Two Hundred A Day - Episode 6: Just Another Polish Wedding

Episode Date: March 12, 2017

Nathan and Eppy discuss S3E17, Just Another Polish Wedding. Gandalf Finch (Isaac Hayes) and Marcus Hayes (Louis Gossett Jr.) team up to race against Jim in an effort to be the first to find the heir to a buried fortune - but of course nothing is quite as it seems! This is a real gem of an episode on a number of levels, and we have a lot to say about the character dynamics in particular. Thanks to: zencastr.com for helping us record fireside.fm for hosting us thatericalper.com for the answering machine audio clips spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for the dining audio clip Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Lowell Francis's Age of Ravens gaming blog Pluto Moved On Podcasts and Video Lets Plays Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars And thank you to Shane Liebling! Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. We are exploring the intensely weird and interesting world of the 70s TV detective show The Rockford Files. Half celebration and half analysis, we break down episodes of the show and then analyze how and why they work as great pieces of narrative and character-building. In each episode of Two Hundred a Day, we watch an episode, recap and review it as fans of the show, and then tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

George DeVold, Malibu Space Watch, had three sightings last week. You see anything unusual? Your television reception interrupted. Call 555-1313. Welcome to 200 A Day, a podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm EpiDye Ravishaw. Which fantastic episode of The Rockford Files are we talking about today, Epi? fantastic episode of the Rockford Files are we talking about today, Epi?

We are watching something from Season 3, which this is the first time we've dipped our toes into Season 3, I believe. Episode 17, Just Another Polish Wedding. And this episode is going to have Gamby, who is

a character we have not talked about yet. We haven't actually done an episode with him, but by now I think he's had one or two episodes on the Rockford Files. I believe this is his second episode of three, maybe four. Yeah. Gandhi, Gandalf, Finch, played by Isaac Hayes, which is amazing. I'm sure we'll get more into that. Yeah.

And this one also features Lou Gossett Jr. as a competitor PI. Marcus Aurelius Hayes, which is confusing. Isaac Hayes plays Gandhi, and Marcus Hayes is played by Louis Gossett Jr. He's also a recurring character. I believe this is also the second appearance of him, and he might have one other one. But I think this is the only episode with the two of them together, and they're quite the duo, which is kind of the focus of the episode. Yeah. This one was written by the creators with a story consultant credit to Juanita Bartlett, who we've mentioned before as one of the driving forces of their writing as

the seasons went on and directed by William Ward, who directed 28 episodes of the Rockford files. And so he has the, he's the leader of the director standings. Oh yeah. He's the most directed. He, yes,

he is the most directed according to our source for all stats, IMDB. So yeah, steady hands on the wheel with this one. The whole casting crew is pretty, they're very much in the groove, I think. I was thinking about that as I was watching this episode, because this is very, like it's season three. So they found their feet. And I feel like this is a very playful episode, which is something that, you know, I think only really happens once you start to get comfortable with what the show is. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. you yeah i think a lot of that feeling that kind of uh playful feeling comes from the gandy marcus relationship and then also the gandy rockford relationship which are both kind of humorous in their own way without being slapstick or silly right and it really does feel like the actors are having a lot of fun i guess that seems to come through the screen the story is pretty straightforward it does have have mystery and a reveal, like almost all Rockwood stories do. But the actual A to B plot of it is relatively simple. So we're probably going to be talking a little bit more about the characters and how they interact, I think, than the kind of nitty-gritty of the details of the mystery, because there aren't that many. So we start off with the montage, the preview montage.

We get some good clips that let us know clearly that Gandy's going to be in the episode, and that Marcus is also going to be in it, and lots of people blown smoke up each other's asses. I don't know if anything in particular stands out from the preview montage other than to say we got some fun characters for you. There's some kind of altercation at what's obviously a wedding reception. Yeah. So that ties into our title.

Yes. Just another Polish wedding. But other than that, foreshadowing is mostly about the characters for sure. But the big mystery is the the message left on rockford's answering machine this episode from the malibu space watch i don't what the hell i looked this up uh and the only reference i could find is this actual episode so i don't know if it was a thing i'm pretty sure that the you know the answering machine messages i'm sure were just banged out a bunch of them at a time.

You know, just like silly ideas that people had. I think I read at some point that they regret it, setting the precedent where they'd have to come up with a new one. And I mean, honestly, I feel for them. I've done a few of that in my own creative endeavors where I was like, oh my God. So this one in particular was just a bizarre one. Well, unfortunately this episode has pretty much nothing to do with space.

We kick off with a crew combing over what looks like, I mean it's the field outside someone's house, like the property. It looks like it's already been plowed over or something. It looks like a pretty empty dirt lot yeah and there's men in overalls and there's construction equipment man with a clipboard a gorilla looking type let's talk about that for a moment because yeah there's a type now

right there's uh yeah there's definitely you look at someone in a rockford episode and you're like well i don't care what they say they are. They're heavy. And this guy immediately, and there's one later in this episode when we get to the wedding that I, if you can help me remember, talk about that isn't, and I totally thought he was going to be, but we can, we can go into that, but there's definitely a look now. Yeah, for sure. And to the practiced eye, this episode actually does a lot of kind of giving you the bare minimum to establish context for characters if you haven't seen it before. But kind of assuming that you know who these people are. And that extends to the casting of these heavies, the gorillas.

So, yeah, this guy comes onto the scene asking some questions of the coat coat wearing clipboard wielding manager or or whatever he is it's a pretty short scene but basically he comes in and asks what's going on they have a little bit of dialogue and we learned that a man died his name was tom evans but when they you know filed the paperwork it turned out that that was an alias. His name is actually Pat O'Herlihy. The reason they ran paperwork was because in his house, they found a bunch of money. And now the county is digging around, literally, with digging equipment to see if there's any more money. Because, I guess, when there's mysterious, unreported amounts of money in someone's house,

you see if that's just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, he literally says something like, with old men like these, they could bury it anywhere. So our gorilla heads off screen back to his car, which is with its own set of digging equipment. And he's saying, oh, we're too late. The county's already here so the authorities are the ones doing this digging um that's on the up and up we should point out that the digging equipment here is not it's not that they have a couple shovels or something they

have like heavy dude it's a backhoe yeah it's it's big but these goons are too late even though they did bring their own backhoe uh they have to send the guys home and so their next step this is kind of just like a the line right at the end of the scene but um they're gonna tap someone's phone at the probate office and see if they can tackle it from that direction so that's the beginning situation for the episode this old guy died he had this money probate is trying to find out if there's any more and presumably who the heir to this cash would be. They don't say how much money

at this point, but there's a clear indication it's clearly going to be a lot of money. You don't bring a backhoe to dig up $100. And they're going to tap into the county phone. They're not second rate. They've got to be connected. There's no way that these are just plucky go-getters who thought an old man dying,

he's got to be hiding money somewhere. So to the Rockford watching eye, probably the mob, right? That's a pretty good assumption with anything like this. They're probably mob. This guy probably had some connection to them. They want the money. We'll go forward from there. So we go to Rockford's trailer where he's hanging out with his good friend, Gandalf Finch. Yes. Again, a lot of these scenes are mostly dialogue and a lot of the dialogue is kind of character building. So rather than try and recap the conversation, I think I'm just going to pull out the stuff that I thought was interesting and you can, you know, let me know if I, if there's anything else in there you want to talk about Gandalf or Gandhi. I mean, he is also a gorilla in his own way. He's a, uh, he solves problems with, with violence for the most part. And he's kind of talking about how bouncing, which is what

he has been doing, isn't what it used to be. They've They've instituted this new rule or law about if the bouncers hit the clients, then they're going to get 50 bucks deducted out of their paycheck. But if they take a hit and don't hit back and they get a bonus, it's just not the way that Gandhi rolls. Right. When someone messes with him, he messes with them right back. If we haven't seen the previous episode, it becomes obvious that Gandy and Rockford know each other from prison. Yeah. It comes up later where they kind of give the backstory of Gandy in like one sentence, which is really clever the way that's done in the episode. But the backstory is that Rockford was hired by Gandy after Gandy got out of prison for time served. He hired Rockford to prove that he was innocent,

which Rockford did and got him pardoned. So they didn't know each other in jail, but Gandhi hired Rockford when he got out of jail, and that was the beginning of their relationship. One thing I love about this particular scene is that Rockford isn't having it. Rockford's distracted. He's looking through the fridge for some food, which is your thing, and I'll leave that to you.

The tension immediately is whether Gandhi ate Rockford's or Rockfish, let's be clear. Yeah. Gandalf calls Rockford Rockfish, which is delightful. So is whether Gandhi ate Rockfish's ham or not that he was saving special to mix with his eggs for breakfast with the back and forth over the bouncing thing. And hey, did you eat my ham? Turns out that yes, Gandhi did indeed eat his ham when he wasn't looking. And Rockford's so annoyed. What I like is this bouncing thing is that he's a sympathetic year, right? Gandhi's just saying this is the problem.

