Two Hundred A Day - Episode 51: Drought at Indianhead River

Episode Date: June 30, 2019

Nathan and Eppy discuss S3E5 Drought at Indianhead River. Jim gets a tip that Angel's life is in danger, but "Angelo" is too high on his newfound success in real estate to take the threat seriously. Determined to save Angel despite himself, Jim drags him along as he fends off both the mob and the cops to try and figure out why his friend is on a hit list. A wonderful showcase of the Angel-Rockford relationship, focusing on just how much Jim can take, we really like this one! It has some unexamined plot devices and uses institutionalization for comedic effect, which aren't our favorite elements, but in terms of watching Jim and Angel at their best, it's hard to top! We now have a second, patron-exclusive, podcast - Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon at ALL levels of support. 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, thanks for taking little Billy fishing. He had a great time. Turns out he wasn't even really seasick. Um, have you ever had chicken pox? Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidauravishaw. We almost forgot how we did this. Speak for yourself. Oh, okay. We're professionals yes i suppose um speaking of professionals uh we got a couple couple of pros in this episode um we're bringing our our focus back to an angel centric episode this time with uh season three, episode five, Drought at Indian Head River. Yeah, so I picked this one.

Getting back to a multiple episodes ago impulse of let's do a fun one. I tried to be a little more discerning in picking an episode that I thought would give us a lot of a as well as some good stuff to talk about. And I feel like this episode delivers on those scores. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed this one. And there's some nifty things going on in it that we'll probably get into when we get into it. But yeah, I'm trying to think. So this is season three.

It's become a thing now for me to try and contextualize uh because we're watching them out of order and uh not contextualize them with uh the like any sort of narrative arc uh but to contextualize them with, I guess, what could be considered our theory of how they're being made. Now, how is not the right word. But, you know, like, they found their stride. Right. This is them being comfortable, I think. Yeah. So this is the third season.

So in the arc of the show, as it was broadcast, the audience for the show dropped off fairly sharply during the second season. Okay. But then it stayed at the level that it was at now through the rest of the series. That's interesting. Yeah. So the theory was kind of like,

and this is, I'm kind of interpolating the, this information as laid out in our, our text 30 years of the rockford files yes where ed robertson kind of in between covering each season kind of talks about a little higher level kind of analysis of season to season change what he kind of talks about in that his theory is that the you know the first season was very exciting because james uh james garner is a big star people were excited to see him they were excited to see jim rockford it was this very new

kind of feeling show uh during the second season that's when they started writing jim as a little less not intelligent but a little more the butt of the joke in a lot of the episodes which we've talked about a little bit before yeah he's not imperfect he's imperfect not perfect and he's never perfect but it's kind of i think the the distinction to get at is that in the first season he's kind of always the smartest guy in the room yeah while in the second season he starts to be have the wool pulled over his eyes more and so there's one theory that that made him a less pulled over his eyes more. And so there's one theory that that made him a less compelling character and people didn't like to see that as much.

I'm not sure if that's 100% true. If it is true, people are dumb. I think a lot of the second season episodes taken on their own standalone very well. I'm sure there's just also an aspect of it wasn't new and shiny anymore right but unlike a lot of shows where they kind of decline over their entire run it did hit this level level off point with its audience where like the people who were still watching by the third season seem to stick around for the rest of the show which is pretty cool yeah that is actually like that's the thing that um like, I don't know.

I don't know the inside baseball to how network television works nowadays. But from what I've read and understand, finding your audience is not enough to keep you on television. Right. You need to either have a constantly growing audience or just have a massive audience.

And it's, I feel like there's a lot that gets tossed away because it could find its audience and be good enough. Like, I don't, I don't know the mathematics. I don't know what's, you know,

how much a show costs compared to how much we can bring in. Right. But I do feel like some things get chopped because of uh not a money resource but a time resource right like we we we can only fill these slots with so many shows and this show has stopped growing so right let's fill it with something sort of the the when you go through uh a decaying downtown and you see empty buildings that are for lease and you wonder obviously businesses that that could have worked there don't because the rent is too high why are they charging like how do people make money with uh empty slot i don't

know what i'm saying i'm on a tangent here that makes no i mean i think that's seems fairly accurate i mean and also things the the context is so different because of all the streaming channels and how their business model is different from the traditional ad supported broadcast model so like netflix has these shows that like yeah i only hear of when they are canceled after two seasons or whatever and all their fans are like this show was great it was knocking it out of the park and the little information we have shows that it was as popular now as it was when it first debuted why is it getting canceled and it's like nobody knows

only netflix knows with with netflix i think the with the caveat that i am no expert and i don't know what's happening uh when you subscribe to Netflix, you generally don't unsubscribe. Right. Right. So this incentivizes Netflix to constantly try new shows to bring in new audiences and then dump them after a season or two because you're not going to lose the audience. Right. So you would invest your resources in another new show in the hopes of bringing in more audience like it so it's got

that weird feedback loop where we're paying a subscription rate by default like we've already worked that into our own personal budgets we don't think about it it's not like we're paying per episode or anything like that once Once you've got them, you got them. There's no need to keep creating the same content that keeps them because they'll watch any old thing that's on Netflix after that. And that model, he says, making a gesture that the audience can't hear. We've now reached the limit of our insight into streaming business models. As game designers, when we talk about incentives and reverse incentives, that's one example. To quickly make a similar point with the rent thing, because that happens all over the place in Chicago, of course. And what I learned that there is a reason for that. And the reason is that if a landlord has a property that is not being rented, they write off its value that they set.

And I don't know if it's a percentage or if it's the whole amount because I'm not in that world. But if they sent the rent at $10,000 a month, they get to write off $10,000 a month off their taxes. $10,000 a month, they get to write off $10,000 a month off their taxes. So it's more valuable to them to have that empty property at a high rent than to have someone pay less rent and occupy. And I'm pretty sure that's pretty standard, at least in most big cities. And it's infuriating because there's these neighborhoods where there's businesses that I go to and then they close and then there's a for rent sign there for years. And it's like, really? But yeah. Speaking of real estate, that brings us all the way back to our episode. We did it.

Dear listener, sorry we lost you there. Right. So this episode, so the Indian Head River is referring to a piece of real estate, as we will get into. to a piece of real estate, as we will get into. This one is directed by Lawrence Doney, who we have seen many times on our show, including some of our favorites from the early seasons, like Chicken Little is a Little Chicken and etc. This is the second to last of his 12 directorial Rockfords. So we'll miss him, I'm sure.

This one in particular has a couple like subtle but really great shots and stuff um yeah as i now recognize these directors as they come up i'm i get the warm feeling i'm like oh i like him right uh and this one is is written by uh by stephen cannell so it has the all the hallmarks of the core Rockford dynamics. There's bureaucracy. There's Byzantine tax schemes. But there's also action. And the mob.

This is good. This fills up your bingo card. Yeah, if you're playing, yeah, 200-day bingo. Running the board. Yeah, and I would say it also has a pretty intriguing preview montage this uh preview montage has a delicious angel sandwich it starts with an angel quote ends on an angel quote and they're both amazing just out of context like i i would have done an entire episode on these two quotes uh the first one is now who would want to kill me

angel asking which as we'll find out the answer to that question is not just like what we're investigating in this episode because we're not we know but like the fact that there are so many answers to that question is vital to this uh and then it ends with him going, come on, cops. Brilliant. That's great. And the only other note I have in here is, and I honestly don't even remember what was in the preview montage that made me write this in. But I said, oh, can't wait to see Rocky. It's been a while since we've seen Rocky.

But maybe it's because the last episode we recorded was one of the movies and that always makes me sad because you feel the absence of Rocky 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 to all stars over at MisdirectedMark.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Bill Anderson, Dave P., Brian Pereira, and Dale Church. 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.

Well, we start this episode at Chez Michel, clearly a fancy restaurant. Jim Rockford is leaving the restaurant with a friend of his by the name of David. We eventually learn that this is David Marcon. They've enjoyed a friendly lunch. They have repartee here, which is basically establishing that they are that they are friends and they know each other. And it is a little vague what David's deal is, but he clearly implies that he's part of the mafia.

