Two Hundred A Day - Episode 63: To Protect and Serve (Two-Part Episode)

Episode Date: January 26, 2020

Nathan and Eppy talk about a remarkable two-parter from Season 3, To Protect and Serve. Jim is hired to find a run-away bride from New York, but that quickly becomes the background to the drama stemming from the interference of a police "buff" named Lianne who's fallen for Dennis. Ultimately a character study of the obsessive Lianne, this David Chase-written story balances all of our familiar characters with the her narrative focus, as well as introducing a new foe for Jim in the character of hit man "Anthony Boy" Gagglio - more about him in our next episode. Highly recommended! 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 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.

This is Esther, your father's friend. So you helped me move, that's it? You couldn't call? See if maybe I don't like the new place? See if maybe there's some painting to be done? Welcome, everyone, to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I am Epidaia Ravishaw's lingering cough. We are both getting over colds. So apologies for any vocal qualities in this particular episode. We're going to do our best. Enjoy the moist podcast.

So we kind of backed our way into doing this set of episodes. Oh, yeah. backed our way into doing this uh set of episodes oh yeah i think epi i believe you proposed doing uh the other one and then i was like no let's do this first i don't know what led me to this one was it it's in season five right because we've been kind of trying to catch up on our season five uh coverage god there was something about this one in particular. Maybe I just was like, let's do an IRS audit one. Because that is very much something that I would do. But I noticed that it was on IMDb, it was an hour and 14 minutes long. So probably two episodes when it aired.

And then you discovered that it was related to something that happened in To Serve and Protect, another two. And so we thought, well, hell. We got ourselves a little series here. Yeah. So let's do this. I recall The Man Who Saw the Alligator as one that I really liked, that I thought was really emotionally interesting. So I remembered it when you so i remembered it when you proposed it yeah that one hinges on a mobster a hitman who gets out of jail

and looks for jim for revenge because jim's the one who put him in jail and then turns out that protect and serve is the story of their first encounter yes so uh and we'll talk more about that one when we get to it uh it actually wasn't a two-parter. It aired as an hour episode, even though it was shot as an hour and a half episode. Still need to figure out exactly what the story is there. Interesting. But we'll get to that next time. Here, we're talking about To Protect and Serve, which was a formal two-part episode from season three.

Episodes 19 and 20, airing in uh mid uh 1977 um these are written by david chase and so these are really entries kind of into the greater chase averse yes because not only are these centering on mobsters as we know david chase love so much i guess he's mentioned somewhere that the character that we're going to meet uh tony uh anthony baby is a bit of a prototype for at least one of the soprano characters right and this actor ended up in a role on the sopranos so a lot of chase uh uh greater chase averse uh connections through all this stuff if i had not known that Chase had written this, I think the moment somebody

says the name Minette and you can hear the silverware drop, I would have been like, oh, this is definitely a David Chase. This one is directed by William Ward, who we have seen so many times. Most recently in

Rosendahl and Guildestern Are Dead. I was just taking a look at his actual full list of credits. We're about a quarter of the way through his Rockford filmography, counting two-parters as one episode. So we have a lot of him still to see. Not a lot about him on the internet. Directed a lot of episodes of the Rockford Files. This is very much one continuous story

Through the two episodes So I think we will get right into it Unless you have any other thoughts It's a good Becker story It is a good Becker story That's really the only thing I have to say going into it I enjoyed it And we'll get into how and why all that fits together. But yeah.

Well, to start us off, was there anything in particular that you enjoyed about the preview montage? So, well, yeah, I guess the fact that the preview montage lets us know it's a Becker story right off the bat. Not only does it let us know it's a becker story but it also lets us know that dennis and jim are going to be pitted against each other to some extent by external forces um there's also plenty in this montage to let us know that there's danger ahead like barking dogs death threats gunshots some uh tear gas and why we don't have any. Why don't we have any tear gas? Yeah, but that was the extent of it.

It definitely whetted my appetite for the upcoming episode, but I didn't feel like it told me even really anything about the episode. 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 200ADay. In addition to episode previews and access

to the 200ADay 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. 200ADay 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.

Jay Adan, check out his amazing miniature painting over at JayAdan.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Dave P., Dale Church, and finally, big thanks to 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 our episode starts with the sound of police sirens yeah i was like oh we're gonna get a chase right away no it is not a chase it is in fact an armed standoff yeah as you said

this is very much a becker story and we actually start just with Becker. He's coming up to this situation which someone refers to as a typical LA Tuesday. Yes. There's a guy who is separated from his wife and stormed this house and shot her boyfriend

that she was with in the house and now has her and is armed with some kind of machine pistol, they say, and is threatening with some serious threats of violence. Becker is the, I don't know, the ranking officer on the scene, right? Yeah, it appears to be. So he tries to negotiate through this megaphone and the guy starts shooting at him, including shooting it right out of his hand.

Yeah. Which is pretty uh pretty scary uh yeah left a hole right in the the megaphone um i was gonna say in my notes like you can see my concerns just before that i write turn your blinker off because we can part of the foley is i think the car that they're hiding behind has its blinker on because you can hear the blinker the whole time. And this scene doesn't have any score. It's all just like the natural Foley. So, yeah, I noticed that, too. Yeah. And I'm like, turn your blinker off.

And then I'm like, holy. Dennis almost bit it is what I wrote. Yeah. Well, and that clicking sound very much. It's almost it's like it kind of keeps the tempo up. Right. It's kind of like a heart I wrote. Yeah. Well, and that clicking sound very much. It's almost, it's like a, it kind of keeps the tempo up, right? It's kind of like a heart or something.

Yeah. It lets you know what the tension is. We immediately get that scene from the preview montage where, where Becker wants to know why they don't have any tear gas. And then this random, as far as we know, woman runs up kind of alongside one of the other cops and starts echoing Becker. And that she's the one who says, yeah, you know, why don't we have any tear gas?

She will be important. We'll get back to her. Uh, while another cop negotiates, Becker runs around kind of the side of the house. And then the guy storms out with his, with his gun. Um, Becker's to his side, calls for him to drop. out with his gun. Becker's to his side, calls for him to drop. The guy draws on him and Becker pulls the trigger of his own gun and shoots this guy before he can get shot himself.

The guy who I refer to in my notes as Die Hard. With his undershirt and bad attitude. Yes. That's kind of the resolution of the standoff. Right. The other cops kind of swarm up. They're checking on Becker. And there's random passerby who are accumulating at the scene.

And this woman, we learn in a couple of scenes, her name is Leanne. So Leanne starts shooing people away and is like, let the officers do their job, like acting like she has some kind of authority. And I think it's pretty clear from how she's framed that she's not, I mean, she doesn't have any, she's not in a uniform. She doesn't have a badge or anything. But she's acting like she's part of the unit. I think it's legitimately confusing, like in a good way. As longtime listeners of the podcast know, it's been a while since I've seen some of these,

and my memory is not the best. I vaguely recalled her, but I couldn't remember if I could not. I was like, is she like a consultant or a boss and superior in some way? And I'm like, I don't think she is. But and that's good. Like that's yeah, we're supposed to be like, what's going on here? The other thing I really like about this scene is that it treats what just happened uh as a big deal yes yeah and that's great because becker is clearly shaken yeah and uh the other

cops are like come on you know come on dennis let's get back down the station we'll take it from there yeah they're treating him kind of gently i don't know if it's been established i mean i feel like by this point we've him, you know, in some big climactic finale, take a shot at someone or shoot someone as part of the like, you know, getting the bad guys at the end. But this is treated where this is not something that Becker does all the time. Right. It's not standard fare. Yeah, it's a pretty traumatic situation for him as well. And so Leanne like starts talking to him like she knows him and tells him that it was beautiful den yes like so she's taking this as this big victory and everyone else is kind of like

all right let's like clean this up like this is not where any of us want to be but um she says that uh she'll be a witness for his you know board of inquiry or whatever they call it and he uses and she uses all this cop lingo, like. Salcido, I was right over there in a position of advantage. Had a clear eyeball of Becker and the suspect. You tell the shoe fly that I'll be willing to testify at the shooting review board. Somebody contact you in a couple of days. And she uses all this lingo in a way that none of the actual cops do.