This is the problem. And Rockford's like, yeah, I know, but I can tell why they do that. Yeah. He explains like, you know, they're tell why they do that yeah he explains like you know they're concerned about their insurance their insurance goes up if they get sued and if you start punching people they'll get sued like rockford knows how it works it's it's a situation that he's in when he's with angel and when he's with gandhi and as we'll learn a little bit later he's with marcus where he knows he's with someone whose vision of the truth might be a little bit later he's with Marcus, where he knows he's with someone whose vision of the truth might be a little biased. That is the most diplomatic way I can describe somebody, like, say, angel. And then Rockford doesn't let go. He'll be sympathetic, but he'll hold that line,

like, well, this is what reality is, so let's not pretend it's not that. He's an explainer in a lot of ways, right? Like, I understand your perspective, but this is how it is, because he's more of a realist in a lot of ways than these other characters. The reason that Gandalf's there in the first place is because he punched someone at a bar where he was bouncing. So Rockford bailed him out. And that's why they're hanging out together this morning. All of this is kind of underscored by Gandy pushing at Rockford about how his business isn't very good. He's not making much money. Gandy doesn't think that bouncing is going to be what he wants to keep doing because of all these changes. So maybe Rockford should take him on as a partner.

This, if you're used to Rockford Files, this is usually the indication that you're about to get an episode full of other PIs. Because other PIs are always trying to work with Rockford. They want a part of his action or muscle him out of the action or what have you. Seems to be a pretty tough racket being a PI. And so when they come into contact, it's never smooth.

Rockford, of course, has nothing doing. He doesn't need a partner. He doesn't like to get into trouble. And that's what Gandy does is make trouble. And he offers to drop him off on his way because he has a client that he's meeting this morning. So he'll drop Gandy off wherever he wants on his way to meet the client. On the way out of the trailer, Gandy manages to rip Rockford's sport coat because he's so much bigger than Rockford, but he puts it on just for

fun and then rips the sleeve. Again, underscoring how Rockford probably wearing his clothes until they fall apart, right? He's not buying new clothes all the time. So that was a nice little detail there. Between having his ham eaten and his coat torn, I think he was more annoyed about the ham. Yeah. Of course he is because he was saving that. He had plans for that ham. I can imagine Rockford repairing his own coat too. Like I can see him sitting on that front stoop trying to sew the sleeve back in. Not necessarily doing a good job of it, but you know. There's a great line here where Rockford tells Gandy, says, just finish your beer. It's almost 3 or 8 30 in the morning. At that point, I don't think it was clear to me that it was morning. Right.

And then Gandy's just sitting there drinking a beer. This is the life that they lead, a life of leisure. Well, Gandy sticks with Rockford while he goes to the county probate court to talk to his client, who's apparently an official of some kind. It's not really made clear. Another in our long string of memorable throwaway characters. Yes. With his lapels and his weird pattern of speaking, I guess. The writers, I think, had a lot of fun with this. Anything that they could have turned into an acronym or just made into a string of letters, they did for him for some reason. That was the

clear implication was that if you work for the county eventually you'll start talking this way even ending the conversation with a-okay which is like the goofiest sign off uh but essentially he's hiring rockford to engage in this probate air search they have a name he has a brother named finn but they don't know where finn is so they're hiring Rockford to track him down. If he can track him down, he gets a finder's fee to deliver this inheritance, which is $600,000. Yeah, that's the inheritance. And I was trying to figure out what Rockford's getting out. Obviously, I'm doing his books as I'm doing this. He's bailed out

Gandhi. He has to pay for a new suit or repair the suit. I don't know the numbers for those. He has to buy more ham. Yes. It seems likely that what Rockford is getting is $200 a day because Gandy mentioned something about that later. And that's, we get to it. Marcus is suspicious about what Rockford's plan is because he's like, $200 a day. If this guy's worth $600,000, then you can get more out of him. But I think one of the things about this episode, Rockford enjoys a steady paycheck. So he takes these low key, easy jobs. Like the reason why he's been telling Gandalf, or at least what he's giving Gandalf is a reason for why he doesn't want to hire him, is that he doesn't he doesn't want to throw weight around because that gets other people to throw

weight around. And he likes to be quiet in what he does. He doesn't want to have the kind of case where he needs Gandhi to be involved. He's made his peace with these kind of podunk. It's not glamorous. It's not high yield, but it's steady. And he knows he's going to get the paycheck, whether it's just his 200 a day or whether he does have some kind of finder's fee associated with the delivery. So my assumption going into this one, he was just doing the $200 a day just because that seems to be within his character for this particular episode. So he gets his client to give him the info.

He has a little folder of the guy's information. But when he gets back in the car with Gandhi, Gandhi is angry because Rockfish is working for the county. Yeah. How can you work for the county? The county is the one who put me in jail and put you in jail. Gandhi does not like authority. He has this line like, how can you feed the hand that grabbed you?

Yeah. Something like that. He's a little bit like a teenager reacting to something that their parent does or their teacher does or something. Yeah. Where it's like, you're selling out to this structure, this abstract structure that I don't like. And there's no real thought to the realistic implications of, like, why you would have that kind of relationship with, you know, the county or... There's a naivete that they're attributing to him, which goes back to even when Rockford was explaining why

the whole bouncer deal was the way it was. It definitely, I think your teenager thing is right. It definitely has this feel of like, Rockford is the adult who has to deal with all these adult things. Like, right down to, you're eating the ham out of my fridge.

Like when you're under my house, it's under my rules, young man. I think you're absolutely right that there's sort of a stick it to the man kind of impertinence. The only other thing I want to make clear about Gandy in particular, though, is that it comes from a very specific place, which was he was wrongfully accused. Yes. And this doesn't come up in this episode other than just a line about his background. But if you've seen the previous episode that he was in, he was wrongfully accused of the murder of his wife and imprisoned. And no one believed him. And, you know, jail was not good for him. So this knee-jerk reaction against the state makes total sense given the full backstory of the character. In this episode, he's more of a foil for the other characters than anything else. So

since Rockford is taking this job from the state, then Gandhi's going to kind of give him crap about it. There's a parallel here with Rockford where they both have a moral center, right? They're not exactly aligned, but they're both good guys. You would definitely consider both of them good guys. And they both think that there's nothing wrong with their particular way of getting things done. Right. And they're both wrong about that. Gandhi's particular way is through intimidation and violence, and Rockford's is through deception and scams.

And Gandy definitely looks down on that, as we'll find out. Yeah. And I think Rockford looks down on how Gandy does it. And there's there's a that's a fruitful area to mine. Well, and the rest of this episode really kind of plays with those dichotomies. So, yeah, we'll get more into them as we go. So for the rest of the scene, Rockford's just kind of laying out for Gandhi and for the audience,

if you've only been having the TV on in the background or something, kind of laying out stakes of the job for him. Here's all the facts. I'm going to track down the heir, deliver him a 600,000. If I can't get him, then the county gets it. Theoretically, all our taxes go down. Ha ha ha.

Gandhi keeps kind of poking at him about working for the county, but also has a sense of not really having anything else to do or anywhere else to go. Rockford offers to drop him wherever he wants. And he says that he doesn't have anywhere in particular he needs to be. We kind of slide into this situation where we kind of see that Gandalf just doesn't really have anything going on, which is part of why he keeps needling Rockford about working with him. And so Rockford finally gives in and is like, look, I know lots of other PIs. Some of them are looking for help. I'll hook you up with someone. And Gandhi gets very appreciative. That would be what he wants.

And that kind of rescues his relationship with Rockford in this moment, right? He goes from being mad at him for working for the county to appreciative that he's going to try and hook him up with a job. I think this is kind of an important moment in television. It's a small moment and oftentimes we lose these moments, but the plan comes out and Gandy responds to it by saying, A-OK, obviously mimicking the guy that they had just met. And the both of them have this genuine laugh.

And it's this tiny little thing, but you look at the situation between Gandalf and Rockford, and you spend this whole time where they're at odds and in tension with each other. You need a moment to reveal why they're friends. Oh, yeah. You need a moment to say, this is how they are when they're just enjoying each other's company. Sometimes we forget to do that in whatever medium we're using. Like, you know, sometimes we're just like, well, they're friends. That's why they hang out. You're like, this is the most abusive relationship I've ever witnessed. Right. Like, why are these people friends? Right. That was just like a really good moment. They do this a couple times throughout the

this episode where they have these people at odds and then just completely just let them enjoy each other's company. And then it just tells the audience, oh, yeah, of course, they like each other. You know, despite all this, they like each other. Speaking of enjoying each other's company, we go to one of these other PIs that Rockford is promising to hook Gandy up with. We follow Rockford into a big fancy restaurant. It's obviously very expensive, where he is meeting Marcus for the first time in this episode, or Gabby as he starts being called shortly thereafter. So this is Louis Gossett Jr. He is young and he's uh so he has more reveals to him over the course of the episode right so we'll kind of get into his deal as we go but in our initial situation it's obvious that

he and rockford are good may not good friends but our friend lee know each other have a relationship the whole first half of the scene is basically just them bantering back and forth. Marcus kind of gives Jim crap for being low rent while he puts himself out there as someone who's into more white-collar crimes and having big clients and having money and having employees and all this kind of stuff. Where they meet is a place chosen by Marcus. Right. And it's an expensive restaurant that requires a tie.

And when we first see Marcus, the chair he's sitting in, it's a goddamn throne. Oh, yeah. He's well-dressed, you know, ready to preside over the world. There's a little, there's enough of a hint in all this, especially in how Rockford clearly isn't buying it. Right. His response is kind of like, yeah, I know you're full of crap in a friendly way. So I think Rockford's laying on a layer of crap as well, right?

