner's on it like he is his expressions throughout it are i i mean that's why we're here that's why we're talking there's something and i think it might literally be the haircut but there's something about him that seemed more like the 70s jim rockford in this movie than in the last two movies yeah and I think it might be because in those like his hair was a little longer actually and or something I don't know in this one he just looks like a slightly older version not even that much older version yeah yeah of uh of himself um and that's part of it too at the police station, Jim is marched right in to confront our Captain Chapman, who also looks like just looks like someone has done some old age makeup on James Luisi.

Like he's it's all the mannerisms, right? Yeah, it's the way that he talks, the way that his head kind of moves and like everything. You're like, OK, yeah, here's Chappy. So through this whole sequence, right, Jim doesn't know why he's been arrested. Oh, I love this gag. Well, I mean, like this whole bit where everyone has something to say. Jim's complaining about things. Chapman's complaining about Jim.

Jim's thing is like, I don't even know why I'm here. I'm going to sue the department for false arrest and, you know, damage and all this stuff. I didn't do anything. Chapman has a line. You never commit any crimes, but you always end up at the booking desk. But they go into Commander Deal's office. So he is the most senior official here. senior official here um the deal chapman dynamic is great because as we know from you know previous shows chapman is always he has it out for rockford but he's always trying to get in good with his

boss yeah right whoever his boss happens to be and when his boss will not like just won't give him any like will not yeah swallow what he's uh you know trying to to lay down those are the best because chapman gets like status dropped right uh and it's fantastic there there's a thing in uh the rockford files where you can you can almost this is this is me game designing the rock files okay uh you could almost lay out a map of who has been put upon and also who feels put upon but isn't. You know, like, because spoilers, Angel's in this episode. And Angel is put upon in a different way than, say, Rockford is or whatever. But I don't think anyone has ever been so exasperated by all the people around him the deal is in this scene.

And he's just calmly going through it you could tell he wants to say something that will set everything straight but he's letting people say the things that they're saying first uh and it's great it's great yeah and everyone's cranky because it's early in the morning but we should also talk about dennis in the window they're in the commander deal's're in Commander Deal's office. Jim's listing off all the things he's going to sue the department for. And we see Dennis in street clothes and his civvies looking through the window because it's like an enclosed office with these big windows. Deal goes over and closes the blinds, which is fantastic. And then Jim asks if he can get some coffee.

which is fantastic. And then Jim asks if he can get some coffee. And when he goes over to the coffee machine, that window doesn't have blinds and he can, and Dennis is there. Yeah. And then they do all these like hand motions through the glass trying to communicate. It's,

it's really hard to talk about. Okay. So this is one of the reasons why I really enjoyed this episode is that there is many layers going on at once, because while this is happening, there's the setup for continuing continuing coffee gag right throughout the episode because jim has been talking about how he's going to sue and how he's been mistreated and he and he asks if he can get some coffee and deals like if you want something else to complain about right which is unimportant

to anything but it's just wonderful because yeah, it starts. Uh, uh, yeah. Like you said, it starts a gag. Uh, yeah, we will be coming back to, um,

deal sees Becker and kind of, and goes out to confront him and deals asking him why he's there. You know, there's some good gags. I work here. Right. Uh, but he's not like on duty.

Right. He just came by because he heard about the arrest. This is getting us going with the whole dennis jim chapman yes triangle right the devil's triangle the devil's triangle deal knows that he's friends with jim right yeah he's in fact in his known associates file which is uh bad news for dennis yeah dennis is upset about that. But he tells him to come in. Maybe Jim will relax if someone he knows is in there. Which is a nice little subtle thing for fans of the show.

Because I think it shows us that Deal has not been around, right? Yeah. Like, Deal knows that he's in the file. But unlike Chapman, Chapman would know that bringing Becker in is not going to put Jim at ease, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's been at least 20 years. Like give, give Deal a break. We find out that, you know, the sergeant at the desk called Dennis when Jim got brought in because everyone knows they're friends. So everyone's in there now. Still no one's told Jim what he's been arrested for. And so Deal starts asking him some questions specifically about the bad blood between Jim Rockford and another P.I. by the name of Bud Mockton. Jim says, oh, there's no bad blood.

Which is a callback to the second Lance White episode. Yes. Where there's this PI award ceremony that Jim never wins. But there's apparently he had an altercation at the Goodhues. And there's a picture in the paper of I think it's of Jim punching this other guy across the face. With a nasty left. Oh, it's good. It's good.

So Jim's like said he has bad blood with me. He's always starting things with me. He accuses me of stealing his clients. I forget what the setup is. I think it's like, why did you go over to his place or something like that? Right. And we get into a sequence of some flashbacks interspersed with some additional questions to bring us up to speed. In our first flashback, we see the Firebird. Apparently it has been fully restored from things that have happened to it over the last couple movies oh before we go into the flashback there are a couple choice moments of dialogue uh between jim and dennis for first of all just watch jim when he drinks the coffee that's important it is not good coffee it's not good coffee um that is that is an acting class in and of itself

how to drink bad coffee um i i'm trying to remember the exact moment in all of this tangled mess of things i think it's once dennis is in the room but there's still enough chaos that he can talk to rockford yeah he has this line where he says i can feel my career hitting the do not resuscitate wall yeah i got a call in the middle of the night saying that they're bringing you in and I, you know, whatever. I don't remember Dennis's actual line, but Jim's response to it is, what a shame. I got to sleep in till three. There are so many great, I mean, I noted other ones. Like, there are so many great lines in here that we will probably bore you all to tears with going over.

But they're so good um the joy of this is seeing a lot of the physical uh acting yeah watching everyone interact with each other if you have a choice of the first three movies watch this one i think this would be my takeaway but uh yes so this flashback we see the firebird uh jim is playing catch up on his paperwork which means that he has a big pile of past due bills on his on his table he's actually on the phone with someone trying to explain how sure he's a couple weeks behind but there's other people that he's a month behind so you know this particular creditor doesn't have him so bad yes but he's on the phone while there's

another knock on his door and it's a a very high energy woman talking a mile a minute, just narrating out loud all of her thoughts and feelings. Oh, it's a good idea having a kitchen. That way you don't have to go out to lunch, maybe miss a client. You could offer someone a cup of coffee. Oh, would you care? Oh, not for me, thank you. I try to limit my caffeine. Probably a good idea.

Yeah, she felt like a stage character. From a farce. Yeah, exactly. Not to spoil anything, but that's intentional. Yeah. I was like, oh, this is a little over the top. Turns out there's a reason. I'd also note that very prominently we see the cookie jar on his otherwise clean counter in his kitchen, which is a wonderful touch.

And is also foreshadowing. Yes. Chekhov's cookie jar. Once Jim gets her calmed down, he finds out that a family friend recommended him to her because he's very discreet. And this is someone that has hired him in the past. And so he does know what she's talking about right yeah that's a legit reference she says that her name is linda gustavo or mrs hector gustavo yes she thinks that her she knows that her husband's having an affair but she wants proof before she you know i don't know divorces him or takes him to court it's vague she wants

proof right jim as we know from our last couple of episodes of this show, does not take domestic cases. Yes. And for good reason. Right. But Linda just keeps counting out $100 bills onto that coffee table. She starts with hundreds and she moves on to fifties, which is a nice realistic touch.

She's paying him a week in advance. You know me. I got eyes on the money here. I'm trying to figure out what's happening. I'm assuming it's $200 a day still. Seems a little bit like Jim would be behind the times at that point. There's a line from one of the earlier movies where it was

like, he should be charging $ 350 by now or something like that right yeah yeah but it's a little vague about whether what his actual because she just says i know what your rate is and starts counting out hundreds yes every time we do an episode i open up a browser window with an inflation calculator. So $200 a day from 1976 to 1996, right? $200 a day in 1976 is about $550 a day in 1996. So come on, Jim. Right, so he needs to be raising that rate is what you're telling me. If it's still $200 a day,

she drops a cool grand right away on the table right like this is a week's worth uh presuming five days uh and then she just starts flopping money on top of that i cannot keep an eye on how much money this is and watching jim watch that money come out and he a couple times, you really don't know how hard you're making this for me. He says that he's never broken his promise to himself not to take a domestic case, which I don't know if that's 100% true. I was wondering about that too, but I'm going to take it as given right now. Sometimes he takes cases that, as with Gandhi,hi as we learned turned into domestic cases yeah well it depends on what's a domestic case i'm assuming domestic cases when people are cheating on people and not like because i think he's done ones that are like we've got this money and we need to find

my ex-wife to give that money to or you know like the insurance cases like the one uh where he flies to europe and then comes back and it's like an insurance fraud case. But there is it is a domestic situation. Yeah. But the case is about the insurance, right? He's like, nothing as juicy as that. I want something. I want insurance.