Right. We end the scene with her getting back into her car where she has a police scanner that's on and that she's clearly listening to. Right. We end the scene with her getting back into her car where she has a police scanner that's on and that she's clearly listening to. And at this point now, I kind of get the idea. Nobody is completely dismissive of her, but she speaks with authority that nobody's responding to.

Right. Yeah. We should talk about that this is the actress who's Joyce Van Patten. The, I believe believe sister to dick van patten uh yes yeah yeah she's great she so two things when she came into the scene i was like oh this is this one i'd completely forgotten that she was also in this story i remember the story with like tony and the gangsters which we'll get to and then i remember the story with, like, Tony and the gangsters, which we'll get to. And then I remember the story with

this woman, Leanne, and the cops. Right. I completely forgot or just didn't, you know, it did not occur to me that they were in the same episode. And this is also one of my, like, really memorable, uh, emotionally charged characters. Yeah, yeah. As we'll get to.

And then also the actress I recognize from, I mean, she's been in lots of stuff, but she was on a couple of Columbos. So she was the murderer in an old-fashioned murder where she's in charge of a family museum. And then she's like a gag comic relief character in an episode where colombo is trying to talk to someone at a uh like a like a soup kitchen that's run by like a religious

organization and she's a nun who mistakes colombo for someone who needs their services and tries to take his coat it's good both of which are very different roles like this character is completely different than her murderer character which is kind of funny because she has the exact same haircut but uh she's uh she has she has a good she has a good range is what i'm trying to say here uh her her depiction i think we'll get more into this character as we go along but like uh i don't think this is an easy character to do no uh it's a character that would be easy for us to hate and And instead, there's a lot of sympathy. And that's both a credit to her and also to, well, everyone else.

I mean, like, I think that the way that Dennis and Jimbo and even Chapman deal with her is really, really kind of interesting. Well, speaking of Jimbo, we go from here to Jim pulling up to his trailer. Someone's there, but no worries. It's just Rocky. Sleep on the couch. His TV was on the fritz. He didn't want to miss this game,

so that's why he came over. Jim's been working on a missing persons case. He asks if Becker's given him a call, because he asked Becker to run down a license plate for him. Rocky immediately starts digging into what this case is all about as a concerned father. On the behalf of her fiancé, a Michael Kelly, who said that she ditched their wedding and fled to L.A. from New York. He hasn't been able to dig up anything past this license plate that some valet saw somewhere where she got picked up after she got to L.A. There's a good exchange here where I think Jim's like, why are you digging into my business?

You know, my work is confidential. And Rocky says, well, what's confidential between a father and son? But of course, he also does not approve of this, you know, this kind of dangerous stuff that Jim's getting himself into all the time. We're kind of just getting a little couple minute establishment of the rocky jim eternal dynamic yes uh i i really appreciate uh whenever rocky armchair pis the stuff that's going on uh yeah he tries to to run down the psychology of the uh of patsy i bet you she's hiding from the law and there's this back and forth uh jim offers offers a alternative theory about the family. I can't remember what his thing is, but I remember Rocky.

Well, I wrote down Rocky said, I wonder why families are always giving their offspring such a hard time. And Jim's look is wonderful. It's priceless. Yeah, I wonder. He goes into his bedroom to the phone that's in there, which I think, again, we recently remarked on. Yeah. Every so often he takes his phone calls in the bedroom. But he gives the Beckers a call.

Peggy is the one who picks up. Dennis is still at the station. He said he'd be late. He never says why. And Jim says that he'll go and see if he can track him down. Peggy says to tell Dennis that he's missed a great pot roast and Mildred Pierce on TV. So I've not seen Mildred Pierce, but I am going to now. It's good.

It's a good movie. Apparently it makes Den cry. So it's a noir? Yeah, okay. 1945. So we cut to a bar where Leanne is talking Becker's ear off. Still kind of full of all this policeman slang. She really admired what he did today.

And he is still, you know, pretty shaken up, pretty down. Says that he's not celebrating, right? It's not something to celebrate. While she's trying to kind of talk him up and tell him what a great job he did yeah she's she's clearly wired this is a bit of excitement that she probably doesn't encounter right for her hobby it's you know finding that mickey mantle baseball card or whatever like it's a very very different experience that dennis is going through. I really dig, again, how Dennis is concerned about this guy that he shot. This guy is not a good guy and was putting lives in danger. And Dennis did what needed to be done in the situation. But also, it's great that Dennis isn't just like, it's all good.

Yeah. I wasn't sure how subtle this was supposed to be. And then over the course of the next episode, I think it's not supposed to be subtle. But Leanne has a crush on Becker, right? Oh, yeah. And so she's kind of hitting on him a little bit, including inviting him back to her place where they can really celebrate. She has some 12-year-old scotch that she got as a present from a friend in NARC. Yeah. And he does not seem to be raring to jump towards that offer. It's no mystery to me.

I think she definitely has a thing for Dennis. The mystery for me is whether Dennis knows that she does. Yeah. Like, is he just, like, trying to let her down easy, or is he just oblivious to the fact that she's trying to get between him and Peggy? Yeah, I don't know. Jim shows up. Becker introduces Leanne and Jim.

Leanne tries to place him as a cop, like, Rockford, Rockford. Oh, you work over in this precinct. He's like, no. And then when he says that he's a PI, she seems offended. Yeah. Oh, it's great. This is a great little couple sentences that I think establishes everything we need to know about

this triangle, these three characters, right? Jim immediately starts on Dennis, like, hey, what about that plate I asked you to run me? It's the only thing I have that's really important. Dennis is like, hey, why are you on my back all the time? Yeah. I'm not your personal police favor runner.

Leanne comes to Dennis's defense and says, you know, you don't understand what kind of day he had. He did this great heroic thing taking down this perp and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And once Jim understands that Dennis had that happen today, he immediately is like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. What can I do? How are you feeling? Yeah, it's great. Oh, it's wonderful. He just didn't know, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's wonderful because everything they're able to illustrate, they bring Rockford up to date with it, but it also, you know, like we talk about dialogue doing more than one thing. It also puts part of what's going

on with rockford in front of leanne which is important for later on yeah i just i love when they do scenes like this that let the characters sing rather than kind of betray them and make them do the thing that's needed for the story like this is definitely a thing where both dennis and jim are behaving how you would expect dennis and jim to behave in this sort of stressful situation which is great um dennis uh says that he should he should head home uh to his wife um leanne clearly does not think he should he's like no stay here after the drink or whatever and jim's like all right he he says that he thinks he hears something wrong with his car so he's gonna take off and and of course it's important that by now leanne has started calling jim jimbo right she calls dennis den as soon as

dennis calls jim jimbo she starts calling him jimbo uh we go back to the trailer where we have a couple of goons pulling up in a goon car. It's a goonmobile. So this is the introduction of Anthony Boy of Tony and his buddy Sil. Tony is tall and big and wearing

a big tan trench coat. Sil is shorter and wider and balding with a full... It's not a mullet because it goes all the way out to the sides. But he's bald on top and then just has a full, like, pompadoured back. Yes. These two are chef-kiss. Yeah.

They want to talk to Rockford. Tony says that he's Sergeant Johnson from the New York City police. They're trying to find Patsy Fossler. They've come all the way out here as a special favor because her family's very influential. Jim, so he flashes a badge and then Jim

asks him for the badge number without looking. Yeah. At that point, they all know what the deal is. Jim goes for his gun in the cookie jar and so gut punches him before he can get to it. And we get a really meaty brawl. Yes. It's not long, but Syl manages to get control of Jim's arms.

