Two Hundred A Day - Episode 61: The Italian Bird Fiasco

Episode Date: November 24, 2019

Nathan and Eppy talk about S2E19 The Italian Bird Fiasco. Jim takes a seemingly easy job bidding for a Cormorant statue at an art auction, but once it's broken in an assault by goons it quickly becomes clear that there's more to this job than it seems! A very funny episode with a great supporting cast, we enjoyed the ride even though the story itself was a little under (or over?) explained for our taste. We now have a second, patron-exclusive, podcast - Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Victor DiSanto Brian Perrera Eric Antener Bill Anderson Jim Crocker - keep an eye out for Jim selling our games east of the Mississippi, and follow him on twitter @jimlikesgames Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars Jay Adan's Miniature Painting And thank you to Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Dave P, and Dale Church! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us Audio Hijack for helping us record and capture clips from the show spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by game and narrative designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. In each episode we pick an episode of The Rockford Files, recap and review it as fans of the show, and tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Jim? Sally? Hey, I just found out you're in Ares. Listen, if you have Virgo rising, give me a call. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we explore the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Palletta. And I'm Epidio Ravishaw. I selected our episode for this one. It's actually been a while since we last did a regular recording. Yeah. So I have no idea what our pattern was before that. But just discussing our scheduling, I kind of had a hankering.

So I proposed this episode back in season two, episode 19, the Italian bird fiasco. How did you find this episode, Epi? I enjoyed it. I have just picked up and read the first chapter, so I'm an expert now, of the book The Big Con. Right. Yeah, which was recommended, I think, by a now of the book, the big con. Right. Yeah. Which was recommended,

I think by a fan of the show, I think by a, by, by a patron or, or a patron via Twitter. I forget exactly. Yeah. Uh,

this is by David Maurer. I think M a U R E R who is a linguist. And it is from the forties. And it's where he talks to a bunch of, uh, Connors and to learn their lingo. But it's basically, uh, kind of a definitive text on how con games worked back then.

And the book that like tells us how con games work in the fiction that we watch right like it's the um uh it's the ur text there uh it's a good read so far like i said i've only read one chapter of it uh so i don't i'm not quite prepared for this but i'm already seeing some parallels uh within this this episode and uh uh what's in that book. I'll bring that up as we go along. But that was exciting. I was very happy to be like, oh, okay, let's put this to use. I had a hankering for a more con-focused episode.

We've had some more character-driven ones recently. And so this, as I was scrolling through options, this pinged my memory as one that was a little more about, you know, some kind of trickery. It turns out there's not really a con game in this one so much. It's more just a mystery, but it certainly has con artists. I thought for a while there they were trying to get something out of Jim which is like that's like getting blood from a stone you deserve what you get when you try that but he's more of a patsy than a mark right like he's they're not trying to get money from him

they're just trying to use him as insulation from consequences yes I agree uh and so a lot of the so the the journey of the episode is kind of uh this is very much a we know what jim knows episode so we're with him as he tries to figure out what you know as strange things happen and he tries to put the pieces together to figure out what's really going on so it's actually uh and i think for the first time in a long while a jim takes a job episode right uh because it does get launched by him being employed to do a thing and a little bit of a spoiler here he takes a job that he gets paid for it's wild it's the second season. They're willing to cut them a break still on some of this. But it still does have the iconic reversal of fortune at the end. Right. who we have seen before on the show and behind the camera.

Always, always fun to see that name involved. And it is written by Edward J. Lasko, who wrote a number of season two episodes in particular. But this is actually the first one of those that we are doing. I think this has, and that might account a little bit for the, not that it has a standard plot or anything like that, but kind of for the way in which it is a mystery story that starts with our detective hired to do a job and doesn't really have side characters,

like Dennis is involved, but mostly because the police are involved. And so of course we're going to get Dennis. Yeah. We don't have Angel. We don't have Rocky. It is one of our more straightforward stylistically stories. If you pitch the story, or sorry, if you pitch the Rockford Files,

you would say, you know, it's a noir set today. Today being the 1970s uh and this show this episode is precisely that pitch right in fact i it's been just under a thousand years since i've seen the maltese falcon right but like so oh god i should have i should have freshened up on this because I am convinced that the title is a reference to it and that there's... I think it is a bit of a, not tongue-in-cheek, but a bit of a wink to Maltese Falcon in particular. Yeah.

Kind of thing. Though, well, maybe we'll get into it. I mean, I say more of a wink because it doesn't really... I don't think it really has anything to do with that story other than there's bird sculptures involved. Yeah, yes. So Edward J. Lasko wrote a ton, what seemed to be pretty heavily involved with Charlie's Angels. He wrote 32 episodes, among other things, Mannix, Mission Impossible. Oh, yeah.

And a couple episodes of Airwolf, which I know you harbor tender feelings for. It's a show about a helicopter. I mean, come on. So that portfolio does seem to support the kind of my feeling of here's a story that works for this

show, but it's not a let's really dig in and get like all of the rockfordness out of this if that makes sense but it's good that's not a denigration um just kind of looking at the portfolio anyway uh we should get into it oh we're gonna get into it should i start with this opening montage you should it's a short one It's a short one. It's a short one, yeah. Okay, so here are my bullet points from the opening montage. The voice of Kit is back.

And I think we just briefly discussed this. This is probably not back, but he will return to play the prosecutor in So Help Me God. to play the prosecutor in So Help Me God. But because we're watching this out of order and because that episode looms so large in our brains, we're already predisposed to not liking him. Sure. Also, his accent predisposes us to not liking him. All the signals that we get about this character

are telling us not to buy into what he's selling. Yes. For sure. I wrote $11,000 dollars i forget what that was i think that was what they're priced at uh i think we'll get into that later that was the bid that jim ended up making that's what it was yes uh and so by our rule of thumb that's fifty five thousand dollars it's not bad um the the line that's $55,000. It's not bad. The line, that's blackmail. No, no, it's business. It's good. I'm looking forward to that moment.

And then the final one, the moment of action where the man falls. And I'm like, oh, something's gonna happen. And now let's go to the episode and we're gonna find out just how swiftly that occurs.

Hello, listeners. We really appreciate you being here. And we want to make sure that you know that you can become a patron over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. In addition to episode previews and access to the 200 a day Rockford Files file spreadsheet, our patrons get plus expenses, a bonus podcast where we talk about movies we're watching, books we're reading, and games we're playing. $200 a day will remain free to all for as long as we do it. But if you want to help support us and get access to the new Plus Expenses audio feed, you can become a patron for just $1 an episode. Each episode, we extend a special thanks to our Gumshoe-level patrons. This time, we say thank you to Jim Crocker.

In addition to supporting the show, he also sells our games at conventions east of the Mississippi. See where to find him at JimLikesGames on Twitter. Shane Liebling. If you play games online, you know you should check out his free dice rolling app, Roll For Your Party, at RollForYour.Party. Kevin Lovecraft. Hear him on the RPG Actual Play podcast, the Wednesday evening podcast all-stars,

over at MisdirectedMark.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Dave P., Dale Church, and Jay Aiden. And finally, big thanks to Victor DeSanto and our detective patrons. Check them out on Twitter. Eric Antenor, at Antenor, Brian Pereira, at Thermaware, Bill Anderson, at Billand88, and of course, Richard Haddam, at Richard Haddam. We follow them too at 200pod. Help out the show by leaving a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. Tell a friend who you think would like it.

And check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. That's kind of a little unique thing where it gives us the big moment of action at the end of the montage. And then we actually are going to see that in the first scene. Yeah, the first scene. Yeah. And this is one of the very few scenes that aren't, as you said, like Rockford focused, right? Like this is one of the few times where we see things happening, not from Rockford's point of view.