He says that he's upwardly mobile because he's related to the business or whatever. And he's apparently been working on some book, which is what Jim has been helping him with. But Jim also passes him some cash as a thank you for getting some kind of, some operator off of his back, uh, in some fashion.

The, uh, there's a, a bit in here that is clearly, I think it's a bit, he does like an Italian thing, like a, uh,

uh, Rockford mob stereotype battalion thing that I think is meant to be him pretending to be an Italian stereotype. You know what I mean? Like, uh, like it's him taking a piss out of himself. Right.

Like playing into the stereotype. Yeah. Yeah. And like, at first I was like, wait, wow, this is a little broad even for Rockford.

And then I was like, Oh no, it isn't. Okay, good. Yeah. All right. Before they split,

Jim asks if he's seen angel. Uh. He hasn't seen him around recently. It's been about three months, in fact. And David says, oh, wait, you didn't hear? He died. What? When? Tomorrow. Wednesday at the latest. This is an amazing hook for this story. Okay, so this is the first thing I want to talk about um you know it's it's important to to snag your audience whatever your audience is and it's important to do that as quickly as possible so they'll stick through for the rest and i mean obviously the preview

montage is supposed to serve some of that right it's supposed to like oh we got this coming up okay i'll sit and watch this i'm flipping through the channels and i see this and i want to but this moment here just the way it's delivered it's so cold and it just immediately sets up what it is that rockford has to do now it is dropped right in his lap uh And you don't envy Rockford. You don't envy Angel. Like, I don't know. There's just something about this thing, the way it was done, where this guy just makes a joke about the fact that he knows that there's a contract out on Angel. And that's it.

Like, and then walks away. Yeah. And, yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah, it's a very clear call to action, right? Yeah. And yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah. It's a very clear call to action, right? Yeah. Now let's see what Jim does.

David Marcon is played by Vincent Baggetta, who we saw in Hotel of Fear. I noticed. Like, I know this guy. Yeah. He played a character named Murray, who, if I remember right, is one of the guys that hires the hitman that Angel sees. So the plot of that one, Angel sees a hitman kill a woman, and then he's a witness, and they can't really protect him,

and then the hitman is coming after Angel. He has really piercing eyes that are very memorable. I'm looking through his IMDb, and there's nothing where I'm going to go, oh, it's the guy from that. But I've clearly seen him play characters all throughout my youth. Yeah, lots of crime and cop shows. Yeah. He's got that look. I think that's true of most of our supporting cast in this one.

true of most of our yeah supporting cast in this one jim goes to find angel at his last known address uh where there's a bit where his all of his stuff is spread out on the sidewalk and the guy who i don't know owns the building i don't know uh is selling it all on consignment since angel's moved up to a penthouse somewhere. Business hasn't been too good, but he finally has a couple of buyers looking at stuff. And Jim looks at them and looks at him and says that those aren't buyers. Those are cops. If I were you, I would give some serious thought to the idea that some of this stuff might be stolen. Yes. Which now kicks off a classic three-beat gag over the next couple of scenes.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's good stuff. We cut to this penthouse, which is full of movers and boxes getting unpacked, and Angel having a discussion with a decorator wearing a very fancy red coat, and in pure hog heaven, as he apparently has somehow made it to the big time. Our introduction into this is Falling Angel a little bit as he's kind of glad handing people and yelling at them about moving stuff. Jim arrives. I don't remember if he interacts with her, but we also get this kind of establishing

shot of a woman on a phone uh eventually we learn that her name's dolores this is important later she's clearly having a conversation she would like a different job that's what's happening uh well and she specifically says that there it's a trick she's not gonna turn or a trick she's not gonna take take or something like that. So she is, as they say later in the episode, a working girl. And I think specifically says something about an aluminum siding salesman or something that she would rather. She has standards. Yeah.

Angel kind of tries to pass Jim off once Jim tracks him down. Oh, yeah. He tries to kind of not let him get a word in edgewise as he has a quick interaction with his partner, Brad Shurlet, where they're calling each other babe and saying how great everything is. A lot of this, so a lot of the dialogue here is kind of like kind of jokes kind of establishing the relationships i say this every time we get angel in the room with jim but uh it's it's a delight to watch and to see how uh james garner reacts to what angel is doing and and how they play off of each other because it's it's not that jim snaps to and starts playing along with Angel, but he does to some extent, like he plays along,

but he also lets Angel know that he's not into playing along with this. He kind of is giving Angel a little bit of space because clearly he has something going on. Yeah. Yeah. And Jim's intent here is to warn Angel about this threat on his life. But in order to get Angel's attention, he has to start like snapping at him. Yeah. And Angel at one point turns and goes, don't talk to me like that.

Yeah. Not in front of the help, at least. Yeah. It's like Angelo. Call me Angelo or babe. I'm sorry. Yeah, I should be referring to him as Angelo. So we have this quick meeting with this guy, Brad, who we don't see again, but is important for our story that we kind of know that he exists. Once Brad leaves, Jim insists on taking Angel away to talk to him about this very serious threat on his life.

He says that they can go to lunch again references some fancy place that they're going to go and as they get into the elevator they pass the pair of cops uh from the consignment sale with uh angel's old toaster coming into the penthouse as they leave so a fun bit uh well the cop thing is a good bit um you know angel's like hey that looks like my old toaster yeah yeah and uh that's good there's there's a some stuff that angel's doing here about his his materialism i guess is the way to put it like he is obsessing about an elevator right he like he wants the elevator and Brad is like, we not,

we might not be able to do the elevator. And then Angel complains to Jim about how he deserves the elevator. He's seen this other elevator somewhere where like it lights up and neon has a fish tank. And there's another ongoing gag that'll come up. Like, I think they hit it twice or whatever, but it's fun.

And we're about to see it. But I just like, Like, I think they hit it twice or whatever, but it's fun. And we're about to see it. But I just like, I like that Angel has picked specific signifiers of status. Right. That he feels he deserves and he wants to have. Angel's the, what is it they say? The poor man's idea of what a rich man looks like.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. He's all about these signifiers. His outfits say it. Yeah. We? Yeah. He's all about these signifiers. His outfits say it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We should, like...

It's like this red silk smoking jacket with designs on it and these, like, pinstripe pants and big lapels. Always big lapels on Angel. Yes. Yeah, it's great. And, like, a scarf. Mm-hmm. They do go to this restaurant. It's this kind of fancy outdoor dining thing.

There's the information in the scene and then there's the business in this scene. Yeah. And these happen simultaneously, but I'm going to address them separately. So Jim tells Angel that David, you know, said this thing. Angel saying that Dave is just jealous since he's hit the big time and he gets so excited about how he's finally hit it this time yeah and we see that this is not it's a little subtle just in the sense of you probably need to be like us and have watched a bunch of angel but there's a difference between angel is involved with a con job and faking being rich as part of the con versus Angel genuinely thinks he made it.

Yes. And this is he genuinely thinks he made it. He practically describes to you exactly how he gets conned, right? Yeah. Like being jealous of people who hit the big time. Yeah, yeah. It talks about having a secret hidden real estate brain. Yeah, I didn't know I was this talented. Like, well, because you probably aren't.

So, right. So the deal is that this guy, Brad, met him vaguely somehow. Jim says, so he just plucked you out of a bar, which sounds about right. And that he has this hidden talent for real estate. And now he's 60% owner of the Indian Head River Land Development Company. I mean, this is all way smoother in how Angel says it, right? But he says that the people that David reports to report to him and Brad. So that's not a problem, right? Yeah. He's, again, just jealous and trying to cause trouble. Yeah, David answers to the guys who

call his partner's boss during all of this he uh he gets so jim does not appear to have any food angel receives a plate of escargot um which okay i have never eaten snails and I do not particularly want to. Right. But I, uh, I, I am bougie enough to understand the signifier of when Angel picks up this like weird tong fork thingy. And so I was trying to pry into the snail and is having trouble that he is not using the tools correctly for eating his fancy man's lunch right and then there's a bit later where jim gets fed up with his fumbling reaches over and correctly positions the snail in the little tongue and use a separate fork to get it out um and angel looks kind of puzzled and then appreciative there's interesting things to read into this about,

I mean, like, cause you've got your, your unifying theory of detectives and food. Right. So my previous exposure to escargot is in a Columbo episode where it's the episode that is where the murderer is a chess master and he and his rival have a out of,

master and he and his rival have a out of uh out of the public view meeting at a italian restaurant and his uh his rival um eats snails and that's part of that's a plot point uh about the butter from the the snails anyway uh so i associate snails right with detective fiction to i guess to kind of uh contextualize this a bit because i think that's the the very clear message being sent here is that angel doesn't angel thinks he's elite but he doesn't right doesn't really actually understand the trappings and and like he he doesn't know how to eat the food that he's ordered. He just ordered it because it's what a rich person orders, that kind of thing. I grew up in Ohio. I don't know why Ohio matters, but I'm just going to say I grew up in Ohio in a fairly rural area.