And then Tony kind of, you know, threatens him, wants to know what he knows. Jim doesn't know anything. He very deliberately puts on brass knuckles and Jim's like, oh no. He manages to break out of Syl's hold by pushing him back into the cabinets that are behind him and they kind of brawl into the

bedroom, but not before Jim kicks Tony in the knee, which turns out was the greatest decision. Yes. So the camera stays in like the main room. Tony goes down. We see them go into the greatest decision. Yes. So the camera stays in like the main room. Tony goes down. We see them go into the back room. We hear a punch and we see Jim stumble across the open door and fall. Phil comes out and apparently Tony has a plate in his knee and Jim kicked it out of place.

Yeah. I imagine writing the scene, right? imagine writing this scene right and you've got these these two goons that are throughout the scene presenting themselves as sort of a superior physical threat especially when he gets the brass knuckles out uh it it's definitely this thing that's like okay jim's out of his element he's he's in his own trailer but he's not like he's not in charge here. And this reversal of having clearly there had been some surgery done or something. Yeah, there's a plate in Anthony Boy's leg and that kick and the way it changes everything about the scene for Anthony Boy. Because he's like he doesn't care about Jim. He doesn't care about what their job is.

He's in pain. doesn't care about jim he doesn't care about what their job is right he's in pain he's upset with his partner for not stopping everything and helping him you know like we got to find a hospital we got to like yeah he needs to see an orthopedist oh i love it because it is it's that kind of injury that like it feels very real to the audience so there's several moments in these two episodes where people just get turned off by punches right like they're they're knocked out which is like tv shorthand for yeah we don't know what to do next or whatever not to dismiss those i mean those are just staples of the genre that's fine but i love this so much more than that because it's like you feel it you're like oh

god damn it like you don't i I don't like Anthony Boyd. But I've had knee problems. Like, I've had knee pain. I know what that feels like. I want out of that situation. It seems understandable when he's like, screw this. This is more important. And he says, we know where Rockford is.

Yeah, like, we can deal with this shit later. Right. I'm in pain. And that's great. And the other thing it does is it's, like we can deal with this sh** later. Right. I'm in pain and that's great. And the other thing it does is it's, this doesn't specifically get called back, but I think this gives us the groundwork for why things get personal.

Yes. Well, Jim does wake up in the morning just as there's a knock on his door, his favorite time to wake up from getting his lights punched out by a goon. And it's Leanne. There's stuff on the floor, like there's like the phone and like a broken ashtray and stuff.

She asks, was there a crime here that should be reported? Jim has no time for this, of course. Wants to know why she's there. And she wants to talk to Jimbo about a great guy, your friend and mine. I love that she uses that phrase. As we know on this show he's our good friend Dennis Becker. But your friend and mine Dennis Becker.

This is before the kind of episodes that are about Dennis going for Lieutenant but this also lives in that universe. This is part of why this show feels like it has this kind of continuous character narrative. You know Den's been busting his buns to make lieutenant and he will too but if he gets caught doing you freebies using department facilities it's going to be like a

giant black eye for the guy hey hey you know i do favors for him too i mean, we happen to be friends. Jimbo, then do this sweet, marvelous guy that favor and stop asking him to compromise himself and the department for you. Jim, I think appropriately so, is kind of like, why are you bothering me with

this? Yes. I mean, he doesn't like her. He doesn't need her coming around and telling him how to run his business, and he has a pounding headache. He has a great line where he's like, you know, I'm really falling in love with today. Yeah. And her motivation at this point here is all Dennis right now. She just thinks she's going to make Dennis's life easier by having a little talk with Jim. And we kind of see, again, this builds through the episode, but we see how she's centering herself in something that has nothing to do with her. Yeah. Because she gets to feel like she's important, I guess. Like it gives her the thrill of like, I'm someone who matters here. And this is a very minor version of it, but

it continues. At this point, I just had to like remind myself at this point she's not on any case right he is just trying to make dennis's life better after after the shooting or you know for whatever reason but yeah uh the scene ends with jim getting a phone call from michael kelly uh he wants to talk and he gives just a little tidbit that uh he moved out of his hotel to this other address and so we cut to this big fancy mansion in bel-air where uh jim is arriving to talk to mr kelly um this shot where we see the firebird pull into the driveway in the foreground is a car with two guys in it and in my notes i go we go, we see two goons, cops, question mark. The way that they're sitting in that car, I'm like, are those guys cops? Turns out, yes,

they are cops. Yeah, good Rockford instincts. I can tell a goon from a cop from a split second. Kelly wants to know, you know, what Jim's progress is, which so far is pretty much nothing. I think it's important that we know that Kelly is a villain because we're having a poolside conversation. This is also part of the Rockford files. He's also wearing a robe. This character is played by an actor named John Cipher, which is a great name. Oh,

it's a great name. And I just clicked on just to check him out real quick. And the first thing I see is that he was in the Masters of the Universe movie. He's man at arms. That's awesome. Yes, he is. And now with a mustache. Picture on his IMDb page is not from that movie, but has a mustache.

And I'm like, I know that guy. And I totally don't recognize him from the episode. No, totally different without the mustache. Yeah. It looks like he ended up on Dynasty also. And Hill Street Blues. People might know him. Might know him.

I did not. Not slanding. Oh, a lot of stuff. This guy's had a career. Anyway, he's real slimy here. Yes, he's great. So yeah, he's wearing his robe. Does not accept that Jim is having trouble with this.

They have a great exchange. Oh, don't let this fool you. That's how I was brought up. We Kellys put on a show of bravery at all costs. We Rockford's take people who con us and feed them their tennis shoes. Yes. Jim wants to know what's really going on as there's these two cloves of garlic are also looking for Patsy. Oh, Jim.

Kelly basically reiterates like, no, this is she's my fiance. She left. I want to find her and convinces Jim that that that is the story. Like he's like, that's actually what happened. He's like, yeah, but it's imperative that he find her by the time he gets on a plane back to new york tomorrow which gives him just about 24 hours so jim tries to quit tells him he owes him 500 bucks plus expenses kelly won't let him quit he has 24 hours before he has to be on this flight and if jim doesn't uh continue on the case then he is going to have to kill him. Jim kind of laughs it off, but then Kelly calls in his buddy Dorsey,

one of our more long-haired goons with the curly locks and a gun in his side holster. Nice high-waisted pants. Yep. And so in the face of this direct threat, Jim agrees to stay on the case. But now he's on a clock. He's like, well well what's another 24 hours in a whole lifetime we go to uh chapman our our oh yeah lieutenant chapman it's a good chapman episode this is a good chapman episode uh talking to becker and kind of starting off on a pretty

positive foot saying uh you know once once he's cleared with like the inquiry board or whatever they'll get him back out soon. You know, everyone can see that the shooting was justified. It shouldn't be a problem. But by the way, how's your buddy Rockford? Yeah. Out of curiosity. Becker says that he stopped doing favors for him.

He knows that's not okay with the department and all that stuff. But, yeah, yeah yeah i guess there was he did ask me to run one play but i didn't do it right i would never do it so chapman closes the door in a not threatening but in a uh ominous manner yeah so apparently he got a call from intelligence whatever that means um internal affairs maybe uh but uh that uh michael kelly an attorney from new york has been kind of like flagged by the new york police department uh and so they told la that he was coming out there and he's he's white hot and the first thing he does once he's out here is he contacts rockford becker yeah admits that he he was asked to run some plates but he didn't

do it then chapman says well go ahead and help him out this one time. Yeah. So he wants Becker to get info about Kelly from Jim. And Becker says, Jim has a code. He's not just going to tell me stuff. And this is when Chapman hits him with the line from the preview montage about how he's going to have to choose between his friend and the department. And so we end that with a quick view of Becker pulling the info from the plate out of the printer and then giving Jim a call. I do like that, that he makes, at least stands up for Jim's

code a little bit there. I think he already knows how this is going to go down. Yeah. Yeah. You're telling me to do this. I'll try, but I promise you I will not get anything. So we go to one of the more uncomfortable barbecues at the Becker residence. I feel like

meals at the Becker's never go well. They're in the backyard. Becker's putting some shish kebabs on the grill they've busted out the six dollar wine yeah um there's a little bit of like peggy and jim catching up which is really sweet and yeah just because we did that uh the movie so recently uh peggy says that uh scott's running for president of the sixth grade he's running on an anti-corruption platform in government.