Oh, right. Yeah. But we start in London. We start in London. Yes. Heathrow Airport. So yeah, we start off following a nervous-looking guy in a pinstripe suit, who's Mr. Barrows. In a moment that is straight from, oh right, this is how this used to work.

He is walking up to a ticket counter to purchase a round-trip flight to Los Angeles. So I just want to take a look at this. Did you look into the overall exchange rate here? Because the ticket counter guy says that it will be 663 pounds. I made a note of it, and then my note was 663 pounds. Is that the weight of his luggage? I think I found the historical exchange rate. We're looking at 1976, right?

Early 1976. I mean, the episode aired in January, so, you know, let's assume for the sake of argument, 1976. Yeah. in January. So, you know, let's assume for the sake of argument, 1976. Uh, yeah. It looks like it was around, uh, daily breakdown, effective exchange rate, 1976. Okay. It was about, so in January, it actually dropped quite a lot later in the year, but early in the year, it was just over one pound to $ dollars it was like two dollars two cents two dollars three cents all right so this is 15 oh oh this is two dollars to every pound sorry i got that wrong oh my god this is an expensive trip this is six thousand dollars trip all right it

is what it is yeah yeah it is funny how of all the things over time, international travel has actually gotten cheaper. Yes. Which is wild. Anyway, so there's a lot of money in this episode, but that jumped out to me. I was like, oh, we should we should figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm imagining that's first class, right?

Yeah. I mean, he's worried about not to spoil anything. I don't know why I worry about spoiling things for our listeners. He stands to make some money, probably because of the cons that they run. He's used to going first class. And he also, as we'll see in just a moment, is very eager to keep his luggage with him. And he also, as we find out, is an agent or, you know, employed by the Lloyds of London Insurance Agency. Yeah.

So one imagines that, yeah, that's pretty hoity-toity in terms of money you're throwing around. But we'll get to that later. But yes, as you say, he wants to keep his bag with him. But unfortunately, it's over the size limit. And so he has to check his bag with the ticket agent, apparently. I think it is telegraphed to us that he is reluctant to do this, but he does not protest. And as his bag vanishes, he goes over to a phone booth and makes an overseas phone call to Thomas Cain in Los Angeles. Says that it's on its way.

And then through the phone booth, he sees two guys who are clearly goons. This is just a classic thing. In the phone booth, in the middle of the conversation, seeing the goons and having to run without finishing the conversation. Yeah, this is good stuff. We see this all the time and works every time. But he does say that it's on its way and he drops the phone, tries to flee the airport, and we have a brief slow-moving action scene where he tries to go out some

side door and is trapped in a little outdoor area by a fence and climbs up to the roof. This is another thing about air travel back then you could just go out of emergency doors yeah you just run out of the tarmac just don't just don't run in front of a plane you're good it's all good he is pursued across the roof by the larger goon uh goon goon prime who wears a tan coat uh we see he does most of the action in this episode. There's also, you know, Goon, Goon, what would be after Prime? Goon Second? Yeah.

Secondess? I think it might actually be like Secondess or something like that. Well, technically it would be Goon would be the normal Goon and then Goon Prime would be the secondary Goon. Yes, the next order of Goon. All right, Sounds good. So goon is wearing our, uh,

the tan is larger than where's the tan jacket. Goon prime is smaller and where's the dark jacket. We're approaching a, uh, universal theorem of goon. Finally. Um, but anyway,

goon, uh, uh, chases him across this rooftop and then Barrows, unwilling to come into the grips of said Goon, decides to try and climb over the edge of the roof onto like a fire escape or something. And then we get the shot from below from the preview montage of him falling off the roof. Yeah. But it does not stop there. We cut from that to a creepy shot, low angle shot from behind him as he's lying on the ground.

We see that he's breathing and we hear his breath. Yes. We're like, oh God. So he's still alive after that fall. And our goon comes up to him and very patiently explains, if you want a doctor, tell me where you shipped the box. Okay, so this is good stuff. This sets, like, all the drama. And we'll get to the cut in a moment here.

But I just want to point out how suspiciously this goon approaches this body. He just goes out of his way to let anyone who happens to be watching know that he's stalking up onto a possible dead body like it's not like like no touch no no touchy like yeah he's just like looking both ways and just kind of creeping up to it instead of like i don't want to critique the goon on his technique he's an okay goon i you know but if i were this goon i would run up to the body and be shouting oh are you all right are you all right and then when I get up to him, whisper what I have to whisper. So that if anybody happened to be watching, then they'd be like, oh, he's going to defer to your expertise on the goon scale. Mr. Barrows manages to whisper out a couple names. Campbell. I wrote down Campbell Garys.

I don't know if those are two different things. It doesn't matter. He says a name that we later, it turns out, will be a gallery. From this very dramatic scene, we cut to, oh, Jim. Poor Jim. With a full Bachelor chores day where he's both trying to pull together his laundry and take out his bags of garbage at the same time. I was trying to figure this out because, but yeah, I remember. I remember when I only did housework once every couple of years.

And so I thought maybe I'd get it all done in a half hour and just try. But yeah, it is a comedy in a, in a dramatization of the principle that multitasking is inefficient. Right. Uh, he, he is unable to carry his laundry and the garbage and answer the phone at the

same time. So as the phone starts garbage and answer the phone at the same time. So as the phone starts ringing and he starts shouting at it, so we know he's not in a good mood, he drops everything and then turns around, smacks his head into the open cabinet over him that he never got a chance to close because his arms were full, and then answers the wall phone in his kitchen that I can't remember is ever there before. I'm sure. I'm sure. I appreciate it. I mean, if you have two rooms,

you should have a phone in each room. Yeah, a good 10 feet away from the other phone. Sometimes you have to talk on the phone while you're cooking. Yeah, I'm with you. Well, now I just, I'm going to be keeping an eye out

in other episodes to see if there's still a... As we know, Jim has the eternally shifting interior space because it just wasn't the same every time. On the phone is, as you say, the voice of Kit. But this is Thomas Kane calling Jim. He was referred to him by Mr. Coleman. Jim is not predisposed to appreciate that reference as Coleman never paid him his final invoice. Yes. So he's going to have to demand half of his $200 in advance due to that recommendation.

But Kane agrees and tells him to and wants to see him at his hotel, the Delman. And they set up the appointment. So we keep saying the voice of Kit. Yeah. So Thomas Kane is played by William Daniels. This is his first appearance. We already did the other episode that he was in, so help me God. Which is great.

One of our faves. It is our episode 32 and we had uh jess banks on with us to go over that one which was a treat so we talked about uh william daniels a little bit in that episode but uh yeah also mr feeney in boy meets world among many other TV and some movie roles. So seeing a young, sharp, serious William Daniels is pretty sweet. In this, he describes himself as an operator eventually. And it's like, yes, that is what this character is. He's not particularly menacing, but he does have all the confidence in the world right which is and you always get the sense that he's playing some kind of angle which i think jim

picks up on immediately as well uh but yeah it's great yeah we see this in this episode in the other episode and of course in kit in his voice in Knight Rider, he does a great job of holding ground where you feel you're just beneath him. Yeah. And as we see in the scene and all the scenes between him and Jim, I really enjoy how this immediately chafes Jim. And like, but it doesn't, Jimim can't get get over on it right like he can't even though we're with jim and we're on jim's side he still feels more uh authoritative and more refined and more in his element than Jim does. And we will definitely see that in this scene. We have the credits playing as Jim pulls up to this motel,

rings the bell at number 12 where he's staying. It is a very well appointed hotel room or motel room as it is. I get the feeling that this is just, yeah, some places were like this at the time. Yeah. There's a, there's a door directly outside onto the courtyard and it has a curtain behind it.