I want bureaucracy. Which is kind of an interesting just as we're talking about it, it's kind of an interesting global thing about the show is that he doesn't i mean sometimes the cases turn up revolving around relationships right but he doesn't really take as he says domestic cases where it's like i need proof that this person's cheating on me or whatever right i wonder how much of that is to differentiate him from other pis and also how much of that is to not have to put that on tv right yeah how many you know how many episodes uh do they really want to have of like taking pictures of unfaithful spouses right right is that good tv yeah because it definitely especially around the time when it

originally aired that was considered very seedy work you know photographing people uh which now is considered um part of your everyday life everyone photographs everyone else that's what we do that's how we interact as human beings in this hellscape of a of a world but um like one of the big draws to the series to me and i can't really explain it other than is the idea that between episodes the work that jim is doing is so boring yeah and he has a line in this movie later where he says like if this was what my job was all the time i'd be dead yeah right yes like we're really only seeing the really exciting cases in jim's workload which is kind of which is a fun uh pattern um we end the scene with him saying it's not his kind of case and then we cut back to the ongoing interview

uh where deal yells out the door can we get some decent coffee in here and there's a joke in the cut right and then the joke coming back from deal is jim then goes into how he went about taking the case. And when somebody was like, that's not your kind of case. I think somebody in that scene says that. I think it might have been Dennis because I don't I can't imagine Chapman. No, because Chapman specifically thinks that's his kind of case. Right. Yes. As we yeah, we come back with the with the joke of him saying like, so what I did was. Yes. Describes what he did. So he,

he took a job at, uh, Gustavo's company, which is a recording studio, uh, uh, you know, record record studio where he,

he wrote himself some letters of recommendation and got all of the proper credentials to get them exactly the job he wanted, uh, being a custodian, uh, or a janitor of some kind. He's unseen. He's unseen unseen no one pays attention to him hide in plain sight and he says that the that brought him into contact with

this guy bud because bud was working at this company as a security like consultant or whatever and bud when he recognized rockford thought that rockford was trying to steal his client. Yes. And then we go into another flashback at the studio with Jim in his disguise as he's going and cleaning, cleaning out the cleaning up the office of Gustavo as he's chewing out some poor writer for not providing good words for the Latin beat that he thinks is going to be the new sound of the 90s. This whole Latin thing is going to explode. It's going to go mainstream like it was in the 40s so jim is a fly on the wall while this guy gustavo's talking to this doesn't matter guy yelling at him and his secretary is in there they transition into uh saying that it's time to go to lunch and uh she makes some

hay about how they always go to Rex's for lunch. Yes. Always go to Rex's every single day. Like other people have lunch meetings or. They pay experts to find ways to make them not vulnerable like this. Like it's specifically like. Yeah. About how other executives are paranoid enough not to go to the same place all the time. There is enough made of that that I was like, note for later later this guy goes to the same place for lunch every day yeah that is

emphasized in the dialogue after they leave and gustavo tells them to make sure to clean clean the baseboards because the last guy left him filthy um jim pokes around and finds some aerial photographs of some yeah some kind of terrain looks very weird in context of this record producer right in my notes i was like uh-oh how big is this like he's pulled out of his bed in the middle of the night by an army of cops and i'm like okay that's a bit much and then uh nobody's telling him anything and it's about another pi like at this point we know that other pi is dead right we know because we read the synopsis of the like the synopsis of the of the movie is yeah when a fellow pi is killed jim is framed for the murder yeah it's

called if the frame fits like we know he's he's getting framed up for something. But it seems a little over the top for all of that. And then I see aerial photos and I'm like, uh-oh. There's something going on here. There's a signifier that something perhaps international is happening right now. Jim leaves the office and runs into Bud

who recognizes him. Yes. They exchange some words. He asks Bud what he's you know what he's been snooping on he knows that it's his mo to bug everything and calls him stupid and predictable one of them swing i forget who i think maybe it's bud like swings at him yeah and then we cut to seeing the secure from the same angle seeing the security camera footage of the two of them fighting on the tv and deal's office seems like bad blood to us and uh jim has a line what's to like he's a tree with lips so that's that hasn't changed in 20 years but then the response is he's

also dead so this is when they introduce that he's been killed um they ask him why he went over to bud's place because they have a security camera image from his office of jim going into the front door right yeah and jim says that he called him he wanted to meet rockford and talk to him about something jim went in he wasn't there so jim left and they say that well bud was shot and they found the body after you know jim went in he wasn't there so jim left and they say that well bud was shot and they found the body after you know jim went in and they don't know when jim left because there was no footage of that this is when jim asked dennis to call beth yes the way that this is all staged is really kind of interesting so he's like call beth and dennis doesn't Beth's number, like, right off the top of his head.

So he picks up the phone in Deal's office and is talking to the operator. You know, Van Sant, because that's her marriage, because she got married. That's her married name. Yeah. Might be under Davenport. That's her maiden name. But it might be listed under her husband. This is his name.

It might be in this place or this place or Pasadena. There's a couple of things. Like, before he says Beth, he says, call my lawyer. And there's he's like your ex-wife. Oh, right. He's like, no, Beth. Yeah. We've seen the previous two episodes.

So we know that there's. Yeah. In the first movie, his ex-wife is also a lawyer and comes in. Yeah. And it felt very much like, well, we couldn't get Gretchen. So here's a beth substitute no i don't want to because i think they did well by by creating a character that was separate from beth and still like and they wanted to make a point of they both had their own lives because

beth is married and they talk about how she had this best-selling book and then jim buried this woman and then they didn't end up working out and they got divorced or whatever yeah so at first dennis isn't willing to go to the beth answer and then it's the beth answer and then this whole back and forth between dennis and jim as they're trying to figure out how to get a hold of her you get the feeling that jim just knows her number right and dennis is I mean, I'll go through the motions, but every moment it's Jim that's giving him the next bit of information. Oh, the listing might be under a husband's name. Roger.

Roger Van Sant. Yeah, you could try Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel Air, Home V. Pasadena. Pasadena even. Yeah, I'll hold. Come on, Jim. with bel-air home v pasadena pasadena even yeah awful come on jim just admit that you know you know how to get in touch with her right like it's almost like jim's in trouble he needs beth but he also is afraid to admit that he's kept up with her right in some way and then while becker is on this phone he's also getting glared at by deal because they're trying to get find out what kind of gun jim has right because so because bud was shot

and becker is the one who keeps dropping all the information like in front of jim oh and it's mumbling and whispering he's so cowled Yeah, what caliber of gun do you have? He's like, 38. Where do you keep it, cookie jar? In the cookie jar, sir. So they're going to go back and look for this gun because they have motive. They have opportunity. They just need to pick up the murder weapon.

Jim is mad at Dennis, of course, for throwing him under the bus about the gun, I guess. His justification here, right, is that he needs to do something to stay in good or he's going to go down with Jim. Yeah. This is when Beth makes her appearance. And, of course, the first thing that is important for them to talk about is her haircut. Yes. So a lot of so this is all great. Jim, Beth, Becker on the outside, back and forth, sarcastic, but with affection, banter, right?

Yeah, yeah. but with affection banter right yeah yeah kind of the the exposition here is it's been four years since she published her book became a bestseller 19 months on the bestseller list jim never even like never even called her after she gave him the book to read or whatever so they haven't spoken in four years she hasn't practiced law in years because she writes now. Yeah, that book was a bestseller. And the second one sold even better. She's got a good new profession for her. He doesn't really like her hair. So she has very curly hair.

