Two Hundred A Day - Episode 55: Profit and Loss (Two-Part Episode)

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

Nathan and Eppy take a look at the first two-part episode from the first season, Profit and Loss (E12 and 13). Starring Ned Beatty as the villainous CEO of a fraudulent investment firm, this two-parter is very much one linear story through both episodes. Though it features a number of wonderful Jim Rockford moments, and gives us a lot of good Rocky material, we can't help but feel like the big climax is a bit of a let-down given the extensive buildup. On the other hand, it does have perhaps the greatest 3-minute hot-dog related scene in all of the Rockford Files! 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 Brian Perrera Eric Antener 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 Dale Church! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us Audio Hijack for helping us record and capture clips from the show spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by game and narrative designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. In each episode we pick an episode of The Rockford Files, recap and review it as fans of the show, and tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Hey Jimmy, this here's Tita Skerritt, remember me? From the army. I'm stuck here in town. How about I come over and bunk with you, buddy? Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Pelletta. And I'm Epidiah Ravishaw. And we are taking on another two-parter for this episode. Yeah. We'll be covering both of them in our one conversation, I think, as befits the story as told. Epi, which

two-parter are we talking about? We are watching episodes, I guess, 12 and 13. Profit and Loss. Alright, so on IMDb, these are 12 and 13. Elsewhere, they're listed as 13 and 14 because it depends on whether the pilot is included in the season

or as two parts or not. All right. Well, per the source of all truth, IMDb 12 and 13. I'm just going to say that they exist in a quantum state. The episode is Profit and Loss, and they're individually very cleverly titled Profit and Loss.

I really appreciated that. Therefore, the full title is Profit and Loss Part 1 Profit and Profit and Loss Part 2 Loss. profit and profit and loss part two loss yeah and so these this is on our list thanks to some patron requests it's come up once or twice over the last

couple months where we've been we've been asked about this as a two-parter so that is one of the ways in which we select our episodes our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day give us tips or ask us about certain episodes and we put them on the list. So here we are. And then the other way we choose is by whether or not Ned Beatty's in it.

So this one nails it on both counts. Yes. Smack dab in the middle of season one. This is a story by Roy Huggins, credited as John Thomas James, as was his request, I guess. That's how his writing credits appear, at least on this show. I would prefer to have three first names rather than my name. And then the teleplay by Cannell. So it's one of the collaborative huggins and cannell joints um for those who have uh perhaps joined us since the last time we talked about this uh

the rockford files was created by roy huggins and steven cannell um inspired in many ways by re-envisioning the Maverick character from Maverick, which was a Roy Huggins project with James Garner, obviously. And then Cannell kind of, as it turns out, was the staying power of the show. Huggins departed after the first season or first couple seasons, I forget exactly um to go do other projects uh but this first season in particular is i think part of the character of it is both is both because it is the the first season and everyone's kind of getting their legs under them creatively figuring out the characters figuring out the stories and the and everything uh but, I think because this has the most fingerprints of Roy Huggins and

his interests. A lot of the scripts were kind of repurposed for Maverick scripts or were stories he wanted to tell with other shows that he couldn't tell. I wasn't able to find out for this one whether this came from something else or not. I think the characteristic of his stuff in this season

generally is like here is a core kind of weirdo idea and now i'm going to build the entire story around this one weirdo idea so the weirdo idea here is uh as we'll get into fairly shortly is uh you know what if this multi-billion dollar conglomerate was a house of cards and built on yeah defrauding investors basically which apparently was a crazy idea in the early 70s yeah so that yeah this But also like pre-junk bonds. Yeah. Pre-Greed is Good 80s deregulation. The guy that sold all of the stocks and then was like paying people off with the stocks that he was.

Oh, Bernie Madoff. That's it. Thank you. Well, this is just pre-Bernie Madoff. I guess that's all I was going to say. I know a name. Epi's making the bring-me-the-money rubby fingers as we talk. This two-parter is directed by one of our frequent directors, Lawrence Doney.

This is his second and third of his many, many Rockford Files episodes that he directed. And I got to say, upon reflection, after taking my notes, not necessarily his best work. Yeah. There are a lot of individual moments in these two episodes that are very good. But there's also a lot of individual moments where I feel like things were just rushed. Or they hadn't really figured out the production process yet because there's like a lot of ADR that's like really loud there's a lot of like unfocused camera work that doesn't seem intentional like that kind of stuff didn't any

of that pop out to you I think so yeah there's a few moments that I commented on one moment in particular that I was trying to figure out if if there was a thing that was supposed to happen where the camera just sort of settles on Rocky working on the garbage disposal. Which, by the way, I think is the whole plot of this episode is just that garbage. I mean, we've been talking a lot of big things about, you know, security frauds and all that. But this episode is actually plumbing. Right. frauds and and all that but this episode is actually plumbing right but like the camera focuses on him doing some stuff and then a little late we hear jim say something off camera which was what was needed to move to the next scene yeah i was trying to figure out if this was

experimentation of some kind but it doesn't it doesn't feel like that. It doesn't feel like it. It feels more like it's just rushed to me. Unlike the reincarnation of Angie, which we did recently, where there were a lot of elements of that that were like, this seems like a conceptual 70s film moment brought into this episode. I didn't get that feeling for anything here. Yeah, that all said, I feel like both of these episodes are very economical with their preview montages. Epi, what jumped out to you from the one for part one, Profit? Yes, so I love that it starts off just listing the crimes. Yeah. We'll find out when we get to the second one.

It did the same same which is good i like that uh whoever handled the montage was either doing them both at the exact same time or uh was like i'm gonna do something neat here with the month for for epi i'm just gonna do a little callback for epi here uh we also see some nighttime car shenanigans uh which i wrote in this one and then later realized that they're a lie that this is a scene from episode two that's it just gets what's your appetite for the other one uh and then the wonderful line i heard you were reliable and rockford i mean we're gonna get this right away but he's got this broom that he's holding up he's clearly trying to do something uh with it and he goes reliable but chicken yes i just realized that that was that's the distinction between rockford and angel they're both chicken rockford is reliable yeah that is a statement of character for yes rockford

and then ned baity in all caps oh the joke about uh asking the cops if he caught over his limit i liked it it was a really good montage i feel like uh and maybe we'll talk about this when we get to the second episode but this really does feel like it was probably all shot at once yeah it's not like like say uh by contrast gear jammers which is a two-part, but each episode is clearly its own thing. Yeah, this is more like Trees, Bees, and TT Flowers, where it's one continuous narrative. Yeah. And which also explodes, I think, the theory that maybe we talked about in that episode, where that was a refinement from the earlier kind of Gear Jammers style.

This is the first two-parter in the show, not counting the pilot if that's broken into two episodes. And this one is that one continuous narrative. So Gear Jammers then is the alternate way of doing it at this point based on what we've seen. One other thing that I noted from the preview montage is that we don't see any of our supporting cast. Yeah.

Though some of the credits come up. So then I'm like, okay. We actually get a lot of good Rocky. Part of why this one kind of feels weird to me, I think, is because we're coming to it with expectations of how the show works that haven't actually been established yet. Yeah. We really haven't seen a lot of Beth. We really haven't seen a lot of Dennis. And while Rocky's been in it from the pilot as a character, their affect with each other hasn't really settled in all the way to where we kind of our baseline assumption of their relationship. It would be easy to read this as a turning point in his relationship with Rocky, but only if you are taking in the whole of the series right like in itself it doesn't really show you much of it but rocky starts off uh the show not this episode but the whole thing really disapproving

of his job as a pi while that there's a through line of that through the whole of the rockford files it changes in its character later on. And this is one of the, this episode, I mean, he gets to go on a PI adventure with Jim and has, comes to a new understanding of what it is. As they say in this paper,

I will. Right. So that's a theme, you know, that we kind of pick up again and again, again, where Rocky disapproves of the lifestyle, but then once he ends up in the adventure, he grabs it with both hands. Yeah. Literally, in some cases, if it's a steering wheel. Thanks for listening to 200 A Day. In case you just joined us, we have a new podcast, Plus Expenses, a show where we talk about movies we're watching, books we're reading, and games we're playing.

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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. But this episode, Profit, does not start with Rocky or Jim. It starts with a voiceover dialogue over nighttime LA as we go into a fancy office in a big high-rise, some kind of boardroom, and we start right off with...

With who, Epi? Ned Beatty! Yay! As Leon Fielder, the head honcho at this investment firm which we'll find out more about uh fairly soon he's making some some threats uh over some stock options he's watching a stock ticker he has what's clearly a goon at his command. Yeah. Who we learned his name is Stan Goric. Leon wants him to, I forget exactly when all the names get dropped, so whatever. But he's worried about someone in the organization, Alec Morris. He's learned something he shouldn't or he's having some kind of issue he shouldn't be having.

And he wants Stan to find him and take his blood pressure. Such a Rockford files line one of the key things here to establish this character of a fielder stan kind of questions why are you worried about him or something like that yeah and uh he said he says something to the effect of like if i wanted opinions i'd ask for them right yeah you do as you're told he makes a good heavy. Like I, I, I like that baby in this role, obviously.

Like, so obviously it's familiar to me. I didn't really, I didn't know his name off the top of my head. Cause I think most of his career is slightly. You're a little younger than me. Yeah. So,

uh, tell, tell us about Ned Beatty. Uh, well for me, it's cause of Superman. Right. He's Lex Luthor's goon.

I can't remember Lex Luthor being, of course, Gene Hackman. And because this is what I grew up on, I can't separate them. This is a character that's been done over and over again by a ton of people. And I still, I'm like, when I see Gene Hackman, I'm like,

Oh, that's Lex Luthor. When I see Lex Luthor, when he's not Gene Hackman, I'm like, well, you kind of look, or you're kind of like Lex Luthor,

but you're not Lex Luthor. But yeah, he's been in a ton of stuff. Yeah. He's been in another Rockford Files. I don't think he's done it. We haven't done the other one that he's in. Yeah. Not yet. Yeah. He's, in other Rock Profiles. I don't think he's done it. We haven't done the other one that he's in.