Our neighborhood was, I guess, would be called suburban, but it was surrounded by farms. And my upbringing wasn't wealthy. Like, you know, we, we were, we, uh, ate out of our own garden quite a bit, you know, all that, uh, not because it was a fun hobby, but because that's how you get, uh, a young family, like the one that my parents had, um, throughout through the year. one that my parents had um throughout through the year uh but i do remember us having one of those uh escargot tongs right not not the not the fork but the thing that holds the shells right i can i can see it because you know when you're a kid you play in in utensil drawers and you bang pots and pans out i i can vividly recall this thing and holding it and trying to figure

out what it is and what it does right like my parents as far as i know never ate escargot we never had it at home like i think there's like we were just talking about uh butter knives and cheese knives and and just like that sort of uh bullshit accoutrement right i think in the 70s that was definitely a thing you would be sold if you're going to entertain people then you should have something to eat the escargot with even though you'll never ever serve escargot i'm yeah i'm imagining it's it's part of the aspirational uh class consciousness right like i want to be the kind of person that has all the specialized tools for all the specialized foods.

And so they will all come in a kit that I can buy or they will be a gift at my wedding. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I want to point out one other thing about this scene. Yeah. As much as we,

our audience clearly enjoys the fact that we are going on these tangents. I think it's important to, to call out the phone business yes that was another note i had this is part of the other signifier for angel that he has made it is that no matter where he is he can get a telephone in the bathroom in the den in the car whatever right he's like he's mimicking the gesture he would have to make to call for like he's like you know just snaps in the air it's like i just have to do this to get a phone i don't remember that's his exact wording but he does it seems to me that he's just pantomiming what he

would have to do to get a phone uh accidentally gets the waiter's attention runs with it demands a phone and the waiter says oh i'm, there's no phone jack at this table. And he is so crestfallen. He's immediately punctured. And then the cap on this scene, which actually ends the scene, which drives them away from lunch, is that

Jim looks over and sees that the cops with the toaster have found them again. And they scramble away in the opposite direction. I think with Angel saying, like, put this on my tab or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because Angel's paying for things. Like, I've been watching this, and he's throwing money around.

Well, he made the big time. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, we end that scene kind of still in the, this is a very we know things when Jim knows them episode. There's a little that diverges a little bit. But in terms of like the mystery, we actually are are never ahead of Jim. So I think we live this in the same state that he is, which is this seems weird.

Angel is in something. But I don't know what the shape of it is right it involves both the cops and a contract on his life typical angel uh in our next scene jim is home at the trailer and receives a desperate phone call from david he's been trying to reach him all afternoon and he says when we talked at lunch we did not talk about angel we did not talk about Angel. We did not talk about that hit. I need you to cover for me on this. So that seems odd. Yeah, we talked about horses,

Ferraris, and girls. Jim, of course, calls to talk to Angel. The phone is answered by Dolores. He has to leave a message, and she says, I don't take messages, honey. Poor Dolores. So he he goes there and before he can uh even enter the penthouse two goons are there waiting for him they pat him down and take him back downstairs in the elevator this elevator is going down yeah so uh they

then take jim to the golf course course to talk to Dominic Marcon. They're like, you play golf, Rockford? I play anything you want me to. Yeah, there are a lot of little like voiceovers during transitions. Yeah. A lot of them get these little jokes in. Yeah. One or two are necessary for like establishing time and stuff.

But this one in particular is like, oh, yeah, that joke should be in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. This is the first of his three Rockford Files appearances. And the first time that we've seen him, I believe. He also was probably on every cop and crime show during your childhood. I mean, he is still working. He has current credits. But he was on a Columbo.

He was on Murder, She Wrote. He had a recurring character on Magnum P.I. Recurring Sopranos credit, which I wonder if he came to the attention of David Chase at this time. Oh, yeah. This is when David Chase started being involved with the show. Anyway, great, great mob actor. Yeah, he is. He has that real sense of like menace that you want in your in your mob boss. It really doesn't matter what position he's in.

You feel the menace. Like he's just playing a game of golf. Right? And he doesn't have to tower over Jim or anything like that. It's just there. And a lot of it, and this is kind of part of the scene construction, a lot of how we know that he's a big deal is that everyone like just does what he wants.

Right. Like he just has to make these very, not, not subtle, but like just these very straightforward, like, Hey, why don't you drop this round?

I'm going to have, you know, I'm going to have Rockford play with me. And the guy just like drops everything and leaves. And you know, every time he makes like a motion, his guys are there to do what he wants. Yeah.

We see his power through how everyone around him react to him. Yeah. We have a nice little gag where when Jim takes his first swing, where like everyone stops and just stares at him. Yes. James Garner and his brother, um jack were both golfers in his memoir uh garner talks about many golf encounters that he had uh he would be in like celebrity golf tournaments and stuff like that uh but his brother jack was actually i think i don't know if he was like a pro but he was kind of a professional amateur there's some term for it where it's like he was like a pro, but he was kind of a professional amateur.

There's some term for it where it's like he wasn't a full time professional golfer, but at golfing events, he would be a pair for a celebrity like that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's that's a that's a fun gig. Yeah. Jack Garner, not in this episode, but has has bits on many uh yeah episodes uh this scene so one of the fun things about this scene is uh and you know good old broken record epi here i'm going to talk about status um it's watching this mob boss like you were saying he he he snaps his fingers and people jump he will say one thing and do the other and just kind of defy you to correct him. Like when he has Jim take his shot, he first of all tells Jim, like if you've never golfed this course,

this is, you want to go over here, you'll pick up a stroke if you shoot it off in this direction. And then we find out that that direction is right towards a water trap. Like, I don't know much about golf, but it's, you know, enough to know that he's led Jim astray.

Right. Probably on purpose. When Jim goes up to take his first stroke, he waits until Jim pulls his club back and then talks to disrupt him and is kind of waiting for Jim to call him on it. He's doing all of these things that you wouldn't do because they're rude, but he's pretending they're not as sort of just saying, I dare you to tell me I'm rude.

It's very much a veneer of civility. Yeah. I know how this game is played, not the game of golf, but this status game. Do you? I'm going to give you all these opportunities to be rude or be gauche or a call me out on this behavior. But Jim also knows those rules and will go along with it until he doesn't. Because he picks his spot, right? He waits until the right moment to break the social rule and reveal that he's not going to just toady to this guy. Part of what makes this scene and these sorts of scenes in the Rockford Files work, because I love whenever Jim has to go toe to toe with a mob boss. Jim can't reveal without hurting his friends like what this guy is trying to get Jim to reveal. But it's very clear that this this guy is threatening jim one of jim's survival techniques in here say in contrast to say angel who would would absolutely tell him oh yeah we'll just spill immediately is that jim is looking

for those moments when he can put up enough resistance so that this guy doesn't think he has complete control of the situation. I think that's great. I think it's very well done here to have these two kind of stand off against each other throughout this scene. It's a hidden information game, right? So here's what happens. Dom says that David is coming up in the world and now he's at a point where they need to give him a full examination and make sure that they can trust him this is all about trust he wants to know everything that jim and david talked about at lunch

because he talked to david about it and he just wants to hear hear it from jim's mouth and see if it matches what david said yeah so j Jim tells him all the things they talked about, including the, you know, the horses and the race cars and whatnot. And then Dom says, all right, and what about the other thing, the big thing? And Jim says that he doesn't know what he's talking about. So in this interplay of the back and forth, there's a real question of, is Jim reading this as a ploy? Like, is this a ploy because Dom knows that there's something and needs to find out what it is? Or is this a test to see if Jim is going to lie just to please him? Right?