Yeah. So Gretchen Corbett, that's her natural hair. She straightened it in the 70s. As it turns out, so did Beth. It's funny how life imitates art. Or the other, I don't know. One one of those ways i did not recognize her i don't want to like because we've been talking about how the other folks have aged and some have aged better than others like uh poor dennis dennis definitely aged in those 20 years uh she actually didn't age she just just looks different. That's all. Like, I think it is the hair almost entirely.

But yeah. Underneath this thing about her haircut, right, is you can see kind of this resentment of you're going to call me in the middle of the night, get me out here for something I don't even do anymore. And then you're going to give me crap about my hair. How dare you? She does have that like rejoinder where she's like, I don't like your hair either. Yeah.

And she's like, why did you call me? I don't practice law anymore. And he says he needs her help. He needs her expertise to carry him through a couple of months, which I think means like I need some kind of living situation. Yeah. Because I want to pursue this countersuit or the suit against the, you know, against the cops.

Dennis the whole time is trying to corral them into an office it'll be a little more private yeah talk privately and more and more like desk cops are just kind of popping into the shot and watching them as they're having this argument beth says that it'll be a polar day in hell before she helps him again and she storms out good work jim yes and of course we know that she's going to help him again both beth and jim can't resist helping people even though they say they won't and then uh in a surprising turn of events becker says that jim can go yeah his uh they looked for the gun they didn't find it i love this line they looked in the cookie jar they found oreos did they look

under the oreos it's a trained police officers of course they looked under the oreos out of context rockford files perfect love it um jim is not pleased to hear that his gun is not where he thought it was yes it is uh the next day he's getting his door fixed. The guy does not need his help to hang it right. Just let him do his job while he's awaiting this fix. He receives a visit from a woman by the name of Jess Wilden. He knows who she is because she's an IRS agent. Nobody forgets the IRS, Miss Wilden. And she apparently audited him at some point. I checked because I was like, oh, is this the character from

our last episode that has the bank adjuster? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And I checked and it is not it is neither the actress nor the character. They did a real good job of making us feel like this is a character that has always been in Jim's life since whatever that moment is. And of course, over the course of 20 years, there's going to be more people in Jim's life than we know of. Right. But yeah, I did the same thing. I did a lot of searching to be like, where the hell is she from?

She was very close with Rocky. Yes. And this is where we were. They directly address. Yeah, that he's passed away. She was in Europe when he actually died. So she couldn't come to the funeral. She got him a cuckoo clock because she thought she would like it. So Jess talks about how close she was to Rocky. And Jim did not know that she had this relationship with his dad um that comes out here and then i think we play it out in some of the subsequent scenes with more details but this kind of surprises him and kind of weirds

him out because he starts to think that they had a romantic relationship. Okay, so there's a bunch here. There's a lot to unpack here. Yeah. So one of the wonderful things that is entirely Rocky is that it turns out she came to audit Jim and then Rocky took her out to dinner because she earned it after a hard day's work. I gotta tell you,

I cannot think of a more Rocky thing to have happened. And then like there's all these moments where Jim and her she's trying to tell Jim that Rocky didn't exist in a vacuum, I think is a paraphrase there. I'm remembering. I think of Gear Jammers. Gear Jammers. Yes. Where we find out about Rocky's like hidden girlfriend that Jim had no idea about. His extended life where he follows Rocky around and it's Jim like literally says Rocky was not a secretive man. And I'm like, Jim, Rocky kept secrets from you. He really did. I mean, it's not an ongoing thing it's not like uh

but that one episode clearly established that rocky didn't share the women in his life with jim for whatever reason it's not there's nothing sinister about what's happening or any of these secrets it's just that jim being the private investigator that he is never bothered to investigate his dad except in that one moment uh the the end result here is that uh she wants to visit rocky's grave and that's you know she can if jim would go with her um so we go to this very touching scene where there's just this is this is standing in right for i'm sure what every everyone there what felt about about noah beery right that actor because it sounds like no he's a great guy really you know father lee in his relationships with all his younger cast members and all this stuff so yeah uh there's some real like emotional truth

to visiting his grave and talking about his life and what he would have liked and all that kind of stuff which is really nice r.i.p yeah uh they as they kind of wander uh wander away from the actual site they continue this conversation about about rocky and and jess and their relationship and jim's getting a little defensive yeah or she says it's something like i would know when you were visiting him because he would call me and tell me not to come over right and then he's like oh you would call me sometimes and tell me not to come over i guess that's when you were visiting right and so that doesn't he doesn't really like that and jim says rocky was an open book and just says well you missed some chapters yes so they're arguing they they end with one of those like...

She said, you're nothing like Rocky. And he's like, you're nothing like Rocky too. And then they both crack up, right? It's a classic good moment. And Jim offers his hand and says, let's have a fresh start. I don't need to be mad about this. They leave in the Firebird being followed by a fancy red car. Oh, and my notes are, firebird being followed by a fancy red car oh and my notes are you're

being followed and then immediately we're being followed yes what are you gonna do lose them and so jim peels out and we get into a uh into a into a car chase yes this is a pretty i mean this is a pretty fun little chase uh it's mostly like swerving through other cars on these you know busy streets the big maneuver is jim manages gets on one side of a of like a semi that has a bunch of cars on it so he can see through to see the other side and the chase car is on the other side and then he finds a moment to slam on the brakes and it's kind of a j turn it's a little too high acceleration to be like a true J-turn, but he manages to slam on the brakes and swerve

and start heading the other way while the other car can't quite get in his way. My notes on this, I mentioned that because that's a great moment. There's a moment just before that, I think, where we see the woman from the beginning who sets this whole thing off on a payphone. She's calling in

reckless driving yes almost hit her and it's so clear that she was waiting there to make that call yes i was like ah now there's the frame and then finally watching him on either side of the semi i wrote down the fast and the curious. When they reboot the Rockford files, that's the episode I'm writing. Like when you first see it in the shot, I was like, oh, is he going to drive up onto it? Because that would be, you know, a classic maneuver. I was expecting something along those lines, but it turned out to be a much more Rockford style. Just use it for cover. Yeah.

So the important thing here, here yeah is this being called into the cops as this reckless driving thing by by quote linda uh jim thinks he's lost them uh drives through a gas station like parking lot and again a very classic rockford car chase move and goes through like uh the waxing cycle of a car wash but i guess the other guy had his number and pulls around in front of him and blocks him from leaving. Of course, it is Mr. Gustavo who gets out of his fancy car. Jim's like, why are you following me? And Gustavo says, because you've been following me. He wants to know why this guy, you know, why Jim came into his company under false pretenses and why he's

been following Gustavo and like what he's up to. And why he killed an employee of his. Yes. One of the wonderful things about this confrontation is how bloodthirsty Jess is. She jumps out of the car and she's like, hit him, Jim, hit him, just hit him. Yeah, they're struggling. Jim, like Gustavo takes a swing and Jim grabs his arm and then they're just kind of like struggling around and shuffling around trying to get the upper hand. I think this is a great thing about her character. She puts herself in the way of all of the danger. She's probably looking for excitement here, right? right like and um it sets it up for further down when they do that song and dance where jim's like

this is too dangerous you shouldn't be here and she's says well i have this so you have to let me you know that kind of thing uh this is a good setup for it because it's her like you know finding what's happening thrilling this is exciting stuff yeah for her This is why she joined the IRS. This is when the cops show up. We have back and forth of, I was following him because he was following me. And Jim says, well, that actually makes sense.

Yes. The cop asked Gustavo, are you all right? And Jim's like, why don't you ask me if I'm all right? The cop's like, are you all right? Yeah,

I'm all right. Just as he's very reasonable responses to everything. He wants to press assault charges. Jess is a witness that he, you know, he threw the first punch. Gustavo kind of backs down a little bit, but then explains to the cop, he got arrested for the murder of one of my employees and all this stuff. Game drops Chapman, doesn't he? He says like Chapman's been trying to put him away for years. Like, okay.

He thought it was in danger because he could have a gun. Right. So the cops like, okay, pats him down and then checks the car. And sure enough, Jim's gun is in the trunk of the Firebird. Jim's expression when they find that gun is one of resignation. Like, it's hard to explain. Of like, of course. Yeah, of course. Okay.