Yeah. He's buttering him up because he knows that he's kind of shuffling Gandhi off on him. And he's like, well, you have a much bigger operation than I do. You have all these needs. You need employees. Yeah. You know, Marcus says, well, someday I'll even buy you out. He goes, well, you deal in hot air and I deal in cash. They kind of have each other's number, right? As audience, I think we see that by the end of this, this banter, their conversation is interrupted by the dulcet tones of Isaac Hayes as Gandhi is yelling that he's not going to wear no tie. Marcus is like, so this is your guy that you're trying to get me to hire?

Rockford and Marcus have a $10 bet about whether Gandhi is going to make it in without a tie or not. Which, first of all, was in cash, which I appreciated. tie or not which first of all was in cash which i appreciated yeah and then sure enough gandalf physically moves the maitre d out of his way and then comes over to their table and sits down and here's where we get the little quick backstory about gandalf like i was in jail for something i didn't do rockfish cleared my name and i got a pardon marcus does this little bragging thing just before g Gandhi shows up saying that he's mainly hiring people with pre-law degrees. And Ruckford says, well, this guy's got lots of legal experience. And then Marcus realizes what he's been handed and says,

this is more of a jailbird degree or something, or a yardbird. And Gandhi is not a fan of that. No, he takes offense real quick. You know, he doesn't want to be in with the law, but he also doesn't want to be looked down upon for having been in jail. So the whole dynamic of the rest of the scene is basically Gandy getting Marcus's backup or scaring him. Marcus trying to say, no, I'm not interested. And then Rockford and Gandy both kind of putting pressure back on him until finally he's like you know what i have a client that i'm meeting and i could use someone with just your skills to help me out it's like so you have a job lots of promises are thrown out but

yeah again there's no actual dollar amount as i sit and try and figure that out he's he'll throw around accounts receivable blah blah blah blah, blah, jargon. Yeah, he uses all these buzzwords. Yeah. But he's like, Jim, get whatever you want. Put it on my tab. We'll see you later. Which then leads to the delightful reveal of Marcus's little con on Jim. He called ahead, impersonated Jim, said that he was taking Marcus out for a birthday lunch and instructed the restaurant not to let him pay and ordered a birthday cake. Jim is now on the hook for this

birthday cake that he didn't order, but he also ordered a quiche. Yeah, a quiche, a wine and a mousse and chocolate mousse for dessert. this is what we get this is rockford's alone and he's not paying for the meal he orders quiche wine chocolate mousse this is great what a star each one of those was buzzwords for expensive food right like yeah each one of those especially in the 70s back then that would have been uh fancy and and uh it's definitely a wah-wah moment you know quiche like he doesn't order ribs he doesn't order a steak he orders quiche which is essentially fancy scrambled eggs yeah right this is again in keeping with his character of someone who likes simpler things like that's a fancy

version of a simple thing to me yeah and then when he learns that he's also on the hook for a birthday cake that he didn't order and then is asked what kind of quiche, he responds with the inexpensive kind. So Marcus won Rockford Zero in the Con Olympics thus far. Well, I mean, Marcus is out $10 for that bet, but probably up. So Marcus, in addition to setting up these expensive lunches they doesn't have to pay for, also rides in a limousine. So he and Gandhi get into the back

of this limo and start sniping right away because Gandhi's like, what's the job? And Mark's like, oh, oh, there's no job. You were my ticket away from paying for that lunch yeah so like rockbird marcus very good at reading the situation and taking advantage of what's available to him uh but this sets gandy off because he basically just got lied to straight to his face right yeah again there's a lot of kind of back and forth this is where marcus kind of starts using all those buzzwords about how he runs his business and how he takes a three percent margin on the difference between the rate of change of the job market and you know all these things that are just nonsense are clearly just meant to confuse who he thinks of as kind of a simpleton i think yeah but gandy's

having none of it rips his telephone the telephone cord out to demonstrate his strength and anger in the back of this limo he's got a you, the old style phone that he uses to communicate. Well, actually, I think he uses it to call someone else later, but like to communicate with the driver. This is one in a series of moments where Gandhi is, I don't want to say shockingly violent, but he does destructive stuff and Marcus takes it in such incredible stride. When they first meet, he kind of says like, wow, you really have a hair trigger, huh? And it's pretty literal. Like Gandhi goes off with very little provocation, especially when he thinks he's being lied to or talked down to.

Yeah. So he basically insists and he's not putting up with Gabby's slick talk. And so Marcus is like, okay, fine, fine. You have a job. Don't hurt me. Right. And also he didn't get to eat any lunch. So Marcus is like,

fine, I'll take you out to lunch where Gandy, I will note gets a taco. He and Rockford, I think soulmates in many ways. So of course he, he gets a taco at this outdoor eatery where marcus finally is like how can i turn this to my advantage and he wants to know what rockford's working on

so he gets the story of this uh inheritance track down out of gandy who doesn't think anything of you know just sharing the story because it's just what was happening with j, right? Right. He doesn't know that he's feeding the competition with Jim's plans. And this is where Marcus goes like, wait a second, he's doing this for the county? Yeah. He reads more into it than there is, I think. You kind of see this in his responses and kind of reading between the lines of what he says as he tries to get more information out of Gandhi. Rockford clearly has some angle on this that he didn't tell Gandhi that's tries to get more information out of gandhi rockford clearly has some angle on this that he

didn't tell gandhi that's going to get more money out of the six hundred thousand dollar inheritance so that means i can get more money out of it you know he's like well we're going to look into this too now this is our case yeah uh so now they're in competition which rockford does not know about however jim is on the case at this point he He's kind of gotten Gandy out of the picture from his perspective. He's back at his trailer, making some phone calls. Rocky is there and wants to know

where that ham went. Rocky is Rockford's dad and knows what's in Rockford's fridge, despite the fact that he doesn't actually live with Rockford, or knows what should be in it, and is concerned about the ham being missing. And Rockford's frayed despite the fact that he doesn't actually live with Rockford or knows what should be in it and is concerned about the ham being missing. And Rockford has a nice line in here, which is like, Gandy eats my ham. You drink my beer.

I need to make money somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. So he's kicking off this little subterfuge to try and track down Finn O'Herlihy, who he knows was in San Diego at some point. Like this whole thing, like the house and the inheritance and stuff it all centers around san diego so he's calling funeral homes because he's basically trying to track down and he he explains this plan to rocky so his dad here is really standing in as the audience to yeah to give jim some reason to tell us why he's doing what he's

doing because it's not immediately obvious yeah calling funeral homes to find the mother o'hurley he's where she's buried on the assumption that they're catholic because they're irish right being irish catholics the sons probably sent flowers to their mother's grave so if that is in fact the case he can then go back to the flower seller and find out who's been sending the flowers and get an address. This kind of legwork is, I mean, like he comes out and says that, you know, it doesn't always work, but for jobs like these, you give it a shot, if it pays out, it pays out. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And he calls out that it's safe.

Yeah. It's easy. It's safe. You know, sometimes it works. So this is where the episode starts to kind of diverge in terms of the sense of urgency and danger for different characters. From Rockford's perspective, this is all very day-to-day. Like, this is the kind of thing that there probably wouldn't be an episode of the show about because there's really not that much to it. This is what he's doing between episodes.

Right. It's what's happening with the other characters that starts creating urgency. From there, we jump back to Marcus and Gandhi. Marcus is dictating a set of legal documents that would sign over 40% of the inheritance to him. He's dictating them to a secretary that he apparently has in his lavish office with artifacts and big vases. So this is stark contrast to Rockford's trailer.

But also, since we know he's a fast-talking scam artist it's kind of like is he really paying for all this right you wouldn't be surprised if they just walk out and it's someone else's office that he just like scammed for an hour right um he explains the scheme to gandalf which is we'll tell him about the inheritance after he signs the paperwork it's legal and then we get 40 of the 600 000 and you'll get a bonus in your check at the end of the week and gandalf takes exception to this and he's like without me you wouldn't even know about this i want half right he knows he's not getting an envelope at the end of the week like he knows that that's not a thing that that's so it doesn't matter what gets stuffed in it it'll never come to him so and this is where we see that gandalf while very

straightforward is not stupid yeah especially when it comes to money is this also where we get um the first place where where marcus tries to leverage their dynamic as two black men yes he definitely says they have to stick together because of their their race and because you know brothers got to stick together kind of thing yeah and gandhi's like no you need to give me half of the money yeah yeah yeah i think that's one of the first moments where that that happens he's feeling gandhi out he's trying to find out what angle and gandhi is smart enough to stop him every every time he puts his feelers out. He just shuts it down.