Like, it could be either. And it's pretty straightforward about which it is as as we get to it but as a viewer watching the scene it's like all right how is jim going to play this yeah because jim could play it either way and you can see the story going forward right jim could do what he does here which is deny that they talked about anything else uh or he could say like you're asking me about the big thing because you know there isn't a big thing right like yeah or or he could make up a different big thing or any of these other ways to to deal with it and that was a real dramatic tension to me to see what direction that was going to go david told me the other thing you discussed the big thing

i don't know what you're talking about are you holding out on me jim and i don't like that we're trusting each other but when i trust a guy I expect him to tell me the truth. If he doesn't, he's going to end up in the flower business. That's a soil additive. That's good. I wonder if he's also

in the loop with our urban horticulturalist. Yes. And so here's where we get Jim's refusal to play this game. He knows when he's being threatened. He doesn't like to be threatened.

And they didn't talk about anything other than what they've already said. So this is all played out through, they're using the gulf as kind of the parable for this, right? With like trust and, oh, there's a water hazard here. The segue that he's got where he's like, there's all kinds of water hazards in los angeles yeah the ocean and the river and all the places i can bury yeah so uh dom says all right well if he finds out that jim's lying he's gonna have to settle the score uh and we get back to the gulf where the other guys come up and are like hey here's our you know here's where we're all at and uh Jim says, well, he's going to take the penalty. He's only two instead of three or whatever.

And so Dom says, all right, well, you owe me 40 bucks. Yeah, he basically says, oh, well, this is how the rest of this hole is going to play out. So we're just going to assume it went this way and that you lost the bet. Right. He definitely just put that on Jim and, again, is daring Jim to deny him. And that's when Jim says that he knows when he's being threatened and he doesn't like it. Yeah, yeah. And so he doesn't immediately agree to that.

They have a little more back and forth. And then when it comes back up with these other guys, he says, you know, I've decided to take the penalty. Yeah. But it's Jim's decision but it's jim's decision it's not uh dom's decision and when they started this whole thing it was like oh we're playing for this much money per stroke and blah blah blah yeah so because he's taking that penalty he owes dom 40 bucks yes and uh he says i'll collect from you later oh and then there's a thing where it's like aren't we going to play the next green it's it's like, no, we're going over here. And we end the scene with Jim being taken by the goons back to the car, presumably.

And the goon says that they always skip these holes because they don't play next to the freeway. Someone could get shot. Yeah. So it's like, oh. There are pressures even on these, even on such as the Marcon family. Jim goes home. Rocky is there unloading groceries. Yay, Rocky!

He's upset. Rocky asks why. We had a bad golf game. Yes. Jim mentions playing with mobsters or whatever, and Rocky gets to have his traditional, you need to not be involved with these criminals lecture yeah which is always appreciated if he keeps associating with

those kind of people their trouble is going to rub off on him um jim mentions angel apparently angel called rocky because he appreciated the cabinetry that rocky did in his own house and he wanted him to make some frames for his fancy art that he that he has and so jim's like no do not go work for angel do not get involved with angel and rocky gets defensive about it like kind of like don't tell me what to do right this is a great line i actually wrote this down because this is a line i'm gonna steal and use in my life now looky here i don't mind the suggestion, but I'm fighting the tone. I am absolutely going to use that in my own life

because it just comes up. It just comes up when somebody tells you something that's perfectly sensible, but in a way where you're like, you could have done that better. But the heart here is where Jim says, please don't get involved with Angel. He's in danger.

Please. And Rocky huffily drops it. I don't like them old paintings much anyway. You know, all that funny stuff, the landscapes painted on velvet, naked girls on velvet, and they change color in the light. It's the kind of stuff you get in a carnival.

Yeah. Which, I don't know if that means that he knows exactly what angel has as art or if he's projecting what angel would have as art i think it works either way and we get a rare uh jim having a cigarette uh while he says that he doesn't know what's happening but he'll figure it out yeah so jim uh is trying to track down david uh he sees him in an elevator with two goons one of the goons is like this is occupied don't get in chief or something like that david warns him off with his eyes and uh jim runs downstairs uh and manages to

get the license number of the car that david taken away in. Which I don't think matters. That is a good question. I appreciate it as like, this is what Jim would do. Right. But it's one of the rare kind of like, here's a little piece that happens on camera that doesn't actually have a payoff. I've seen the episode, but so long ago ago i don't remember however anything pans out my notes are david is lucky that rockford sees him in this elevator right like right because i feel like this is david being taken off to be executed this is why david's like warning uh rockford off uh but then i'm like I go back on those notes because it looks like Jim is doing

stuff to help David. Right. And maybe he is. Maybe he's preparing to call the cops to say that there's somebody's life is in danger. They're in a car and here's the license plate for the car or whatever. And maybe that gets diverted. But what happens next isn't that David's getting executed. It's that something. Well, we'll get into it. But like it just it definitely confused me because I was like, oh, wait a minute. Jim's not jumping anyone here to save his friend David. This is not a problem with the episode, but just going through it now.

Yeah. I'm realizing that this is maybe it's just a piece of physical business. And or maybe there was some other scene that they cut in editing or something where this mattered. The important thing is that David is brought to see Uncle Dom in the fancy house. Yes. This is straight up a tribute to mob cinema scene, right? Yeah. Or a prototype for mob cinema scene. It's essentially a soliloquy from Dom about how he's treated David so well. Right.

How you really know someone is, is what they do when things start going wrong. And that is time for him to earn what he's been getting for free. And all this kind of vaguely threatening, we're going to involve you in some serious business now, if you can handle it framing right yeah and i like how specific this gets so did you tell rockford about this hit on angel and david says no of course not but angel told his partner brad that he heard this rumor

brad is in business with dom which we know well i think which was implied earlier and which we know now through this reference. Angel told Brad that he heard the rumor from Rockford. So this is very specific, right? David denies it, says that Angel has a, there's a whole lot of people who could be out for Angel who knows where this rumor came from

or who talked to Rockford, right? Yeah. Which is fair. Yep. But here's the thing. Don's been setting this deal up for two years. There's $5 million involved. And Angel is the perfect dodo. We did it. We have justified me bringing up the inflation calculator.

So we're talking about $22 million. Yeah, this is a big deal. In fact, $22.5 million, honestly, if we're being about $22 million. Yeah, this is a big, a big deal. In fact, $22.5 million, honestly, if we're being honest about it. As he says, if this pigeon flies, it'll be a disaster. Despite his denials, Dom does think that David told Rockford. So he's going to give him this chance to prove himself. And he wants David personally to kill Angel. And if he doesn't, he's going to lose everything.

Epi, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the Information Superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at EpiDia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there.

Otherwise, you can go to worldswithoutmaster.com, where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games. And if you like role-playing games, maybe you want to check out digathousandholes.com, where I publish all my other role-playing games. Oh, no, I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks

where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games, including the Worldwide 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 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 well i'm done with this delicious avocado taco well let's get back to the show then david who had been living a life of luxury a life of privilege from the criminal background of his family this is his arc he has to he has to make good for everything that his family has done for him. Yes, exactly. Dom's father, so David's grandfather, he killed a man for a vegetable cart, and that's

what started their fortune. Yes. So that's the blood running in his veins, right? But, I mean, to be fair, there have been days where I'd kill a man for a vegetable cart, honestly. Some of those real hungry days. Yes. This is a speech for aspiring actors yes a phrase i picked up from uh some friends who do a a b-movie podcast called cinema

super collider they often talk about how a lot of these b-movies have these great soliloquies for young actors uh yeah here's a character emoting. This is a good one from Dom where he goes up and down the emotional range with his disappointment in David lying to him. The regard in which he holds his father. How much he loves his brother, David's father, who's dead. And he goes to the church to talk to him. And like, there's a lot in here. My father. May he rest in peace. dead and he goes to the church to talk to him and like yeah there's a lot in here my father

may he rest in peace he killed the man in a dispute over a wheelbarrow full of vegetables your father and me we killed to protect what he gave us okay the uh other important point at the end is that it's important that angel and jim don't go to the police uh right because that'll spoil the whole deal uh but dom says he's going to take care of the them going to the police part but david needs to kill angel within 10 hours oh but he does take care of that part he sure does as we cut to our good friend Dennis Becker in front of a couple police cars outside the building where Angel has his penthouse, talking to this guy who's supposed to be keeping an eye on the place.