I'm bound up now. You know, it's not that like, oh,, of course. Yeah, of course. Okay. I'm bound up now. You know, it's not that like, oh, they caught me. It's just, all right. This is what I got to deal with now. So our next sequence is back at the station, of course. There's a lot of fun business in this scene that I'm going to kind of skip over because it's mostly visual and mostly just gags. There's an older woman who's sitting there waiting waiting to confess and it freaks out beth but it turns out she's a regular and everyone who passes by

is like oh hey how's it going we'll be right with you yeah her name is sally uh she's such a regular that dennis knows how many sugars she takes in her coffee yeah get her a coffee with two sugars yeah uh but this is getting everyone into Deal's office. Becker's been in Deal's office a lot lately. Seems like he might be in trouble. This might be my favorite Chapman Deal bit. So everyone's in Deal's office, including Chapman. Deal comes in and says, have you taken everyone's statement?

And Chapman says, oh, no, I was waiting for you. Trying to like suck up. And Deal clearly would rather he had just gotten all the paperwork done. Yeah. So good. I do want to mention just a teeny little bit. And this only comes up once more, I think, in the episode. But we see McCool, who got the promotion over Dennis in the first of the movies, just delighting the fact that dennis has been in deal's office yeah or chapman or whatever like just like i think he's in trouble um so gustavo wants to know who

hired jim uh jim's not going to tell him because that's privileged information but chapman says your wife hired him and this is the most angry that jim gets in like the entire episode he's being framed for murder. Some other stuff's going to go down. But this moment here where Chapman blurts out who hired him, that is infringing on his unconscionable. Unconscionable. Yeah. But of course, dun, dun, dun.

Gustavo says, I don't have a wife. I've never been married. Eppie, 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 Wrestling 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 ndpayoleta. Looks like 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. All right, she claimed to the show then. All right. She claimed to be your wife. She really overpaid me. Yeah. This must be a setup. And this is where we start getting Jim's aspirin bits.

The setup of the aspirin gag. Throughout this whole thing, Jim keeps asking everyone for aspirin. Everyone's like, there's no aspirin. And he was like, nobody in here has aspirin. Stop asking. Jim and Becker are going back to uh find beth um and there's this weird yeah is becker all right jim asking for an aspirin again and becker looks at him and just stops and there's a beat and then he says you know that bees can die of loneliness well they can you know bees can die of loneliness i wrote that one down and i kept

expecting some payoff or something and i'm like oh my god what is happening with dennis here like this is a moment that you can hang an entire alternate theory of the episode on right like you could just be like dennis is so alone right now what what is going on like if this whole story was being told from becker's perspective yeah it would probably be just as interesting it would just be like it would be him standing there staring into the window where rockford's being interrogated in the beginning that thing where he doesn't move and everyone around him is moving super fast he's just here uh what's his name werner herzog's voice did you know that's not his voice yeah it was just out of the blue and just perfect yeah like dennis is like well they can and that's

it like i'm just trying to be interesting here it It's so weird. And so, yeah, it's just so good. Like, it just works. It's so funny. Beth has been waiting in Becker's office. She settled right in making revisions on her latest book while she's been waiting. She came back. She couldn't just leave him in trouble. Aw, Beth.

That is our Beth. She asks him if he made a statement. He said he did. Deal took your statement without counsel being present and she storms out this is after he's asked her for aspirin and she says she doesn't have any uh and he has a line about this time seems to be a gaslight and i'm playing the ingrid bergman role i was like aha because that's referring to the film from which we get the term gaslighting people are telling him things that don't seem to be true and he feels like he's going crazy.

Yes, exactly. So Beth goes to yell at Deal, I guess, and Jim dumps out her purse saying that, you know, she said she thought she didn't have aspirin, but women always have so much stuff in their purses. He finds a little unlabeled pillbox. Dennis is like, don't take those. You don't know what those are. But Jim will hear none of it. Take somethingabeled pill box. Dennis is like, don't take those. You don't know what those are. But Jim will hear none of it.

Take something out of the box. Then Beth comes back, says that Gustavo is not going to file assault charges if Jim agrees to get psychiatric help. Becker says, go for it. We get the payoff for the gag. He says, I took some aspirin. I don't have any aspirin. Well, what's it? Right. What are these that might help you with water retention? Because those are for the gag. He says, I took some aspirin. I don't have any aspirin. Well, what's it? What

are these that might help you with water retention? Because those are for PMS. Ah, okay. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's not the best gag in the entire series. The coffee stuff is better. Yeah, I kept waiting for it to pay off in another way later on. It makes another reference to it, but it's not not quite there yeah all right so jim uh has another confrontation with chapman book me or let me go and chapman says fine i'm gonna book you like what uh they got the lab report back and that 38 that was in his trunk is the murder weapon yeah uh i forget how this transitions but basically he's like okay so he's gonna stay there because he's getting arrested.

So he asked Dennis to take Jess home because Jess has been came with him to the station, I guess, because they were in the same car. Right. I think while he's at as he's asking him to do that, forget how the dialogue goes. But basically, he's like, do you think that when she says she was Rocky's friend? Yes. Is that a euphemism? Yeah. Dennis is clearly uncomfortable with this line of questioning uh my notes just it's a whole thing like they have yeah a thing about this but it is making it clear to us that jim is uh he's not comfortable with the idea that jess who's who's his his age right or a little bit maybe a little younger um would have been in a sexual relationship

with rocky and i think it's dennis who thinks rocky and her had a relationship right like i think dennis is like well isn't that what you mean by friends like yeah uh showing that dennis doesn't have a good handle on how to be friends with women that he's not married to like yeah what other relationship could a man and a woman have yeah exactly so after that kind of confusing scene um we have the the most solid yeah this is a rockford moment the a pair of fbi agents show up to take jim out of chapman custody. He's their prisoner now. And we get to see Chapman being very territorial about, no, I arrested Jim. He's mine.

The jurisdictional clash, right? The bureaucratic tension there, again, is one of the core Rockford-y dynamics. And there's a good status thing going on here because you know jim is fronting when he deals with chapman right like he walks right into it he's like you know arrest me or let me go and chapman's like all right i'll rescue you insisted blah blah blah he's a little taken aback by the fact that you know whatever but he still is like these local guys i dealt with them for my entire life. I, you know, I've got a good team. I can deal with them or whatever. The FBI comes to take

him away and he is bad, bad, bad. It's so good. It's so good. When we go to the good old federal building where we see Jim strapped in for a polygraph. You know, you and I as informed media consumers know that the lie detector is not admissible in court. It's horseshit. Yeah, it is not really effective or meaningful. But what it actually does in the scene is make for a lot of good jokes because they have to phrase things as yes or no questions so it's actually this very intentional choice that makes this a very fun scene

i thought that that was a really well chosen bit you know it's a improv game right because every question that they offer him he answers with a question he can't answer yes or no he's just like wait i don't remember the exact questions but they were like did you know bud uh why should i know him or what does he have to do with this or something like that why does the fbi care about him yeah and we see that jim is like reclaiming some like power by not cooperating until he's like okay okay okay and then he gives like a yes or no answer. And then we go through the thing again. So it builds up through a bunch of yes answers.

And then there's a no answer, right? So it's like, yes, he knew, but yes, he received a phone call from him on that night. Yes.

He said he had info to sell. And he's like, Oh, what did you have his phone tapped? And like, just answer the questions. Yes. Did you go to see him?

Yes. Did you purchase the info? No. And they're like, just answer the questions. Yes or no. Did you go to see him? Yes. Did you purchase the info? No. And they're like, what? Right. Yeah. The whole case falls apart. Yeah.

They're like, God damn it. Yeah. Because he wasn't home. So Millard is this is the FBI agent. Millard is clearly crestfallen. And apparently the polygraph test does not lie. So when he says no he's like oh that's not what we wanted so uh he seems to be at loose ends and jim asks can i go now and millard

says yeah back to jail so we uh we go we're in a car jim is handcuffed to millard in the back of the car that's important and then as they pass under like under overpass, a car with a bunch of goons sideswipes them off the road and they both go fishtailing into a lawn. And then a bunch of both visually and then as they start talking with accents, coded Latino guys with guns pour out of this kind of beat up car, have guns on everyone. And they want Rockford. And then there's a bit where they try to get him. They're like, out of the car, out of the car. But they can't get out of opposite sides because they're handcuffed together. So there's a little physical comedy there.