That's something about this episode is that a lot of the dynamic between the two of them is between two black men in a predominantly white show. Yeah. That's not ignored in this episode. And we'll get to a scene in which it is very relevant. But even in the first introduction scene, Rockford says some things kind of like, I knew the two of you would get along. And it's kind of like, yeah, and no one calls it out. They kind of give him a side eye a little bit. I think this is also a good time to reveal this is

not an episode of the Rockford Files. This is an episode of Gabby and Gandhi. They're sort of the meat of the show. And this is roughly where we just kind of follow them for a large part. Yeah. You get the feeling that they're trying to set up a spinoff. Wouldn't it be fun to watch these two for a while? And that I can see being absolutely motivated by demographics. We want to launch a detective show with a black lead. And here's the possibility to do that and

i definitely as i was watching this episode i couldn't help but think honestly i couldn't help but think that i would enjoy that i would watch the hell out of cabbie oh yeah for sure i mean they're a great opposites attract kind of pairing yeah i wouldn't be surprised if that was a thought um i'm pretty sure that this is the last time that we see the marcus hayes character in the show though so yeah you know who knows maybe something maybe they didn't like doing it or who knows but the interactions between them on the screen are pretty great and we get more of these kind of moments that are leaning a little bit more into bringing in a more realistic sense of like how these guys would talk to each other when

there aren't white people around essentially i just looked it up and it was absolutely true oh really it was an attempt to launch a spin-off show starring the two of them so that's interesting yeah well that explains a lot of why there's so much of this episode is follows them yeah so we end that scene with with mar Marcus agreeing to the 50% split under threat of physical violence. And then we have a quick interstitial scene where a guy is picking up a tuxedo and jumping back into his car

with a line that he's late for the wedding rehearsal. Yeah. So this is the first indication of anything to do with the title of the episode, just another Polish wedding. See a guy, he's late for the wedding rehearsal, he drives away, next scene. Yes. This guy is interesting to me because he's got the feel of an early 80s heartthrob. Like he definitely looks like he would be in Journey.

Yeah, but this is just planting the seed so that we kind of know who this person is when we see him later. We move on from there to the gorilla that we saw earlier, or one of his dudes is hanging out in a car outside the probate court and is listening in on whatever phone they tapped. They're listening in on a call where Rockford is calling the guy to tell him, hey, I found the plot that the mother's buried in in San Diego. I'm going to follow it up. And he explains, I can get the guy's address if I find the flower.

You know, whoever sells them the flowers. This was a moment where I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. These guys were involved. Like this is... Right, yeah. You kind of forgot because there's so much with all the new characters and all this other and kind of the all the banter. This is where we kind of pick back up with the plot,

essentially the story that that rockford's following regardless uh this phone call is overheard the goon then checks in with the main gorilla the first guy that we saw who i don't think we ever get his name to tell him hey i heard this guy rockford he's going to san diego etc etc you know what do you want me to do and so they kind of split up. The guy who is listening in is going to, or is going to go down to San Diego to check out the situation. The main guy is going to check out Rockford and see what his deal is. And he does specifically say there's no need to call big Sal in Brooklyn yet until we know what's going on. So there's our second tell that yes, this is the mob is involved. Anyone from Chicago or New York, especially with some kind of Italian name or derivative, is definitely a representative of organized crime.

We cut from here to our well-coiffed young man arriving to the wedding rehearsal that he was late for, apologizing. They're on the steps of the church. His car got backed into or something, and his parents are not going to make it to the rehearsal because they're stuck in snow in Wichita but they'll definitely be there for the ceremony this is some of the brilliance of the Rockford files because you're kind of holding on to all this as if it was important when I watched this for today I remembered at this point the first

time I watched it going oh this guy must obviously be involved with the mob and his parents in Wichita is a lie. That is where my mind went because it's a Rockford Files episode. And that seems like the most straightforward reveal about why we care about this person and why this matters at all. But what's really happening here is that these are all this guy, his fiance, his parents, her parents. They're all real people in the middle of actual real lives that are about to intersect with the plot line, but not actually driving it. So you get these juicy details that you're like, ooh, if I were running this as a role playing game and I drop those details, you know that the player characters would just sink their teeth into them we gotta gotta tease the plot out and then you would have to shift to that but it's it's not so you're you're you're good these scenes are just giving us context for

a late for later scenes yeah in a really interesting way they're not filler no no it's so that the later scene itself is not filler right like it's so that there's a small little story being told about the wedding in and of itself. This is one of the few episodes of Rockford, I think, that has a clear A plot, B plot. And this is kind of a C plot about this wedding. It has its own little tension, its own little resolution. It may even be a D plot. It depends on where you put the mob. Right. If they're their own plot, you know.

Yeah. I think Rockford's the B plot, like following, getting his 200 a day. And the A plot is Gandalf and Gandhi, who we now go back to as they have gone to the original setting, the farm or whatever that they were digging at. But now there's just a big mound of trash there. farm or whatever that they were digging at but now there's just a big mound of trash there and this very economically i think yes where there's just like a line about like why are we here well we need to find out everything we can about this guy and then gabby picks a piece of something out of this trash pile and it has a name on it called crystal palace they said oh he's a musician right and this has come up in some earlier scenes that the guy they're looking for, real name

Finn O'Herlihy, but they can't find him by that name. So he probably has some other name, but he's a musician. They were both musicians. So that's the only other lead they have. So Crystal Palace, some kind of venue. That's their next lead. The economy here, you're absolutely right. This is, I mean, I wrote in my note, clue right off the bat.

We're at this scene, which the audience has seen before. So we recognize what it is. What are we looking for? We're looking for a clue. Here's a clue. Let's go. Here's a clue. Why is this a clue?

Because he's a musician. Okay, let's go. And it was good. It was good. It got them from A to B. Oh, and B is so good. B is so good. Oh, man.

Okay, get ready. Because there's so much going on in this scene. And we're maybe halfway through the episode at this point maybe a little more yeah there's really only like two more like big scenes but this is one of them they pull up to the crystal palace marcus is like you know let me go in i'll find out i'll try and track him down gandalf will not let him out of his sight he knows he's gonna run yeah he's gonna run or he's gonna get scammed or something and then finally it's like fine we'll both go in. And they walk into the Crystal Palace.

Eppie, tell me about the Crystal Palace. Well, the Crystal Palace is like something out of Germany in the 30s or America in the late teens. The Crystal Palace is a Nazi bar. It is head-to-toe swastikas. is a Nazi bar. It is head-to-toe swastikas. It is full of men in khaki fatigues with Nazi armbands on. There's nothing subtle about this at all. There is a flag on the wall.

There is a framed portrait of Hitler behind the bar. They're playing polka music on the jukebox. There's just so much here. Like, on the one hand, is this a thing in the early to mid-70s? Were there Nazi bars that existed in this manner where it's like you put on your Wehrmacht uniform and go to the bar to listen to polka music? I was too young for Nazi bars when I was in the 70s. So I never actually went to one. But, you know, it's closer to World War II, and that was definitely in the cultural conscience.

You know that people collected Nazi memorabilia. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, as we dissect this scene, some of the things that Marcus is going to say are actual arguments I remember hearing in my youth. Things like this great line where there's this great thing about this country where people of all political persuasions, whether they're Republicans or Democrats or socialists or Nazis or communists. Yeah. Like, I feel like I'm stepping over some juicy parts because all of this scene is great. But when he says or Nazis, they get up as if he used a slur. Yeah.

I mean, they're literal Nazis. They're wearing swastika armbands and they look offended by the fact that he referred to them as Nazis, which is great. The idea that there is a bar for people who are into Nazi stuff or identify as Nazis to hang out together, not far-fetched. Right. Is there a changing room? Like, do they walk out in public in the Nazi regalia or do they come and go into the cloakroom and change? So I know that in Chicago, there's a German area of town that I used to live in.

And there was a bar there that until the late 80s, they still had a Nazi flag on the wall. It was like old German men would go hang out there and kind of be together in their feelings of, you know, the glory days were the days of national socialism and stuff like that. Like, that's a real thing. And I'm sure there are still places like that in the world, in America. But the imagery, like the visual impact of the scene is a little silly. Yeah. It's a little central casting. But then it doesn't immediately break into a fight.

And it's not played for like want-want laughs. Right. There's an entire sequence of Gabby in particular trying to talk some kind of information that they actually want to get out of this situation without triggering violence. movie to a dynamic interaction that then breaks out into a fight in a way that makes sense from how the conversation one-sided as it may be has been going it's a fun scene to watch marcus try and uh work his magic which is just not going to work i guess my favorite part is that he says that he's from the liquor licensing board or something like that they're still not buying it and he says well then i'll have to talk to my supervisor and then gives him like like a supervisor's name is german von german you can see him trying to lay the groundwork for maybe

calling up and pretending to be this supervisor yeah he's trying every trick in the book all they want to do is find out if this guy played accordion and what had you know the next step to trying and find him but these guys aren't playing right because they're a bunch of nazis and two black guys just walked into their bar patter is amazing it's you really i mean we're not going to try to recap everything it's you have to watch the scene to see all the wonderful use of language here but he kind of finally spins down and turns to gandhi and he just goes it's a cold house man so we're shortly after this the the tension comes to a peak and gabby's out of things to say and that's when gandalf finally starts swinging yeah

and we get the most cathartic watching isaac hayes beat up a bunch of Nazis scene you never knew you wanted. It was so good. From the get-go in that scene, when they walk in and everything kind of goes a little quiet, from that moment on, you're just like, I cannot wait for Gandalf to just kick ass. Like, this is the, like, oh God. We've been waiting for this the whole episode and we didn't even know. Yeah, like just, Oh, this is going to be great. And it delivers. Marcus holds his own. Like, you kind of expect him to cower a little bit.