He heard a disturbance. He heard Angel smacking a girl around, saw him and a tall, dark-haired fellow run into the elevator. He ran down the stairs to get their license number and got their license number, which I guess parallels what Jim did in the earlier scene. Yeah. And of course, that is the license plate of the Firebird.

Yeah. When he went back upstairs, he found the body of the woman, Dolores, who was on the phone earlier. This is, I think, it's a regrettable moment in this episode, I think. Because, you know, we talk a lot about how the Rockford Files, they go through the trouble of making every character a character.

And they went through the trouble of making her a character for just this, right? To run interference on the cops through being murdered i'm not saying they shouldn't have gone through the trouble of making her a character it stands out when there's really i mean so beth is in this episode she comes in later but yeah that's just it but essentially as the only female character in this episode who is not a recurring character and the only one we've seen up to this point in the episode yeah it's not even motivating the plot really it's here's the device through which we will keep yeah jim and angel from going to the like here's how we will frame them we will murder

this woman and it yeah one of the things that this is not by by any stretch the biggest of the sins here but one of the things that kind of saddened me about this is that i wanted to see scenes with her and angel yeah she's an interesting like big character we got her hanging up on rockford right yeah yeah and she doesn't like angel it would be it would have been fun fun trivia fact so the actress uh ronda copland uh was not in very many things and this is in fact the last of her 11 credits on imdb so not a uh you know not not a a long time professional but uh there is a little bit of motivation here in terms of because she is murdered at the end of the episode spoiler alert justice is done and so murder is one of the charges right so there is a little bit of like that gravity does matter

they don't just go to jail for fraud they also go to jail for murder but that's a line wrapping up the story right it's yeah it yeah it's's not great. I feel like that could be less obvious of a choice. But it doesn't ruin the episode or anything. But it did kind of stand out, especially after our last couple of episodes where we've been

kind of paying a lot of attention to character treatment of women in their lives in the show. This just seems like a... It wasn't thought through. An unexamined lives. Yeah, exactly. In the show. This just seems like a... It wasn't thought through. An unexamined choice. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yes, they are clearly being framed for this murder,

and this cuts right to frantic knocking on Jim's trailer door. Obviously, it's Angel. Yes. He is starting to see what's happening. Everything's starting to come together. Yes. I kind of like how it's left completely unstated, how

Angel found any of this out, which is totally fine. Like, there's all kinds of different ways it could have happened. It's just like, oh, Angel finally something tipped him off. Yes. But specifically, one thing that happened was that some insurance guy called, didn't know

who he was talking to and started to talk like he was already dead and he realized that this this company has taken out all this life insurance on him and now that he thinks about it no one wants to ride in the car with him his driver's always taking him places alone in the limo and he's just talking a mile mile a minute he's clearly scared and jim tries to get him settled down and is like I need to know the facts like what have you done what is happening he's got a great line in here

give him what he's wearing I slipped into some rags and dove for cover right like and he's he's wearing the smoking jacket and the big white scarf yeah we hear the squealing of tires outside jim turns off the light grabs the gun out of the cookie jar and sets up a quick diversion with angel he gives him the gun and says all

right when i say let me get my coat you come out here firing and angel is like guns are not my thing like this is totally not this is a scene where I want to do like a shallow deep dive, if I may. Okay. One of the things that we can learn from this scene that I love is how to escalate the tension without escalating the stakes. Right? Right now the stakes are Angel can be killed and Jim can probably be killed. And we know those stakes going into it. Maybe not the Jim bit,

but you can reason that out. Like killed or arrested. Like kind of the implication from the way that it's cut from the scene where Dennis is there is that these could be the cops. Yeah. So what happens here

to escalate the tension without touching those stakes? We leave those stakes as they are. We don't have to like ratchet it up so that all of Los Angeles requires this to be resolved. And if not Los Angeles, then the United States. And if not the United States, the world, you know, that kind of thing. First, we see as longtime viewers of the rocker files we see jim go for the cookie jar and that is immediately an escalation because we know there's a gun and

that is very specifically like the way that's shot i think if i remember right it's a top down shot yes so we see the gun in the jar very specifically and then we see his hand go in and get it out it is like yeah this gun is now in play as longtime viewers we know that jim doesn't go to the gun whenever he has to or whenever any problem like he needs a reason for the gun right like it's not uh a solution to all of his problems but i think it's very clear in this scene that that's also the case you don't hide a gun in the cookie jar uh if that's your number one tool for solving a problem. Right.

So. And that also kind of tells us that's probably not the cops because he looked out his window and then turned off the light and he's not going to shoot at the cops. So what is happening in the back of your brain is that you're running the odds of something dangerous happening. Right. And the fact that the gun is going to be used jumps those odds up. Then Jim offers the gun to Angelo and those odds skyrocket, right? Like you're like, oh my God.

And the way the angel reacts to it and has to be convinced to use it, Jim's like, you don't have to hit anything. Like we're just looking for the distraction. Don't try to hit anything. Just come out shooting. Again again the stakes have not changed it's just the odds of something bad happening keep going up with every step of this yeah well there is now a a more chaotic array of possibilities yes the spread of what could happen just just expanded to include all kinds of weirdness yeah

they're the same stakes but they they can be come at from different branches of the story right like jim could be shot by angel or you know like whatever then then jim grabs a roll of quarters that's just like sitting like on the on the on the kitchen table so that he has something in his hand. He has a little trick up his sleeve, which I love. Then David comes in and David makes it clear now that the stakes involve Jim. You may look at this as altering the stakes, as increasing them a little bit. But what I'm encouraging our listeners to do is to actually look at this as by making these stakes clear it makes the fact that something has to happen more concrete right if jim doesn't know that he's in the that he's in

the offering then he might search for some other solution other than to call angel in with the gun fire right like this is this is backing us into this corner again then david pulls a gun and again we're like oh jesus christ like what is right so now there's two guns in play and i'm not going to say that this is like brilliant filmmaking or anything like that but it is well crafted right like it just takes you beat by beat up that ladder to this point. And then what it does when it gets you there is wonderful because it fulfills the promise, which never had anything to do with the guns at all and had to do with the fact that Angel is Angel. Right.

So David, he wants to know where Angel is. Jim denies knowing where he is, obviously. Yeah. That's when he pulls the gun and he says straight out look i'm sorry but i have to kill angel and you have to take the gaff yes sorry but that's just the way it is jim has this moment where he's like you're not really a killer like come on right he tries to diffuse it a little bit yeah and david has this great response of like well i guess we'll find out like he doesn't even know if he can do it yet.

He's got a bit of the thousand yard stare. Like he, he's also cornered, right? Like he doesn't. Yeah. And so he's like, all right,

let's go. And so Jim's like, okay, let me just get my coat. And then there's a beat and he's like, come on. And now because Jim is like not doing what he wants, he's getting more agitated.

Let me get my coat. You won't need one. Let me get my coat. I said, forget it. Let's go. Silence from, you know, the bedroom. So Jim goes with him. But then as David's backing out the doorway doorway he has an opportunity to grab his hand

push his arm out of the way and sucker punch him with his hand with the roll of quarters which i refer to in my notes as sucker punches him out of the doorway yes slams the door runs back opens the door and that's when angel is starting to come through with the gun and he grabs the gun from Angel. Yes. Oh, there is an exchange of fire because David comes back in. Here's where, where the stakes, you know,

are. Yeah. Somebody can get hurt. Where we find out exactly how high they are. As it turns out, our exchange of fire does not injure anyone. Uh, and David,

uh, runs away. I also would not want to face a wrathful Jim Rockford with a gun. I mean, like, especially from David's point of view, I think he probably has the assumption that Jim has used a gun on someone. We transition into the back half of our episode through a voiceover of the police radio call calling in the descriptions of jim and angel and we see squad cars put their lights on and start uh moving around so the apb is out for for our heroes we then go to jim and angel angelo uh pulling into a gas station somewhere seems fairly rural they

are not in the city at this point jim wants to know where this land is to figure out what's going on. Like, I want to see what you what you're in charge of. Angel says that the thing about real estate is you don't actually need to see the dirt. Yeah. And it keeps up all this patter about what a great real estate brain he has. There's things that Jim wouldn't understand

not being in the real estate business, like interest and cash flow. Which I posit are 100% things that Jim understands. Yes. Not only does he understand, but he's, yeah, this is part and parcel of his own personal business. While they're getting full service on the car, which Angel calls for, they go up to the takeaway window.