Isn't that cute? He's like, oh, Scott, don't know what's in store. I'd say this quickly turns as Becker very inelegantly tries to ask Jim for information about that plate that he was asked to run. I love how bad he is at this. Like, normally that sort of stuff is a little cringy. Even if you don't want them to be good at it you want them to be good at it right like you just don't want the uh i didn't write down the exact line but there's just this moment where he clearly he had a question does he say

something like would this have anything to do with uh with this guy michael like with someone named kelly or something like that he made a statement, oh, I was just asking a question or just like very clearly in his head about it and just can't do it. Just can't. And what's great is that Peggy is the one who calls him on it. Yeah. What's wrong with you? Why are you being so weird?

Yeah. Jim says, you're as nervous as a third place runner up in a Miss America contest. Becker can't do it. So he spills. Oh, it just comes clean. It's great.. Becker can't do it, so he spills, right? Oh, he just comes clean. It's great. Perfect. I can't do this. Chapman told me to, you know, get information from you about this plate. And Jim says

that you're a police officer. I'm not going to implicate myself in something before I know what's going on. Yeah. Which is totally fair. And he's tired of LAPD interfering in his life every time he turns around. Your policewoman friend showed up at the crack of dawn. What?

Yeah. So, Peggy is interested in this. Just what is a buff? Buff? Well, it's a citizen who is fascinated by police work. Like, you know, people are into CB radios and Broadway shows. These people are buffs, as we call them. They like to spend time around a station house, get to know the fellas, sort of hang out.

Dennis, that's not a buff. That's a groupie. Yep. And then wants to know why he had to unwind at the bar with a groupie instead of at his house in the den with the nice liquor with his wife. Legitimate question. This argument quickly turns from Jim and Becker arguing to Peggy and Becker. Jim fades into the background and then tries to diffuse the tension by picking up a tea towel and going, boy, this salad really looks good.

In the proud tradition of, boy, this broccoli sure is good. And they both look at him and we cut the scene there. I don't think Dennis is in, like, super trouble, but... Uh, one of the fun acrobatics of this scene is the way the pressures shift around. Chapman isn't there.

But it is Chapman's orders that Dennis is acting on. So there's that pressure there. He's trying to get some information from Jimbo. It's not going to work. So he confesses what he's doing to Jimbo. Jimbo's upset that the police are on his back about this and blah, blah, blah. He's not getting any help from a friend.

He's been invited over to what was supposed to be a friendly meal. And it is clearly that was not the right thing. And then instead of that being like this fight that escalates, what happens is Leanne comes up and then it becomes this thing where Peggy is like, wait a minute, Dennis, what are you talking about what's going on? And then instead of Jim continuing to be angry about what's going on is put into the position of being the peacemaker, right? Like it's,

it's a more dynamic scene than if it had just ended with all of them shouting at each other. So we go from there to this board where Leanne's giving her statement and she just gives all these details and the people there clearly just wanted to get to the point. Specifically to clarify that Becker told the guy to flatten before he shot. Yeah. That that was the order of events.

That's kind of what they want to make sure is clear. So they have to kind of hurry her up through all these irrelevant details. And again, codes and lingo and all this stuff. And you just, it's like five guys and they codes and lingo and all this stuff. And you just, it's like five guys and they're just rolling their eyes at this woman. Um, she puts in, uh,

a good word for Becker as good people. Um, and then is excused. Becker goes in, uh, for his own interview. Leanne just kind of like hangs out in the hallway. So she overhears Chapman checking in with Billings.

Uh, this is just kind of getting everyone in that, in this, in the hallway. So she overhears Chapman checking in with Billings. This is just kind of getting everyone in this area because it's kind of about what Leanne does and hears. So she tells Billings that, oh yeah, they might want more of my testimony. So I'm going to hang around until they call me back in, which is a straight up lie. Yeah, I'm still important. We get a quick moment where the panel calls the incident, what I find a really terrifying term, a good shooting.

Yes. And so Dennis is okay, right? Leanne then kind of follows and overhears as Chapman talks to Becker about whether he got anything from Jim. And he says, Jim didn't give anything up. I told you he wouldn't say anything. Chapman wants him to keep trying. He has two guys staked out around the clock on Kelly. It would save a lot of time and money if Becker could just, you know, cut to the chase with Jim.

Leanne overhears all of this. So I guess we see her hearing bits and pieces, but she doesn't have the full picture, right? Yeah, yeah. In my notes here, this is when I realize Leanne's familiar to me for two reasons. Number one, I had watched this episode a long time ago. But number two, she is so Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec that it's just, it's kind of stunning. And you just feel her need to get involved and like, I'm going to fix everyone's life. It's like, I'm going to find out what's going on.

I'm going to be useful. And I'm going to be Dennis's hero. Yeah. Right. We go to Tony and Syl hanging out in their hotel room. What do they call this, a pizza? It ain't so bad, Tony. It ain't so bad?

How can you say that? You've been eating New York pizza all your life. You can make a statement like that? Back in sheep's head bed, they throw up on crust like this. Look at that. It's all cheese. Where's the tomato sauce, huh? It ain't a pizza.

It's a grilled cheese sandwich. California. Tony hates LA. Hates everything about California. They get a call from Brooklyn. Someone got the name of Patsy's boyfriend from someone. And so they have this ranch that they think she's hiding out at. And Tony hates the sound of it, just the name of the ranch.

But they head out and we see that he's still favoring that knee, right? That he had the injury. And we see that he's still favoring that knee, right? That he had the injury. And now we get to, let us see interactions of our, some of our least sympathetic characters. At that same bar, Doug is there. We'll call him Doug, not Chapman, because Leanne sidles her way up to him. Oh, yeah. Introduces herself and immediately starts calling him Doug.

Says she's a friend of Becker's. They go back a long, a long time. But, you know, he's a soft touch and she's a she's a shoulder that he cries on. Right. Take this Michael Kelly thing. So she's using the kind of in a Rockford-esque move, right? She's using a couple little details that she overheard to try and pry herself into a situation. that she overheard to try and pry herself into a situation.

There's a few moments in these two episodes where she makes some Rockford-esque con attempts. And they're not quite as aptly handled as Rockford would handle them. And this is one of them, I think. But Doug, as we'll call him, is in a spot where he'll welcome anything right now at this moment. So he's going to listen. Whatever's going on with this Michael Kelly guy, it's a big deal. And he's in charge, right?

It's a really interesting dynamic, though, because it's like she's trying to get into his good graces. And he's trying to find out if she actually knows anything without telling her without letting her in yeah so it's this really interesting kind of back and forth uh she uses the the i don't know if it's the claim uh i guess it's because she saw them together but she says you know because becker didn't even try to get info from jim about this michael kelly thing maybe he's going soft she's she's trying to trade up i think she's trying to trade up she's kind of like oh this guy's a lieutenant because when he's first introduced she's like oh lieutenant yeah yeah but she says that she found out from jim because this is i think what jim told

becker when she was at the table or whatever it doesn't really matter she she overheard this um that kelly is looking for someone and j Jim got brought in for this missing persons thing. And Chapman didn't know that. So that is new information for him. And that's something that, you know, Becker didn't tell him. I don't think Becker knows because Jim didn't tell him. Right. Right.