And he does duck behind some things while Gandhi does most of the legwork. But in sort of the traditional trope, the barkeep has a shotgun that he reaches for. And Marcus waylays him and takes the shotgun and then shoots the framed photo of adolf hitler i mean it was a little bit of like can i have your attention but it's also a little bit of like i have a shotgun there's a framed photo of hitler yeah what else can we do with this the show sets up this bizarre situation and then resolves it in the most satisfying way possible yeah like they beat up the nazis they shoot hitler in absentia they uh lean on the bartender they get the information they need which is just that back when the place was a quote-unquote alpine restaurant which i don't

know what that means don't either they had an accordion player whose name is Frank Martin. Who played that Alpine kind music, which I intended to jump on YouTube to find out if I can hear some Alpine type music, but I forgot to do that. Anyone's an Alpine type music aficionado, let us know. Yeah. So that's the information. That's all they need. That's all they want out of this. They hit the burglar alarm so that the cops are going to come. Ditch the place.

Marcus is still holding the shotgun. They jump into the limo. And the limo pulls away as the cops are arriving. And they don't get hassled. And they don't get messed with. They beat up Nazis. Get what they want. Leave clean.

Our heroes. And oh, after they beat him up and shoot Adolf, there's this short diatribe that Marcus gets to deliver about the eternal strength of the middle class. Right. It's just, oh, it's good. So good. Oh, man. It's like, it's a real peak of a scene. It is.

And I completely forgot. I've seen this episode before. I'd completely forgotten that this scene was in this episode until I walked in and we saw the shot of all the guys with their armbands and i was like this scene like my eyes lit up immediately so i gotta bring something up here because this is there are a few weird things about this episode but i think the one thing about this episode that's out of place is the limo driver and the fact that the limo driver is not a character at all because when they get back into the limo after this scene i was like oh right they have a limo and somebody's driving it and i don't even know if we even hear his voice he's called alfred i

think oh maybe yeah like he has a name that but yeah he's barely in the thing which is a little out of keeping because usually these minor characters are yeah i wonder and this is complete speculation but i wonder if they did spin this off and it was the two of them with a limo, if they were then going to try and like cast a limo driver. Right. But they didn't really have anyone in mind, so they didn't want to like lock anything in for the actor.

But yeah, we they peel away in the limo and we get a short scene of the two of them essentially celebrating. Yeah, we kick those Nazis asses. And this is another one of those that like i said before where you have a moment to show why these characters might get along why they don't just leave each other behind yeah i i wrote down actually that this is where we see their first real camaraderie yeah where they're not sniping at each other and they're not trying to play each other uh or get something out of each other where they're like weing at each other and they're not trying to play each other or get something out of each other, where they're like,

we did a thing and with the two of us together, we succeeded, which is really nice. It's a really nice moment that, as you say, makes it make way more sense how they keep sticking together from here on forward. We follow them to Rockford's trailer, where Marcus is making a play to try and figure out where Rockford is in this whole situation. It's unclear what he would do if Rockford was there. But thankfully, Rockford is not there. His dad, Rocky, is instead.

Rocky, in full old man Rocky mode, proceeds to spill all the beans about what Rockford is up to. His play for following the trail back to the flower sellers to find the guy, etc., etc. It's great because Rocky is bragging about his son, which is part of what's going on there. And also Rocky remembers Marcus from being formerly a parole officer, right? Right. And so this is where we learn a little bit about Marcus's backstory. Marcus used to work as a parole officer, and that's where he originally met Jim. And then I think there's some explanation for why he quit or was fired and became a PI. But he either was a parole officer or that was a scam he was running at the time. And that's why

Rocky remembers him from their first interaction. The whole time he's talking as if he was talking to one of a younger child's teachers, right? Like in Rocky's eyes, Rockford is probably 16 years old. Yeah, it's adorable. It's like really kind of shows you the adorable, loving, but slightly concerned side of Rocky. Marcus is impressed by Jim's play here. Like he's like, oh, that's brilliant.

I should have thought of that. But he basically gets the info on where Jim is and what he's play here. Like, he's like, oh, that's brilliant. I should have thought of that. But he basically gets the info on where Jim is and what he's up to and leaves Rocky to drink his beer and, you know, wait for whatever's

going to happen next. When he leaves the trailer, Gandhi was listening because he was just standing outside and could hear everything. And now he's mad again because Jim's his friend

and he just heard Marcus sell him out, basically, get this information and kind of lie to Rocky. Yes, Marcus, aren't you ashamed, man? And Marcus replies with, it comes and it goes. A rare glimpse into the dark side of Marcus. They leave in their limo and then the goons who were staking out Rockford's trailer then follow them as well. goons who were staking out Rockford's trailer then follow them as well. We get a brief shot

establishing where the mob guys are in this situation. We have another quick scene that's just a voiceover as we see the limo driving down to San Diego. And this is where we get the phone call from the limo company asking, how much longer

do you want to keep this before you decide you want to buy it? And Mark is saying, I need a little longer because I'm thinking about buying a fleet of them. Right. That's his scam for keeping the limo around. He's auditioning it for a purchase that we know he's not going to make. This is the moment that I really worry about that driver. What is going on in his head? So now we catch back up with Jim in in his investigation and in all this time he's basically just gone from a to b yeah he went to san diego to investigate the graveyard and now

he's at the flower shop he doesn't know that he's in a race right that's i think kind of the fun thing about it like he wants to get it done but he doesn't have to hustle the way the other two gabby and the mob have to hustle in order to keep ahead of what's going on we still don't know what the mob's motivation is except that there's money involved yeah but gabby knows that he needs to get to the the air the mark essentially first to get him to sign this document to get the money because if rockford gets to him first then he's going to get the full inheritance and gabby will get nothing exactly uh so rockford's at this flower shop he has a whole um little rockford song and dance about being a representative from remember me incorporated which offers personalized remembrance services and the flower shop guys

like they do that grave by grave now usually that's the whole cemetery at once so in his perfect jim rockford way he kind of explains how things are these days and people appreciating more personalized service right this is great because this is um this is a character who from the get-go doesn't believe rockford or is suspicious of rockford and remains suspicious of him throughout the entire conversation. And Rockford still gets what he needs. He just doesn't break the character. Right. Even though the guy keeps pushing on it and pushing on it.

Yeah, he's a little suspicious, but there's enough, I don't know, compelling story in what Rockford is spinning that he doesn't see any reason to say no. And that's all Rockford needs. He wants to look at the account record so that he can get a name and an address that's all he needs so he gets the guy mr gert mendian oh yeah to show him the account we see over his shoulder that the flowers have been being sent from a mr frank martin and there's an address so now we have established from two directions that they're looking for frank martin rockford just kind of buttons up the con and is like okay well what you're doing is fine so carry on and just leaves from here we go to uh wedding bells playing at the church.

That wedding, you remember, has been happening in the background? It's happened. The happy couple is coming down the steps of the church, and that's when a cab pulls up, and the groom's parents get out. They miss the wedding, but they're there now. Again, it's all this wonderful background drama in the life of this wedding that we still, as audience, we're like, which one's frank what's going on you know i'm like oh so the groom must be frank right that's what would make sense

here but then they call him by name and his name is fred so it's not him so we still don't know yeah what is going on so now we get each of our principles uh figuring out how to how to find get each of our principals uh figuring out how to how to find frank gandy and marcus go to the musicians union and pose as gig musicians marcus goes into full slingy jive yeah kind of talk he calls the calls the secretary mama and all that kind of stuff and smoothly pitches a story about how how they're supposed to come and play with frank martin they never got the address where's it at it's like oh he's playing a solo gig at this wedding they're like to come and play with Frank Martin. They never got the address. Where's it at? It's like, oh, he's playing a solo gig at this wedding. They're like, who's the wedding? And she says the name.

And they're like, oh, yeah, he's a musician's too. It's a musician's wedding. That's why we're going. So he just like slides around these logical obstacles. You can either have the lie, the con, the scam work, or you can have it fail. But what often happens in the Rockford Files is that it gets you only

so far and then you have to do something else. You have to downshift or you have to swerve around something to... I'm using car metaphors, obviously, because we still haven't done a good chase episode. And it's great. I think that makes all of these things far more memorable than they would be if Rockford just walked into the florist and dropped this line and it just worked. Or he walked in and beat the guy up and the guy told him what he wanted to know. Yeah. This is also, I started thinking about one of the, again, interesting parts of the dynamic in this is that Marcus here is doing a lot of, I think what we'd call now code switching. And we'll see it again in a minute.

He's very practiced at presenting different cultural and subcultural and whatever tells to give people different impressions of him. Yeah, to fit their expectations. He's able to, yeah, fulfill expectations of who he's supposed to be. So he can be a posh, rich guy in a limo in one scene. He's just kind of jive-talking musician in the next scene. And it's all in service to his agenda, which is really interesting. When they leave, Gandhi's like, you know, where'd you learn to talk all that jive, basically?

And he replies with, I read Downbeat. Which, contextually, I assume is, you know, a black musician magazine or a black magazine or something at the time. I apologize if I'm failing in adequately recognizing a cultural signifier, but it's again, part of this thing where they're living in this world and taking what they need out of the different cultures that they're in as an audience member. They feel like real people at this time to me, right?