Once they identify which one is Rockford, the main guy offers them a choice. They can go to the bus stop and take the next bus, or he can shoot them right there. They seem a little surprised that they're dealing with federal agents. Yes. But there are like four of them. And they have guns. And then what follows seems like a racist joke I don't get. There's a whole thing about who sits where in the car.

Right. That they're arguing over. And there's more of them than there needed to be and could possibly fit rockford in that car there's like four guys outside and then they go and they start trying to arrange in the small car and there's still guys in the car so i think it is supposed to be a comedic bit like oh look at all these latinos in a small car which seems like a weird stereotype but okay because it's not like it's a lowrider or something. It's a clown stereotype.

It's like a clown car. And maybe that's just what they were trying to do was a clown car thing. But I was like a little, like a little on edge. So on the one hand, I'm like, okay, so now there's some other party involved, right? Right. And then it turns out that there is a reason why these guys do this, but it kind of just disappears. The bit with the car is the main guy who has his gun on Rockford.

He's the boss. So he's the one who's yelling at them to, you know, who to go where and whatnot. And so his attention is distracted. And so and Jim sees that the car key is still in the FBI car. He is able to find a perfect moment when everyone's attention is away from him that he can dive into the car and make his escape good old jim good old jim when we never see those guys again very true uh yeah no i i mean i understand having seen the entire episode i'm like oh okay i get what's happening here somewhat but uh in that moment i was like i i don't mind being like i don't know what's happening

because i trust in the rockford files in telling me what what what's going to happen or whatever but i definitely had this like is this funny business supposed to be telling me something or is it just supposed to be a gag or you know what what's going on here yeah and there's not really anything else to it um we cut to jess uh she's walking around um and we see the camera is showing us a guy clearly following her she crosses the street this guy's following her gets closer and closer and then reaches out to grab her purse and then jim just flies in from off camera yes the save. It's just him being intimidating too. Like he just puts his hands on the guy and is like. You must not understand personal property or something like that.

And the guy stumbles away. I feel like there was like a real like cut cut here. I think maybe this was like a commercial, like a mid. Right. You know, because it's in a two hour time slot, right? So, but it's a movie slot. So I think they probably break at the hour. I don't know.

I don't know how 90s TV works. But I feel like that was like end of an act. This is the start of the next act. If you're just tuning in, here's this little exciting moment where Jim comes in, right? Here's some action you can enjoy. He called her and asked her to meet him there. Would you care for a taquito? I knew you'd like this scene.

It's the 90s. We've gone modern. It's not a taco stand. It's a taquito stand. Yes. I don't know if taquitos are still popular outside of the Southwest or West Coast. Are you familiar with the taquito? It's like a deep fried.

It's like the filling is rolled up like a, it's like in a straw. So the tortilla is on the outside and you roll it all up and it's like a thick straw. And then like a, it's like in a straw of, so the tortilla is on the outside and you roll it all up and it's like a thick straw. And then yeah, it's fried. I feel like this was the, you know, this is on trend in LA, the taquito stand. So Jim gets two taquitos. So there's this ongoing joke in this episode about how little sleep and food he gets. Right.

He's been basically moving ever since the cops bust down his door at 3 a.m he says he hasn't eaten for two days except for 10 gallons of coffee yeah he's something to like soak up all the acid in his stomach right and then he orders two taquitos well he asked her if she would care for one and then he orders two for himself yeah and this is where uh jess says that uh rocky never understood why you wanted to be a pi yes with all this like dangerous stuff and here and his line is well this isn't my standard work day yeah so he asked her to bring a rental car because he needs to ditch this fbi car but she didn't she brought her own car and he's like the whole point was right you know get a car that you know you wouldn't be involved with but she wants to be And he's like, the whole point was, you know, get a car that, you know, you wouldn't be involved with.

But she wants to be involved. He's being chased by cops, the FBI, a cast of thousands. Yes, it's a great line. And she points out that where else is he going to go? She can, you know, she's the only person he can turn to right now. But she's not. One of two. Yes.

In this cut, they track down, they get the info and track down jim's favorite desperation move our good friend angel martin angel is in very little of this episode uh and as always stewart and jim make absolutely the most of it right like they they eat up everything they possibly can in this scene together um it should be no surprise to our listeners if you've listened to any episode that has angel in it i love this next scene so he's in this beautiful huge mission style house yeah and jim you know knocks on the door he says this is a step up for him his last place had cardboard walls angel answers in his fancy robe with these like big like silk like dragons on the lapels it's so good it's so good he immediately wants to know who

sold him out yeah uh he doesn't want jim there he's hot he has an apb is out on him and angel doesn't want to get pulled into it but jim strong arms his way in to find the tv so that he can turn it on and see the actual bulletin this is their whole dynamic in like 30 seconds right angel wants him to leave he's he's gonna ruin this for him jim grabs him by the lapel and like threatens him with physical force and also if you get a glimpse of angels you know it's the roshamon of rockford files like you get a glimpse of Angel's, you know, it's the Rashomon of Rockford Files. Like you get a little glimpse of how Angel sees their relationship. Every time I get something good going, you show up. You're like some giant cat who's all the time leaving dead rats on my doorstep.

What am I supposed to say? Thank you? What do you think? I can't come up with enough dead rats on my own? What the hell are you talking about? You're hot, man. You got that wanted smell. What do you think? I can't come up with enough dead rats on my own. What the hell are you talking about? You're hot, man. You got that wanted smell. What do you think?

I can't come up with enough dead rats on my own? It's just this idea that Jimbo is the stray and that Angel is always helping him out. It's exactly how you'd expect Angel to think of their relationship, right? Like that's so good. They do turn on the TV in time to catch the latest bulletin, which is indeed an APB for Jim. Oh, yeah. They say he's wanted for the murder of this other PI.

And then they show a televised statement from Captain Chapman, which is where he's brandishing, like, the mugshot of Jim. Yeah. If you see this man, he's very dangerous. And Jim, of course, thinks that's a terrible picture of him. Now that they've seen that that's all over the news, Jim doesn't know what to do next. There's another line in there that I don't remember exactly when it happened,

but it's another beautiful Angel line that we can't go unmentioned. Trying to get Jim out, Angel says, don't make me call the cops. I don't want to do that. It's not like there's a reward for you. Yeah. Well, and Jess says, why do you want help from him? You heard that he'll sell you out for a reward. Yeah. Like Jess doesn't understand that there's more here. Jess and Jim go out to the kind of like a garden. They're overlooking the water. It's very nice.

Jim, he just doesn't know what's going on. Right. Every time he thinks he has a handle on it, it morphs into something new. And kind of in here, I feel like we have the most like resigned facial expression. Like for the only time in this whole movie, we see Jim looking like like he just is ready to give up. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix this. They are kind of interrupted from going down that path by Angel coming out. He wants to hustle them out of there. They have to move it. The caterers are coming. Nothing important. Just pigs in a blanket. Jim says like, just let us stay somewhere in a room or a garage

until we can leave tonight. He says, I'll owe you. Right. Wouldn't that make a change? Angel asks, why me? And Jim says, because deep down, I know you're really a nice person. And it's so sincere. Seems so heartfelt. Angel gives in.

He's like, OK, fine. And as he turns, I think we see give jess this look like you got him it's like so for once jim leverages the fact that angel does actually consider him a friend yes get him to do something that he wants and i think it's a moment that does it's not a huge deal but it really pops out as someone as someone who's watched their dynamic very closely. Like that's definitely a total character-based expression to add a little bit more to that interaction. It's delightful. There's a line about how Angel's living like Donald Trump. It is so prescient.

And Angel says it's great. It's a Mr. and Mrs. You-'s a mr and mrs you can go to hell situation or mr you can go to hell wants me to stay in the house so that mrs you can go to hell doesn't come and take the family silver and make off with any of his stuff oh so good so he takes him down to the wine cellar and he's just pulling out bottles of wine to for the caterers to uh provide and uh jim and jess are like looking at them and they're these extremely expensive bottles of wine there's eight nine hundred thousand dollar bottles of wine but angel doesn't want to be told what to do he if he wants to drink it yeah to uh you know who's to tell him otherwise and after he

goes back upstairs with his arm full of very expensive wine jim says you have no idea the damage angel can do without even trying yes so in this wine cellar we get the classic let's talk through what's happening to yes to uh explain things to the audience and decide our next move this uh linda person obviously conned jim into this gig that he otherwise would never go near she could she could have even been the one who called 911 on us in the car. Good hunch. He has a gut feeling that there's something weird about Gustavo's record company, which is called Felicidad Records.