Yeah. Not yet. Yeah, he's, I mean, he really blew up in the 80s. Yeah. But he's doing a lot of TV during this time. Just one-off episodes

kind of all over the place. I think maybe we'll talk about him a little more in a later scene where we kind of really see the character. But this definitely establishes our bad guys

right off the jump. I mean, according to my notes notes the most important thing in this scene is the computer noises uh i don't know when the computer stopped making noises uh to indicate that they were computers but i feel like uh the noises that computer was making, no computer did, except for computers in television and Hollywood at the time. I did enjoy the noise, though. We go to the trailer with Jim elbow deep fixing his sink. Yes. Contrast, right, between this highfalutin world of finance and menacing danger to the very blue-collar Jim with his sleeves rolled up doing some plumbing.

Pulling gunk out of his sinkerator or garbage disposal. It becomes pretty clear as we go that the garbage disposal is going to be a continuing bit. Yeah. It is also kind of the central like metaphor for what's going on. Okay. I'd like to hear this. Go for it. I'm not arguing against it. I want to hear it.

Maybe we'll, we'll touch back on this every time we come back to the sink. Yeah. But, uh, I, I feel like after viewing both episodes, there's something there.

So we'll see, but we're starting off with the sink, the, the, the garbage disposal in particular. It's not working. Jim, uh, there's a knock so we'll see but we're starting off with the sink the the garbage disposal in particular it's not working jim uh there's a knock on his door of course and there is a very professional looking guy in a pinstripe suit he wants to come in jim wants to know whether he's buying selling or collecting he says he wants to hire jim and jim's like oh buying come on in through this sequence uh this guy is obviously very

nervous and I feel like Jim keeps trying out these jokes to diffuse the tension yeah none of them land I think Jim to continue trying to to put this guy at ease is like well I'm you know you know anything about garbage disposals you know no well I'm just going to keep working on this while you tell me what's going on the deal is is that this guy is involved in something dangerous. He won't say what it is. He says it's too bizarre. It's too strange. You wouldn't believe me, but it's dangerous.

And he wants someone to liaison with federal agents about something. This is when Jim is taking the broom and trying to use the broom handle to clean the disposal. So part of the business here is also the guy being like, so did you try the reset switch? Yes, I tried the reset switch. He warns him from putting his hand in there before he turns off the electrical switch, because that could be dangerous. And Jim's like, oh yeah, good point. It's like, Jim, come on. So this garbage disposal is intransigent and is not giving up anything

to any of the many obvious recommendations being given. I think that's important. Yeah. To this metaphor that I will slowly build. In this paper, you... In this essay, I will. But when he gets the broomstick, he's trying to clear it, this is where he gets

the, you know... Yeah, well, in all candor, if it's really dangerous, I don't think I'd be particularly interested. I don't understand. I was told that you were very reliable. Reliable, but chicken. Yes. Before he can talk himself into telling Jim what's going on, there's another knock on the door. Jim says, don't worry, that's just my dad. He's the one who jammed this thing in the first place. Goes over to open it.

But of course. I'm just going to say, in my notes, I have, it's not your dad, Jim. And I have, of course. Yes. To be fair, we're not Jim. We've seen his future. We've seen many, many people come through that door that aren't his dad. The knock on the door is like, that's not Rocky.

But later, Rocky will knock on his door and say he's Rocky. And I'm like, that's how we know, Jim. That's how we know. But yeah, he opens the door. He gets jumped by two goons. There's a brief scuffle where Jim gets a pretty good accounting of himself, but he ends up clocked in the back of the head, and they grab our suit-wearing guy and hustle him out of the trailer.

There's a great moment where the suit-wearing guy has this briefcase that he's kind of clutching defensively, and he's moving backwards, and he's moving, I guess, towards Jim's bedroom, if we understand the layout of jim's trailer as if he had nothing to do with what's going on right this has nothing to do with me staying out of the way step away and jim turns to me like will you give me a little help here i didn't invite these people here uh that's good i i quite enjoyed this scene we cut to rocky actually knocking and identifying himself. Yes.

And he finds Jim passed out on the ground. And his first thought is that Jim shocked himself trying to fix the garbage disposal. But when he realizes that he's bleeding out of the back of the head, he gets really mad that Jim has let himself be put in danger. Yeah, you ain't done a case, right? He clearly does not approve of Jim's

high-danger lifestyle. He wants to call the doctor. And he has this whole line about, he's basically worried that if he gets hit on the head too much, he's going to get brain damage, essentially. He uses some language that I do not think is appropriate at this time in our development as a culture,

but that is clearly what he's worried about. So this is interesting because his way of expressing that worry is insensitive, and we've come to a spot where we can see that. But also, Jim is dismissing it. We've come to a spot where we know you shouldn't do that either. You could get concussions. Those are very bad for your brain. Yes. We've learned that this is not a good place to be. So yeah, my notes are like, Rocky is right, Jim. Rocky is right. I do spend a lot of time in my notes

yelling at Jim. Well, he does insist that Jim at least call the cops, which he does, apparently under duress. Yes. He asks for in a often noted continuity error, he does ask for Lieutenant

Becker. After this, Becker returns to being a sergeant so you know this is just a some line in the script that didn't get caught or they hadn't decided yet what Becker's deal was or something but that is noted in a conversation about this episode

maybe he's just ribbing Becker a little bit Lieutenant with quotes around it yeah it should be a lieutenant by now, right? He wants to report the assault and battery, and he has a tip on a kidnapping. That's great. And that's from the opening montage, I believe. A woman comes to see Jim. There's a note on his trailer that he's having lunch across the parking lot, so she finds him there. He has a plate full

of food at this restaurant, but does not appear to eat any of it during the scene. He eats later, but not here. Yes. She asks if he's working for Alec Morris. He doesn't know who that is, but upon description that is in fact the man who came to

see him last night, as we all imagine. She is his wife. He left word that she should get in touch with Jim if anything happened to him. He was scared about something that he found out about the company that he works at. So he's the head computer programmer at Fiscal Dynamics Incorporated, or FDI, as it will be referred to. Which is very confusing. There were several times in the episode when I thought, I heard FBI. And I was like, oh, okay, the FBI's involved now.

When he says that he called the cops, she's horrified. No, he didn't want any cops to be involved. Of course, they never want the cops to be involved. If Alec was kidnapped and the police are involved, that might jeopardize his safety. That's a myth. Believe me, the police know how to handle these things better than you and me. Yeah. If he knows something and he doesn't tell the police after filing this report,

that's withholding evidence, which is a felony. And so he goes to call them and give them the name now that he knows it of the person who he says was kidnapped out of his trailer. This is not out of character, Jim. Jim's a very no-nonsense, especially when it comes to this sort of thing. And so I don't attribute any maliciousness to this at all, but I can't help but think he's also somewhere inside is like, you people brought this to my doorstep. Right. Like, I don't care what your thoughts are on it.

You brought me into this. This is where I get to be me. He does his good citizen's duty. So, of course, the next thing we know, he's coming back from fishing. He has a whole bunch of fish that he's caught. But there's a cop car waiting for him. a fish that he's caught but there's a cop car waiting for him and he is uh summarily arrested and read his rights after uh making his quip about what did i catch over my limit i want to talk about this cop that arrests him because uh he stands in contrast to uh one of the goons from later on there's a uh in this exact same parking later on, he'll have a conversation with a goon that,

uh, has some energy to it. Maybe we'll wait till we get to that part. But I felt like this cop almost was bored with what was happening here. Well, there was definitely a feeling that they've gone through this before. Yeah. Like him and this specific detective or whoever.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's just make a note of that. Jim's like, ah, just getting tired of this. He goes, it goes both ways or something like that.

Uh, because we're going to have, I think a goon that just shows up for this one moment later on where he seems just utterly amused with Jim. Right. So, yeah. So we go to seeing Jim have a confrontation with Dan Shevelson, the district attorney.

What a name. What a character. So this is clearly a role that will end up being Deal and or Chapman over time, right? Like this is the representative of the formal police system that has no time for Rockford and his PI shenanigans and is looking for opportunities to to to nail him for things so there's an interesting thing at the very beginning of this because he's cleaning his nails with his keys there's just something about that that is like slightly dismissive of what's happening. Like I can't imagine going to a meeting with a DA and having them do it. He also has the appearance of a, if you threw him in a movie in the 70s and 80s, and if anyone in that movie is a coke fiend, it's this guy.

Yes. He just seems, yeah, he seems very high energy. Yeah. yes he just seems yeah he seems very high energy yeah he played a character on pastoria prime pick which we did a long time ago yeah uh gilbert univaso that's a good name i like that episode i do not remember seeing this guy anyhow uh we have the bit of banter where jim's trying to find out why they arrested him and what the charge is. And, uh, the DA is saying like, oh, so you waived your right to an attorney and Jim always knowing exactly what his rights are. No, I am not doing that, but you need to tell me what you charged

me with. Yes. So he has that police report that he filed about Alec Morris getting kidnapped. Uh, he says that the police talked to Morris and then nothing happened. He denies that he was kidnapped. So Jim is guilty of filing a false police report, which means that they're going to drop him in the county bucket for six months. Jim, you know, is incredulous, says, it happened.

I just said what happened. Why would I do that? They, in fact, call in Mr. and Mrs. Morris to ask if they've ever seen Jim before. And they deny knowing him or, you know, having seen him. Jim is having none of it. And there's a great line here where Mrs. Morris says, I feel very sorry for you. You must have a deep emotional problem.

I'm beginning to get one. I do like how she can't meet his eye. Yes, yeah. They definitely are acting nervous. Yeah. And this DA does not care because for whatever reason, he finally has some kind of pretext to put Jim in jail. Yes.

I kind of expected that we would see more of him, but no. That is one of the gems of the Rockford files is that a character gets enough character that you're like, oh yeah, we'll definitely see more of them. Oh no. Okay. Yeah. There's a couple other characters in here that that happens with. Yeah. So at the end of the scene, after they deny knowing who he is, is when Jim finally says that he wants his lawyer yeah so we then go to jim and beth leaving the station with solly the bail bondsman is this our first appearance of solly it is in fact the first appearance of solly on the show we have seen him in a portrait of elizabeth uhhazard. He also plays characters. He played a character in Gearjammers.

He played a character in Queen of Peru. But this character of Solly the Bail Bondsman, this is the first time that we see him. And I remembered him from our other shows. But if you were watching this at the time, this is the first appearance. him from our other shows but if you were watching this at the time this is the first appearance thus giving uh a reason for this conversation where beth asks why do you keep using him yes and jim says i don't keep using him you make it sound like i'm in jail all the time the fact that beth disapproves of him and the fact that jim uses him has this i don't know i just like what it says about the whole situation like obviously jim has a history with this guy and that's why he's using him.