They don't feel like caricatures, even though they use caricature in different scenes for the characters' purposes. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's just the way we operate normally. You just see it in a more exaggerated fashion because he's not just being a certain person to his coworkers and a different person to his family. Since we're able to do that, it's easy to see this extension. To take the exaggeration and make it more natural, I guess.

Yeah, it seems like it's a very natural thing. Rockford's approach, on the other hand, is to go to the address that he got and talk to the man's wife and find out that he's playing a gig. He poses as a representative of the musician's union because he needs to find him to tell him about a new gig or give him money or something i do like that they're both coming in not only zeroing in on the the person they're after but they're both using sort of the same yeah leverage they both know that there's a musician's union and that that's probably important to what this guy does. Yeah. Yeah. So they both get the same information from these two different directions, which is that Fred is playing a gig for the Casca family wedding reception at

this nautical club we have a quick scene at the reception where we have our first actual kind of dialogue with fred the groom and who you presume to be his best man he's not happy with how the wedding went his parents were late and the groomsmen were all dressed differently or something like that you You all look different. Again, like immediately thinking that that was part of some scam and it's not, it's just a legit normal everyday wedding concern. Sometimes things just don't go how you planned and it's a little annoying, but as his friend reminds him, that's all over. The reception is going to be great. And now we get everyone coming to this wedding reception. I'm just going to go through each player and what they do to get into the invite-only reception

when none of them have been invited. Rockford poses as club security, or he says he's from a security firm engaged by the club, and he just wants to check it out so he knows where to position his guys to make sure that no one follows the reception. He's talking to the father of the bride, I think? Yeah. And basically scams the invite

off of him so that he can quote unquote show it to his guys so they know what to look for and it's all just like smooth patter the guy kind of instantly believes him gives him his invite does say oh are you going to wear that uh because he's not wearing a reception-appropriate sport jacket. He assures him he'll get his dress one out of the car. He's just going to check out the space. And then he goes in, invitation in hand, so that anyone else who challenges him, he can have his way be smooth. See, this is Rockford's smart move, right?

Is I'm not going to pretend to be someone that anyone here would have any reason to know who I am, but rather just someone who has a legitimate reason to be here. Marcus, on the other hand, claims that they are old teachers of the groom of Fred. They wouldn't miss it for the world. And, oh, he's a chemistry teacher. Gandhi is the gym coach, obviously. Throw in some shade.

Right. And he tries to pull an absent-minded professor routine about, I had an invite, but I left it in my book. And he lays it on way too thick, I feel. Yeah. Perhaps trusting in his slick talk has gotten him this far. The guy checking invites isn't buying it and tells him, no invites, adios. This is one of the guys that I'm not quite sure what's going on with the wedding, and

I feel like he's a gorilla. I could definitely see him cast as a gorilla. So like I said in the beginning of this episode, they're starting to have a look or a feel to them and I was wrong. This guy is just a bouncer. So this guy, frequent watchers will probably recognize him because he's been in a bunch of episodes.

And he, to me, is the most 70s looking dude in the entire run of the series. Oh, that's... He just has, I can't imagine him in any other decade. He has such a great look. He's so, he stands out. He's such a goon. And he's been in a couple other like TV shows and bit parts and stuff. But yeah, just so, so 70s. So perfect. We get a really good line from Gandhi immediately following this rejection where Gandhi says to Gabby, he says, I love it when you can't get your

eggs hatched. Yeah. Even though they're on the same side, theoretically, he still is taking some pleasure in, uh, in Gabby's, uh, lack of success running his mouth. So this is where he's like, that didn't work. So instead we're going to pose as kitchen staff or waiters and go in the back. And then he plays a little bit of a like yes sir get you whatever you want sir kind of jive and gandhi he says that he is not going to be no tom yeah he refuses to do it again interesting and very real feeling interaction about this where it's like you can present whatever face you want i'm not going to go and pretend to be a servant in this white country club yeah yeah to all these people who are going to look down on me it's a moral line that gandhi go and pretend to be a servant in this white country club.

Yeah, yeah. To all these people who are going to look down on me. It's a moral line that Gandhi gets to draw. I enjoy seeing how the two of them look at what is an available tool and what is, I was trying to think of something that might be the opposite of a tool, but. And what's too far or what are you not willing to use even if you could? They have different ways of dividing that. I mean, we don't really see much of what Marcus is not willing to do, but you assume it's not a whole lot of violence. Like he avoids that.

And not only does Gandhi say, I'm not doing that, but that doesn't stop Marcus from doing that. It's the first time that Marcus actually is able to leave Gandhi behind. Yeah. You like finally found the line, which is interesting. So Gandhi stays outside. He literally just sits down on the step and is like, alright, I'll just wait until something happens. And the goons, the

mob guys pull up. They see what's going on and they have a quick conversation about how we can't let this get out of hand. Things moving too quickly we're just going to whack him here well let's go in the back and yeah kill him in front of all these people basically why not that's the cleanest way to do it right but then that kind of amps up to like oh these guys like they don't just want money because the first time we learned that they want to kill this guy um and that's more important than whatever this money inheritance thing going on is. Yeah, we could have maybe guessed that earlier, but this is when it's made completely evident.

So all of our principals are on the scene, and we finally get our first real look at Frank, this musician with his accordion. He's going to be presenting Mr. and Mrs. Fred Koska. The Koska wedding has been what we've been hearing about. So there's our Polish wedding for you, right? He's going to be playing them out to raindrops on the accordion. Which is their song. He has that great line where he's like, that's everyone's song. So he gets up on a stage and starts playing the accordion into this microphone.

Once he starts playing, both Marcus who has come in as a waiter and Rockford who's just been walking around and sipping drinks and trying to find the guy realize that that's the guy. They both start trying to get to him through the crowd while the happy couple is dancing, having their first, you know, dance. Marcus gets to him first and starts just pitching him immediately.

Like, I think he says 400,000. Yeah. So I have 400,000 for you. No strings attached. You just have to sign this and I can get it to you. And he's still playing the accordion. He's still playing the dance while marcus is telling him this and then rockford gets to him on the other side and says mr o'hurley he uh your brother died and left you this inheritance you know don't listen to him i'm here to give you

the information and the paperwork so you can claim it but when he says mr o'hurley he yeah then our accordion player frank uh or finn'Herlihy, gets this look of panic. And you can see that he immediately stops listening to both of them, starts looking around, and then he just runs. And this is when the action kicks into high gear. The mob guys have infiltrated the party. They see him run. They start chasing. Rockford and Marcus are both chasing him.

Shots are fired, which alerts Gandalf outside. So he is ready for trouble. A man gets pushed fully into the wedding cake, which is a delightful moment from the preview montage. And then once everyone kind of spills out of the club, Gandhi starts punching the mob guys. Rockford gets a couple hits in too. They subdue these potential assassins of O'Herlihy. In the middle of all that chaos, Gabi makes sure that this guy knows that it was him and his associate that saved his life. Right. Still working some angle to get some money out of this, even though Rockford has flushed it all down the toilet. Once the goons are subdued, there's this great moment that kind of caps off the scene where Marcus is still trying to talk to O'Herlihy. Rockford has one of the mob guys kind of in a headlock. Gandhi's punched the other guy's lights out and Gandhi asks Rockfish, hey, what should I do? Rockford just says, put him to sleep. And he just punches Gabby in the mouth

and we have this slow motion shot of him just dropping straight to the ground. Oh man. It's just this clean. Okay, good. We did it. Yeah. We hit this humorous note. And not only that, but at the behest of Rockford himself. It serves a couple of things. Like I agree that it is a little out of keeping because even, even though like the fighting on Rockford files isn't particularly quote unquote realistic, it's usually a little dirtier and grubbier than just punching someone and they fall down. But I think it is establishing first that Gandhi respects Rockford more than he respects Marcus. Yeah. That he is stronger than anyone else in the scene because he has that ability to do it.

And also that Marcus is kind of a featherweight, right? Yeah. While tonally it is a little weird i think it does at least play into the characters as established because rockford is just very like i thought this was going to be very simple and then it all exploded and it's kind of marcus's fault yeah so you know plus he's still you know it's probably hurting from that bill he had to pay at the restaurant so so we finished this episode with the cops arrest everyone. They throw our three PIs in the back of a squad car.

We get a little bit of exposition. So the O'Herlihy brothers stole that $600,000 from the mob 20 years ago and then went into hiding. So that's what triggered their name change. And then the mob never forgets, you know, and they were just looking to put him on ice out of revenge for that long ago crime. This also establishes that nobody's going to make any money off of this anyways. Right.

It's all for a loss. And then this little final bit is where we get Jim's great line. So Gandy says something to Marcus and calls him Gabby. And so this is where Rockford then goes with what potentially would be our spinoff, right? Gabby and Gandhi sound like a puppet show. It does. They laugh and laugh. And we end the episode with the freeze frame of Jim and Marcus laughing and Gandhi just shaking his head in the middle of them in the back of the squad car.