And so when you draw the curtain and open the door and you just walk into this giant room full of furniture and like paintings. Yeah. All this stuff. I'm like, like I mentioned at the top of the top of our show uh i've been reading the big con and uh i guess the fundamental thing about cons is that they they operate out of what are called big shops which are just stages that they set up uh like fake establishments for me i like because i'm reading this book and I probably saw this episode long ago.

And, but like, I'm like, Oh, this is a con like my notes say Jim's about to get conned or is going to realize he's, he's being conned because it's, it's so out there.

Like everything is out in the open to just show Jim how wealthy this guy is. It's not like art is literally sitting on a chair. There's like, I mean, he's supposed to be an art dealer as well, but like, it's just meant to be like, look at me.

I have money. You can trust me in matters of money. Right. And as Jim comes in, Kane is on the phone, of course, with Paolo somewhere in Italy or whatever, establishing, you know, more of his position in this art world. And their first interaction is this whole this whole establishment of dominance.

Right. Kane is talking about the weather in Italy and France. And Jim comes back with what I refer to as grumpy California localisms. It's 85 degrees in Florence. Doesn't often get that hot in northern Italy this time of year. I don't like Florence when it gets that hot. But that's life. Well, we had a hot April here last year. I had a friend who said it got up to 85 degrees in the city of industry, but I don't believe him.

I mean, it always just seems hotter in those little towns next to the freeway. You know, undercutting the grandiosity of what Cain is trying to establish. The line of, it just seems hotter in those little towns near the speedway. Like, I don't know what's going on in Florence. Right. Yeah. It's real good.

Uh, but they do get down to business. Uh, Cain wants Jim to act as a purchasing agent for him at an art auction. He goes off onto a tangent, uh, and the details don't really matter, but he goes off onto a tangent, uh, cause don't really matter. But he goes off onto a tangent.

Because I think Jim picks up like a sculpture or something. Yes. And Cain goes off about like. Oh that's an example of this artist's. African period. And he only made. 18 of these. Some people think he made 24.

But I knew him and he only worked. This many months on it. Maybe 19 at the most. So he's both kind of lording this like, oh, I'm an insider status. But in a very good example of the show not wasting any of its own material, this will come up later. It's funny because I kept while watching this, I kept expecting this to be a lead up to that joke where he says and it's worth this amount of money and jim goes oh and you know sets it down before breaking it or something like that but there's no need for that joke this scene has a whole other purpose and the whole time i kept thinking that that was its purpose uh yeah anyways

that's just me at no point was was I like, this is filler. Right. Yeah. Oh, he's talking about all this stuff. There's all these weird little details and names and stuff. And I'm kind of like, I hope I don't need to know all these names because I'm not really. They're just going by. But I know there's something here that's going to come back.

Yeah. But he gets around to the point. There's a cormorant, which is a kind of bird so this bird sculpture the italian bird if you will from the title uh that's going to be on auction at the campbell gallery there's a lot of exposition in these first couple scenes so all this stuff is going to revolve around the set of three bird sculptures the originals were by this famous or this this wonderful sculptor lambrini they were lost in a fire and then his son made replicas. And so as to the art world at large, the originals are lost.

The replicas are very nice, but not as good as the originals. And as far as anyone knows, one of the Lambrini duplicates is going up for bid. But Kane thinks there's a chance that it might actually be an original. knows one of the Lambrini duplicates is going up for bid, but Kane thinks there's a chance that it might actually be an original. So he wants Jim to go bid on it. If he goes and bids on it because he's a known quantity in the art world, that'll drive up the bidding just by the fact that he's interested in it. So that's why he needs an intermediary.

He has someone he usually uses, but Terry Fielder isn't in town right now. He's in Prague for the month. So he's going with Jim instead. Jim already established his, you know, his rate 200 a day. Kane will pay him his day rate for this hour and a half of work. Jim has two conditions.

He needs, he wants a hundred dollars in advance and he wants to know where he can find Coleman. Coleman is also in Europe. Specifically in Prague as well? Oh yeah, maybe Terry was somewhere else. Was everyone in Prague?

Everyone was in Prague. I think that was an ongoing joke in the episode. Every time they wanted to say someone was somewhere they were like, oh, they're in Prague. He can't get to Coleman, but he'll take his hundred dollars in advance. And we have a great little character setting on the back end where Kane says ciao and Jim says adios. Yes. There's a great moment in this when uh kane asks him if he has a card i'm like well yeah i mean what job do you want him to have but instead it's this it's it's more of the class stuff it's more of the like oh i'm fresh out like why would i have a card i'm just

so busy i never have a chance to get more printed up. I'm wondering if this is a... if this is before it's established that he prints them out of his own car. I don't think so. I think we've... I think we've known that if we've been watching the show. I think that's a deliberate choice for Jim to say, like, I'm not giving...

I don't need to give you a card. So we cut to the auctioneer describing the cormorants and giving that explanation about the originals destroyed in fire, et cetera, et cetera. So the minimum bid for this Lambrini duplicate is five thousand dollars. And the bidding begins. This is a bit of a gag sequence here where Jim starts like he bids and then other people are bidding by doing little motions. And then Jim's like, oh, is that how you're supposed to do this? And does a little motion.

Gets ignored. And then crosses his legs in irritation. And that's the motion. It's yeah, it's uh it's good physical comedy as a kid i had a fear of going to auctions because of things like this because i was like what if i sneeze then do i owe them money like how does this even work yeah i have never been to an auction a live auction so yeah i don't know how uh i assume they're all social nightmares yeah like that's it seems terrible and terrifying filled with unwritten rules that i will violate over

and over again uh and be ostracized that is that's just my assumption right well that's why we stick the podcasts yes um in the end jim starts getting up, essentially, by a lovely woman who's sitting at the end of his row. But she ends up not going the distance, and Jim wins the Lambrini duplicate with an $11,000 bid. And so Kane had given him a blank check and told him, you know, bid up to $12,000. If it goes for more than that, don't bother. This isn't a situation where he needs to get reimbursed or something weird like that. They're pretty clear about, like,

he's using another, you know, Kane's money for this. So this woman chases him down afterwards. She just wants to take a look at the cormorant. She introduces herself as Evelyn Stoneman. We see Jim, I think almost just by default, thinking on his feet to kind of keep up his cover story of some kind, just out of like professionalism, right? I have questions about this scene because I also, also all right this might be one for the listeners

here so jim in the previous scene uh is a little out of his element that was what all the comedy was about like he he he's not used to these auctions but part of what he does to get attempt to get into his element is to mimic her actions, which is kind of a flirty thing. And then she comes out to talk to him. And I like, I can't tell if he's flustered at one point or if he's flirting or if he's just trying to hide the fact that he's a private eye working for someone else.