Right. So Chapman gets that little piece of information and then she tries to invite him back to her place to discuss it more. And he's like, no, thank you. I have a dinner engagement. back to her place to discuss it more. And he's like, uh, no, thank you. Uh, I have a dinner engagement. He leaves and the bartender calls Leanne on it. Yeah.

You're never going to get to him or something like that. And she's just so impressed with how, how, how Doug sacrifices his personal needs and wants for the department. My God. I respect that. Yeah. I do like how Doug, dougie if you will sets boundaries because he does how does he i don't remember how he words it but like that she can't she should not be doing

any investigating right she's like as a civilian you should know because she she says i can work on this thing from my end yeah he's like what's your end you shouldn't be involved yeah he's he's pretty stern about it but she's also winking when he's doing it? You shouldn't be involved. Yeah. He's pretty stern about it. But she's also winking when he's doing it. And he's not paying close enough attention to be like, right, that's this moment here, right? I think so. And I think this is where we really see that Leanne has a personal reality field, right? Everything that comes into her world, she judos into being the most positive interpretation for her needs it doesn't

seem to be necessarily on purpose no it's yeah she's she's almost incapable of seeing that that she's wrong we uh i skipped earlier it was just a brief scene where jim did follow up the plate and went out to this ranch so it was establishing that there was a ranch and the dog there barked at him. And, you know, he ran away before he could get attacked by the dog. So that's the ranch that now Tony and Syl know that they're going to. So now we go to that ranch. Jim arrives. He's holding like a clipboard or something.

And he has a quick, just a quick line to get past the dog, which is, I'm here for a property inspection. Can you call off your dog? But as soon as the woman in the house comes out to get rid of said dog, he calls her Patsy. She reacts to the name and he grabs her arm. So that's all he needed. All he wants is some answers. You know, Michael Kelly is looking for her.

He wants to know why. And she confirms that, yes, she was his fiancee. And she left. And she doesn't know why. And she doesn't want to go back. She doesn't want anything to do with them. Just wants to be left alone. So he wants to know why are these two goons after me?

And then they, as if summoned, show up. Jim sees them arrive. And they run off through this ranch. And so we get a little chase sequence. Jim and Patsy run into the horse the barn stable stable thank you uh tony is limping uh still he tells the chicken to shut up which is quite funny um i have to i have to know if that line was improvised it would have been a whole lot of effort to try and wrangle a chicken yeah to have that scene i

just i'm just gonna assume it was and they're like that's brilliant keep that in so jim waits until tony is kind of like he's clearly uncomfortable around all these animals right so he waits till tony's kind of poking his head out into like an like a little a different space then he startles the horses. So the horses all kind of crowd out and push Tony out of the barn. And then Jim locks the door so Tony can't get back in. And then he's just, all these horses are surrounding him. And then they get back to the Firebird. Syl, who has a shotgun, is not quick enough to get to them.

He fires after them. shotgun is not quick enough to get to them. He fires after them, but thanks to a quick J turn, Jim gets out of the firing range pretty quickly. And then we see that Tony is panicking in there with all the horses and still sighs and runs back to, to help out his, his partner.

So we've, this is the second time now that, that still has had to turn away from Rockford yeah to help uh anthony boy out the two things the two notes i had on the scene was number one like the horse gambit uh feels very maverick yeah i wonder if there was like uh yeah how many times in maverick did that yeah scene happen um but it was great and then the other one is sill comes out with the shotgun and there's a moment uh jim and patsy are given a moment by a passing van in my head i was just thinking about like the story from the point of view of the people in that family because there's this seems like it's just a

country road and then suddenly there's this guy running out with the shotgun i guess it also helps that the van is reminiscent of the kind of van you would see like at the beginning of texas chainsaw massacre something like that like this is you know la shotgun massacre or whatever uh those those are my notes they got get away clean thanks to the fact that tony boy here doesn't like horses yeah just. Just constantly needs sales help. Yeah. In the car, uh,

we finally get a little bit of conversation with the subject of all of this. Yes. Uh, craziness, uh, Patsy. Um, she recognized those guys.

That's a Tony. They call him Anthony boy. He works for Joseph Minette. Yes. Dun, dun, dun. We've talked before about all these gangster names. I believe that Minette

specifically came up in one of the movies and we were trying to figure out if that had been used in a show before. Yeah, not just one show. We're getting the whole continuity here. The goons work for Minette and Michael is Minette's attorney.

She says that's one reason she left. She couldn't take those people. And Jim lets out the most world-weary, oh boy, once he learns that the Minettes are involved. Yeah. We cut back to Leanne at work. She works at a bowling alley. And a couple's trying to get bowling shoes, but someone touched her scanner.

It was on the wrong channel, so she has to turn it back, and then she's listening, and she's trying to listen for if anything happened in Bel-Air. I don't know if we're supposed to notice whatever actually came over the scanner. I was trying to figure that out, too. Like, if they would mention anything that we had just witnessed, or anything like that.

But Leanne's clearly listening to that and not paying attention to these if they would mention anything that we had just witnessed or anything like that um but leanne's clearly listening to that and not paying attention to these customers and then tells her you know another worker comes up and she's like uh can you take care of this i have that stomach flu again and she just bails so whatever she heard on the scanner work not important yeah jim and Patsy are in a park. Jim apparently has gotten a little container of Jell-O from the concession stand. What's up with that? Jim's poking at his Jell-O while she is taking a couple of bites out of a sandwich. And they discuss. Patsy says that she doesn't know anything.

She doesn't know why anyone would want to kill her. But Jim says that as long as Anthony Boy thinks that Jim can lead them to her, they're going to keep coming after him. So, you know, he needs to figure out what the deal is. She says that

Michael would tell her things and they laugh at how like crude and like weird the Minettes were like, they're all animals. They all, you know, do all these weird things. But specifically he was working on Minette's jury tampering trial when she

left. And he did mention that two of the witnesses had had fatal accidents and just like, Oh, well there you go. Minette probably had your place bugged knows that michael told you that and now you're a liability uh her arc is kind of one of like trying to pretend like everything is okay until she finally admits that it's not right

and we don't see the end of that until the next episode so here she's still kind of like this doesn't make sense right i'm not a liability to anyone uh but jim thinks he's figured out what the you know what the pressure here is and we end this scene with her saying that uh fine i so i didn't leave right away but i did leave yeah and he uh validates that right he's like yeah you did like clearly this was not a situation you should be in yeah and it is important that you left. It just, it's not going to help just because you left doesn't solve the things,

but you did leave. And that is, you know, good on you for doing that. So we go from that little moment of pause to Syl and Tony in a car at night, apparently heading back out to paradise Cove. Syl's asking how much time are we going to spend sitting on Rockford to

find out where Mikey is? And Tony clearly is taking this very personally now. I'm going to have my day with Rockford. Now, that's not a smart hit. That's not what we're getting paid for. You remember Nativa Dad? The bookie from South Bronx?

You remember what I did to him? Yeah. You hit him in the head with a ball-peen hammer until he died. Oh, my God. And they laugh and laugh. To be continued.

So, two things about that scene. Number one, there's that moment in the beginning of that scene where Syl is, like, doing the stereotypical Californian thing of talking about the directions oh yeah freeways and anthony boy is like i don't want nothing about freeways don't talk to me about freeways this is again more of how anthony hates la uh and then the other one is that the mirror of how so many rock profile episodes end on jimbo's smile after something funny has happened. And here we get Syl's smile after he's reminded of how Anthony Boy beat a man to death with a hammer. Yeah. Right?

It's very ominous. And yes, to be continued. Epi, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the Information Superhighway.

I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at Epidia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to worldswithoutmaster.com,

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

games, including the Worldwide Wrestling Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpayoleta. Looks like And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpaoletta. Looks like you're back. You ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there, Eppie? I'm back.