It's not like, uh, the best choice that Jim is making. There's a bit of business here about, uh, how, when, when Jim comes with the rest of his money or whatever,

he also needs the pink slip to his car. Oh yeah. Both giving a bit of, of, uh, stakes here for Jim, right? Like whatever this bail amount is, which has never said is a lot. Oh, yeah. We have a preliminary hearing on the third, wear a tie. And then we cut to Jim walking into what very well could be some kind of courtroom.

Right. Clearly not wearing a tie. I don't know if that was supposed to be a joke, but it read to me as a fun visual moment. But he is not in court. He is, in fact, at Fiscal Dynamics Incorporated, talking his way past a guy at a front desk to try and see Alec. I think we missed the throwaway moment. Just a random photographer running up to him on the street and taking

a photo. Right. And that will come back and haunt him. Yes, that's right after the comment about the tie. Yeah. But yeah, we have a good piece of Jim quick talk. Oh, well, you see, I'm Alec's sister's cousin from many old washington me and harriet and the kids were supposed to go to disneyland alec was supposed to pick up the tickets but i guess he forgot i'm double parked downstairs with a station wagon full of kids are going to feed me to the sharks if i don't get back with six tickets

it's classic jim con there's a pressure he He's just looking for a little help from a buddy. Here's the time constraint. Here's the, you know, what's going to happen if I fail to do this? And can't you just help out? Flashing that smile and whatever. But one of the things I love about this is how he snaps to it right away. Yeah. It very much appears that he's just going in to ask to see if he can talk to this guy.

And then when it becomes evident that they won't let him, like a light switch right into this patter and straight into the con. It's like it's in his blood. Yeah. So the guy kind of gives a little grin when he hears the whole sob story. He's like, okay, fine. His office is over there. Jim goes to talk to Alec, who is in his office.

Alec immediately says, how did you get in here? You know, I shot the guards. Yeah. Like, everyone's acting like this is some kind of impregnable fortress, and it's just an office. And I will say, this scene will turn into The Raid. Or, as I like to think of it, Judge Dredd. Oh, sorry, Dredd.

Not Judge Dredd, but the movie Dredd 3D. This is the Rockford Files dungeon crawl is what this is. Right now he's conning his way in and soon he'll have to fight his way out. Right. So he confronts Alec. Alec continues to say, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you're talking about. But he writes down on a pad that the room is bugged. Yes.

Jim says, okay, well, let's go to the bathroom very loudly. And so we cut from him hustling Alec out of the office to a group of three goons, including our main goon, Stan, who have clearly been listening. Yes. Quick, to the men's bathroom, whatever floor. Yeah. They hustle off to intercept Jim and Alec while Jim, clearly having this plan,

shoves Alec into just a random room before they get to the bathroom, right? And he wants an explanation. This is kind of a frustrating back and forth um i mean it's fine in context here but yeah just this kind of thing so the takeaways here is that alec is saying like look i'm sorry but i had to say that you don't understand i'm completely terrified uh i can't sleep i can't eat so you can't scare me any more than I already am yeah yeah Jim has this good moment where he takes his glasses off of him yeah it kind of like folds them up to shake them

at him and say like this is your last chance you know to tell me what's going on it's a clear physical threat yeah that's a good moment I noted the same thing down because it felt I don't want to say out of character for Jim it's clear clear that Jim has been pushed further than he normally goes, I think is what it is. Yeah. Alec, in response to that, he still doesn't say what's going on, but he does say that, he says that Jim should pity him. Yes. Yeah. He shouldn't hate him. He should pity him. And so Jim sighs, realizes he's not going to get anything out of this, and then starts gathering up notebooks because he clearly knows that he's going to have trouble getting out of here.

This is Jim's craft. Yes. And that's what's so beautiful about it. It's like, he's like, okay, not getting anything out of him. Exit strategy. I'm going to need things in my hands. So I'm just going to just gather some things up. And, oh, I love it.

I love it. and oh i love it i love it um what kind of frustrates me about this kind of scene is that so we've already had one scene where this guy just wouldn't say anything yeah there's no push forward right no so now we have another scene that i guess it's meant to showcase how scared he is which is fine yeah and he does apologize he says like i'm sorry about the police um so he does acknowledge that what happened happened. But the, like, tell me what's going on. No. Tell me what's going on.

No. It feels like a missed opportunity to either move things forward or have this cut off by something else that happens or have him give some kind of information that maybe isn't helpful but does take him the next step down the road my suspicion and we'll get a little bit into these suspicions a little more in the second half here but my suspicion is that they have a lot of room because it's a two-parter yeah so you it doesn't have to be as tight as they normally do and you can have a scene like this which doesn't say that doesn't make that any better it's just uh i i agree with you it's giving you information you already know. Obviously, this character is scared. He wouldn't have lied to the police about not going to see Jim if that weren't the case.

Right. He was obviously scared from what happened while we watched him back away from the goons that attacked Jim in his trailer. Like, what is established in this scene. Has already been established. We're just reestablishing it. With not a whole lot more. It doesn't push the story forward. I won't say that I was. Completely frustrated with the scene.

Because there's fun things that are happening in it. Like I'm enjoying Jim's attempt. To get out of all this. I mean it's a character scene. Mostly. And it's also putting Jim in confrontation with the goons, which is important in the next scene. But yeah, there's something

about how the conversation itself doesn't do anything that feels kind of sludgy to me. Of course, as he comes out of that door with his arm full of notebooks, Stan is there and sees him. So Stan doesn't know who Jim is yet. So Jim tries to talk his way out of it.

He says that he's from the Steno supply company and he's trying to find Mrs. Whoever. I'll show you a business card. If you could just reach into my pocket. Yes. If you could just reach into my pocket. Yes. If you could just help me out here. Yeah. He like loads up Stan's arms with the notebooks which distracts him long enough for Jim to get a good sucker punch in and flee. So

that's extremely good. He runs one way, sees the other goons says, he's on the seventh floor. Yes. They're like, oh okay. He turns around and runs back grabs stan on his way and just like throws him into the wall to keep him discombobulated um and then the other two goons come back around realizing what they've done i guess yeah but he manages to get to the elevator first and then we cut downstairs to where he peels out in the firebird

with goons running out after him so yes and and thus concludes uh the rockford files the raid getting in and out of this building uh is a fun sequence like i agree with you it doesn't give him any more to go on like it doesn't uh but i do really enjoy the misdirects and everything that has to go or that's involved in getting him in and out of it and just the the idea that he'd walk into the lion's den uh and then kind of realize that he's in over his head yeah we're gonna we have another shift coming up here where he's like oh i shouldn't be involved in any of this yeah i. I mean, I think the physicality of him getting in and out is very fun. Yeah.

Jim returns to the trailer where Rocky in a fantastic jumpsuit is poking around on his couch looking for his railroad watch. Jim intimates that perhaps that's what has gunked up the garbage disposal. But while he was out, he received a phone call and has a message from a Mrs. Parker. We have a nice transition here where he calls her back, and then we just cut directly to him standing in the

front room of a very nice house. Yes. Speaking of interestingly defined characters that just disappear from the story. Yes. So we meet the maid, who is also the mechanic, but not any mechanic. She specializes in, oh, I can't remember.

She specializes in like front end tune-ups or something. But she's also, oh, I didn't write down what it was. She's going to school for... Mechanical engineering. Obviously, Jim is taken back because she says she's the maid. Right, and she's wearing like mechanics overall back because she says she's the maid. Right. And she's wearing like mechanics overalls. Yeah.

And takes them out to the garage. There's some kind of gags about she's the maid, like that kind of stuff. They're pretty funny because clearly she's doing lots of things. Yeah. She's all around help, but she's mainly a college student. Yes. And then that's it. Then she's mainly a college student. Yes. And then that's it. Then she's gone from the story.

Yes. We are informed of this by Mrs. Doris Parker, who, when Jim is taken out to see her, is also underneath a car, doing some kind of tinkering with it on a little dolly and wearing overalls, but

she is the lady of the house. This is a Rockford status setup, right? Yeah. Where we have the big house. It's really nice. We have a maid. We have the, like, fancy lady who's called Jim for help. But this is all undercut by the...

Not undercut, but this is all complicated by the... She's also a mechanic. The woman is underneath the car working on it. They talk about cars. She has all these signifiers of kind of like working with her hands and being no nonsense, but not being stuck up. That's like,

okay, maybe Jim can work with this woman. Yeah. There's a, yeah, there's a lot of subversion of expectations going on. Yeah. I, I enjoyed the scene. i think i wrote yeah she said i dig these people like i'd watch more of this this episode here that's happening right in the middle here but then i also wrote in my note

is this completely unrelated uh i'm enjoying the sea because so many interesting things are happening. We're subverting a bunch of things. And it takes me a while to figure out that we're no longer on the original case. Sure. I mean, we are and we aren't. Rather, as far as we know, we're no longer on the original case. We're about to get back on case. Oh, in terms of like someone called Jim. He came to her house.

Like, we don't know why yeah and i'm i'm enjoying the ride and and i hit a point where i was like wait a minute what's going on here we were in the middle of something this this episode is a is a hard we only know what jim knows yes episode other than the first scene establishing our villains, everything else is Jim point of view, right? I'm trying to think. Oh, there's some stuff with the printer that comes up. Oh, yes. And it kind of stands out because it's like that. And then there's like a moment or two where Rocky and LJ are hanging out.

But those are very brief. Like Jim, we do not know why we're here yet. Yes. Mrs. Parker called because she saw his picture on the front page. So that's the picture that was taken of him. There's this whole, so apparently it's a front page news story that this PI filed a false police report about a kidnapping. And this is going to come up over and over as well.

And here's actually a minor thing that I like. So she has the full paper and she shows it to him and we see the little headline and stuff. There are moments later where people keep on saying, my secretary cut it out for me. Oh, yes. But Mrs. Parker, she didn't have anyone cut it out for her. She reads her own paper.