Like, and I'm not saying this as a bad thing i'm not saying it's it's horrible that the show isn't telling me this i i'm saying that like all of these possibilities exist in this moment here yeah and i i find that kind of interesting and like this payoff where the payoff from the conversation before where he starts leaning on what he just learned right is part of a standard tv comedic formula for someone getting into a relationship on like false knowledge right like sure and and i thought maybe they were going that route but uh refreshingly they do not yeah i kind of read it as he as a professional he kind of has a responsibility not to right throw his client under the bus right yeah and his and kane did say

this is just between you know like i want to keep this on the down low other people shouldn't know that i'm involved so he is being a professional when he's obfuscating why he's there. It turns out that Evelyn, Jim mentions Terry Fielder and Evelyn knows who that is and knows that he's in Prague. So it's like, okay, so he's in a world where all these people know each other. know each other right um asked jim about his area of study and then that's when he you know starts regurgitating all those details about this this artist in his african period she asked what theory he subscribes to and he says the same things that kane had said like 18 19 at the most and you see her face just getting more and more like upset and upset or just kind of like disconcerted which theory do you support well uh i think 18 uh 19 at the most uh i think 24 is just out of question

well you see i know how slowly he worked and I just don't think he could have ever done 24. However, if he worked late and, you know, worked like a little beaver, he might have turned out 20, 21. Who knows? He might even have done 24. Could I have my bird back, please? I've written five papers supporting the 24 theory. But of course you knew that. Of course, of course. I was just fooling. But she finally gets to her real interest here,

which is that she works for England's National Gallery. She happened to be in Canada. They heard about this auction. This bird is part of some collection that's She happened to be in Canada. They heard about this auction. This bird is part of some collection that's not supposed to be broken up. And so they sent her down here to try and get it, but they only had authorized so much money.

She's sure she can get $15,000 to pay for it to get it back to the National Gallery. And that's when Jim's like, well, I'm working for someone else. It's not up to me she asks him who he says that he's not a liberty to say but he takes her card he will ask uh and they can get in touch from that end so it ends on a pretty professional level oh then we uh then then our mystery starts to uh starts to generate. Yes. Jim leaves the auction house.

He has a little crate. So it's this little wooden crate that the bird is packed in. It says Fragile on the side, which is funny. And then we see the two goons that we first saw at Heathrow are following him. There's this lovely orchestral violin theme in the underscoring during this scene. I wrote that down too. I was like, I like this. What's going on?

Here's our nod towards the art world. Right, yeah. We'll add a violin. It's good. Jim puts the crate on the roof of the Firebird while he gets out his keys. And then the, he is assaulted, punched in the stomach by, by Goon while Goon Prime grabs for the crate.

Um, Jim, uh, takes some swings and ends up pushing, uh, Goon Prime's arm and the cormorant falls on the ground and gets smashed. Yes. Dun dun dun. There's a security guard at the gallery door who runs over and the two goons beat it. They don't want to deal with the security. And

Evelyn also sees this happen. So Jim's getting his breath back. The sculpture is all shattered on the pavement. She comes up and starts chiding him for letting it get smashed. Yeah, why didn't you just let him take it? Better for them to have it than to break it. He doesn't let anyone touch it and tells the security guys,

I'm going to need a statement from you for my bonding company. The bond company was brought up in the preview montage. This is also foreshadowing a little bit. Evelyn asks him why he has a bonding company and then mentions a second statue

or something. Basically asks him some question. He answers revealing his ignorance of the fact that there's more than one of these statues. Right. Who are you really? You're clearly not an art dealer. And Jim, for a second, I thought he was just going to be like, alright, here's

the deal. But he just makes some defensive snarky remarks as he packs the shards of the bird into a crumpled paper bag that he took out of the trunk of the firebird. We go back to the Delman Motel and see that Evelyn has followed Jim. And there's actually a little line of dialogue where he's like, if this wasn't so close to the auction house, you never would have been able to follow me. Which I appreciated.

Yeah. He's from the get go in this episode. He's out of sorts. Yeah. He's from the get go in this episode. He's out of sorts. Right. Like everything from him carrying his dirty laundry and trying to take the trash out to dealing with the art world and dealing with Thomas Kane. He just feels like he's been off kilter this whole time. And this moment feels petulant in a very frustrating way. And I love it. It's just like, well, you never would have been able to do this if I wasn't having such a bad day. He rings at number 12. Nothing happens.

And then the manager of the hotel comes up and asks if he can help them. Jim says he's just here to, to, uh, see Mr. Kane. But dun, dun, dun. There's no one staying in this suite. No one's been here for days. Yeah. Uh, when he says Thomas Kane, Evelyn is like, you're working for him? There's a, there's a bit of an interesting looking back at the episode once you

see how it all plays out but at this point this all seems pretty legit right yeah like her reactions seem on point for what is happening i was gonna ask you about that because um as often happens on our podcast a truth is revealed at the end of the episode or near the end of the episode of the show and then when we revisit the show for the podcast i start thinking about the scenes in the light of that truth right and that's what's happening with her there's a certain dedication to her act that is maybe above and beyond this moment isn't yeah uh the moment in the um parking lot where she says why didn't you just let them take it is is great because there's a there's a art world reason for why she would want that and there is a real reason for why she would want that

and that is great and she's also seen the result of it being broken yeah and so she yeah and yeah but the there's the i have written five papers supporting the 24 theory i'm like that's either really dedicated to her craft uh to be upset about that rather than try to mimic whatever he was saying. Right. And agree with his theory to maybe ingratiate herself with him. I think in that moment, it's more about the audience seeing that interaction. Yeah. Right.

I mean, there's also an aspect of, so, you know, spoilers. There is an Evelyn Stoneman who does work for the National Gallery. Right. So she may have actually written these papers. So it just depends on how into that role she is. Dun dun. The manager lets him poke his head in. And I expected it to be the full, completely cleaned out blank room.

It's a fancy motel room. So it has the furniture and everything, and the bar and the glasses, but all the art is gone. There's been no... No one's been there, and the manager even says that there's been no calls from that suite through the switchboard.

When Jim's like, he called me from this room, and that was all a setup. So, okay, let's talk about this manager for just a moment this is this again this is a big shop from that book the big con like it's clear that this was a the setup just like in the movie the sting right you know to to create an illusion of something for Jim to swallow. And I love that it just falls apart here. And that doesn't change Jim's relationship with Thomas Kane in the slightest. We'll talk about that when we get to it.

That's true. But this manager is super convenient. Yeah. A whole lot of personal knowledge about what's been going on in this particular room mostly if it's like oh we didn't have anyone in that room that makes sense especially if it's a suite that's super expensive he would know if that was filled up or whatever but there's no calls from the switchboard off the top of his head like i just checked is your your head canon is that he's part of the con i That was what I was thinking at that time. Right.

Like that was the thing. Like, why isn't Jim suspicious of this dude? But anyways, that was. Yeah, that's where I was in my in my head at that moment. But you can't just walk into a hotel room, set it up and then walk out without having an inside man. Sure. Yeah. Why not this manager?

Right. Like, I feel like, yeah, we're kind of getting into the level of probably thinking about this more than the episode thinks about it. Yeah, yeah. That's very true. Like, he's here so that Jim can be told that there was no one in this suite. Maybe we'll circle back to this in a minute because now I have a question. But anyway, the outcome of this is, you know, Evelyn knows that he's working for Thomas Kane.

Tells him that he's known in the art world as an unethical collector. Everything he does is technically legal, but it's often, you know, inappropriate, unethical. His $11,000 check to the auction house did clear, so that was legit. And past that, you know, that's all he knows. She does ask Jim to call her if he finds out where the other cormorants are. As she still wants to recover them, he has her card. So Jim has lots of friends, especially in these early seasons, right? Yeah. So Jim goes to see his friend who, uh,

works in a gallery, uh, and has some kind of relationship with the museum. Uh, Ted Heller, who is played by a very young, uh, Ron Silver, who I immediately noticed when he's in things,

because he has such a particular method of delivery, like a very particular cadence. I mostly know him as Bruno from West Wing, the political strategist who comes on towards the end of West Wing to try and get uh uh jimmy smith's elected i know him as ron silver actor and nasa assassin from heat vision and jack the single episode of a television show pilot uh starring jack black as an astronaut who flew too close to the sun. And now when the sun is out, his brain expands and he gets smarter. And his roommate, played by Owen Wilson, who was turned into a motorcycle. And that's who he rides around. Wow.