There's a huge framed picture of Reagan in the bathroom. It's just my favorite detail. Yeah, you see that and you're like, what's going on here? And there's the satellite photos of something that you're like, what's going on here? Who? And there's the satellite photos of something that was in like a rainforest or something. Seems weird. So then there seems to be a lot of Latins involved. Yeah. Record company, Gustavo, the guys who came and, you know, tried to kidnap him.

The murder of Bud is the sour note in all of this. And Bud clearly had some information that the feds wanted. So why were they in touch with him so okay if you think about it as bud is the target and i'm just being framed for it it all comes together right it's not about robert it is easy to find out if that they had a history together and he was the perfect the perfect patsy angel pops in with a six for the road and kicks him out. And it's six pigs in a blanket and a Ziploc bag. This whole movie is filled with wonderful tiny little details. Like, for instance, Dennis

Becker telling us that bees can die of loneliness, right? This is so Angel. Wants him out as soon as possible, but is still like kind enough to send them out with catered pigs in a blanket in a Ziploc baggie. It just looks like a mush. There's some argument I have. I like our listeners can maybe perhaps vote on what they think a pigs in a blanket is. maybe perhaps vote on what they think a pigs in a blanket is. My growing up where I was, pigs in a blanket were pancakes wrapped around breakfast sausage. It wasn't really a thing in my family growing up, but in my wife's family, pigs in a blanket are a Thanksgiving staple and they are basically Vienna sausages in like a Pillsbury puff pastry.

Yes. Let's talk about this motif here because the taquitos. Also, little rolled up street food, finger food. You might say that this is meat being framed in some way. Welcome to my TED Talk. Well, my favorite detail of this is as they scuttle away down the driveway under the cover of darkness jim is munching yes and on on the weenies directly out of the bag because he only bought two taquitos uh and so he's like yeah i got popped into this frame to take the fall this

and and he goes through how all of the elements are very precise uh he's been thinking that this is something personal but he could be anybody it's not about him he just fits in all the security footage being exactly what it needs to be the gun being gone and then showing back up uh all of these things indicate some kind of very like professional uh precise frame framework jess wants to know you know she's like we can't take my car it's like oh i'll just hot wire one when you're in as much trouble as i am it's really kind of liberating yes and then we have just a quick shot where we see him driving whatever car he hot wired we see that jess is following him right yeah she's following him right and then there's a there's like a roadside

cop that pulls out and pulls him over presumably that recognized him through the window or something right he's been on the run he's hidden out angels help hide him for long enough for him to get a handle on what's happening you know to sit and breathe and to think it through fueled him up with some pigs in a blanket right stole a car and then it's over we got you now structurally what's important here is that it puts jess and jim in different cars yes right and i that's kind of important for something that happens in a couple scenes um we cut from jim's resigned face with the flashing lights behind him to chapman saying you know how lucky you are uh he could

have been shot uh yeah when apb is out for such a violent criminal. Becker is escorting Beth back to the police station. There's some hay made of Chapman being like, why are you here? It's like, well, I was just escorting this. No, you're coming to see your friend. Don't try anything or it's going to be your career in law enforcement. So Chapman's bringing the hammer down. Jim's in the like walking shackles.

He has like handcuffs and then he has like foot restraints and then like the chain between the two. Cause I guess because he's a, you know, an escape risk or whatever. It's an interesting visual. Beth is in a very fancy dress because she was in fact hosting a dinner party. I was at a dinner party.

Actually, I was the hostess. I was at a dinner party. Actually, I was the hostess. I had to walk out on my husband and all my guests. I used to eat dinner all the time. Oh, what'd you serve? Give me the menu and start with the hors d'oeuvres. The part of that line that I love is when he goes,

I used to eat dinner all the time. Yeah. All the time. They're filing his personal effects uh which is uh introduced to us by the cop counting out exactly 12 and 37 cents we're here uh as his bookkeeper i don't know how much money he was paid to start off on this false but he got it up front all right? Technically, he's got that money. I bet it went all to pay bills right away.

Right. Because he only bought two taquitos. So, yeah, that's where we're at now, Jim. Jim's at $12.37. But then before this can conclude, Deal appears and says to cut him loose. And everyone is shocked, especially chapman um he says that they have a witness that gives jim an alibi for the time of the murder jess has come in to make a statement uh she was waiting for him at his trailer he got there at 10 45 she knows because she was

waiting and checked her watch because they established the time of death of yeah but at 10 30 there's no way he could have gotten from downtown to his trailer in 15 minutes right not even the way he drives is deal's comment i think i really like this we have a private conversation between chapman and deal yeah chapman doesn't want to let him go title card chapman v deal because chapman's like i finally got him right yeah like finally i can put this guy away and deals like uh with this alibi it's circumstantial evidence it is credible that he's being framed which i kind of like like he's you know he is listening to things that jim is saying

it's like that is a credible explanation at this point given what we know and and chapman's like well i can stick him with you know grand theft auto and resisting arrest. And he's like, if you do that, that's going to push him into doing this lawsuit. The court is going to see it as a cop vendetta, Chapman. And the department doesn't need that kind of publicity right now. So we're going to cut him loose. It's fun seeing them interact. And like, I kind of like seeing that institutional, like, yes deal is in this position where he has a larger focus and he gets to be the like backstop of rationality deal can see that chapman has an axe to grind right deal can see that dennis is jim's friend and so deal

isn't trusting either one of them uh we get that and i think chapman gets that yeah uh jim walks beth back to her car i noticed because you've pointed it out in the past how he he has his uh his hand on her upper arm that's his thing he says that he wants her to bill him and she says i will yeah so and now we get this whole like this conversation is the jim beth dynamic yeah kind of brought back to life for our modern viewer jim and beth have a complicated relationship earlier on in this episode i don't think we actually quoted this but there was a moment when they first see each other and you know they're making fun of each other's hair and she says that that you haven't, you know, I haven't heard from you in four years or whatever. And he admits, he says, you have a right to be sore.

Yeah, I've done bad. And this scene here, we get to the heart of why that hasn't happened. But we do it in kind of a classic Jim Beth way where it, I don't know, it's hard to describe. But obviously, watch the scene. Right. Like, I think you can see that they do care for each other, but they have hurt each other. Yeah. Right. And those are kind of scabs that have to get pulled away before they can reconcile. Yeah. That kind of all happens in this scene, which sounds like a lot, but because they're so familiar with each other, because they have such good chemistry, I think a lot but because they're so familiar with each other because they

have such good chemistry i think a lot of that is communicated through body language and you know tone of voice and stuff like that um narrative wise we start off this conversation with beth asking if jess is going to be somebody serious because she's jim's type yeah um she's not wrong nope not at all and jim uh admits that he could have called any attorney but he wanted an excuse to call beth yeah and that's why he called her for this which feels a little out of the blue but also whatever let's do this now you know like that's right that's what we're doing in this movie that's fine he says that he wants beth back in his life. But she obviously is still sore, as you said, as you said. Yeah.

Because he just dropped out. Right. He just never called her. And she says, I only wrote that book because you pushed me into it. Right. Because you told me it was something I should do. And then I gave you a copy and you didn't even call me to tell me what you thought. And he didn't call her.

Before we go into this, when she says I gave you a copy and you didn't call her before we go into this when she says i gave you a copy and you didn't call and tell me as someone who creates things for a living and has many colleagues who create things for a living who has received probably advanced copies of things or what have you did you know exactly what was going to happen next because i did right because he didn't call her because he didn't like the book yep i wrote in my notes holy sh** jim doesn't like the book and i wrote that just before he said it uh i love that he comes out with it and i love her reaction to it yeah and he didn't call because he didn't want to hurt her feelings yes because he's not going to lie to her right but he knows that that would be something she didn't want to hear uh and so she has this great facial expression where you

can see that she didn't want to hear that yeah but that but she kind of laughs and says that's stupid but it's sweet yeah and it's like you can see how that's a bad idea but you can also see like i i suspect it's not that he set out to avoid her for four years because of the book. Right. I suspect it's, I don't like the book. I shouldn't put myself in the spot where. I'm not going to call and be like, so I read your book. Yeah, exactly.