Yeah, it's not that lazy. So she keyed onto it, though, because of the reference to fiscal dynamics. She wants to know if Jim has been threatened by them. Her story is that her husband, Guy Parker, used to be the head programmer there. So he was in the position that Alec is now. And he was getting nervous about something. He was acting strange. And then he died in an auto accident 18 months ago. But he was a car racer, like the fancy car that's in their garage. That was his car. It's clear that this family knows what they're doing with cars. Right. And he was

killed in some kind of car accident on some residential street. He was too good of a driver for that to have happened. But she doesn't have any proof of any foul play. And so what with his connection with Fiscal Dynamics, she thinks that he was murdered and has something to do with the company. And so the reference made her want to talk to him. company and so the reference made her want to talk to him so here's where jim starts tapping the bricks if you will uh with our um standard let's not take the case jim yes the kidnapping is an ongoing is an open police case and he doesn't take on open cases one thing we know about jim right but there's a lot of things we know about all he wants at this point is to get

out from under this false police report charge uh so he can't take on another case of investigating he can't or won't i forget what he says uh investigate her her husband's death and so she says that since since she thinks they're related maybe his efforts to you know get out from under this charge will turn up something relevant to her husband's death. And so she offers to pay him anyway. Yes. All you have to do is tell me what you learn, you know, that you would have learned anyway. It's fun to watch this slowly crawl onto Jim. Before she says that, she's like, well, what are your rates or something like that?

How much do you cost? And, you know, we, of course, get the 200 a day plus expenses, which is a wonderful name for a podcast. You can see Jim already. I'm like, my nose is saying, oh, she's got you. There's no question about it. You're in. Once she frames it like that for him, he says that they got a deal. So Doris Parker, Did you recognize her?

I did and I can't figure out I'm looking through her IMDB and I'm not She's been in a lot of things Well she was in The Reincarnation of Angie Okay I just skimmed over it She's been in a lot of stuff But

If I remember right It's been a while since we recorded that. So I might be misremembering this, but I think she plays the secretary that Jim fast talks in that episode. Okay. Where they have like a long extended conversation and he like talks her into revealing stuff about... The guy that she works for who who has disappeared i i vaguely recall that like we talked about her in that episode yeah apologies if anyone is listening to these straight through and is like you guys just talked about this woman yeah but she's great and she has so much more to do in this episode yeah which is fun we get to see

a lot more of her her hair is styled very differently which is why it took me a minute i was yeah i was like i think i know her and then i i think i just skimmed over the rockford files episodes when i looked through imdb it was like looking for some movie from that era or you know whatever but turns out i just know from the rockford files jim's on the case. And apparently Jim needs to talk to a financial advisor. We cut to him talking to Arnold Love, a fast talking, no nonsense financial advisor who needs to talk quick on his lunch break because he's just so busy. And we have a great bit here where Jim, you know, asks him what his rate is. And he charges $70 an hour or a percentage on a good deal. And he explains why that's worth it through this whole story about how, you know, he worked for two hours to figure out, you know, a client of his was going to make a horrible deal.

That $150 saved him $200,000 in a stock that would have gone down, that kind of thing. I would point out, because this is my job, that we are talking about $363 an hour in today money. So we should technically term today money. Today money. So Jim's got hesitation for real reason, right? Like this is over a day's worth of work for him to just get an hour's worth of work out of this guy. That is the first of several money things

I'm going to tell you about this scene. Though I had this thought, which was that if Jim did indeed pay this guy an hourly rate, which he doesn't, spoiler alert, wouldn't that be an expense since he's working? That's true. That is very true. But as we know, I mean, I trust Doris more than I do most of his clients. But if he showed up with a $70 an hour somebody else bill

for a lot of his clients, he's not going to get much out of that. So they continue this conversation while they go to a hot dog stand uh the lower floor of some kind of mall which i appreciate love orders a chili thing and jim orders two chili things whole donyons uh but jim he wants he wants to check on fiscal dynamics he thinks thinks something is weird. He wants to know what their deal is. Our financial advisor, he's like, what are you talking about? Why are you suspicious or something like that? Yeah. He thinks their head programmer is being forced to do things against his will.

He's willing to pay to have someone run through their statements. And this is our first, oh, you're that detective. My secretary clipped that story for me well arnold love has personally been through the fdi financial statements 10 times he's had a dozen conversations with the the head guy and there's absolutely nothing wrong you shouldn't go spouting off these crazy you. This can ruin a company. And I'll give you all of that advice just for the price of this hot dog. Yes.

So let's talk about that price of that hot dog, shall we? We shall. Jim gets the hot dog and there's some sticker shock there. And it is, what is it, $6.36? Again, just to get you up to date, that's $33. That's what Jim is paying for this meal for three hot dogs?

Three hot dogs. Yes. Now, $6.36, you might note, seems like a real deal versus $70 an hour. But I timed this scene. It's a three-minute scene. The rate of $70 an hour prorated for three minutes is three dollars and fifty cents nice so jim got ripped off he's paid twice this man's rate uh just for that advice but you know it's it's it's all in what you have on hand right

so this guy arnold love he's a very distinctive kind of manner. Yeah. And how he speaks and everything. And I was like, okay, this is totally a I know this guy guy. Yeah. And while he has been in many things, I realized that where I recognized him from was from a different Rockford Files episode that we haven't done yet called Peace Work. He's the main antagonist in that one. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Kind of. It's kind of an interesting... That's an interesting one. It'll be fun when we do it, but... I mean, I can see him as a main antagonist. It's like the gun-running one where there's a plot to smuggle guns

and he's the buyer or something like that. And the hook is like a health club where Jim goes to investigate something and tries to get into his deal through like going to the same health club. He's great in that episode. I mean, he's great here, too, but he has a main role in that one. But he has also been in things that people have seen, like Barton Fink and Newsies. Oh, yeah. And also our Patreon subscribers may have heard our most recent Plus Expenses episode where we were talking about Godzilla.

This guy, Michael Lerner, is in the 1998 Godzilla movie. Asterix, Godzilla not in that movie. Wow, that's impressive. That is not the character I was expecting. I was actually expecting Ned Beatty. But no, yeah, I really like Lerner. He's a fun actor on the screen. We said it before, but this episode has lots of fun moments,

lots of good moments holding it together. If I was going to show someone random three-minute scenes of rockford this would be on that list that's good so we cut from here to one of our non-rockford point of view scenes uh at the bovino printing company where uh stan and his sub goons are picking up a package from carl uh the printer who is another one of those i'm sure i've seen him somewhere actors i think the first two seasons in particular are like lots of working character actors and then we get more like names as the show goes on but this this particular episode is lots of i've seen this person in tv and movies yeah the overwhelmed just trying to get by thinks he figured out an edge. Printer is another

memorable character. So he's printed something for Fiscal Dynamics. They apparently loaned him the money to buy his equipment or something, and so he's in hock to them. We don't know yet what he's printed,

although we do, because we've watched the episode. But I suspect that whatever he was printing needed specialty equipment. don't know yet what what he's printed although we do because we we've watched the episode but um i suspect that whatever he was printing needed specialty equipment right so it's a whole mess it's a whole mess that he's involved in right and he has to like and they have these like sudden orders and he has to stay up all night doing them yeah he's saying that after you you know figure everything he's barely making any money yeah and so he's saying that he's figured out what all this printing is for and so he thinks that maybe he could be doing a little better in the terms of their agreement and so stan has this whole uh very threatening line of questioning yeah what do you

think you know all of these these are just part of the insurance broker sales kit they're all over the place when you're in the insurance business. You really want to call, you know, the SEC and the FBI. When he goes into this, he starts off with like, well, speak up, make yourself clear. He's trying to hint at something. Right. Carl's kind of like, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. You know, I know what that's for.

I could be doing better. Yeah. It sounds like, tell me what you, tell me what you think. I could be doing better. Yeah. It sounds like tell me what you tell me what you think. And it's so threatening. It's so wonderfully threatening that just like, yeah, I call the insurance examiners or the SEC or the police. You go right ahead. You want the telephone numbers, you call my secretary, she'll be happy to help you. But I don't like being threatened and I don't like being called a crook. I guess I was wrong.

And the scene with Stan saying that the mistakes are okay. The only unforgivable sin is stupidity. Yes. Jim goes back to his trailer where a car is waiting for him and we have two they're not goons they're

they're just guys i think unless these are goons that are acting nice but i don't think they're goons i don't recall if we saw these guys before we don't uh this is this is the scene i was mentioning before where like the chemistry in this scene is great because the guy talking to Rockford just seems bemused by him. I think they're goons, but only insofar as that everyone in that company, aside from the programmer, is a goon. Right. Yeah, it's like I'm a program manager. One's marketing and the other is product research. Product research, yeah. But they pause before they deliver those lines.

Like, are we really doing this? You know what we are. Everyone here knows what this situation is. But then I expected that to end with them, like, hustling him into the car. And then they're like, oh, no, come by at 3.30. That's fine. He says, how about 3.30? You're like, no, I think you should go now.

And he's like, no. The smile that he gets is very like huh okay i guess like you don't want to disappoint our boss you should know that but also like but we're not empowered to like force you to do anything like in this moment yeah so the whole vibe of the scene to me is that like uh rockford is taking them at their word whereas they're like you should know the things that we're hinting at here. You should understand the subtext that's happening here. I think he understands it, but is playing the same game where he's like, I'll pretend not to understand the subtext. And it just looks like this is amusing this guy.

That's the thing I love about that scene and why I find it a fun contrast with the one with the cop where the cop is just bored with this interchange where Rockford's joking around with them about like did I fish over my limit well Jim says that he'll see Mr. Leon Fielder at 3 30 so Jim is waiting in you know the waiting area and then Stan is the one who comes out to summon him to see Fielder. Yeah. And they have a brief wry exchange. Fielder's in his fancy office with more ticker tape machines, you know, keeping an eye on the stocks as they're moving around. This whole sequence is all about status and veiled threats and not so veiled threats and using body language to like communicate the danger of what is going on.

Fielder called him in because he has a he has a tape from the financial advisor from Love, you know, called him and was like, I talked to this PI named Jim Rockford. He's poking around and asking these questions. I thought you should know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jim has a line here. I didn't note it, but then it came up later. So I just wanted to mention that there's something about, it's like, oh, do you have financial advisors

that you give tips to often or something like that? Sure, it's not technically legal, but everybody does it kind of response. I personally would rather hear from you what you think is going on here. Well, I think you're a company full of sweethearts and I wish you all the success in the world. And this is when Fielder tells Stan to leave. Yeah.