So get on YouTube. Check that out. Ron Silver plays himself, actor and NASA assassin Ron Silver. But I'd also like to point out, and this is more pertinent to what we're doing here that at this moment this is the most carl sagan person oh my god with the haircut yeah the haircut the turtleneck the whole outfit i was like. So anyways, I have a deep and abiding love for this character from the moment we see him because he's both Ron Silver and Carl Sagan.

Right, and I wish he was in more episodes. Unfortunately, only appearance for this character or this actor in the Rockford Files, but so good. He's, you know, buddies with Jim. Again, so this art world is very small everyone knows everyone so he knows uh evelyn stoneman and thomas kane he says that she's very dedicated and passionate

about uh you know her job um and that he's a fast buck artist um he uh gives us a little more about the difference between the originals and the duplicates. The duplicates are worth $5,000 to $10,000 on the open market, while the originals, which were lost in the fire, are priceless. So, I mean, like, the's five times as twenty five to fifty thousand dollars that Rockford dropped in that parking lot. And so he's brought the shards because he wants Ted to use his fancy electro dating process. Yes. To check these out. So he needs more information. So he was like, look, there's originals, there's duplicates.

I just want to, you know, let's see what the deal is. But it'll take some time because I have to go into the machine so he leaves them with Ted while he goes to try and find Kane and get some answers. Thankfully, it is not a long journey, as when Jim gets home

we have a shot from inside the trailer where we see him come in his door and in the foreground are a pair of wingtips up on his uh up on his desk which is a pretty one which i feel like i have not seen i feel like this is the only time i've seen that in the rockford files yeah and it would have been such a good mob boss play. What's really interesting about this character is that he carries all the confidence of a mob boss, but none of the threat.

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, this is kind of a low tension episode in the sense that there's never a sense of physical danger. I mean, there's a guy who falls off the roof and that's bad but that like just kind of happens um and then with rockford in particular sure he gets beat up a little bit but there's never a sense that he's under physical threat no one's gonna drive him out into the desert right um it's all this social social pressure and

livelihood pressure as we get to as this detail. And I'm like, I'm equally willing to believe that this is totally legit or complete, like a complete, uh, uh, fib, uh, that Kane is adept with pass keys.

Uh, he was one of the few Americans assigned to British intelligence during the war. I wrote that down too. It's great. And again, like we're talking about a guy who probably is just a con man and you know all of that but i was like which war like

seems a little i mean i guess could be world war ii like yeah seems a little young but yeah during korea that doesn't seem to make sense. Anyway. Jim goes and gets an Oreo out of his cookie jar and pours himself a glass of milk while he tells Cain to get his feet off his desk and don't make himself so much at home. Cain says that he was there and he saw the whole thing outside the gallery

and he lost interest after the bird was smashed. He refers to Evelyn as a small curse on the art world because she never has enough money to actually buy anything. So he just ends up bidding everyone else up. These are all just fun little details establishing this character in this world that I think are good. The phone rings and it's an overseas call for for kane and jim does not accept it how

many of those have you charged me um but he's been making some calls there is another cormorant coming to la and he does want jim to act again in his stead to pick it up jim's like i don't want to be involved with this clearly something's's going on. I'm not interested. And so this is where Kane puts on the pressure. He took a look around, gave a call to Jim's bonding company. So that was set up for us with the mention of the bond claim. Talk to them. They're on the verge of canceling his account because of all the large claims he has coming in.

He's just barely afloat. Because of this, I can hit them so hard that they'll drop you from your bond. You won't have any insurance, right? And that puts him out of work as a legitimate PI. Jim says that we're not getting along too well, are we? So how much of this is BS? are we so how much of this is bs this is i mean i don't mean this isn't necessary for my enjoyment of the episode or anything like that i just like thinking about the fact that he is running a like did jim actually receive a call from overseas or is this just someone in kane's back pocket who calls as the operator asking if

he'll accept you know like oh sure uh because like he mocked up that entire hotel room and we're not even talking about it right uh like did he call his bondman maybe not like um certainly he could have as well as part of the whole thing but like it just it's interesting because he he's blending legitimate stuff and con stuff yes because like yeah he did legitimately hire jim to do something and in in jim's care that thing did get broken and it was worth some amount of money right so he could legitimately call know, call the bond company and be make a complaint or something like that. Right. Yeah.

I guess at this point. I mean, it's more of a rhetorical question than anything else. It's just like this is it's interesting to think about just how out on a limb this character is. Right. Yeah. He's definitely somewhere out there. But I think we learned at the end of the episode that he's pretty desperate actually yeah and so this whole time he's acting very confident

but he's actually very desperate so that kind of explains some of this weirdness again i'm not i'm also not complaining about this like this is good stuff no this is fun to think about but there is a little bit of feeling like we're thinking about this more than the episode is. Yeah. Again. Yeah. Apologies.

Cause it's kind of like, why did he have to mock up that whole room in the first place? He doesn't need to convince. He's just hiring Jim. Yeah. He doesn't need to fake being an art dealer. Like all these other people know him. Yeah.

Why was that necessary hold on i'm coming around to a different thing then uh to him being more legit and the whole fake room business was him paying the manager to tell whoever came by that nobody was ever in the room uh because he's trying to avoid any connection to what's going on with the bird that's true but the room still stripped right so he's he's he's saying oh once he moved out yeah he's like hey yeah if anyone comes asking for me no one rented this room because he he knows who Stoneman is. He knows both of them. Yes.

He knows who this woman is. So when he sees her, then there's a reason for him to not have her find him. Yeah. So that makes sense. It's not that it was set up to fool Jim. It's that there's a cover story that he was never there. And that's the con. Yeah. And that actually makes more sense story that he was never there. And that's the con. Yeah.

And that actually makes more sense with the rest of this episode. Well, I'm glad we just sat down and figured that out. I hope our listeners heard. You're welcome. At the end of this scene, he pays Jim the second $100 that he owes him. and then he offers him $500 to do the second job because he knows that it's more dangerous or more complicated or whatever. But it's at 2 p.m., so he needs to hurry. So we go to our good friend Dennis Becker getting hustled by Jim.

As he had him run Thomas Kane. I mean, he needs to get the info you know he needs it now because he needs to be at that thing by two and Dennis does not appreciate being used like this all the time and we have a great Jim Dennis back and forth

about how he interacts with the police department as long as you get what you want what do I get last Christmas it was a case of scotch he interacts with the police department. Um, as long as you get what you want, what do I get? Last Christmas, it was a case of scotch. Yes. I wrote that one down too. And that Jim coming around all the time,

embarrasses Dennis with his bosses. Uh, but he does finally give in and whisper. He won't give him the printout, but he whispers to him the information, no warrants, but Scotland yard and Interpol have a question out on him. They want to ask him about the disappearance of this Lloyds of London insurance agent,

Barrows. Jim says thank you and gets a loud, get out of here, Rockford, and don't come back in return. Eppie, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the Information Superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at EpiDia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to worldswithoutmaster.com where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games. And if you like role-playing games,

maybe you want to check out digathousandholes.com where I publish all my other role-playing games. Oh no, I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games, including the Worldwide Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And, of course, you can find me on twitter.com at nd payoletta looks like you're

back you you're ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there happy i'm back i have my dm42 with me and i'm ready to get in dig down into rockford's books again all right well i'm done with this delicious avocado taco well let's get back to the show then. We're constantly mentioning this, but you mentioned earlier how the scene with Cain about the sculpture is reused when Jim is talking to Evelyn. This is another scene that as I'm watching it, there's some great stuff going on establishing jim and dennis's relationship and the tension it puts on dennis at the department and also explains how jim is able to get some information that he wouldn't otherwise be able to get there's a lot of good stuff going on here but also this scene sets up uh a good payoff later on yeah And I just love that craft in this show. Just that, like, you could have just had this scene.