And then that just kind of stacks on itself. And, you know, and I haven't been in this exact situation, but I've been in similar situations. And I get all of the feelings going. I've been on both sides of this situation. I should definitely point out. And I get all of the feelings that are going on here. And I really like both the honesty that came from Jim and then her way of dealing with it. They're both very like, God, I wish I could be that.

Yeah. I wish I could be this moment. Hearing that, acknowledging that, yeah, that's not really what she wanted to hear. But she recognizes why he didn't in not wanting to hurt her feelings, that that is something positive from him in that weird way. Right. They have a chase little kiss that seems to be like things are forgiven right yeah and it's a very sweet moment yeah i i really dug that scene so that uh kind of reconciles beth back into the greater rockford universe i think also yeah welcome back

beth so in our next scene uh j, Jim goes to find Jess and says like, well, it's over now. I'm not going to be arrested. They can't prove anything. And he doesn't care who killed, but it might be cold, but that's how it feels.

But Jess says, and I felt like this was obvious, but perhaps this is just obvious to us as an audience. She says that if this ends up in court, uh, she can't testify under oath because she wasn't there waiting for she didn't check her what she wasn't there waiting for him she wasn't even there at all she was lying to give him an alibi you lied it wasn't entirely clear the alibi

bit i didn't catch it until this part that she specifically left instead of said that she left instead of seeing him right because he got back so late i guess i didn't get the idea that rockford thought she was doing anything other than lying is what it was when i was watching and i was like what but you yeah you knew she wasn't there right but yeah so he's still on the hook because she can't give him an alibi under oath so he's like all right well let's go see if we can find out anything at bud's place uh this is another little bit where he's like well i'm gonna have to pick some locks you might have to stay you might want to stay here she's like no i'm coming with you yes no plausible denial deniability for jess especially but go on he picks the lock they go in uh there's

a very industrial loft space with this like caged area. That's the office. They go in and there's like a jump scare where he turns on the lights and there's all these pinned bugs, like these huge cases full of all these giant. They look like they're rubber prop bugs, right? Like they're enormous. It's a little bit, Jessica's freaked's freaked out and jim gets to have a line of no he he loved bugs in all of their forms there's something about this that is very

rockford files is because bud's not a big character he's the body right like and generally speaking the body is not always the unless you're like trying to figure out how everyone relates to the body but that's not what's happening in this episode. So he is just a big, dumb lug of a private eye. And the fact that he has this hobby of collecting bugs just gives you a whole new dimension. And then you think, well,

yeah, if he uses electronic surveillance all the time, he's not dumb. Like this isn't a dumb guy. It's great. Like that's, again, I always say, but the Rockford files just, they always have very real characters

by giving them these traits that are just like, yeah, a real human being wouldn't just fit into this slot. Right. Yeah. So he's rifling around looking for the appointment book. He can't find it, but there's a computer. Jess is like, oh, maybe it's in the computer. and jim's like you know how to use one of those it's like all right grandpa jim who doesn't doesn't understand computers which came up in the last movie

yeah oh no he used a computer in in like angels like yeah temple or whatever he guessed angel's password yeah i mean it's the it's the mid 90s computers aren't quite ubiquitous yet but as jess says i'm irs i do this all the time so she pulls up this very uh straightforward uh set of windows so you can see all the very clearly labeled uh files pulls up a calendar there's nothing there it It's been deleted, but she can, she can recover the deleted files because of her IRS pro skills. And so we have a little loading bar of restoring deleted files. And what's great about this is that here's a woman who would probably have to know this stuff or something along these lines for her job.

She does audits, but she's an older woman and uh this show in the 1990s didn't know that they had to make her uh somebody with the mentality of a teenage boy with you know coke bottle glasses and and uh never seen a woman right like that they're not falling to the stereotype because it would make sense for her to know this uh even if the interface is a television computer interface uh sure enough bud has an appointment scheduled for tomorrow with a senator oh yes now we're getting into the surprise revelation in the last 10 minutes of the episode yeah wrap every you know to to kind of pull everything together into what has been happening the whole time. They missed a Rockford Files bit in this.

He's like, well, let's keep that appointment. Now, Bud is dead. Right. And it's made the news. How are they going to get a senator to go to lunch with him? Right? Right. I totally 100% believe that Rockford can do it.

I just want to see Rockford do it, right? This is his thing, right? We haven't had a con yet this episode. Well, and when we go to it, I feel like the implication here is that it's all on the level. Like they just called and were like, hey, we're investigating the murder of Bud. Right. Can we talk to you? And he's like, I already have the appointment on my calendar sure or whatever this is a a bit of a missed opportunity to just

see that like phone call to a secretary where right impersonate someone exactly where he pretends to be chapman or something right to like make sure that the appointment still goes but whatever that's fine i mean it's only because i have that spot missing on my bingo card right right yeah uh so jim and jess go to this meeting and this is very much a click click on npc to get info as well they asked the senator uh or that he asked them about their association with bud jim's like well i'm also a pi and i'm not really friends. And I didn't really know him. They were in a profession of mutual interest, which is not very compelling. I mean, it's a joke, but yeah, I was expecting this to be a con. So that kind of threw me like, oh, they're just talking about it.

OK. Yeah, I was in the same boat. I was like, OK, all right. What's the twist here? But there's none. The senator doesn't see how the IRS comes into this picture because CIA funds are, you know, separated from congressional something, something, something. Yeah. They're like CIA.

Yes. He's not like, oh, you don't know what I'm talking about. He's like, no, no, I'll tell you more. Yes. Speaking of bingo cards, I was like CIA, that's all of them. We got them. We have the FBI. We have LAPD. We have the IRS. And now we have the CIA. Right. We're just missing the mob.

Yeah, exactly. But because the senator was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility. Yes. He hired Bud to look into this Felicidad Records because it was a CIA front that never got shut down. And so it's actually using government funding to be a record label. It's an unnecessary

public expenditure. And Bud was investigating to give him enough info so he could pull the plug. Jim ends the scene by saying, I thought this was really complicated, but it's actually very simple.

It's the American dream. There's a weird argument about that immediately following that right so the next scene uh jim is explaining to just that there's nothing sinister about the dream or having the good life but it's what people will do to get it and what they'll do to keep it that's where they go wrong older jim rockford reagan republican yeah probably wouldn't identify personally but uh that argument is i don't know it's stuck out yeah and then jim basically jumps dennis out of nowhere is it unclear where they are and it becomes clear in a second but jim just like grabs dennis and pulls him aside yeah um he wants to make sure he knows what to do and dennis has a has a good line are you

sure you know what you're gonna do not really in situations where i can lose both pension and credibility i'm more into improv jim sends him on his way and we see that he's going into felice died records uh becker has called everyone that works there including gustavo into a room because he's saying that our case against Jim Rockford has fallen apart. So we need to continue this investigation from, you know, first steps. I need to talk to everyone. We're back to square one. Don't worry.

My people are going to stay, are going to man the doors and make sure that no one comes in or out while all of your people are in this room talking to me. And that is the con. And that's the con. And that's the con. And then he gives a significant nod out the door as he closes it so that Jim sees that he's clear to go poke around. Jim's ruffling through papers. He knocks a chair into a wall, which opens a hidden door in that wall. Yeah. My note is secret door.

That's where all the security camera feeds are so you can see them all on the monitors but then there's another door at the back he goes through that secret doors and that's where the big room of cia is yes it's like a star trek original series level like lots of blinking lights on consoles uh all over the place and a big map a big world map with with lights in it so that's how you know it's cia if only you had an irs agent with them to interpret what was going on if only but he keeps poking around and he finds like a like a power cable or something and he opens a vent and he sees that there's a recording there's a whole little recording setup that's been hidden in this vent and he smiles as clearly this is probably this must have been something left behind by bud um all right when we get into our our finale we uh cut from there

to dennis directing cops to cover all the exits but jim just wants five minutes. Yeah. They lost and I want to rub their noses in it. And Dennis is like, okay, fine. Yeah. At this point, why not? Yeah. It's illegal, but sure. Finally calling back. It's the lunch at Rex's. This is where Gustavo and his cronies are having lunch.