Angel gets a small jalapeno pizza and Jim gets a Coke. Oh, Angel and his spicy food. He loves his spicy foods. And so Jim, with much effort, pulls the story out of Angel. Angel hooked up with Brad. It's kind of vague about how that happened. Yeah. But Brad knew about this development that Dom, Dominic Marcon, and Tony Cristiani, who obviously is another mob guy. Yeah. They have a development that is counting on water from the indian head river but brad and now angel have the option on some farmhouse

that actually would connect them to the river and they didn't know that the state is going to damn the river and so in order to get the water that they need for this development property to happen they needed to come to angel they needed to come to angelo yes uh and as he says he shook them down for half the deal to buy this farmhouse and they brought him in as a partner on the whole deal uh cash flow just comes to me immediately this is yeah where he starts angel splaining right cash flow he angel splains and then jim's like oh, I don't know about all that, but are you familiar with the term mark? Yes. And Angel's explanation or his justification, at least, is like, how can he be the mark on this?

He's coming out ahead. He didn't have anything. Now he has everything. He's the one making the money. So where's the scam? Right. And Jim agrees. It is weird.

And I think we're with him right clearly something's happening clearly the whole point of this is to kill angel like that that activates whatever this scheme is but we don't know what that is exactly still angel pays uh for the gas and the food as we noted earlier uncharacteristically feeling flush still yes and uh jim's like this is your deal why can't you give me directions like i said i've never seen it and he has this whole thing about how every time he's going to come out and see it they stop at the downs because his driver likes to throw down some money on the horses and then that whole day just just vanishes um so he's never actually seen it but he's's seen pictures. There's also a bit in here, again, about telephones.

In my notes, I just have, again, with the telephones. I don't actually remember what the bit is. But he goes off on it again, like how he could have a telephone, like, everywhere. Yeah. Anywhere. Like, this is his thing. We end with a all-time great Angel line. Angelo's got the water, and when you got the wah-wah, you got the deal.

Yes. So we have a couple jokes in the cut here. So first, you know, we end on when you got the wah-wah, you got the deal. Cut to a lawn sprinkler spraying bounteous amounts of water over a lush green lawn outside of a Indian Head Land Development Incorporated sign. That lawn is right up on a river or a lake. The camera follows Jim and Angel as they walk over and then discovers the river behind them. And Angel's like, this can't be. If they have the water, what about Angelo? I have the water.

Yes. And he said, this should all be desert. I've seen pictures. Yeah. Like, why would they cut me into the deal if they already have water? Ah, well, that is the question, isn't it? So Jim's like, well, let's go see this farm that you bought, which was like Miller's farm. Ha ha.

What a stupid name. I've renamed it Rancho Angelo. And so on his, the way that he's naming it with all of this, imbuing it with all of this gravitas, we have this joke in the cut where we go to seeing this barren field with a broken down barn in the middle of it. Jim and Angel are outside. He's like, yeah, this is a dump.

This is what I bought. Clearly it's a pig in the middle of it. Jim and Angel are outside. He's like, yeah, this is a dump. This is what I bought. Clearly it's a pig in the poke, right? He's not, he has not gotten what he thought he was getting. So Jim's like, all right, I still don't know what's going on,

but we should go to the cops. Epi, what are the chances that Angel wants to go to the cops at this point? I think they're pretty high. I think Angel has a fine opinion of the cops. I think he, yeah, clearly whatever fate angel befalls angel it won't uh involve him turning himself into the cops just yet yeah and

his argument which makes a certain amount of of sense coming from the the the mindset of angel is that uh if he's if he's in on some kind of racket and they go to the cops then they're then he's going to be implicated and they're going to find him guilty of something he didn't even do. That's not good for anyone. Uh, Jim would rather see Angel take his chances on conspiracy and fraud than Jim take his chances on getting killed.

Yes. That's Jim. Always thinking about himself. He can take, he can handle David and the mob. Um, but nobody cares about the mob. Um, but nobody cares about Angelo.

Um, and so we cut from that to the zoomed in newspaper headline to sought for murder of Los Angeles woman. Uh, and they start kind of reading the story simultaneously. So they're at like another, like a truck stop or something. And they pick up the paper off of the table and are horrified to see that this is uh a headline they kind of both read it simultaneously until jim snaps at him so that we

we just hear jim reading it which is a great touch um i have long thought that this is the this is the low point of the jim angel relation this is where jim gets the closest to just peacing out and never talking to Angel again, I think. Yeah, we see Jim angry in a way that we rarely see him angry. One thing about the two of them reading it, I kind of, I didn't do this. I was thinking I wanted to go back to see if they're reading the same bits or if they're reading. Or if they're reading different sections. bits or if they're reading or if they're reading different sections yeah because like you can absolutely see jim and angel focusing on two different you know jim focusing on what they

need to know and angel focusing on but anyways the point is jim is upset and uh angel angel is not doing himself any favors here so jim's like i don't even know who this is uh who is this woman and angel starts describing how well you know how this is uh who is this woman and angel starts describing how well you know how it is when you get rich yeah women start hanging around they want stuff from you um and so once he describes her jim's like oh oh i know what's happening he recognizes her from the description kind of puts two and two together so uh he's he's clearly frustrated and angry now they can't go to the cops right because they're afraid for this murder that's the whole point they get back in the firebird

who's gonna kill him well how should i know i know i didn't and who's carl dorado well i don't know how am i supposed to know i'm supposed to have answers for everything so far you haven't had the answer to anything angel starts starts muttering and having kind of a pity party for himself. And Jim with like what seems like very real, expressive, frustrated rage. Angel, shut up. And Jim is having none of it. He does say like, OK, where are the contracts? Yeah.

Jim's like, OK, if we're going to solve this problem, we need to get deep, nipple deep into the paperwork. That's what we have to do. Yep. It's like, where are the contracts? Like, I don't know, probably at Brad's. Did you even read them? We end the scene with, You ain't taking this too well. Really?

I think under the circumstances, I am remarkably under control and shoots out backwards still looking directly forwards yes this is one of those like you have to see the scene to really appreciate the the depths of how frustrated Jim is with Angel because it's not just that Angel has put himself into hot water. Jim has come into this to help Angel. He had nothing to do with this.

He could have stayed out of this entirely. But he's here to literally save Angel's life. And not only is Angel not helping, Angel doesn't even seem to acknowledge that Jim is trying to help him. Or that Jim is an avenue in which Angel can help himself.

It's good. And I'm kind of like, this might be the last time Angel's in this show because Jim might just never want to associate with him again. I'm done with this guy. Which thankfully is not the case. But I remember the first time I saw this episode being shocked at the depth of the anger that G like brings into this scene um we see him like rough like handle angel roughly at other points in many other episodes but this is the the most that i feared for angels well-being at the hands of jim and he doesn't lay a finger on him yeah uh moving on from there we go to uh brad charlotte and associates associates at night as they're rifling through filing cabinets, obviously having broken in. Good old fashioned filing cabinet rifling. That's how the work is done. We cut back and forth from going through cabinets.

Maybe yours is filed under S for stupid and an alarm going off in the security office or something. They do find the file that Jim's looking for. As they wait in the elevator to go down, the security guard shows up at the stairs. Stop, hands up. As he comes over to try and accost them in the elevator,

Jim gut punches him out of the elevator door so that it closes and they can go downstairs. There's this moment where of the elevator door so that it closes and they can go downstairs uh there's this moment where when the elevator door opens angel is just standing there huddling in like not wanting to be more involved right yeah jim grabs him and hustles him out to you know you're with me now pal he doesn't say that but that's the you know like you're stuck in now i even love the way angel runs compared to the way Jim runs in this scene. Like as they're going to the parking garage here, there's not like a big deal about it.