I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into Rockford's books again. All right, well, I'm done with this delicious avocado taco. Well, let's get back to the show then. This is incredible. Do you know last night I had one of my dreams? I dreamed that if I called you, you wouldn't be home. And you're not.

We roll right into part two of To Protect and Serve, which gets its own preview montage. Yes. So this is what I have written down. Leanne is beat up up leanne's a liability death is on the line the way i read michael in the situation if he gets you back he'll kill you which i think is uh pretty much sets it all up yeah the question about this is that we're obviously for me it has been roughly 24 hours since I've seen the previous episode. And I thought to myself, watching this preview montage, if I had been watching this when it aired, what effect would it have?

And I think specifically because in a moment we're going to get the previously on montage, which brings us all up to speed speed even if we haven't seen it yet or or or what have you but uh i was just trying to like think about you know is the purpose of this montage just to do what it always does just like here's a little bit of action from the upcoming episode or was it supposed to like catch me and say hey remember leanne it's interesting because it kind of like it would be more dramatic if they did the previously on and then did this montage. Because like, if you don't know who Leanne is.

Right. But yeah, I think it's kind of a, well, this is how our show is structured, so death is on the line, I think is the important takeaway. And yeah, it goes from that into the montage of scenes from the last episode. It doesn't have the James Garner.

This is James Garner. And previously on the Rockford files, it just goes right into it. But also unlike some of the other two partners, it doesn't montage through the final scene and then keep rolling. And it actually cuts the montage a little bit out of order from how it was. Cause I watched these pretty much straight through. So I noticed.

But the catch you up montage ends with a freeze frame on Tony trying to get away from the horses. Right. Which I think is really interesting. It's kind of like telegraphing Tony more than anything else. Yeah. There was a couple other things in the montage that had like, what Leanne knows. So now you, viewer, are caught up.

It's, remember this moment, this moment that seems like kind of a throwaway moment? It's going to be important, this episode. Yeah. Well, after that freeze frame, we have the credits playing over the Firebird at night pulling up to a boat, and we get one of, I feel like, of things we've done recently,

one of the most memorable side characters. Yeah. Jim's buddy from jail, Wes Wesley, has this fishing boat and is willing to put up Patsy for a couple days while Jim gets things figured out. Now, his name is Wes Wesley. Could be that Wes is short for Wesley. But I think they just named him that because the name that they would have used for him was already taken by the actor that plays him.

Lou Frizzell. It's just the perfect name for him. Oh, man. He played a character named Dusty Rhodes on Bonanza. Oh. Worlds colliding. Yeah, he's a character named Dusty Rhodes on Bonanza. Oh. Worlds colliding. Yeah, he's a real character, this Wes Wesley. He apparently owes Jim for something and so is happy to do this kind of favor for him.

Something they did in the stir together. The plan is, so apparently Patsy has a brother who lives in London. And so Jim is going to try and get in touch with him and get money to replace her passport and fly her to London and that should get her out of harm's way so while he figures out how to get things set for

himself his way to get out of this is to convince the thugs that he delivered her to Michael and then making it Michael's problem so if he can do that and get her out of the country then making it michael's problem um so if he can do that and get her out of the country then everyone should be fine uh he does give her some cash i did not get in a good look at how much but it was multiple bills so her theme is that you know she was michael and the manettes right like paid for everything right they paid for her to go she's

going to grad school they lived in a fancy apartment in Manhattan. She had fancy clothes, all this stuff. So now she's she's reduced to taking money from someone. Right. Right. And she's like, maybe if I just go back, it'll be fine. And Jim's like, I think it's too late. If I know anything about the Minettes, since Michael made this mess, he would have to prove himself back to them by killing you himself.

Just going back is not going to make it go away. We then get an extensive Leanne the Snoop, not montage, but series as she snoops around over the next couple of scenes. She's at that Bel-Air place. She climbs over a fence. She starts pulling documents out of a trash can. And then she sees Rockford come there to talk to Michael Kelly. So she eavesdrops on this conversation. Michael lets Jim in.

There's like a housekeeper there and he orders a slice of melon and one egg scrambled firm for his breakfast jim describes tony and sill to michael tells him that they grabbed patsy before he could get to her and uh wants to know who they were and then it starts cutting back and forth i was gonna say this is also the scene where we catch a glimpse of another woman. Yeah. Leanne takes one of the documents that the camera shows us is this note that's like, Michael, I remember how much you love caviar or something. And it's signed some woman's name.

And then we get a glimpse of a woman closing a door when Jim comes into the house. And this is kind of a setup for a little later beat um for patsy yeah we start going back and forth between leanne leaving going to jim's car snooping around in his glove compartment and then popping his trunk and hiding in it yes with jim talking to michael jim says that if uh if he was lying to michael about this he would have just skipped town. He can be hard to find. He's telling him the truth. Michael's not satisfied. And his goon goes to jump Jim from behind. But he is ready.

And he turns and punches the guy out. And he goes sprawling through a wooden table. And good old Fists of Stone Jim Rockford has his day. Leaves him out. Right there and there. Right then and there. And he has his gun. Mm-hmm.

He tells Michael that it's in the hands of the police now. And it's also payday. Michael owes him $600 for three days of work, plus $400 for expenses and aggravation. Yeah. And no, he will not take a personal check. I was expecting something to happen, but no. No, he gets paid. Yeah.

My notes, I've got like big question marks after that, but it seems in the end he got paid for this, so that's great. He leaves with his cool, cool grand for this project as Leanne is hiding in his trunk. And then we end the scene with Michael telling the house, the housekeeper, uh, don't take any calls for him. Say that he moved, pack his things. He's getting a flight out of there. So he's clearly panicked by the story and also the idea that the police are now going to get involved.

Right. Jim goes to Rocky's to start making his phone calls to London, which I guess he can afford with his, uh, all that cash. Yeah. I like how Rocky is eating his own full breakfast while Jim is on the phone. His eggs and pancakes and bacon and everything. Coffee. During this,

we cut back and forth as Leanne cannot pop the trunk and is stuck in the firebird. There's a little bit, again, of Rocky being worried about Jim and saying he would just go to the police and Jim telling him it's not that simple. But London finally calls back and

Jim does talk to Patsy's brother John, who says that yeah, I know she was living with him. He worked for the ACLU, right? There's a great line that Jim says, Mr. Fossler, if your liquor cabinet is handy, I suggest you pour yourself a drink.

This scene is kind of like, oh, Jim's plan is working. All the things he wanted to do are happening. Leanne manages to finally pop the lock just as Jim gets back in the car, and so she can't get out and is still stuck in the Firebird as Jim drives back to the pier where the boat is. We have an establishing shot of Patsy cooking something. I think she's frying potatoes.

Yeah, I was trying to figure that out too. Because she seems to turn her nose up at fish, which is what you would expect on the boat. But yeah. Wes greets Jim, is not happy with how Patsy's been treating him. You know, she's stuck up, she's putting on hairs. Uh,

but then there's a little gag where Jim starts, starts sniffing. Smells like a rotting lilacs. Wes, are you wearing cologne? It ain't cologne. It's aftershave. You combed your hair. Hey, you're wearing cologne? It ain't cologne, it's aftershave. You combed your hair.

You're wearing a clean shirt. Get off my back. Wes, he's putting on a good act, but clearly he feels a little taken with this pretty young thing on his boat. Not in a creepy way, to my read. It's a bit of a gag. The only creepy thing about him, because he definitely shows up for her later on in the episode. The only creepy thing about him is that she refers to him as a sadist,

because he hits his own cat. And that's it. And I was like, oh, come on, Wes. Be better than that. Don't kick your cat around. But and we do get to meet the cat a little bit later. Flo, I believe. And the cat's fine.

Yeah, the cat's fine. Yeah. I think this is actually giving a little bit of character motivation for something that Wes does later. Like the fact that he's kind of taken with her. Yeah. Leanne finally gets out of the trunk and kind of snoops around to where she can overhear Jim talking to Patsy. He got in touch with her brother.