We start this part with a bit, I believe from the preview montage, where he goes to shake Jim's hand and then he like holds on to it and like does like the crushing squeeze. So I had one of these handshakes recently and I just want to kind of talk about this. It was an older gentleman and he I was introduced to him and he gave me this handshake that was like aggressively strong and a little bit too too long and i was like i remember this being a big thing like the strength of your handshake was important i mean we still kind of have that we still have like political reporters talking about like trying to interpret the meanings of handshakes and all that there's like criminology about the handshakes. Yeah. But I remember when I was young, that was a thing. Having a nice firm handshake was an important thing about being an adult. Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, I'm an adult now. I've lived an adult life for, let's say, at least a decade. And I can tell you that's nonsense. There's no reason for us to care about somebody's handshake. Let's give that up. Are you familiar with the wrestler's handshake? Oh, what's the wrestler's handshake? So this is a thing.

This is like a territory era thing that I think still is a thing. There's like a certain way you're supposed to shake hands with certain other wrestlers depending on whether they're like more or less prominent than you right okay so like if you go into a locker room you're supposed to shake everybody's hand and it's supposed to be this like like soft limp handshake oh okay like that's the thing like if it's too hard you're like being too aggressive right that's great it's this cultural thing that i'm sure still exists in in uh in wrestling but yeah there's this very specific like wrestler's handshake that's great more of that well this is not one of those handshakes no no yeah so this is fielder using his

his hand strength to uh communicate that jim is in danger And this is a reason to hire Ned Beatty for the role. He does have big hands. He has big hands and he can deliver an intimidating handshake. So the investment business, investors are easily scared. If there's these rumors going around about FDI, there's an upcoming merger of some kind that's going to be this big deal. And if he takes the merger with these rumors, that could cost in the neighborhood of $10 million. Brief pause. I just want to let you all know that $10 million is roughly $52 million.

Now, from my point of view, that's exactly the same amount of money. So much money. I cannot imagine how much money that is. Yes. Jim has a line here where he says, if you don't let go of my hand, I'm going to have to take a shot at you. Oh, it's so good. Yes. So if I get one of those handshakes in the future, I'm definitely just going to do that.

Fielder apologizes. He says he has a line, a very specific line where he says, oh, you see, sometimes I forget how powerful I am. It's a great line because it's whatever you everyone can read into what he's saying. But if Jim doesn't stop spreading these disruptive rumors, he's going to file a stockholders lawsuit. It'll be for as much as the investors lose on the deal. Could be millions. This conversation moves out into the hall towards the elevators. millions. This conversation moves out into the hall towards

the elevators. Jim turns around and offers his hand for a goodbye handshake and then turns it back around on Fielder and gives him the crushing grip. Would you let go of my hand? This is very childish. What?

Oh. It is, isn't it? Yeah. And then let's go and then Fielder holds out his hand for a final handshake, and Jim does not take it and just gets in the elevator. It's a great back-and-forth status play, and it just ended perfectly. Just like, no, I'm done with this game. Whatever game you're playing. But he does say that he'll, you know, stop doing whatever.

We cut from here to Carl the printer shutting down for the night. Oh, poor Carl. Oh, poor Carl. There's two goons come in right as he's locking up. They have to talk to him right now and they push him towards the back as he turns to, you know, get a file or whatever. One of them

pulls out a gun and just shoots him in the back very sad carefully attaches a silencer before right and also uh carl's out of the frame when the shot happens yeah not it's not gratuitous it does feel awfully sudden yeah which is supposed you know this is a very like oh this is getting serious yeah uh they rifle through stuff they take money out of the register they take some files out of a filing cabinet and then break a window to trip Yeah. Yes. That's what is wonderful.

Yes. white, off-white sweater with a big collar. He's talking to Mrs. Doris Parker, where she's telling him that you can't quit. Yes. But he explains that he can't stand up to a million-dollar lawsuit. He's being threatened with this lawsuit, and at the end of the day, he just doesn't want to go to jail. Who does? And that he's out of leads anyway. Well, she asked him to come over because she has a lead for him

and shows him the newspaper article about carl bovino's death she recognized that name because her husband told her that uh fdi was using this tiny print shop bovino's yes yeah uh instead of a big one for their annual reports and such and that seemed very strange it's too coincidental right now he's dead uh jim's like look i don't want any more trouble. He's like, my lawyer tells me I could be out of this, you know, I could be out of jail in four months or something like that. And we have a core Rockford back and forth.

Yes. You're turning into a big disappointment for me. Don't you ever think about anybody but yourself? No. Well, yeah, sometimes at Christmas. So good. She wants him to go at Christmas. It's so good. She wants him to go and look at Carl's files and see if he has anything about FDI.

She volunteers to go with him if he's too chicken. And this is calling back to the, you know, I'm reliable but chicken. And he says, yeah, kinda. And then we have the joke in the cut here where they are pulling up to Bovino's together in the Firebird. I appreciate that she is in a fancy fur coat while he is in his sweater. But now that they're actually there, she's getting, she gets nervous.

Yeah. She thought it was a great idea, but now that she's actually facing doing something, it's too much for her. But now that she's actually facing doing something, it's too much for her. And we get the reversal where in the last scene she said, you're really turning into a big disappointment for me for wanting to give up the case. And here he says, you're really turning into a big disappointment for me for wanting to go to the police instead. He tells her to be the wheelman for this caper. And then we have a gag where she opens the door, but it's still locked or something. And like the car alarm goes off or the door alarm. I don't know.

It's the only time in the Rockford file so far that there's been any kind of alarm in the Firebird. He jokes about dismantling the burglar alarm. I don't know. I've never done it before. But then he proceeds to climb up to the top of the building, still in his off-white knit sweater, which is amazing. I was thinking the same thing. Like, this isn't what you wear to a break-in. This is what you wear to, like, sip tea while reading a book at home.

Yes. And it's white. It's not like he's sleeping. We start intercutting his progress with shots of a patrol car, building some tension about what's going to happen. He manages to unscrew the lock mechanism off of the top door, which is a lesson to all of you. If you put those third-party, buy-at-home-depot lock hasps on something, always make sure you put the screw end on the inside, because otherwise people can just unscrew it from the outside. I've done that myself. Not to break

into a building. Okay. For a prank. Moving on. So Jim gets in without setting off the alarm, but then as soon as he opens a filing cabinet, that triggers a burglar alarm alarm and then

we hit the uh shot of the patrol car whipping around sirens blazing end of episode yes mystery solved um it's a hell of a cliffhanger it was definitely i wasn't really paying attention to like a running time or anything it caught me by surprise we're in the middle of like literally in the middle of what's going on here um i expected uh i don't know what i expected but some sort of hit that uh but this was like yeah and i made me think of what it might have been like in in 1974 because i do remember watching things and being so involved in them uh that i didn't realize the time and then hitting that end like i would come back the next well i would have made a promise to myself to come back the next week to see this it's effective i mean one fun note about this is that

these two episodes actually so they're at the end of december so they actually aired before and then after christmas okay this one aired on on decemberth, and then Lost airs on the 27th. Jerks. Merry Christmas. We'll see you next week. 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 dig1000holes.com, where I publish all my other role-playing games. Oh, no, I dropped my calculator.

Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks where they can find you on the Internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games, including the Worldwide Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpayoletta. Looks like you're back. You're 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.

This is Mrs. Bosley at the library. We billed you for your overdue book, Karate Made Easy. We abuse our library. We don't get our cards renewed. We abuse our library, we don't get our cards renewed So we come into our second part, Loss With a new preview montage And we talked about it a little bit I don't have much to say about this one

Except that before we had assault and kidnapping Now the list of charges is assault, kidnapping, forgery, and murder And then in all caps, with several exclamation points CHASES! and then we go from there into the this is james garner recap this definitely happened in um gear jammers i don't think it happened in the trees the bees and tt flowers um but here it does kind of a similar thing that we've remarked upon before where you know it really shows us scenes it's not just a quick set of highlights it's i i timed it it is four minutes and 10 seconds of recap of the

previous episode so it's more than one hot dog's worth right uh and one thing that i noticed i thought was kind of cool is that the the music in this episode throughout through both of these episodes is pretty pretty great there's some really strong kind of uh choices with the music in this episode throughout, through both of these episodes, is pretty great. There's some really strong kind of choices with the music that I really like. I have. I've tweeted about that. In this recap, there's underscore music, and I'm pretty sure it was composed for the recap. It doesn't feel like it's music from the scenes. Yeah. Because it kind of, like, is continuous.

It fits together, yeah. But it doesn't really match the tone of some of the scenes. Like, some of the darker scenes, it's kind of this boppier music. I thought that was kind of like is continuous. It fits together, yeah. But it doesn't really match the tone of some of the scenes. Like some of the darker scenes, it's kind of this boppier music. I thought that was kind of cool. And then I was thinking about it and I was like, it would be weird if the music just cut between all those different snatches of music, right? And then in a nice kind of technical touch, the music as well as the action, I think it starts with Jim setting off the alarm by opening the file drawer.

Yeah, it's like right away. And then it just flows directly from there into the episode. I think they did the same technique in TT Flowers, and it was not something they did in Gear Jammers, I think. I mean, I think it picks up at the same moment, but it doesn't do this seamless transition from watching what happened in the last episode and then the scene just plays from there uh gear jammers is definitely um two episodes that work together whereas this one is a little closer to uh an episode cut into two parts i mean this scene clearly was all shot as one thing and then they put part of it in the at the end of the last televised episode and then we're watching all of shot as one thing. And then they put part of it at the end of the last televised episode.

And then we're watching all of it as one continuous piece here, which is cool. So Jim digs through the files, comes running out and jumps in the car where Doris is waiting as the wheel man for this caper. She peels out in front of the patrol car that has responded to the alarm. And we get the first chase sequence of our episode. She was established earlier in our first episode as a race car driver herself, right? Yeah. So she's driving the Firebird like a race car,

and she has a line where she disses his suspension. I want to talk a little bit about the craft here, because I think they do a neat thing here, where there's plenty happening in the first episode to point to why jim would not only be okay with her driving the firebird but think of her as the the wheel person in this caper uh but now we're on the second episode and people may not have seen the first episode and they right away signify that she is capable of being sitting in this role right like they do a great job of just letting the audience know yeah of course she's doing this this is a thing she can do um she ends up pulling into a parking garage uh the patrol car follows and then

we have this weird effect so we're hearing her tires squealing, right? Like she's going around in, you know, the various levels of the parking garage. The camera is up over the garage and just spins around in a circle, just like looking down. Yeah. It's very disorienting, obviously,

which is the point. But I guess just showing us like things are going on down there. And then we cut back down to her leaving and then she manages to take a turn and get down another street before the patrol car can get out of there and they have lost lost the pursuit um jim says that he couldn't have done it better himself so there's our stamp on the yeah you know seeing someone else driving the firebird but then she says well you need to get your shocks fixed.