It's just one of those tiny details. But Angel's run is so skittish and so terrifying. While Jim's is like, we got to get going. And then we get to our brief but fun bit of car chase. They hustle to the Firebird. As they try to leave this parking garage, a squad car pulls up and blocks them. Jim executes a swift J-turn in the parking structure to get away from the cops. So this is now our second J turn in three episodes.

Yes. I'm glad to see the return. And then another standard. He whips around a corner and then backs into a parking space. I think by the way, the camera is set. I think it's the same parking space he was in, which is a great touch.

And then turns off the lights and they duck down. And so they're in there long enough that the cop car has not seen them do that. So it whips around the corner and then keeps going in hot pursuit and whips around the next corner and is gone. And then he just slowly pulls out and leaves at a normal driving pace, scot-free. Yeah, a short but very sweet chase. I enjoyed it. And so now we have Jim and Angel meet up with Beth at an empty park. Always nice to see Beth.

Um, they're bickering and she makes them shut up and listen to her. Yes. And now this is shot with them between chain link fences. Like they're in the public, they're in the park, but it has a very jailed house feel to it. And I think that's really specific for a bit that Angel has in a second.

Okay. So she's looked through this paperwork of these contracts or whatever. And she says that it's like, did you even read these? From what she can tell, the idea was to get Angel in on the deal and then direct all of the cash flow for this whole development thing to Angel. And then he also has this big life insurance policy that they took out on him.

This is all structured so that when he dies, they would inherit, like the other partners, then inherit the money that he has been receiving. Again, because this doesn't make sense to me as a viewer. And she very much says that, well, this doesn't make sense, except as some kind of tax gimmick. Yeah. Like, all right, here we go. Jim has a good line of, Angel never pays his taxes.

And he's always like, oh, well, these guys, they're all into taxes. They're all tax felons. They posit and thus tell us, what if they are trying to convert income tax to inheritance tax? So the income tax on this whole property, they'd be paying 50%, but inheritance tax is only 25%. So if all the money is going to Angel and then he dies, the insurance company pays out and pays the taxes on the policy. They get that extra 25% in clean money.

And Angel has a list of possible suspects 10 pages long. So the plan would be for them, you know, then they come out blaming it on someone else and come away with apparently this $5 million worth of taxes that they don't have to pay. This is such a delightful Rockford scheme. So many Rockford schemes are the mob or some other criminal finding a bureaucratic loophole through which they can scam some sort of money. Like it's never straightforward. I shouldn't say never, but like I just love that. It's like we need to figure it. We need to look at the paper trail and we need to get a lawyer. We need to get Beth, a lawyer in here to look at these contracts and determine why this is happening.

Yeah, exactly. So what can they do about this? Well, the way to keep it from happening, keep the money transfer from happening, would be to freeze Angel's assets. And the only way she can think of to do that, I associate this kind of thing with the kind of the Cannell and Chase scripts where it's like, and now here's a kind of wacky idea. If he's committed to a sanitarium with her as the conservator then his assets would be frozen unless she released them and so that would work uh as a legal way of keeping them from getting the assets um jim doesn't like this idea because then she's in danger yes we can see from how he acts that he's starting to have an idea of how to fix it you know how to make this all come out so

he's like but go ahead and drop the paperwork. Angel doesn't like this because he doesn't want to go to a sanitarium. And so here he has a little, he has a little speech where it's shot through the chain link. Yeah. Very specifically to have him in a enclosed space while he's talking about, he's been to jail. He's gotten all the tests from behavioral scientists or whatever, while he's talking about he's been to jail he's gotten all the tests from behavioral

scientists or whatever while he's in jail they tell him that he has unstable personalities his fear of imprisonment yeah comes through as it's presented to us in this way that shows him kind of already uh enclosed it's a nice touch and he's pacing and agitated like so it definitely has that like uh a caged animal feel to it jim caps it off by asking well would you rather die so we go to this sanitarium apparently uh jim and beth are able to commit him and he has this whole so he's talking to the doctor who's taking him away he's like don't worry this is all a ploy i'm not really crazy and then he lays out all this stuff and the doctor who's taking him away. He's like, don't worry. This is all a ploy. I'm not really crazy. And then he lays out all this stuff and the doctor just kind of nods along.

Yeah. And the mob's trying to kill me. Yeah. There's $5 million at stake. And the guy's like, I'm sure. Why do you think they're trying to kill you? And patronizing him. Yeah.

So Angel is playing into the hands of Jim and Beth, right? Right. Where all of his protests enforce their story. Of course, his last question, which we just hear on camera is, are there TVs in the rooms?

So Angel. Jim tells Beth to make her call at a specific time. He has a meeting with Dom in half an hour. I don't necessarily love this like plot gimmick of committing him, committing him to a sanitarium. There's some comedic hay made with mental health. That's not good. Yeah.

It's a joke. Yeah. And like, I don't really love the, you know, let's, let's treat mental illness as a joke. Right.

So angel angels got some issues. Like that's the character of angel like we see him behaving in ways where you get frustrated with him because he's not behaving uh how you would want him to behave and that's you know if we if we if angel were a real person then there's probably something behind that like there's something going on uh and yeah because i had some things in my notes about this too because i was like you know this is a little insensitive to actual mental health issues and i said but then again this is the mental health industry in the 1970s which wasn't particularly good for mental health issues too right like in the spectrum of you know how mental

health is handled in the rockford files uh this is fairly innocuous for a more rigorous examination and actual like pointed look at it the uh the two-parter uh bees the trees and tt flowers that we covered fairly recently that's like about this um in a very intentional way and i think that's, it's more successful in that. Yeah. There's also, there's the episode, the competitive edge where,

where Jim ends up getting committed against his will to a kind of a one flew over the cuckoo's nest kind of situation. Yeah. That is, that is treated with some comedic tones in a way that is, that is not very sensitive, um, to the mentally ill.

It's also not representing sanitariums, I think in a like realistic way. Uh, so those are kind of the ends of the spectrum of, of, of what we've seen for this kind of thing. One of the least comfortable bits of this is the one character, the basketball player,

which is yet at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. So we'll, we end, yeah? Yeah. Well, yeah. So we'll get to that shortly as we're getting into our finale here. So Jim has a meeting with Dom. He has an offer. All right, you get me an angel off the hook.

We'll transfer the ownership of the development company, which currently is frozen, right, because of the conservatorship, back to Dominic. He plays all the fees and the straight taxes, and everyone just walks away. Dom, of course, does not want to do this. It's going to cost him $2.5 million, plus he's going to have to hang the murder of Dolores

on one of his own people. Yeah. And Jim's like, well, I told you you weren't going to like the deal. I really love that line. Hey, this is what it is. This is where we're at. He wants a letter stating that they made it. And he will also incriminate himself in the letter so that if something happens and it comes out, you know, it's insurance or whatever.

Stalemate. They're both incriminated if it comes out. That's the idea. Dom says he has to think about it. Jim gives him a deadline, but then slaps down 40 bucks and says, I always pay my debts. At this point, you know, this deal is clearly a tactic to get Dom to react and not a, I expect him to actually follow through on it. Right. As Jim leaves, Dom makes a call. He wants Angel and Rockford dead. He doesn't care how, but take David,

and if he blows it, he owns the murder rap. We go back to the institution. Jim pulls Angel out of his room, where he is watching TV. As they start leaving, they see David and two of the goons coming in, and now we have basically a physical physical comedy chase uh full of pratfalls through this uh institution i i have to say i think my favorite part of it is when they're

hiding behind the tray cart yeah in the cafeteria and just moving that along uh as if that would not be noticed they run run through a couple places. One of them is this cafeteria and they hide behind this cart, but it's the only thing that's moving. Everyone else is sitting down, so it's moving, and then they crash it into a wall and then the goons see them and run after them.