So we established that no one made any money out of this. So Rockford definitely was out money. He may have made his $200 a day. He was working in good faith. You'd think that the county would still pay. And he found the guy. Exactly. I think Rockford definitely made $10 off the bet,

then had to pay that bill. He may have to repair his own suit. I don't know if Gandy will ever pay him back for bailing him out. There was another bit. Oh, the ham, obviously the ham and the beer that everyone was drinking. That was Rockford's, but he definitely, if he made this 200 a day, he's doing all right. The episode happens over the course of two days. So, you know, if he actually got his 400 bucks, that's not bad. Yeah, it's not bad but definitely the the uh gabby and gandy they didn't make no they did not do well if i were i would not keep their books that is

definitely something that i would not do uh rockford's would be a nice running joke gabby and gandy's would be a nightmare man there's so much to like in this episode yeah again we like most of the episodes but this one the story the plot, the mystery is kind of by the by. It's really more about enjoying these characters, watching them punch Nazis, see what it is that brings them together. They're not in a lot of other episodes. There's only two or three with each of these characters, unlike, say, Rocky and Angel and Beth that are in many, many episodes. So it's kind of nice to get the concentrated this episode is kind of about them because we don't really see them very much

gandalf is definitely one of my favorite fictional gandalfs maybe my favorite i don't know definitely in the top three yeah yeah no this episode was uh like i said in the beginning, it has kind of a romp feel to it. And it's really enjoyable. And I do like the backseat that Rockford takes. It would be kind of fun to edit together just to see Rockford's parts. Yeah. At the end, when all the shit hits the fan, like, what's going on? Why are you here?

What's happening? From his perspective, there's nothing really going on until are you here what's happening from his perspective there's nothing really going on until he sees marcus at the club at the end that's the first indication that he really has that there's a race yeah and same with the mob until they start shooting he doesn't even know that they're there so that part i think is is is a lot of fun and like i said i would have watched gabby and gandy if they never got it together to put that one out. Yeah, that dynamic definitely room to grow, right? Like, I don't know if I'd want to watch this exact dynamic over and over, but you could see there's enough.

The characters are fully realized enough that you can see how they would grow over time, given more time. One other thing I like about this in terms of how it's structured and written is that we're expecting the twist in terms of the mystery because it's a Rockford episode. But it's really actually pretty straightforward. The biggest turn is that it keeps giving us things that we think are going to be twists, but then they're not. Then they're just side plots like all the wedding stuff. There's a reveal about the mob, it being mob money and thus no inheritance. But that's not really a twist. So the show itself, the way that it's written, it kind of plays on its own structure. Because if it had a twisty-turny reveal, that would probably distract from the gold episode, which is to kind of showcase Gabby and Gandhi.

Probably most enjoyable if you already have some context for the Rockford files. So maybe not a go watch this as your very first episode, unless you absolutely love Isaac Hayes, in which case go watch this as your first episode. I don't think you need to see the other Marcus or Gandalf episodes, but definitely if you're watching them in the order in which we are doing our episodes, which is there's no specific structure to what we're doing here, then you're fine. You've seen enough of Rockford to kind of understand.

But yeah, don't just start on this one. It won't have the feel of like a normal Rockford. Yeah, the nuances really pop once you have the context of the rest of the show, I think. All right. Well, I think we'll go ahead and take our break. And then we'll come back. And I definitely have at least one thing that i think would be really useful for games to talk about from this episode so we'll get into that in our

second half all right 200 a day is supported by all of our listeners but especially our gumshoes for this month we have four of them to thank thanks to kevin lovecraft you can hear him on the wednesday evening podcast All-Stars Actual Play podcast, where they're currently playing 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. Visit misdirectedmark.com to find that feed, along with other gaming podcasts in the Misdirected Mark Productions Network.

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to do things like upgrade our audio, and if we get enough support, release shows more often, so it'll be more Rockford for you. And third, both of us have other projects. Epi, what do you have going on right now? You can check out my Sword and Sorcery fiction and the Sword and Sorcery fiction of other people, along with games and comics at worldswithoutmaster.com. So Nathan, what do you have going on? Well, I'm always working on designing and publishing new games. You can find my current offerings, including the Worldwide Wrestling World Playing Game, at ndpdesign.com. Or check out my Patreon for process and new experiments at patreon.com slash ndpaoletta.

Thanks for listening. And now, back to the show. Welcome back to Under the Day. We're going to talk a little bit about just another Polish wedding and the lessons to be learned from a Polish wedding when it comes to your fiction, whatever form it may take. This episode is much more about the characters and less about the plot. And I think there's a lot we can look at from that direction. The first thing that I kind of want to bring up is looking at this episode from Gandhi's eyes, right? So he's friends with Rockford,

but he has concerns about how Rockford does his business, right? Like he doesn't like that Rockford works for the county because the county is what put them both away. You know, he doesn't like all the sort of cons and scams that we as audience members love dearly. And one of the things that I thought was really well done in this episode was that putting the character of Marcus as sort of a more exaggerated version of the features of Rockford that Gandy didn't like.

We establish early on that the two, Rockford and Gandy, get along to some extent that maybe Rock rockford feels put upon by gandhi i mean obviously anybody who eats his ham is gonna is gonna get his scorn but then we have this the most of the show is about this relationship that is where gandhi gets to be the one put upon by a caricature of rockford in in certain ways right gandhi calls marcus Gabby because he has such a fast mouth, right? He's always talking. And Rockford also talks a big game. But Rockford, unlike Marcus, will stop talking if he thinks that it's not getting him anywhere.

And he's also more physical, right? Like he also, he blends both approaches. Yeah. And I really enjoy when people do that in their fiction, when they, when they create opportunities to examine the different characters by their relationships with other characters. You can imagine at the end of all this, if Gandhi starts hanging out again with Rockford being like, oh, well, thank God it's Rockford and not Mark. It's an episode of the Rockford file. So it's easy to take Rockford being like, oh, well, thank God it's Rockford and not Mark. It's an episode of the Rockford Files. So it's easy to take Rockford's side in all of this and see Gandy

as sort of a, I mean, vaguely parasitic, but I guess that's not really what I want. I think more of just... He's a bit of a hard luck case, right? Like Rockford feels a little bit responsible for him, even when he rubs him the wrong way. He shows up, or he gets bailed out, and then the next morning, Rockford's like, well, I'll drop you off wherever you want. And he's like, well, nothing seems right. And it's like, just get out of my life today. Like, I don't want to get rid of you forever, but oh my God. And so it would be real easy to look at Gandalf as a burden.

And I think the episode does a good job of giving us this sort of, okay, but here's what Rockford is. Well, his directness is the foil for both Rockford and Marcus, right? Like, both of them are about redirection and misdirection. And Gandalf is all about just going straight from A to B. I can handle anything that comes up in my way. He doesn't necessarily think about consequences. I think there's a way you could order these three characters in all these different ways.

Rockford is more direct, but he cares about consequences. But he's also willing to employ subterfuge. Marcus is all talk, doesn't care about consequences at all, and not really physical. And then Gandhi is very physical, doesn't really talk his way around things or misdirect, but also doesn't really care about consequences or think about them. And you could probably do this for all kinds of different attributes, but I think that shows you a method maybe towards taking a character that we know well and then thinking about what are some other characters that can reflect what they do and what they're about and also counter what they do and what they're about that creates a dynamic relationship between the three of them so in the context of this episode who would you say are the like

protagonists between the three of them that's a good question well i mean and a valid answer is they all are but i think there's interesting ways to look at it where only two of them are and the third is yeah a side character essentially or a you know a foil or a reflection i think you're right like one answer is yeah they all are uh or another answer is to take one or two of them and look at the episode in that way and then flip it around yeah and take the other kind of like you said if we just followed rockford it would be a very different episode yeah but it probably wouldn't be nearly as interesting similarly if rockford wasn't in the episode if it was just gabby and gandhi like this spinoff might have been

i don't know if there'd be so much of a change right right yeah you could see a version of the story where rockford is just there in the beginning and just there at the end. It could be that, is it Freddy Costa? Koska. Fred Koska. That's the protagonist of our story. This poor... We see his poor maligned wedding. He's having a bad day. Gets in a car accident off screen. His parents don't make it to his own wedding. His groomsmen can't get it together. And then just when he thinks it's

all set there's a mob hit at his reception that sounds like a pretty fun uh fun story um so like this idea of of the the characters mirroring or being in verses of of others is that something that you would want to set up at the beginning of a of something or do you think there's ways that it can emerge or like be a choice you make in the creative process like where does that come in that's i mean that's a tough one it's a fruitful exercise to start off that way and try and create characters that fit uh that mold whether or not that's the way you do it every single time that you know we're both indie gamers at heart you you change your game when you need to change how you do it but i think that if you've got a story that you're

working on that you're a little bored with yourself so you know that the the audience they're not going to be eating it up that's something that you can do from from the get-go is to just say okay well what is it uh is it about this character that I can reflect and distort in this other character that'll generate something more interesting? You can tell stories with Gabby that you can't tell with Rockford because you can let him go more over the top than Rockford does. And the same thing is with Gandhi. Rockford, James Gardner is an imposing dude.

In all these episodes, there's all these gorillas that show up, but he still, he throws some punches. He holds his own, but you couldn't tell a Gandhi story with him. You couldn't have him, you know, just decide to solve it with muscle. You couldn't have him beat up a bunch of Nazis. Yeah. Although, I'd pay so much money to see James Gardner beat up a bunch of Nazis. Yeah. Although I pay so much money to see James Gardner beat up a bunch of Nazis. Well, speaking of that,

I think that stood out to me in this episode because as we discussed the, the moment where they walk into the, to the, the crystal palace and there's all those guys and they're on armbands and swastikas. That first initial moment, it's kind of weird, right?