Yes. Which also seems fair. Jim looks through the files that he took. He doesn't find anything that connects Bovino to anyone at FDI. But then he posits, thus telling us that this is probably what happened, that if he was killed for something that he found out, they could have also just taken those files when they killed him, right? But what could this printer have been doing that would have been worth killing for?

Well, if he was printing phony stock certificates, that could be it. Jim's got a keen eye for the fraud. Right. And in one of those efforts of concision, of course, that's what it is. That's what our story is about. Now we don't need to worry about that anymore, right? Yeah, this is it. Yeah.

If they were smart, they'd give up and go home. But of course, they're not smart. Jim does go home and Rocky is still trying to fix the garbage disposal. Back to the true plot of the episode. Well, okay. So the garbage disposal. episode well okay so the garbage disposal so the garbage here is the this whole edifice of this financial institution that is clearly corrupt and built on lies and so the jammed disposal you see in this essay i will yes i'm with you the the jam disposal is a representation of the fact that this garbage isn't going away.

You know, it is jammed up. It is not easy to clear. Yes. And so every time we go back and the disposal has not yet been cleared, that is a signifier to us that the garbage is still accumulating. I'm in. I'm in. In conclusion, the Rockford Files is a land of contrasts. Rocky asks if Jim has figured out how to stay out of jail yet. Rocky is keenly interested here

because I guess he's the one who put up the bail money? Or half of it or something? Yeah. His truck's involved. And this is where we get the mention of the pink slip again. Sure. It seems reasonable. They just didn't describe it that way before. So Jim says that he's not sure there's anything more for him to find out, so he is going to go off the case. But that doesn't get him out of jail. Right. So that was my note. I forget if there's... Was he being ironic here? I don't know.

He ends with this great line about life being a crapshoot so so life is a crapshoot rocky and if you're gonna hit snake eyes it's better to do it on a jammed up garbage disposal than on a fast lane of the hollywood freeway but clearly jim does have something else he wants to try it's not that important i mean the garbage disposal is what what's important here. Eyes on the price here. This is about plumbing. Right.

So we go to our financial advisor, Arnold Love, getting into his car. And then Jim just swoops in and sits down in his passenger seat. Because as we know, no one on the Rockford Files ever locks their car doors. Yes. You know, he says it wasn't very uh nice of you to call mr fielding arnold says that well he had a duty to call him since you were you know causing trouble for his company and jim this so here's the next bit of his uh great trade craft here right yeah jim says like yeah i talked to one of your competitors he said you're a triple threat

devious dishonest and unethical uh so so responds with, like, oh, I know who told you that. Now you tell Norm Mitchell from me that. And Jim's like, oh, Norm Mitchell. Thank you very much. So very extremely smooth getting a name from him. This is why Jim's so good at his job. It's so good. He's reliable, but a chicken he still

has arnold's uh keys in his hand as he's leaving and so he's like could i have my keys please the way that this actor carries himself on screen is yeah so watchable um jim gives them back after saying that well getting insider tips from your clients for you know stocks and whatnot no that's illegal right and uh i would hate to have to go to the sec about you arnold love seems to take that at face value of yeah as a threat to keep him from going back to fielding and telling him that jim's still poking around so we then go to Jim talking to Norm Mitchell, who he got a reverse recommendation from Arnold Love. I don't like him and he doesn't like you. So I think we might be able to get along, which kind of brings up the question of why he went other channels in in the previous episode that jim

uh like he relies on sully who uh beth is like why do you do that jim's context might just be bad exactly yeah he might be the unethical financial advisor that people that jim knows yeah work with yeah we have uh some good banter banter here of the tell me what you know, no, tell me what you know variety. Jim says that he thinks that FDI is a corrupt, crooked institution and wants to know if Mitchell knows anything solid. Mitchell is like, look, if you don't have anything more solid than that, I can't talk to you.

I asked Arnold Love love one question and four hours later fielder is threatening to sue me for 10 million dollars and so mitchell says come upstairs and meet me in my office in 10 minutes yes yeah it's like would you like to know what that question is yeah if you pay attention to what's happening here uh rockford is presaging the entirety of internet clickbait like this one weird question got me threatened. Got me threatened for $10 million. Oh, I want to know what that question is. Well, up in Mitchell's office,

he says that FDI is a publicity oriented company. He thinks it's overvalued. He's tried to warn his clients away from it, but because the stock just keeps going up, some of them are staying with it. Selling at 30 and it's worth 10. And he seems that they play loose with ethics. Yes. But none of that's criminal, right? Yeah. Rockford tells him the story about the kidnapping and we get the final, oh, you're Rockfordford my secretary clips that for me and i think he says everybody's did so jim's theory he says is it possible that the computer is being rigged to give a sunnier outlook to to the financials of the company than there actually are mitchell says like well that

could be a very damaging rumor to a company like this where it's so much on reputation and it's such a, quote, high flyer. And that is possible. But why would they? Like, why would they need to? They have $100 million in cash. So why would they need to falsify things? Jim asks, like, the green folding kind? And Mitchell says, no, that it's in negotiable securities and they're kept in the

vault at their building. The way he said that was like, so that's reliable. Like I would have thought like kept at a vault at First National Trust or, you know, something not under their control. But that's just a weird quirk of like, I don't know. As a young person, the idea of the physical stock certificate i mean there's so many rockford files stories that involve these physical certificates and it's just like that has just vanished like it's just numbers you know it's just ones and zeros now you sound old it's just ones and zeros these days as soon as he said the word vault i was like yes they're gonna they're gonna break into the vault it It's a heist.

Yeah. Sorry, dear listener. That does not happen. I got so excited for a minute there, though. So Jim says, those negotiable securities, what if they're forgeries? That would explain, you know, all the threats and why they're taking this so seriously and these mysterious deaths. And so Mitchell says, look look this isn't a back alley this is the financial district that kind of thing doesn't happen here and jim asks is it possible

and mitchell says in his opinion no it is not possible when jim leaves uh he is followed by a blue car he notices fairly quickly um pulls to a gas pump, and then he makes two phone calls. The first phone call is to Mitchell, telling him that he picked up a tail leaving his office. Says like, is there one chance in a thousand that my idea might be right? Mitchell's like, I mean, I guess it's possible. I was sure I wasn't followed on my way to your place. So obviously, if they've picked me up, now they know I was talking to you and you're in danger. And Mitchell says that he'll be careful.

And then Jim's second phone call is a delight. I'm lost in my own notes. And part of that is because, as you know, I used to be a transcriber for television shows. a transcriber for television shows. And one of the things I did while transcribing television shows is I wrote a bunch of macros for phrases and things I would use very often. Like everybody's name was just reduced to their initials. So every time I typed LJ, it turned out to be Leonard Jenoff.

And I was like, who the hell is Leonard Jenoff? What is going on? I am so lost in my notes. Okay, this is the sloppy mind of Epidae Ravishaw. My note on this entire bit where he calls the cops is intellectual chase sequence.

Yeah, it's a meta chase. So he calls the cops and says that he saw two guys stealing his car, gives the car description and the license plate of the car that's been following him. And then we just have a very slow cruise while Jim drives around waiting for a patrol car to pick up the car that is following him. And the one bit I want to point out is the awkward windshield cleaning moment. Or the goons realize that they've been sitting there for a long time

and they should look like they're doing something. So one of them gets out to wipe down the window. Yeah. That night, Jim goes back to the trailer and we have either our first or one of our earliest appearances of Rocky's friend, LJ.

Yes! So is this the first or one of the first? This is the first appearance, LJ. Yes. So is this the first or one of the first? This is the first appearance of LJ. We first saw him in Gear Jammers. And this is Rocky's friend who's played by Al Stevenson. And he's kind of a handyman slash buddy. Yeah, he's, I think, specifically a plumber, which might be why, like, he might be a plumber simply because of this scene. Right. So this is the first appearance, so this whole scene is establishing him here. Yeah.

Here's what happens in the scene. Jim goes home, says, hey, LJ, hey, Dad, you guys got to leave. Yes. Something is happening. It isn't safe to stay here. Jim packs his bag, you know, and they vamoose before he gets a phone call before he can leave. Now, while he's trying to get them out the door, Rocky is like, no. Hold on a minute, please, son. I suckered him out here.

I told him we was going to have a steak barbecue. I asked him to grind up the meat fat and he discovered the busted disposal all by himself. He ain't even going to charge us. And LJ is like, yeah, I need my tools. I can't fix this. You know? So again, our disposal, our garbage is so indisposable that you can't just walk up and fix it. You need specialized tools and an expert.

Just saying. Yes. And I love, like, this is sweet old rocky running a con on his friend l lj yeah so uh they leave before jim can can get out the door the phone rings uh jim decides to answer the phone and it's mitchell calling him saying that jim was right uh after jim left he got a call from fielder asking what they were talking about. It was threatening, and now he's scared. His wife is packing up the kids, and they're going to get out of there, go somewhere safe.

Jim asks, what did he tell Fielder? And Mitchell says, I told him to climb his thumb. I wrote that down, too. I love that. Oh, that's so good. That's up there with climb them like a tree and tree with lifts. Jim asks where he can call him and he says, you can't. So good.

This is such great like seeding of glory to your opponent, right? This is a great moment to just be like, no, these are people to be terrified of. My kind of overall response to this episode, to this story through the two episodes so far, has been kind of like waiting to see how this is playing out, waiting to see what's going to happen, enjoying the moments. Yeah. It's been kind of, meandering is the wrong word because it implies that the story isn't going anywhere. And that's not true. The story is going somewhere. Yeah. It's taking its time though. This scene feels sharper. It's one of time, though. This scene feels sharper. It's one of those scenes where it carries lots of loads in one kind of short thing. So it's like, we get a new character.

We get to see, we know exactly what his relationship with Rocky is. Yes. We get to see that Jim feels like they're in danger. We see the danger is amplified by Mitchell's call. And then Jim goes to his cookie jar. Yes. And the gun is not in the cookie jar. But there's a holster, which I'm not sure we've ever seen, but it's a good visual implication that there was a gun. Jim seems confused. Clearly he was expecting a gun. And so he's very suspicious and looking around as he leaves his trailer. And then we get this great menacing

sound cue. This is probably my favorite like sequence, like visual sequence in the episode, in both episodes. Jim's in focus and he's looking around. He's clearly nervous and the underscore is going. And then there's this like very significant, I don't know, I don't know, music chord or something. Yeah. That's, that's a. That happens as we see two out-of-focus people coming around the back end of the trailer. Yes, no, this is great. Yeah, yeah. It's a great shot. We see them over Jim's shoulder, so he clearly doesn't know

they're there. And they're out-of-focus, so we don't really know who they are. And it's extremely menacing. In the distance, and you're just like, oh, Jim. It's very serial killer-esque. And so the camera tracks him, and the whole time it's like, when are those guys going to pop up? He goes into the Firebird. The car won't start.