You could have just had Dennis say, hey, how are you doing, Jim? Let's go fishing next weekend or whatever. And here's the information. You could have just had them arguing for no good reason. But instead it all. Yeah, there's a payoff. Yeah, there's a payoff. There's a reason they're arguing.

It also establishes for us what's going on, especially if we just tuned into Rockford. It's the second season. Yeah. I heard about this Rockford Files show. I wanted to see what it was about. I turned on this one. I don't know who this Dennis character is,

but now I do. Now I totally understand Dennis and Rockford and their entire dynamic. Anyways. It's good stuff. Just a pitch for that scene. Enjoy. So here's a question for you.

Yeah. I assume that the references to Lloyd's of London are something that TV audiences would reasonably know what that means at the time, right? Yeah, I would think so. Right. I wonder if that is still a reference people recognize. for wrestlers to go over to WCW was that they were facilitating or offering Lloyd's of London insurance policies for the wrestlers. And so if a wrestler got hurt, they'd have this luxury insurance package that would keep paying them even if they couldn't wrestle. And that was actually a big thing that ended up creating a big financial drain on the company and some stuff like there's some politics around that but in terms of

lloyds of london insurance policies my reference point for those are from 90s wrestling so i was trying to figure out what my reference is my i'm my guess is that uh lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. Just look this up to find out when this aired. And this aired in 1984, so this is after the Rockford Files. This is a show where you just see how the rich people live, right? Like it's trash. It's trash. But we watch it.

We watch it a lot. Because that's what television was back then, in complete contrast to the thesis of this podcast. But anyways, I just remember Lloyd's of London being mentioned almost every episode to show off how important something is. If you can afford Lloyd's of London insurance that means that A, you're very rich and B, that whatever you're insuring is very valuable. Yes, exactly. So it's a name drop. Yeah. A status symbol. But yeah, I don't

know if that actually... I mean from context here it's like it's an insurance company in London. Like that's all you need for the plot. I just wonder if that actually... I mean, from context here, it's like, it's an insurance company in London. Like, that's all you need for the plot. Yeah. I just wonder if that's, like, also kind of like a pop culture, like, oh, like, that's very fancy. It's not Acme Insurance Agency, right?

Right. Like, they're very specific. Or if it's just because it has London in the name, so you know it's from England, right? Yes. We cut to the Winslow Gallery sign and voiceover of Sold to the man in the brown coat. And this time,

Kane is waiting for Rockford outside right in the parking lot and pays him the $500 cash as Jim hands over the crate with the cormorant inside. Jim has pocketed $700 so far this episode. He's won. Just walk away. That's like

half a week's worth of work for Jim. Done. But there's still a mystery. Yes. He's got to figure that out. Jim takes his leave and then looks thoughtful in the car, backs up, gets out, makes a phone call from the phone booth in front of the Winslow Gallery. And he's calling Ted.

The spectral analysis came back. And guess what? That first bird, the broken one, that was an original land green. He doesn't know how it happened, uh that's uh that's what the spectro analysis says so he says he has good news and bad news the bad news is that the broken bird was an original but now it's broken right so that's bad the good news is that if jim can convince kane to lend the other two to ted to display for the museum for a couple weeks or whatever. He can get a grand in it for Jim.

So he wants him to try and make that happen, which I appreciate. It's like giving another little, like, hey, Jim, stay interested in this. Yeah, this is a buddy that he trusts, even though now he doesn't look at all like Carl Sagan. But Jim doesn't know that. He's talking to him on the phone. As Jim gets back in the Firebird, he sees Kane across the parking lot, clearly throwing the cormorant on the ground, shattering it, and then throwing the pieces in a trash can and driving away. So Jim goes over and collects the pieces for himself. This is a great scene just for the WTF of it, right?

Like just, you kind of know that that's what he was going to do anyways. But like, just to have Jim witness this from a distance and just be like, okay, like what's, what is happening? He goes back to his trailer, but as he's pulling up, we see that there's two cops in uniform knocking on his door and peering in his windows. So it's not a J-turn, but he does make a quick reverse to get out of the parking lot before they can see him. All right, so we have two birds. Everyone's been saying that they're the duplicates, but turns out that definitely one and probably both are actually originals. The guy who wants them is clearly looking for something inside of it,

not wanting it itself, even though it itself is a priceless art piece. And now the cops are knocking on Jim's door. That's where we're at, right? Yes. Jim calls Becker from a phone booth. Jim, where are you, buddy? Oh, I'm in a phone booth. Jim, where are you, buddy? Oh, I'm in a phone booth. Yeah, whereabouts?

It's under a tree. This beginning is so great because Becker's sweet voice stands the hair up on the back of my head. Oh, no, it's a trap. Oh no, it's a trap. Jim knows that Dennis, Jim knows that Dennis knows that Jim knows Dennis wants him to, you know, is trying to get him to come in, right? It's one of those, like it's all the way down.

But they both have to still play out their respective parts, right? Yeah. Jim's trying to stay away from the department. He knows that it hurts Dennis's reputation when he comes around there. There's the payoff from the earlier scene. He's like, tell me what this is about. Maybe I'll come in. It says that they found that insurance agent Barrows.

He's dead. So whatever happened after the goon talked to him, he has passed on. And so Lloyds of London wants to question Kane because they think he might have been involved with a jewel heist. And they're sending out an agent to question him. Jim's like, alright, well, I'll come in and he hangs up.

We zoom out and Dennis was on the phone and there was another officer listening on an earpiece. Okay, Dennis, I'm on my way. Put out a warrant on Rockford. He said he was coming in. He's not coming in. How do you know?

Because I know, that's all. Oh, sweet summer child jim rockford's not coming uh we cut to jim and evelyn uh having dinner apparently yeah another interesting kind of chemistry thing she seems to be flirting with him as if he's flirting with her, but he's not actually. Yes. Is she trying to get him to put down his guard or is she acting like she thinks he expects her to be acting? Could be either. I wrote down the ending to this and I wish I had written down the whole exchange because he has this line in it where it's a double entendre and she says something like oh you're not gonna you know get that unless i want you to get that or something like that and he's like that's sweet and terribly current but not what i had in mind yeah he makes it clear he's

like no i'm not actually flirting with you yeah uh it's interesting again it's not it's not typical yeah um he brings it after that he brings it back around to the the uh the replicas he thinks he can get a hold of the third one um and she says what about the second one and so he breaks the news that the second one uh went the way of the first she again kind of uh takes him to task for letting these works of art be destroyed um and she gets pretty upset he calls her out on that she's like well i'm just gonna take take more control over myself or something like that yeah can't tell if she's acting to be upset or if she's actually upset but it's not for the reason jim thinks um it's interesting stuff it's interesting watching the second time yeah to see her kind of delivery of all this stuff.

Because I feel like there's little tells that kind of are adding up to like, OK, someone here is lying to Jim about something. But it's still unclear who and why. Well, she says she's willing to pay any price to get a third one back for the National Gallery. He just better not break this one. And he says that he will wear a catcher's mitt this time. Jim goes from that dinner where he's wearing one of his lovely pale yellow shirts to

being in a car wearing a bright pink shirt. Great transition. I like how each of these meetings with Kane is less and less official. Like the first one was in like the big built out office. Second one was in Jim's trailer.