Like it's, it's a little bizarre. It's, it's as if you stepped out of the rules for the show for a moment. Yeah, it feels like you stepped into a different story for a second. But then over the course of that scene, they kind of bring it back. And when you think about it, why not have it be a Nazi bar? It could have been. It could just be a bar.

It could be a jazz bar. It could be a biker bar. It could be any of a number of things where the essential element of they get into a fight. Gandhi beats up a bunch of dudes and they get the information they need. That could be served by any number of settings. So why this one? And I think there's something there about it feels a little bit like a set piece, right? Like someone was like, I really want to have a scene at some point where someone in the show beats up nazis

yeah finally we can put it here and in the context of this story it's kind of playing up that gabby and gandhi aren't afraid of white supremacists right like they are they are strong confident men in their own right even if they're cagey about, you know, because they're outnumbered. But they're not cowards. And they're willing to stand up to this thing that is presented in the show as like, you're a bunch of out of touch idiots. Yeah, the Nazis are sad. Yeah. You don't look at them and go, oh, no, you look at them.

I mean, you do go, oh, no, because they're Nazis and you're always going to. But they're not celebrated in this moment. They're set up to fail, which is the cathartic part that we want to see. Quite often a show will have something like that. And then the huge tattooed white boy Nazi would stand up and you'd be like, oh, okay, so here's the threat, here's the boss fight. And that's what this is. Yeah, it's not video game-y in that way where there's like,

yeah, where it feels like there's a boss. Like, the guy they get the information from is the bartender who's a schlub and not wearing the stuff. Yeah, he may not even, that's just the theme of his bar. That's all. Not to let him off the hook, he runs a Nazi bar, but I'm just saying he doesn't

he's not a threat yeah like these bad guys aren't cool there's lots of shows where the bad guys are cool uh and these these nazis are not cool they they seem real real dumb so that's all to say that kind of there's a there's a bit of a power i think in that idea of i've thought out this set piece thing whether it's a fight or a battle or a a scene a situation like i have this idea for this thing that takes place on a on a boat you know or something like in a stormy sea and i think there's some power and if you've thought out why it's important that you have that symbolism and and what you're trying to say with it as its own unit you can drop it in when things are getting slow right this is very

much for for games for the most part but they were going to go to a place where they thought he might have worked right but that's that's what they were up to and the operation of the scene was they were going to get the piece of information they needed so why not have a fun memorable piece of business in the middle of it as opposed to you go to the bar you talk to the bartender who tells you about this guy it also sets up both of those guys to succeed right we get to see gabby run his mouth and come up with all this patter and come up with these stories they don't work but we get to see him do it and by showing the limits of how his talking works it kind of shows us like oh here's the range of what he does right we've seen him be

successful now we've seen him fail so we get that that feeling of we know what he does and then gandy gets to do what he does best which is beat a bunch of people up and kind of be the smartest guy in the room just by not taking anyone's anyone's guff he's also the one who's like we have to leave now yeah and he like is the one that gets gabby out of there before the cops show up so he's also thinking a little may not long term but he's thinking that step ahead that gabby doesn't sometimes i think the order in which all that goes down is important because the moment they stepped in you knew each one of those faces would end up on the end of gandhi's fist like that's that you're like oh Oh good. He set the pins up. You just want to watch them get bowled over. That's all.

And what's kind of great about that is that they draw out that reward. You get that dessert last. So we're going to give you Gabby trying his best. I'm not going to say that would just be a boring scene. Cause certainly you could write an astounding scene in which Gabby convinces a bar full of Nazis to give up some information they didn't care anything about anyways. Right. But if that works,

then you don't get those pins falling over. Right. And so then, then why are they Nazis? Yeah. Yeah. Like the only reason that it makes sense for them to be Nazis to me is that we get to see them be punched.

Right. If we don't see them be punched, then they shouldn't be Nazis. They should, you know, just be, you know, something else. Like you don't fill a bar full of clowns unless you want to see them get their feelings hurt right like that's just how it works that's an old saying yeah again because this episode is so is less about the plot and more about the character interactions

it's another really good example of what's the next step what's the next thing i need to know okay i learned it now what's the next thing okay i learned it and it's more about how they go about getting each of those pieces of information and following the trail than some kind of struggle to reveal hidden secrets yeah to solve the riddle yeah because there really isn't isn't much of one which is to say if if there is a riddle then that's great if there's not a riddle you can solve really engaging story you just shouldn't concentrate on the riddle. You concentrate on the other stuff. each other for a while, but we, as sort of a polite contract with the creators of the show, agree that they get along enough to fight this whole time and still hang out. Then they deliver and give us these tiny little scenes that show these characters just enjoying each other's

company and give you sort of a moment to get why they might be friends or why they hang out. I feel like that is missing. You know, I'm not even going to go into a criticism of modern media, except to say that I really, really love these scenes. They don't take much. They're just, they're often just two people enjoying a fart joke together. Like it just does. It really doesn't take anything to do it. I don't even really think I need to go into much about what needs to be done. If you want to write into a story or whatever, you just have a nice moment, a good beat and have that happen. But if you're sitting at the table and you're playing a game, it can sometimes be hard to make these things arise. The feeling there is often mutual and happens because we as players of the game enjoy each other's company so a joke

will happen on the table level that we'll all laugh about but if we think about what the characters themselves are experiencing they may have no reason for hanging out other than their godlike avatars that are controlling them are friends there's kind of two two parts of that i want to poke at one is that this doesn't mean that you have to do some kind of elaborate pre-play, figure out why everyone is with everyone. You can start with, here's the premise for why we're together. But then, you know, if you take the opportunities to have those character moments with each other near the beginning of the game, then you find out why you're all together. Like you find out why you stay together. There's like opportunities that arise, particularly if we're playing the sort of default adventure games that we play,

right? Yeah. Where people get hurt all the time and we don't deal with that fallout because it's just a number, right? You can just simply ask, how do you help so-and-so tend to their wounds, right?

Or you're at the campfire at the end of the day, and tell us a joke that everyone enjoys. You don't even literally have to tell a joke that everyone at the table is going to enjoy. You just need to show the characters. The A-OK joke in this episode wasn't particularly funny to me, but they loved it. And when they laughed i

was like yeah i like you guys we're all friends not only if you're like running that game can you offer those opportunities or kind of try to set people up for them if you're at a table you can reach out right and be like we're splitting up this treasure there's this meaningless thing that i really want who wants to try and convince me that they should have it instead right or something like that there's a way that you can do that it doesn't have to be part of the big story that's going on I think a lot of the time in my experience a lot of this happens in side conversations when something else is happening yeah someone else they're rolling dice and figuring out something that's happening over on that side of the table and me and you are just kind of kibitzing on our side of the table uh and

maybe we have a little bit of like in character joking that we do that no one else hears and that's nice for us but there's also i think ways to hey we're you know we're joking over here while you guys are doing that and just make it evident to the table to everyone else to your audience that your relationship is growing with someone else's character. I ran a game just this past weekend of The Urban Jungle, which I think I've mentioned in previous episodes. It's an anthropomorphic noir game that just came out last year from Sanguine Games. We were setting our story in the LA equivalent in the late 1920s, so the end of the roaring 20s, just before the stock market crash.

And one of the characters was this aging movie star in an era where movie stardom was a thing that was kind of still just coming about. This character was having financial difficulties. It was one of the player characters. And we started the story off with her having a yard sale where she's selling off memorabilia from all of her movies and i just got to go around and ask like i asked her player what is the one piece of memorabilia you refuse to sell and then i asked another character what is the one piece of memorabilia you're most excited to see on the auction block and i asked another one you know what's a piece of memorabilia that you hid so that she couldn't sell it.

You didn't want her to give this up. And those were really fruitful. Like they, they gave you moments for why, how the characters interact and what they care about each other. Um, maybe least of all the movie character, no movie star,

but the movie star is sort of persona at this point is more self obsessed anyways, but you could imagine at the beginning of this Rockford episode, Hey, a movie star but the movie star is sort of persona at this point is more self-obsessed anyways but you could imagine at the beginning of this rockford episode hey gandy what did you eat out of rockford's fridge right yeah it doesn't matter like in terms of the story it doesn't matter if it was ham or fish or eggs or what it was but the fact that they had that as a as a bit to go back and forth over to establish their relationship in the first scene that we see them in sets the tone for the whole rest of their dynamic. Yeah. They're just small bits, but they really pan out.

You know, like you said, yeah, they set the tone. They give you sort of the glue that holds the characters together. Otherwise, we'd just be watching a series of events. Do you have anything else? No, I think that's about it. It was a absolute delight once more. Always a pleasure. Yeah, we're

really enjoying going through these. I'll just quickly say that if you're enjoying listening to them, please leave us a rating or review or pop over to the website. Leave us a comment or hit us up on Twitter. You can find all of our links and show notes, etc. You can find us. I believe in you.

We'd love to hear from you about how we're doing. With that, I think we have earned our $200 for today. Excellent. Thank you again so much for listening, and we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.