Things are getting set with the money. Everything's kind of going according to plan. He's pretty sure that Michael did leave. He was gone from the mansion when he went back to check later that day and then he gives the address and patsy recognizes it and it's like oh knows the woman's name you know it's one of michael's old girlfriends so i think that sets in for her that him coming out there wasn't about her right like wasn't about getting her back wasn't about an emotional connection to her was about finding her for this punishment that's when she finally acknowledges that that part of

her life is over really right she was she has this line about how she was just always kind of expecting him to to come back to her or to make like some big overture or whatever and she didn't realize it yeah like if he came after her to get her back for the wedding that yeah is kind of what she was expecting and then uh i think this is uh jim has the line from the preview montage for this episode about about how if she went back to him he would kill her because leanne is taking notes and writes kill in giant letters yes and. And underlines it. Double underline in her notebook. Wait, before we go on, we should probably talk about the fact that Jim bought her food in the end of the previous episode when he ate his jello.

Yes, he did. And now she's offered him a taste of the food that she's been cooking. You should try a bite of this. They're Rockford married now, right? I think so. I think that indicates their courtship. Yes. Yes.

I think this scene, we also see them having some chemistry. Yeah. As she's kind of acknowledging that Michael's not going to come for her and offers him a bite of whatever she's making. And he acts a little more, I don't know, nice. Yeah. He isn't like, you're in a position. It's more like, are you doing all right?

We follow Leanne as she gets a lift home, apparently. Leanne's on the case. So she goes into her bedroom, turns on the police scanner, first thing. Her bed's covered in newspapers. And then she puts in a phone call. She's trying to get through to Doug directly, but he's not there. So she's getting directed to like the general switchboard or whatever. We're going to get this three-peat of her trying to call Doug and getting this other officer who's on duty who gets increasingly

annoyed with her. So her thing is that she wants to talk to Doug. She doesn't want to talk to anyone else because it's kind of personal. It's kind of a case that we're working on together. Yes. You know, Oh, I'm a friend of his. Can you give me his home number? And this is another one of those Rockford esque cons that does not work for her. Yes.

Right. Cause the guy's like, well, if you're a friend, you should already have this number. Well, my phone, my address book was stolen out of my car. Like, well, I'm sorry to hear that. Like he's heard it all before, you get the sense. Yeah. So once it becomes clear that she's not going to worm it out of him, she does leave a message just to say that she has information on MK

and there might be a hit going down. He's like, are you sure you don't want to talk to someone else about this? Yeah. And he's like, nope. All right. All right. All right. And so I guess this is kind of where we really see the selfish, damaging edge to her. At worst, she's annoying in the previous episode. And this episode, she gets more proactive and she's withholding information that is going to cause harm and is also going to cause people to to uh

yell at her later in this episode right like this is this is uh this is her downfall this is her hubris right right she wants to be important so much that she's withholding stuff that any kind of reasonable observer right is like just tell the guy what what you know and it's not uh it's not clear why what's that okay it's not that it's unclear um it's a little unclear what exactly she thinks is going on i think because she's been taking notes and overhearing things and i don't think we necessarily as audience need to know exactly what she thinks is happening right because she could think rockford's responsible for all this. Yeah.

Or whatever. Or something. Yeah. I guess the main thing is that like what's unclear is whether or not she feels that whether or not she knows that she doesn't have this personal relationship with Doug. Right. Does she think she's doing the right thing? Or is she making a conscious choice to try and get closer with doug right i think it's up in the air on purpose yeah a little bit yeah part of the

question with i think how she portrays these interactions is is she lying to herself or does she know exactly what she's doing and you don't really you know like it could go either way uh yeah one way makes her a little more selfish than the other way like one way is more sad and the other is more like damaged i don't know it's like yeah well you mentioned wes's cat we get to meet the cat in our next scene uh where patsy is giving giving the cat a little air out on deck. And she's talking to Jim here. And this is where we see more of the chemistry bloom. Yes. Talks about how important walking the dog was in Manhattan.

Very important where you walk the dog and what you're reading while you walk the dog and what you wear while you walk the dog. This whole discussion is great and sort of plays into the world that she's in that obviously Jim isn't a part of. But when she first said it's more important to have a dog in Manhattan, I was like, what the living... I mean, a lot of people in New York have dogs. There's nothing wrong with that.

It's just, it would be so much easier to just have a cat. Right. Well, the point is that it's a status symbol, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm so rich and important, I can have the most difficult animal to have a cat. Right. Well, the point is that it's a status symbol, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm so rich and important, I can have the most difficult animal to have in Manhattan. Yeah. The dog's name was Psyche. Yes. Probably the worst name I've ever heard for a dog,

as Jim says. And then they transition into, she talks about how it was also phony. Yeah. And we get a strong, classic Jim angle on how Jim feels about how you need to present yourself to the world. It kind of reminded me of the way back, I think maybe at the end of The Countess, where Jim has the little soliloquy about everyone being artificial. You have to be a little artificial, a little plastic, like something like that.

All the world's a stage. Yeah. So Jim has a little story about how when he went into prison, he decided the best way to handle himself would be to impress everyone by being the baddest dude, right? Mm-hmm. I figured if I was going to survive, I'd have to impress everybody. So what happened? I turned into a jerk. impress everybody so what happened i turned into a jerk and then that other thing happened you see they uh they put a badder guy in c block with me and

he had me for breakfast so do we know that guy uh i mean is it the hammer of c block is this a reference to to gandy yeah considering how much universe building we've been seeing here i'm gonna go ahead and say yes uh season two so this is definitely after gandhi i think it is i'll i'll read that as a reference to gandhi being the baddest dude yeah uh but yeah so so jim's presenting this idea that just because you take a role, take a pose in a certain way because of your circumstances, doesn't make you a bad person. Right. It's more about like why you're doing it,

which is very Jim. He ends by saying that she's taken enough lumps without beating herself up about everything that happened. And she finally says, realizes that she never said thank you for everything he's done. So there's a lot of uh validating each other's experience in this short time yeah they've known each other uh i dig this whole scene it's interesting because like i i think especially with two-parters in the longer

episodes you kind of wonder or expect some filler and uh i don't know how it was with you, but I remember getting to the end of the first episode and thinking to myself, how do they fit an entire Rockford files episode into 45 minutes? Cause that one felt like, Oh, that time just went by. That one felt like it was almost done.

I think I looked at the second one with an eye of wondering if things would be more fillery or whatever and they found a different angle to go with it yeah this is a different part they start this episode off with rockford telling you straight up what his plan is and uh the rest is just kind of watching to see if that's going to unfold, allowing these characters to take another step in whatever their relationship is or whatever is happening. Looking back through my notes, like, I don't think any of these scenes are filler. Yeah. There's a couple that could be gone. So and we would just assume that they got from A to B without seeing the intermediary step.

Yeah. But those little steps are in there since they have the time uh like jim going out to the ranch and getting chased away by the dog like that scene didn't need we i mean i basically skipped it when we in the first part but it was there to establish that jim knew there was a dog and that what the ranch was and that kind of stuff so this this scene's important both just because it's a it's a good scene to see them, you know, develop their their chemistry and their relationship. But also without this scene, the last scene that they're in together would feel like it came out of nowhere. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, speaking of coming out of nowhere, while Sylv and Tony are still staking out Jim's trailer, Leanne decides to roll up there, breaks in easily. She had a throwaway line earlier where she says, you should get a better lock. This is a high robbery area. Yes. So she easily gets through his lock and she starts looking through his desk. And we have maybe the most ominous scene.