And this time they're just pulling up next to each other in the street in their independent cars. Kane's like, alright, here's where the third one's being auctioned. I want you to go get it. This time there's a condition. He has his friend Ted who wants to display it for a week or so. He'll make it worth their

while and there's a grain in it for me, right? Kane doesn't like that he's been talking to someone else about this operation, but then Jim puts the pressure on saying like, well, I was talking to my friend Dennis Becker down at the police headquarters. He's looking

for you. And also there's this Lloyd's London agent coming out who wants to talk to you. And also there's this Lloyd's London agent coming out who wants to talk to you. And we have the line from the preview montage of, this is blackmail. No, it's business. Yes. So Kane gives in and says, very well.

This time at the Murchison Gallery, the voiceover says, sold to the gentleman in the fourth row. And then we get the big parlor revelation get every get all the suspects together right yeah yeah except it's at uh ted's uh gallery i guess or ted ted wants to run a test on the third bird uh make sure it's an original like the other two uh kane seems legit surprised that they're originals, right? Yeah. He says it's impossible. They're replicas.

He's like, nope, the machine doesn't lie. So Ted, Kane, and Jim are all there. There's a little bit about, because Kane destroyed one, right? Like, for whatever he is, he does appreciate art. And there's got to be something going on internally there in that moment. Then Evelyn appears with the two goons. Yeah. They pull guns. art and that's there's got to be something going on internally there right in that moment then evelyn appears with the two goons yeah they pull guns uh jim says hey you're early um kane says oh hello margaret and kate says i know evelyn stoneman and this isn't evelyn stoneman uh she's been lying

the whole time yes and jim obviously he's, I was afraid you were going to say that. She takes the third bird from him. Jim says not to break it. Don't break the bird. It happens to be one of the original Lambrinis. It is not a copy. Don't take all this art jazz too seriously, dear. It ruins your sense of humor and it clogs the sinuses.

Margaret and the goons leave. Kane apparently has a gun. He goes for it. Jim pulls it away from him, gives it to Ted. Has Ted keep an eye on Kane. And it's like, I'll call the cops. And then he throws an ashtray through the window to set off the burglar alarm. I love that move.

It's like, sorry, it's the fastest thing. Yeah, he's like, I know, I know, but it's quicker. Like, we don't have time for this. Which is kind of funny because it turns out they do have time for it. But anyway. But it's such a Rockford solution, right? It's a very Jim move. I had an exit strategy for this.

They have a lead on him. He follows. I expected a car chase, but no, we just cut right to the airport. Yeah, this is... My notes were, a car chase. Okay, let me just read verbatim what my notes were. A car chase and nothing in the opening montage. Oh.

I was like, how can you have a car chase and not put part of it in the opening montage? I see. You don't have a car chase. So at the airport, Jim gets on the old pay phone, calls Dennis, tells him to get their guys out there. They're on concourse B. I feel like over time we've seen a lot of good, elaborate gym at the airport cons. Yeah. And this is one of them.

He goes inside. He uses the courtesy phone to page Edward Barrows, which is the name of the agent that died, to come to international baggage claim or something like that. And then he heads up to the cocktail lounge, uh, where we see, uh,

Margaret and the two goons enjoying a cocktail before their flight back to London. As you do, as you do, they see him come in, talk to the woman at the bar or whatever. And then the page comes over the speakers and he goes over to the woman at the bar or whatever and then the page comes over the speakers and he goes over to the courtesy phone to answer the page uh to make sure we're tracking this they have some dialogue

where the goon says yeah answering a page for a dead man yeah and then margaret says well it wasn't any of the three birds luggage so keeping us on track with what's going on and also it clearly telling us that the third bird has been destroyed right right uh so jim answered that page so now he in the role of edward barrows is going to the baggage claim uh he uses mirrors in a cigarette machine on his way to make to make sure that they are following him. Yes. Because he doesn't, like, make eye contact or, quote, notice them in the cocktail lounge.

But he was making sure that they saw him. That's the whole con. So he goes to, you know, down some stairs, picks up Barrow's luggage, thanks the guy for, you know, keeping it for so long or whatever. So he has the big-ass briefcase that got i just i just love how seamlessly this is like oh yeah this was set up in that first scene the fact that he had to check it and couldn't take it it still got checked onto the plane even though he never left london yes it seems really obvious just to state it like that like yes that is the

plot but that is the plot yeah it was a great little like oh it all comes together right that's why that whole scene happened was to give us this scene uh it's great uh they follow him as he leaves the airport with this bag uh we see becker arrive and then follow all of them back out of the airport. Jim goes to the Firebird and again uses a rearview mirror of the van next to him to make sure they're still behind him. And then our main goon runs up to him with a gun. I'll take the bag. And Jim's like, okay, okay. And then in a classic Jim Rockford maneuver, whaps him in the side of the head with a giant heavy bag when he's not expecting it.

Goon Prime starts taking some pot shots at him, but then the cops arrive. We have this moment where Goon Prime doesn't drop his gun when they say drop the gun and he gets shot. Yeah. Which again feels a little rare for the Rockford Files where we just see that on camera. So justice is served served our bad guys are

brought low something i was gonna say about that scene i can't remember was it the airbrushed van parked next to well that was glorious when they took a shot at rockford i i felt for that van i was like don't hit the van. Whatever you do. I guess there was also a foot chase, but it wasn't much of one. Yeah. Margaret runs away and is caught by a couple of cops. Yeah. Once everyone is apprehended, Jim opens the bag, pulls out yet another Italian bird, smashes it on the the ground and it's full of diamonds.

Yes. And then he pulls out the other two that were also in the bag. The mystery is solved? Thankfully we have a final scene to explain to us what happened. This is... I didn't mind this final scene because obviously Jim's in it and Dennis is in it for most of it.

And, you know, it does the things that you want done. But it was a little superfluous to me. I mean, the point of the scene is to get us to to Jim's final tally for his for his labor. But the first half is kind of like, well, while we have you here, let's go ahead and some episodes of the Rockford Files kind of trust the audience a little more just to like get what's going on without so much exposition. And this one, especially these last two scenes, is like, you know what? In case you haven't been following. Yeah.

Here's what happened. We gave you a lot of twists and turns. So let's just, you know. Actually, you know what? I take that back. It's a lot of twists and turns so let's just you know wait actually you know what i take that back it's not even the twists and turns it's that uh the motivating motivating crime is never examined right in the episode and that it's this jewel heist like at no point does rockford think he's involved in a jewel heist? He doesn't know what he's involved in. Right. I shouldn't say at no point. He figures something out. Once Jim says that the agent was involved with a jewel heist or something.

Yeah, yeah. But he's still just trying to kind of cover his own ass and figure out what the deal is. So Jim and Dennis are at the bar with this lloyds of london insurance agent turns out evelyn was actually uh margaret margaret donnegan who was an executive secretary at whatever the the heist was from some estate so she was an executive secretary at the they they keep saying the name and i didn't write it down so kane worked with her on the scheme to move the diamonds out of Europe because once they were stolen, they were too hot to move in Europe. But then he wanted to cut her out of the deal.

And Barrows was supposed to make the switch. So here's the thing. It's like, I was kind of like, I don't know if I need this explanation. And then the explanation was like, wait, this is a little complicated. Yeah, maybe. I appreciate this explanation. So the plan was we put the diamonds in these statues. The statues are insured by Lloyds of London.