He looks concerned. It is such a horror film moment, really. Honestly, the whole bit. He goes to open the hood. He looks around again. Doesn't see anything. He puts his head under the hood to look at whatever. again, doesn't see anything.

He puts his head under the hood to look at whatever, and then this body just comes flying from out of the frame and body slams the hood down onto the back of his head, which is terrifying. And then another guy comes out of the other from the opposite direction, grabs his wrist, and then we have a close-up

on the syringe that he's holding as he goes to inject Jim with something. And then we cut. Injecting people with sh** just creeps me out. It's very creepy. It's a go-to in the Rockford Files. It doesn't happen like every episode, but it's happened enough times where I'm like,

oh, why? I don't know. There's something about the pace and the manner in which things happen here. Yeah. How we really move forward a lot in this one sequence. Yeah. Where this is probably the most satisfying scene to me, actually, that we've seen so far. It's like, yeah, this is the Rockford Files. Yeah, yeah.

Between that and his conversation with Love at the hot dog stand. Yeah, I would agree with that assessment. So we come back to Jim lying on his back in an empty room with three guys sitting on folding chairs around him. And a fairly, I don't know, severe looking man in a gray suit enjoys a cigarette while Jim slowly wakes up. He's got a foreign accent that I can't place. Like old timey radio-ish? Yeah. This is a different sort of goon altogether, is what's happening here.

And as I say in my notes, totally a mob guy. Yes. Our dialogue starts with Jim's, uh, can I help you? As he's groggy and coming to. This is a little monologue here from our messenger. He says, I'm not a little monologue here from our messenger. He says,

I'm not a thug. I'm a messenger. He came to LA just to have this conversation. For some totally obscure reason, you have taken to believing that a fine, upstanding company is corrupt. This is a fatal mistake. In this case, the word fatal can be

taken both figuratively and literally. It doesn't have to be figurative if it's literal. My employers would consider it a big favor to them if you would cease this aimless and destructive investigation of yours. You are embarrassing and endangering a fine, healthy public company. He must stop or three other men. I love the specificity of three. Three other men will visit him and not want to talk at all.

It's a very Dickens Christmas carol. You'll be visited by three ghosts. by three ghosts. I'm realizing that we, or at least I, skipped over a fairly significant line that Jim said to Fielder back when they had their hand crushing encounter. It's amazing how much power I have to just ask a couple questions and shake the confidence in this multi-billion dollar company. I read it as a threat and then like a lot of things that happened since then in the episode didn't feel like, I was like, is this a genuine question? Because the way he worded it was a question, right?

Like it was like, do I really have that power? Yeah. I read it as a threat when he said it and then later reassessed that as not a threat, but as him legitimately wondering if he did. Or not reassess, but like started to doubt my read of it. Well, I think he kind of, I think it's thrown out kind of as a, this is my leverage over you. Like you can sue me for $10 million.

And the reason that you are so scared of me apparently is because I'm asking a simple question about your company. Yeah. And then Jim doesn't want to actually do that because he doesn't want to get sued. But then as the, as our story progresses, I think this is like the peak of this, of that where it's like,

apparently he does have that power because now he's been abducted and it's being warned away by this like out of town messenger. The whole scene here is otherworldly and in a good way like we just got done escalating everything and the other um norman is that his name mitchell mitchell his first name is norm anyways the thing that he like he definitely sells it as a threat so we've escalated to this thing but now we've got to this point where it's like movie level threat yeah uh before i kill you mr bond yeah you know well i mean i dig it is what i'm saying no it's good it kind of stands out as like yeah

the thing stakes are escalating things are getting serious um time for Rockford to quit. Yeah. Jim says that he understands. And then our messenger apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes him a good evening. And then we have this extended shot where the three guys slowly leave. Yeah. After they're gone, Jim pulls himself to his feet, tries to get over his grogginess, and leaves after them. And then part of why also otherworldly is because they're in this weird empty room and when he gets outside there's a for sale sign outside this house so they're just in a random house that you know they knew wouldn't be occupied

um jim calls rocky uh lj is there they're playing cards so we get our second LJ appearance. There's a weird pause. The phone rings several times before anyone gets up to get it. And I thought that was going to be a gag of some sort, but it just wasn't. It's just like, look, it takes a while to get out of the chair sometimes. Yeah. He needs Rocky to come pick him up. And he asks, oh, by the way, do you know where my gun is? And Rocky's like, oh, I took it because I was cleaning it the other day.

I thought I'd put it in the truck because I thought I'd go do some target shooting. Mystery solved. It's great that Rocky thinks that that's what that gun is for. Like, we know that that gun is not registered. Yeah, it's not registered or anything like that. Well, Jim tells him registered or anything like that. Well, Jim tells him to bring it with him. And so Rocky says he has to leave. And LJ just kind of shrugs.

He's just sitting there with his car. He's just kind of like, all right. I didn't get my steak dinner. This is a weird night. Rocky picks up Jim in his truck. He wants to go stake out a house. Rocky asks, is this going to be dangerous? And Jim is like, no, not dangerous at all.

Why do you need the gun? Well, because someone might try to kill us. That's so good. But he's excited. Yeah, he looks excited. So they're, in fact, staking out Leon Fielder's house. They set up a little plan to signal the truck with the flashlights so that the truck doesn't have to sit outside and be seen. Yeah.

Jim tells Rocky to leave the gun under the seat. Hopefully we won't even need it. Foreshadowing. And then we have Jim hiding in the bushes until our messenger is leaving. We get our first pursuit sequence here here which is fairly long and straightforward yeah part of the question is like does he realize he's being followed yeah um and i think he doesn't really until he's in the parking lot at the airport that's how i read it yeah me too like i probably spent too much time thinking about like uh because it was long and i was thinking

are they filling space? Yeah. They have an episode and a half worth of story, which is not charitable. And I'm not in this business to be uncharitable to the Rockford Files. So I will withdraw that assumption. I mean, we get two of these, right? So I guess the second one turns into an actual chase. But this pursuit sequence ends up at a parking lot at the airport.

And then our messenger at some point realizes that he's being followed on foot because Jim is following him into the airport. Yeah. And manages to use a passing bus to kind of escape into the crowd. As you do. Oh, buses are so good for that. This whole sequence doesn't have any underscoring. It's just the plane noise as planes go overhead, which is kind of cool. So it's kind of like, again, it has that like thriller kind of feel to it.

Yeah. But our messenger gets away. So Jim hooks back up with Rocky. Rocky says we should go home. Jim offers to give him a cab. He'll pay for it. And then Rocky's like, okay, fine. Where are we going?

Either wants them both to go home or he's still in yeah the adventures um they go back to fielder's uh jim thinks maybe since the guy saw him following he'll panic and fielder will do something dumb yeah and then so we we reprise that whole sequence where we have jim waiting in the bushes and then finally we see Fielder leaving. Signals the car. Rocky comes and picks him up. And then we see them following Fielder. Fielder leaving in a much fancier car.

And he, in fact, seems to just go to the FDI office. Yes. Jim and Rocky stay in the truck across the street. The sun rises. So they've been there all night. And then they see him come back out and he's holding two bags so they then continue the pursuit as he leaves with these bags uh and then after a couple turns and whatnot and now that the sun's up right and there's like actual traffic jim says that all right we're gonna need to pull him over he's gonna spot us sooner or later and that of course, right when Fielder realizes that he's being followed

I love Rocky's concern for the truck Like, you're not going to ram him, are you? We have a brief chase here It's mostly just going around corners We have a following up on the suspension dig from earlier Jim comments on Rocky's suspension, but Fielder ends up cornered in a little cul-de-sac. And we get into our, I don't know, our big finale sequence here. Sounds good.

Jim pulls a gun on him. I'm making a citizen's arrest. And he reads out the laundry list of crimes from our preview montage. And he reads out the laundry list of crimes from our preview montage. Fielder, I feel like this is throwing Jim's M.O. back at him. Right. You can't make a citizen's arrest unless you're eyewitness to a felony. The whole notion of the citizen's arrest is a bit mythic in actual practice, but, you know.

You're saying this is a bit of a callback to when he says the police are actually pretty good at... Sure, yeah. And he makes the very cogent point that if you take me against my will at gunpoint, that's kidnapping. Yes. Jim doesn't care. He's basically using the threat of force. You know, get in the car. I have the gun. You don't.

Tells Rocky to get the briefcases and then immediately goes, no. As Rocky steps in front of him, in front of Fielder's car door. Fielder uses the door to hit him, knocking them both over, sending the gun flying. And Fielder gets the gun before anyone else can. In an extremely Rockford move, I would say. Yes. No, he's the inverse Rockford here. Yeah.

He starts taking pot shots at them. They're hiding behind his car. He does have this great moment where he goes, get away from my car. And he's looking at it. Jim says that. All right, he should have one shot left. I'm going to try something. And then he runs away from the car, takes a dive, rolls,

comes up, is staring directly at Fielder. Fielder takes aim, pulls the trigger, and there's a click. Can we talk about what something was? She was like, I'm going to try something. Let me roll across the ground and stare at him. Yeah. Like I wasn't sure what his plan was. roll across the ground and stare at him yeah like i wasn't sure what his plan was did he mess it up well here's the thing either he messed it up or this was the plan and him saying there's one shot left with some kind of misdirect but it was to rocky yeah this scene actually kind of brings down the whole thing for me in a couple ways. And Mae will go into that after we finish. But I did literally rewind to see if I missed something, which I did not.

And there's a reason for that, but it was not telegraphed here that there's a reason. So it seemed like it was an error to me and it kind of took me out of it. And I think that part of why that is, is that you're like, all right, Jim, what's this plan? Then it doesn't look like a plan. Yeah.

It looks like he just runs and then is lucky that there's only five shots and not six. The charitable read of this is that he doesn't want Rocky to get shot. So he's just thinking, if I get out there, he'll take a shot at me. And then Rocky will be safe. Yeah. I'm going to make as much movement as I possibly can so that he can't hit me, but then runs out of movement, right?