Jim walks in, drops down into the empty seat, tells him it's a dumb idea to have the regular lunch when so many people want to take down a rogue CIA operation. And he lays out all these things. So Gustavo like denies each thing. Yeah. You fell in love with your front. That's your that's your problem. You just wanted an excuse to keep going to South America and make money off our records. I was trying to get a read on, particularly his assistant, if they knew if she was in on it. I think she must have been.

There's the third guy who I think was like the writer that he was yelling at. But the secretary, because she's just kind of staring at Rockford, but then when he says something in particular, she looks at Gustavo kind of like, and I read it as like he, he actually knows. Yeah. Look,

but maybe, I don't know. There's not a, there's not a lot of information about. Yeah. It's hard to tell if it's, if it's that, or if it's,

what is this all about? Look, well, he says, you know, it wasn't anything personal. You're, you just,

you're just a bunch of amoral thugs. You found me in the paper because of the, you know, the fight that he had with bud so i was the perfect person to frame for his murder and he does have a line it's like and you're the one who sent all the like who sent all the latinos after me yeah or something like that just like a passing line to loop that back in yeah to let us know that that happened right then he says the rumor is the cops found a secret stash of bud's tapes and on those tapes we can they can

hear you plotting his murder and my frame have a nice lunch though we can rest assured that justice will be served yes served cold with a side of slaw and we finished our movie back at paradise cove uh jess is arriving at the trailer with a present for jim who is coming in from fishing uh i think we mentioned this so when Jess was first introduced she was saying that she bought a cuckoo clock for Rocky yes I don't know if we mentioned this but yeah because she was she was in Europe and she bought a cuckoo clock but she never could give it to him because he died before she came back right yeah so Jim is now receiving this cuckoo clock gift that was originally intended for Rocky.

It's very sweet. Jess knows that Jim wants to know what was, you know, what it was between her and Rocky. And Jim's like, no, no, no. But clearly he does. Yeah. And so she kind of lays out in a little bit of her story. You know, she's coming off of a bad relationship. She was she was really hurting. She was in a lot of pain.

He was really nice to her. In having such a positive relationship that, like, healed her. Like, that's how she got over it and got better. He was the grandfather that she never knew. He was the father that she had lost when she was a kid. He was a best friend. Like, that was the relationship. At no point in this episode was i

having the exact fears that jim was having right yeah i just i was like no until she started drawing this line she said the grandfather the father the best friend i was like oh like where does this line end uh But it's their best friend. I think what she's trying, because earlier in the episode, Jim had a thing. Maybe it was with Beth or maybe it was with Becker. If you were friends with someone, would you describe that as a relationship or as a friendship? Oh, and that's what leads into Beth being like, she's your type. So because she described it as a relationship with Rocky, and that's what has been throwing Jim on.

And so I think this is kind of filling that out as they weren't just friends. Yeah. They had a very close relationship in a familial sense and that Rocky like made her feel like she was part of your family. But that Jim was always the center of Rocky's universe. Yeah. Right. So she affirms Jim's, you know, whatever his uh not inadequacy but whatever his like concerns were concern yeah uh and i mean like i think it's

legit that jim had some concerns based on the first part uh of this episode where they have this discussion about her relationship with him when we don't wonder whether or not she's been sleeping with Rocky. Right. And so that's a callback to that. But because there are these two questions about her relationship with it, the more blatant one, whether or not she's sleeping with Rocky. And then the other one is like, did Rocky prefer her company to Jim's? did Rocky prefer her company to Jim's? Again, like it's not one that I thought was in question after having seen the whole television series.

You know, like it's clear that Rocky's day begins and ends with Jim. You know, like there's all that. It's interesting that she has to, so we end it with her putting him at ease about that. And then his response is a i think is supposed to be really nice and tender but could read as vaguely petty because so she says you were always the center of his universe and he responds well i feel like you were a close second yeah like i think that is supposed to be sweet yeah it is but i mean i can't help

but say you didn't even really know much about her until this whole thing started but that's fine whatever what i think that uh i am being too picky about this specific moment in an episode that i dearly enjoyed like throughout and then and that's the last line and we yeah and with the uh we end with the freeze frame of them smiling at each other framed against the the sea uh out uh out in paradise cove it's a smile i like it when they end on a smile i'm glad that it ended on a smile and not a kiss yeah no that would have been really weird yeah um it's a little weird so i mean as a as looking at the arc of you know jim rockford as a character reconciling the picture that he had of his father with this new information he's learning about his father that all makes sense

that narrative arc is totally fine i don't have a problem with how it all plays out talking through this scene again, it stuck out as a little weird to me because I started thinking of it as, now we see the woman assuage the man's fears about his emotions. Yes. And it's not seeing Jim come to terms with his emotions.

Yeah. I don't know if this would stand out to anyone at the time in terms of how we frame masculine emotions i think this could be treated better in other you know in other pieces of media this is not a huge criticism of this episode it was just like oh this is just the default yeah for this kind of conversation and i'm noticing that kind of thing more now than i probably would have you know, at the time. And it only really stands out because it's where they end.

Yeah. And then we're done. Everyone's smiling. We're back. But all in all, I would say that, like, I think I said it at the beginning. This felt so much like a really solid Rockford Files episode. Absolutely. It was fun that it went over the top for Rockford,

getting the FBI and the CIA. I don't want to say it went gonzo or anything like that, but it just, you know, it's an hour. No, it's more than an hour, right? So yeah, it's a two hour time slot. I think the running time is like 140 or something. Yeah. So, you know, you want something a little more,

you want something a little more exciting. Uh, I feel like there's stuff that could be trimmed to bring this down to a, our Rockford episode and have it be the same level of fun investigation character stuff. Like maybe could probably pull out the, uh, getting run off the road by the Latinin gang scene like that like narratively that doesn't really do a whole lot maybe combine

all the angel stuff into one scene instead of breaking it into like two kind of connected scenes like that kind of stuff where it could just trim some things around the edges but it has that same sense of forward momentum and uh that same kind of rhythm as a rockford episode and i feel like in at least one of the previous movies maybe the first one or no i think the second one in particular uh where angel is is impersonating the or not impersonating but has has this con about the yeah being a religious revivalist guy uh like a tv preacher guy that felt like a a an hour-long episode that kind of got stretched to fill two-hour slot um while this feels like a rockford plot that has

been implemented in a two-hour slot or could be implemented in a one-hour slot yeah that's all just a long-winded way of saying yes i agree it feels like it feels like a good rock for an episode but longer so there's even more well speaking of length we have gone on long enough i'm sure do you have any final thoughts on the third tv movie if the frame fits dot dot dot uh i will say that i am enjoying the the trajectory here i'm looking forward to the fourth one now. Not that I wasn't looking forward to these before, but like now it feels a little bit more like I got to hold off until we're going to do it, right? Like I can't just jump on the,

throw that DVD back in and watch the next one. Yeah, this has been a delight. Yeah, I really enjoyed it as well. Same, same thought. Hopefully they just keep getting better and better. And just a quick thank you to all of our listeners and patrons. All but one.

Which one? I don't know. I'll let them figure it out. Oh no. You know, we do these kind of milestone episodes and 50 episodes is pretty who knew. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we've we've done this little dance where we're like, we didn't expect it to go this long since probably the 10th episode. Right. Well, now it's like, all right, now we're committed. Now we have to go through the whole thing. Yeah, I feel that it's completely fair to compare this to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the tragedy that it was left incomplete. Or, oh, now I'm going to blank on the Cool Rage's Kublai Khan poem that he dreamt and woke up and started writing and then someone knocked at his door and he never finished because he couldn't remember the rest of it well we are we're certainly the courage of uh podcast

i'm comfortable taking that title on yeah so uh thanks to all of our listeners and as i said our patrons in particular uh your financial support really helps us out and if you want to join them head yourself on over to patreon.com slash 200 a day. I'm ready to go find myself some taquitos now that they've been brought back to my attention. I'm going to have some pigs in a blanket. Enjoy. Get some veggie sausages in there. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, we're ready to get the street foods of choice from this episode. But we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the Rockford Files.