Insured packages usually aren't inspected by customs. They come to the auction house. I buy them. We have now cleared the diamonds to sell in the u.s somewhere but then barrows i guess was working with cane to make the switch so that the insured art objects were the empty ones and he had the ones full of diamonds right because customs doesn't look through the things that are coming to the auction houses because they're insured and have already been kind of like approved or whatever. So Barrows was part of this plan. But before he could make this switch to put the full ones in for the empty ones, Margaret's goons caught up with him.

There's a little bit of question to me of like, at what point did this double cross happen? I guess it doesn't matter too much, except for the fact that he goes through it and it still leaves me with some questions. But okay, Kane and Margaret are like, yes, let's move these diamonds out of the country. Then Kane was like, I'm going to cut Margaret out of the deal.

Right. He took the diamonds in order to move them out and then was like, I'm not going to tell you how I'm doing it or something like that, I guess. Yeah, yeah. So Barrows was supposed to make the deal. Right. He took the diamonds in order to move them out. And then it was like, I'm not going to tell you how I'm doing it or something like that, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So Barrows was supposed to make the switch.

The goons caught up to him before he could make the actual switch. So he stuffed them in his bag, but then they found him again, but Kane didn't know that. So everyone assumed he had made the switch. So that's why he was trying to get the things. They didn't know that they'd never been switched because barrows was the only one who knew that they actually had the originals because that estate also had the original sculptures right that nobody knew about that so

that was like the big the big spoiler to the whole plan was it turns out there are originals as well as the fakes or something like that. It doesn't matter too much. That's what he says. And Dennis even says, okay, sure. I have a headache. I'll,

I'll talk to you tomorrow when we start extradition. Yeah. Dennis is out. Maybe they were like, whatever. We don't need to explain all this. He says some words. We're good.

We move on. Yeah. Dennis asked Jim if he's going to be picking up the tab. And Jim says, sure. Dennis leaves. Because Jim has some final things to talk about with this agent. Not to be crass, but about my 5% recovery fee on a million dollars worth of diamonds. That works out to $50,000.

Mm-hmm. But, says the agent, each cormorant was insured for $15,000, and the company feels that since Jim was hired to protect them, and they were all destroyed, he should bear the loss, which leaves Jim with a nice, clear $5,000. But, of course... I've been doing some preliminary figuring. But of course, I've been doing some preliminary figuring now from the 5000. There's, of course, English inheritance taxes and English income taxes.

Oh, yes. We shall have to, of course, inform your IRS. And there's the rate of exchange to consider. Oh, yes. And then there's one minute. Yeah. Do you think there's going to be enough left for me to pick up the stab? Well, I really don't know, Mr. Rock, but that rather depends. Do you intend to keep on drinking? And we freeze frame on Jim's sad, wry smile. Yes.

Okay, so I obviously don't agree that it's Jim's fault that like there are actual criminals that have done damage to this property. Right. Jim did none of it. I'm not going to argue in TV court about this, but, you know, Jim is being robbed here. Okay. It's a scene about that joke, but it's also a scene about how all of these people involved in this were criminals, but they were also all high society.

Right. You know, and it's just the high society being like, Jim, you'll never be a part of this. And having a guy that with a posh British accent explaining to him how he's not going to see any of this money. Yeah.

And it's not like he's going to, not like he had aspirations for it to begin with. Right. Like, so that's fine. But also Jim should be pretty happy because like I said, he made $700. It's not the best pay,

but he got all the money. He got the 200 for the first job. He got the 500 for the second job. He got the $500 for the second job. Oh, yeah. No. And then he had the bird with Kane. You'd assume that Kane paid him for the third one since he paid him for the other two. Yeah.

I don't think they specified what that was going to be, but he actually comes out more ahead than he does in many episodes. So, yeah, he does all right with this one. Just not as all alright as he thought he was going to do. Well, there's that promise of the big score, right? Like, Jim could do a lot with 50k and then it's going to be like $100 after everything is settled,

right? Poor Jim. But other than the guy who jumps off a roof by accident and then the guy who gets shot by the cops, everyone else seems to come out okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's some extradition happening, like, you know, justice is being served in the background.

Thanks to the ever vigilant James Rockford. So it was a fun episode. Like, going back over it, we definitely get a little tangled up in the web it wove. Yeah, but kind of in a fun way. Not in a, this doesn't hang together.

More in a, I see why all this stuff is in here in the way that it is. Because it's mainly for us as the audience, right? Yeah. It's more audience directed than like internally consistent in that way. But it's also not like like none of this makes sense. It's more of the, okay, once we decide to really delve into it, we can figure out how it makes sense. There's a little headcanon.

There's a little bit of assumption we have to make. But the beats work. I think, and I'll never remember this, but I think my homework for my third viewing or third my next viewing of this uh is to see what maggie is actually doing yeah throughout it yeah there's either some really subtle things going on or they were like she's actually evelyn stoneman until this moment when she shows up with the goons. Right.

And I'm just curious. Like, if I watch it again, sorry, I probably will. But if I remember when I watch it again, I want to watch that more closely. I think there's some there's some stuff that it's like, is this the, quote, honest reaction that she is having to this event or is she projecting the reaction that she thinks jim would expect her to have yeah and it's a little complicated because she does think that they're fakes so when it turns out that they're real but then she doesn't care she doesn't care that they're real she cares about the diamonds but kane thinks they're fakes so he doesn't care that they get broken until he learns that it is real.

And then he's like, oh, wait a second. So that's kind of good. This episode has kind of a good arrangement of the character motivations feeling like they're internally consistent to those characters. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. And part of that is bound up in like, Kane doesn't come off as a heavy,

he's not trying to hurt anyone. He's motivated by what he thinks is happening. It just turns out that what he thinks is happening is wrong. I think that's something that we've always liked about the show, is how it does a good job making those motivations feel internally consistent to the characters as they're presented. Yeah, it's that and also the fact that they don't always just come out of the left field either. Like some of them, they're internally consistent, but also the things that they do can provide red herrings without betraying the internal consistency, I think is what I'm trying to say. Right. Yes. From the audience perspective, stuff happens and we're like, where's that going?

And then it turns out to we see why that thing happened. Right. We see why he broke that broke the second bird. Yeah, exactly. Even though at the time it's like, why is he broke the second bird. Yeah, exactly. Even though at the time it's like, why is he breaking the second bird? What is he up to? Yeah, why did he buy it? Just to break it. That kind of thing. Yeah, no, it's good. If there's one that I'm going to be like, wait a second about, I like them more in this vein where this is giving me a lot to just kind of chew on and be like,

I feel like I'm being smart by trying to explain things versus this episode is leaving me adrift. Right. So this goes on the positive side of that where I get to feel, feel like I'm doing some like smart connecting of dots to bridge the stuff that on the second viewing is a little like, wait a second. But even just on just casually, just just the casual watch it's super fun it's funny uh jim gets to make some money which is nice uh we get to see have good art world jokes we got a nice view at one of jim's friends that we'll never see again right and and some good jim jim dennis moments yeah The gambit where Dennis is Dennis knows.

That was a good moment. Just the look on his face like, we're going to have to bring my friend in. Well, it always feels good when Jim gets to get his $200 a day. I'd say that we've

perhaps made our own, or at least gotten our replica formulates in line. I wouldn't have an original one myself, but perhaps a Lambrini duplicate may show up on one of my shelves. We'll see. With, like, some modeler's glue. Put it back together. It'll be full of dog treats, though.

Yeah. The most valuable resource in my house I agree Well with that Then we will Sign off for now But fear not for we will be back Next time to talk about another episode

Of the Rockford Files I don't know how to do a violin noise That was good That was well done