And then to dramatize the fact that there actually isn't a shot, they frame that whole still face-off. Yeah. And it just feels like something's missing to me. Well, after realizing that there's no more bullets in that gun,

Fielder manages to get back into his car and pulls out. Rocky gets behind the wheel of the truck. I'm going to catch that guy if it's the last thing I ever do. And we have our final chase scene, shot in such a way as to seem very high speed. Yes. Which is mostly just them weaving in and out traffic, going around corners. And then finally, a couple of patrol cars respond to this chaos, block them both in. They're both pulled over and they start arresting everyone.

As often is the plan in the Rockford files is to just kick up enough dust to get the cops' attention. Fielder plays the respectability card. I'm Leon Fielder, chairman of the board of fiscal dynamics. These men were attempting to rob me. The sergeant, he was trying to kill us. He's got a gun in the car. I managed to take a gun from that man. It's right there on my front seat. And Jim's like, look, don't try to sort this all out now. Take us all downtown and take a look at the bags that are in his backseat. And fortunately, he caught a cop that was going to do that. So we cut from there

to Jim and Rocky sharing a cell downtown, apparently. Rocky, now that he's been on a caper, he understands a lot more about Jim's business. And he understands that's just more chances to get killed and put in jail.

He kind of turns from being an enthusiastic participant to now that the adrenaline rush is gone, now that I know what you do, I approve of it even less. Mrs. Parker and Beth arrive. Good news.

They're gonna get him. The briefcases were full of forged stock certificates. Uh, FDI has been suspended off the stock exchange pending an investigation. Justice, as it so often is in this show, will be served. Beth asks

if he had a gun. Yes. Let me know, because they found, you know, they're tracing that gun they found, and Jim's like, you know I can't have a gun without a permit. Okay, I think I can get you out in a few hours. So for the first time, the fact that Jim's gun does not have a permit is actually working out in his favor. Because it wasn't in his possession at the time. So, yeah.

Now, finally, our dangling tension is resolved as Rocky says, I just, I just can't figure it. If that gun had six shots in it, you'd be dead. And when I cleaned it, it had six bullets. Where did that last one go?

Jim's like, I think I know where it went. Of course, that sixth bullet is what was clogging up the garbage disposal. So this entire episode was just about gun control. Well, you see, the only thing that can clear the garbage out of continuously collecting is the fact that an absent-minded man dropped a bullet down there, and it turned out saving a life.

In conclusion, the Rockford Files is a land of contrasts. Yes. I think my metaphor might be falling apart with this revelation, unfortunately. And so we have a freeze frame on Rockies going, how about that? And both of them smiling behind bars. And that is the end of Profit and Loss. Except for the after credit

with some gremlin sitting in the bottom of their sink with like the railroad road watch. Like all the theories of things that clogged it up. The ground beef, the bullet. The broom. The broom handle, yeah. Whew, yeah. So that, uh, that second, that second episode sure clips along, huh?

Yeah. So there's some filler in it. There's no denying that. Uh, it is definitely second part of a whole episode. It's not its own thing, but it definitely feels different, but it could just be third act different. Yeah. I mean, cause often a Rockford Files story accelerates in the third act

because that's when everything comes to a conclusion. Yeah. The fact that things were kind of more pointed and coming to a head and all pointing towards the end of the story made it feel a little tighter to me in spots. But there's something about the final confrontation chase with Fielder that really feels blah to me. I think I know what it is. And it's all of the other buildup to it. This whole second half of the episode, most of it is about how dangerous he is.

Like how much power he has, like institutional power he has. Maybe this is how i would fix it for you okay i would somehow emphasize that the what jim is doing is do an end run around his institutional power right jim's abducted and injected and threatened by this mysterious guy and that disappears yeah and there's no reason why that would disappear like sure jim brought them down but you know if they had this like out of town connection probably mob they wouldn't be happy about that right yeah there's more to the story after they arrest fielder so that ending that was sort of promised in the first part uh

doesn't materialize right like the first part is like here's this giant threat this is this mobbed up guy that makes you know people that that are in the know go into hiding yeah the the other financial analysts yeah yeah like he's like you can't you won't be able to find me. We're, we're out of here. We're so there's that, but the way he's brought down is such a Jim Rockford. Like I'm just grabbing a, you know, like a person that robbed a bank. Now I think Jim can do that, but it just needs to be indicated to us as the audience that, that in some way doing it this way is the way that saves jim from having to deal with coming at it straight on right like i guess that's kind of what it is is that this is basically coming at it straight on yeah and that is so unlike how most of the these episodes resolve

yeah when you think of like the farnsworth strategy, when Jim is realizes how in it he is. Right. He has to come up with a compromise that the mob would accept. Yeah. He comes up with a plan that is equally about getting himself out of hot water. Right. As it is about like justice or whatever. Okay.

I'll try not to go on too long about this because this is a long enough episode as it is about justice or whatever. Okay, I'll try not to go on too long about this because this is a long enough episode as it is. Okay, so first, I think maybe the contrast that this is supposed to be is once this guy, I think this is what you're getting at with what you were just saying, once this guy is taken out of his seat of power, he's as vulnerable as anyone else to the law. But there's something,

there's some kind of narrative logic that does not connect with me about how this giant threat is taken down by chasing him in a car. Right. And shooting at him. There's something about how, like, because his character is all about having this

manifest control over this criminal empire, that should be the key to taking him down. Something about getting a betrayal from the inside or revealing to the investors that he's a fraud so the investors flee so the company collapses and then he gets arrested. Right. Like if we got a scene or two that described how much pressure he's getting from something else about this. Right. Maybe this guy that talks to Rockford. Right. Like him having a conversation with Ned Beatty saying, if anything goes wrong, that's coming. You're taking the hit for it. Right. Like, it's not coming back on the rest of us. You know, something to say that there's pressure on him so that the line stops at him.

So we've got that as audience. So that we see why he tries to run. Because that's the other thing. Like, there's a lot of weight carried by Jimim saying well since that guy saw me maybe yes he'll do something to make fielder run right yeah and it's like that is a lot of the story that's kind of carried by that statement what what would happen if you did that if you showed this pressure from above that that like i said cuts the the line of of consequences off like this pressure from above says whatever happens it's on you we're holding you responsible you have to deal with

rockford we don't care if you see that and then have him run you have this reversal where the mighty have been brought low right exactly and then the run feels like like an angel style run like i'm gonna get what i can and get out of here. Yeah. Then it's satisfying to see this, right? It's satisfying to see this guy squirm. But we don't quite set that up. And I think you're right.

It's hinging on this one moment. It gets us from here to there in the scene to scene. And that's it. There's nothing broader about that. Yeah, I think that captures what I'm trying to say. There's nothing broader about that. Yeah. I think that captures what I'm trying to say. So good job. Thanks.

Happy to zoom out just a little bit, I think. So at this point we're, we're, we're cutting some of this analysis pretty fine, right? Like the difference, the differences between these episodes where we're taking a pretty fine

grained approach to what makes one better than the other, because at the macro level, like this was a fun double episode, right? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of good stuff. All those memorable bit characters that I feel like we haven't had a great showcase of for a while. This two-parter has a lot of them. You know, the DA, the maid slash mechanic slash college student, Solly, LJ, you know, even though he's recurring, like this is the first time we see him.

The guest actors are all great. Some of the individual scenes are just delightful. But as a one continuous Rockford Files story, this isn't ranking up in my, you know, in my top top 10 list i would say mainly because of that kind of drop off the phenomenon where instead of going like okay cool i can fill in in my head how we got from here to there they didn't need to show us everything versus wait how did we get here yeah and that's what i had with this episode where the last like couple three scenes, I was like, how did we get here? But that doesn't mean that it's bad. No, or that it doesn't contain three minutes that make your top ten three minutes.

Exactly. Yes. Those three minutes of conversation at the hot dog stand. That's definitely on a top ten list of mine. So that is my overall takeaway. Epi, do you have anything else to add or mention or tell me that I'm wrong about? Well. We don't have to agree on this stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know.

All right, I'll disagree then. No, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the episode quite a bit. But I do agree with you. There's just a little bit near the end or whatever. It's one of the things about the Rockford, what I like about it and what I like about discussing the Rockford files is that you can pinpoint these things. Like, you know, there are definitely shows that I'll watch and then be like, OK, where did this go wrong? And you just don't have there's just not enough scaffolding there to figure out what's missing.

Whereas with the Rockford files, you could be like, oh, often if it, if it doesn't hit exactly, it's this bit here. You don't have to reconstruct the entire thing. Right. But, uh, yeah, I think that, uh, it's a fun show. It's fun for me specifically to think of it in the context of a two-parter that aired on non-streaming, you know know broadcast television that you had to wait over the christmas break for because again it is a hell of a cliffhanger just like the suddenness with how it ends it's very much a oh now what's good you know what happens next and so this is

midway through their first season so they don't you know at this point how sure of you of your audience. Right. So, yeah, it's really, really interesting how. But also, I think at that time, everyone would have done something like that. It's not a terribly unusual thing to have a cliffhanger. Sure, sure. And I think people like this episode. It's pretty highly rated on IMDb. So maybe I'm just being cranky about it.

There's lots of great character interactions. Uh, some, uh, wonderful textbook, uh, status scenes. Yeah.

The status stuff's really good. Yeah. The quick Jim thinking on his feet stuff's really good. Uh, the garbage disposal metaphor, of course, is core to the experience. Yeah. His con stuff con stuff is great. Like, it's a delight to watch.

I can't stress enough. I'm just going to call the first episode The Raid. Yeah, good physical stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, I think with that, we have earned our $200 for this day. Oh, speaking of, do you think she ended up paying Jim for his time? I feel like she did.

Okay, let me tell you, the only thing that puts doubt in my head is that she gave Rocky a kiss on the nose. Yeah, I think she probably did. She was very excited about the results. She appears to be a woman of means and also a decent person, which was established by her, I think, putting her maid through college. Right. Strongly implied. Yeah. By the way, would watch that show. Yeah. Mrs. Parker, race car driver. Yeah. After the tragic death of her husband, Mrs. Parker, race car driver. Yeah. After the tragic death of her husband, Mrs. Parker has to take over the family race car business.

Yep. Would watch. We'll start the spec script for that. Yeah. But until then, everyone enjoy your hot dogs, veggie or otherwise. And we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files