There's also a bit where they run through a room where this very tall guy is playing basketball with himself and he like tries to like dribble the ball like pass it to them and get it back and everything there's a game starting up right he's gonna play and then they they run out into this exercise yard uh and the goons start taking pot shots as uh jim and angel run out the the gate that's on the the back end and take shelter behind a wall and this this is when we get our bits from our preview montage of Jim going, where are the cops? Where are the cops?

Yes, they're supposed to be cops. Finally, some squad cars show up and Angel's, come on, cops. As the sirens are going, David makes a break for it. He climbs over the wall, but then Jim tackles him on the other side. The cops arrive. Everyone drops their guns. They arrest everyone, of course, and pat down Jim along with the goons in a fairly standard touch. And then one of the cops and one of the orderlies or whatever grab Angel by the arms and start taking him back into the institution.

We have a plaintiff, I'd rather go to jail. You got to tell him, Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy. It was just a plan. Oh, that's good stuff. We fade from that to three days later, Jim and Beth go to see Angel,

who's still in the institution. So we wrap up the plot here. Angel's off the hook. David pulled the plug, and everyone Brad, Tony, Dom, they're going down for murder and for fraud. But the state froze the deal, so

he's not going to get anything out of it. He might have to pay some court fees. Beth is on it, but he's not going to get any money out of the Indian He might have to pay some court fees. Beth is on it, but he's not going to get any money out of the Indian Head Development Company. Angel starts going off about all the... He thinks that they have it out for him.

They keep on doing all these things, like showing him a bunch of ink on paper. Putting shapes in holes. Like, yeah. But he has this behavioral scientist that has been talking to him and he likes that guy yeah and he's been putting him on he's been telling him all these that he's like uh does he say that he's been telling him that he's a hitman or something right right he's like what's

it like to kill for money or something like that yeah yeah you know what they really love going on a hunger strike it really gets them going and jim like, I don't think you should be doing that. We see the joke of Angel, you know, not understanding the consequences of his actions in this context. Right. Yeah. Doesn't Beth explain to him that a behavioral scientist is a psychiatrist? Yes. He's like, oh, you're going to tell me. Yeah.

I have a lot more experience with this than you, lady. Our tall basketball guy starts looming over them and jim kind of gives him a look and angel's like oh don't worry he's just being a shadow jim and jim seems very concerned no no no he he's being a shadow he's cool he's just being a shadow do you think you can get him out of here i'll try jim really i'll try angel takes another look behind him has a sudden realization of how weird this all is jumps towards the camera you know with a panicked look on his face um so he's framed in between jim and beth and we freeze frame on angel's uh uh dawning realization of the trouble that he's gotten himself into.

All told, a very fun episode. It falls in the category of one of Jim's friends gets into trouble and needs his help. So that Jim doesn't get any money from this. We see that he loses some money in the beginning when he pays he pays david for whatever yeah and then he pays uh dom uh 40 on the green um but that's the extent although that 40 that's like 200 in today's money it's not it's not nothing yeah it's about 180 dollars so uh but it isn't uh it is not a paying gig for

jim but i just want to go back and reiterate how much i love that beginning statement that just puts us right into motion oh yeah it's it's really good the the pace of this one's really um i mean it's good it's very snappy as one would expect um so when i do this and i'm taking notes sometimes i can i can see kind of a pattern of of exposition based on my notes like how much you know because i'm trying to know the plot details and stuff so some episodes start very fat and kind of trail off as the action hits right so like all the explanation and all the getting us to the beginning and all the staging and everything is at the beginning all the establishment of relationships and all of that is in the first couple three scenes and then it gets it picks up from there this one is like it starts off real

slim and then we have like two chunky scenes that do all that that give us exposition give us character give us forward motion with the plot um and so the when angel and jim have uh lunch with the the snails when uh jim and dom have their conversation on the green um david and dom's conversation uh jim and angel at the gas station yeah and then jim angel and beth like they're kind of paced right it's like yeah stuff happens stuff happens a little bit longer scene establishes more stuff stuff happens stuff happens it's a a pattern that really i think is probably more difficult to achieve than it sounds yeah it really and i really trust the audience to pick up on things that are implied which i like like the first scene we have no idea who this guy david is

but like so much is just implied by their conversation. And then we get the hook of, you know, Angel's going to die tomorrow. Yeah. Where is this going? Let's see. And then we find out more about David. But like, we don't know what this book is or who he helped Jim get off his back or like any of that stuff. And it doesn't matter.

But that context is important for showing us that David has a moral decision to make because he's not a killer he's brought in as a killer like why that's important that's really good stuff i think that that one rough bit that we we hit uh where jim takes down the license plate uh might be an artifact of that pacing that you were just saying because what we get there is that that's just before uh an informational scene right like that's just before david and dom have a conversation about what's going to happen so it's a little bit actiony but we're not quite sure what the action in that scene is like jim sees it happening and goes and secretly records the license plate. And that has a nice private eye attention to it and whatnot.

But because there's no payoff for that, there's no anything else. It's more of just like, well, we need a beat here. So here's that beat. And maybe there was a payoff for it that ended up on the cutting room floor. But the beat didn't because, you know, you need something between. Right. That transitioned. Yeah.

That scene probably could have just been cut after Jim sees the doors close. Right. And then go right to the thing. But it's kind of like. What does Jim do? And that he couldn't follow them because he was too late. So he took the license plate number. It's like, OK.

he couldn't follow them because he was too late. So he took the license plate number. It's like, okay. As always, watching Garner and Margolin do their thing is the joy of the episode. Yeah. If you can find this one, watch it. The scene with Jim in the car telling Angel to shut up, it's beautiful because you actually do feel uncomfortable, right?

Like he manages to, well, the two of them managed to bring you into the spot where it's like, oh no, Jim's angry. Not like upset or disappointed or, you know, whatever. This is a pissed off Jim. He doesn't want to be in this situation. Yeah, it's great. Worth watching.

Definitely. And I think with our, you know, with our quibbles of the unexamined things that are played for laughs yeah there's nothing we can do about throwing up my hands motion it doesn't make it a bad episode it doesn't reflect on anyone's moral character it's just like hopefully as we progress uh as as creators we can examine these assumptions when we make them in our in our work since we we have these examples to look at of when they are played for laughs and it doesn't really feel right,

when this female character is basically killed to develop plot, when that seems unnecessary, et cetera, et cetera. Like, we can learn from those as well as from the good stuff. Agreed. Hence why we talk about it. Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts on Drought at Indian Head River? It's an enjoyable episode.

It was a great way to spend the past six hours. Whatever amount of time we spend on these things. We spend at least 10 to 12 hours. So the fact that you get it edited down uh dear listener yeah and i think it's a it was a good food episode definitely um which is is more your territory but we got a toaster snails jalapeno pizza yeah jim doesn't eat anything throughout the entire episode just orders a coke when she gets in a styrofoam cup the size of his hand um yeah definitely a keeper uh before we get out

of here uh and we probably should have talked about this at the beginning because no one ever listens to the end of a podcast but uh by the time this episode hits the feed, we will have started a new, uh, effort, a new thing for our Patreon subscribers. So you are listening to 200 a day. Uh, we are starting a supplementary feed through the Patreon plus expenses. Uh,

whenever we record these, uh, we sit down and we kind of chat beforehand because we happen to be friends and like to catch up and so we're going to be recording those uh and putting those out uh lightly edited on the patreon uh for our patreon subscribers you know if you like our asides uh perhaps you might want to check those out it's like an aside super cut we also also talk about things that we've been watching and reading and playing. Yeah.

Generally, we do that anyway. And now that we're recording them, we will be making a point to be talking about that stuff. So if you want even more, you too can subscribe to the Patreon for just $1 an episode. There's a separate feed that you get through the Patreon. You put it in your player of choice. It shows up with all of your other podcasts. Info is on the Patreon at

patreon.com slash 200 a day. Yeah, and hopefully that will be a nice little bonus for those of you who like what we do and continue to monetarily support us so thank you to all of our patrons for that yeah thank you and hopefully it's uh a bonus size yes i actually don't even know what size it'll end up being because we haven't finished one yet

there will be variable but probably uh aiming for the half hour 40 minute range um so that all said while we did not lose any money on uh on golf this time uh but we have earned our 200 for this day so we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files