Oh, yeah. Tony and Syl come into the trailer. She tries to, like, play them and they know exactly what's going on yeah maybe not exactly but enough right like this yeah yeah she claims that she's jim's executive assistant and she's been out of town but she knows this michael kelly thing is going on maybe they can fill her ends and she only had one phone call they're having none of it um so tony finally comes up to her and grabs her by the lapels and gets right in her face

and starts yelling at her tell us where the girl is tell us what you know and we finally see her have an honest reaction i think yeah which is terror which makes sense um and she pretty much immediately tells them where this boat is she sings sings like a beautiful songbird. She does. They're in Oxnard. Oxnard! Yes. She's giving them all sorts of helpful advice on how to find them. Yeah.

Because she doesn't know precisely where they are. And again, this isn't just a moment where you see somebody being a coward and suddenly kissing up. somebody being a coward and suddenly like kissing up she's following her character which is i'm important and i know how things work so i'm going to tell you like it's the wrong people to tell yeah but she's gonna do it in the beginning of this i think it's just before they go in we have a preview of soprano's dialogue where they talk about how this is supposed to be like an in-out, big boom operation. And I was like, oh, okay. Here we go. This is the birthplace of the Sopranos.

The scene ends with Tony smacking her across the face. She falls back into the chair and they leave. It's pretty rough. They are not good people. No. Jim arrives as Leanne is coming out of his trailer with the big bruise on her cheek. It's the scene from the preview montage.

Maybe before we get into this, I don't know why, I didn't think of this before, but Michael Kelly is afraid of these two, right? Yeah, because they're Minette's guys. And Michael Kelly is trying to solve the problem before they have to or something like that. That's what it seems like. Yeah. All right. I just because he's about he's has fallen out of the story now. Yeah, he's gone. Part of that, I think, has to do with the fact that he knows that these two are trying to do something and he just needs to be elsewhere. Yeah, it's between that and that, and that Jim said that he told the cops about it. Yeah. So between those two pressures,

he peaced out. They had the line earlier about like finding Mikey. Yeah. So he's like hiding from them as well. As well. Yeah. Yeah. You get the feeling that maybe they're,

they're out there to shut both of them up, but the girl's more important. Yeah. So we then come to the, uh, Leanne coming out with the bruise on her cheek. Jim wants to know what happened. She doesn't want to tell him and tries to fob him off with something. And he says, what is it with you? What is it with you, lady? Are you some kind of banana? Like, why her and she finally says like you know fine yes i told him i told him about the boat they threatened to rape me and so i told them everything she's trying to show jim that they that like she didn't have to go that far she didn't have to make that claim right

yeah but she does again this is following the character it's kind of like they went to this extreme and no reasonable person would have right would have resisted when it's kind of like, you didn't hold out that, like, you did not hold back information to that extreme. Kind of, again, she has her own reality field. This is how I want you to see me. Right, right. Which is a terrible thing to think or to project, but it makes sense with her, how she's been written, right? It's only been about 20 minutes.

So, you know, Jim's like okay here's what's gonna happen goes into full hero mode i'm gonna go see if i can stop them you go to the restaurant and call the cops yes she's like why don't you why don't you do that if you're such a hero she still doesn't want to help jim right right she still views views jim is like on the other side i think i think there's probably i might be reading something into think. I think there's probably, I might be reading something into here, but I think there's probably a little bit here about, it's probably galling to her that Jim is right. Yeah.

That he's in charge of the situation and she isn't because she's the one who's friends with cops. And also that she's being pushed into doing something for someone else and not because she wants to. Yeah. He tells her to pretend it's a 888 or something and call it in. So she goes over to the restaurant. He peels out and we have this intercut sequence.

Well, before we move on to that, I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but there's an important thing I need to point out here. This is the first time I think I have seen the wall behind Jim's desk. There's something about the camera angles inside the trailer. Generally speaking, the cameraman is over by that wall. Over the shoulder of whoever's sitting behind the desk. And apropos to our Plus Expenses episode, it turns out that over jim's desk he just has a bunch of pictures of like schooners he likes boats this is i did not know this about him at all so i just wanted to point that out we now get into this intercut sequence uh where leanne goes to the phone at the bar we

see her being thoughtful uh she tries to call chapman directly again, gets the same officer at the robbery and homicide desk. Still won't tell him what's going on. She asks if he gave Doug the message, and Chapman has not called in for his messages, so no. She hangs up the phone and goes to the bar. We see Jim speeding down the highway. We then see Tony coming out of a building that says Oxnard Tour and Recreation Information. He has a map. Finally, Tony's

getting into the local culture. Leanne has multiple drinks. You know, this is effective, right? It's like time is ticking, you know, and we're just watching her sipping down these drinks. It's really interesting. Is she trying to talk herself into doing the right thing?

Is she stiffening her resolve? I mean, he did. So the officer did say that like Lieutenant Chapman should be back in about half an hour. So is she like killing time? I was trying to figure that out too, because she doesn't kill a lot of time. And maybe that's just it. Maybe she is trying to kill time, but she's finding that difficult to do. Because she's plagued by what's happening.

Well, she's caught between being the important person who gets the cops in. With only being important for the lieutenant and not anyone else. Yeah. Yeah. It's not... I'm not going to say it's out of character i just don't know i can't get inside her head right yeah it's like it could be lots of things yeah well she has a couple drinks and makes another call and uh doug still isn't there

but becker sits down at his desk which is across from the the officer desk. Mazurski or something like that. Mazurski, yeah. And so that cop is like, I think he says that it's Leanne. Yeah. That kook Leanne or something like that. And Becker's like, I'll talk to her because I have a relationship. So he takes the call and she still only wants to talk to Doug. And Becker's like, you can talk to me. If it's department business, it's my business.

And she says that she doesn't think she should because she's put her faith in the wrong man oh yeah uh her i guess the fact that becker has jim as a friend or like kept information from doug the way that she sees it yeah has like betrayed her trust in him and she's totally transferred her whatever feelings she had about dennis to chapman and she specifically says this should be doug's collar like i want him to have the prestige of this yeah not you she has this line where she's like i thought you were an all-day police officer and an all-night man yeah is that a sex thing because it could, I think in some ways she's moving on to Doug. And so like,

she's trying to have a breakup with Dennis here. Right. You know what I mean? Like, uh, but I don't know. Like, I can't tell if her fantasy life has gone so far as to assume she's had

any more of a relationship than she actually has had i kind of read that in the moment as like like trustworthy like an all-day right cop and then like like could trust you all days as a cop and trust you all night as a man or something like that i don't know if that's a common turn of phrase or not yeah i don't know but uh i think uh dennis clearly see like sees hears that that this is actually important. And is like, look, Leanne, I'm done messing around. If you're withholding information about a felony, he can come after her for that. Just tell me what's going on.

So he kind of pushes past her reluctance, I guess. And then we cut from that to Leanne in her car. Slow zoom on her face as she's listening to the police scanner. And then she takes off herself. And oh, boy. I really dig how Dennis handled her. I think I remarked on this a little bit earlier, but there's this everyone involved in this is playing these sort of delicate things like he's both trying not to really yell at her i mean he ends up having to but like he's trying to be sympathetic with her but also

understands the urgency and then of the thing you know right he's like you should get a trace on this call oh right yeah he because he has the other guy do it. Yeah. Everyone is walking a tightrope in this episode. Yeah. And all of the actors are doing such a great job of walking that tightrope. You know what I mean? Like, it would be so easy for any of the, to just go a little broader in a certain direction

and just be done with it. But instead, it's everything has got kind of a nuance to it. Like, yeah. Yeah. All right. So we get to our big climatic face off. Uh,

I think I'll just hit the high points here. Cause this, this does have a lot of time. And I think because there is time to fill. Yeah. It's a slightly repetitious, but for the drop, like dramatically.

So yeah, it's got good tension throughout. Like, it holds. If this was compressed into one episode, there'd only be half of the things in this scene, right? Yeah. But the high points, Jim gets to the boat right after Tony and Syl do. Syl takes a shot at him so he can't get on the boat. He yells to alert Wes and patsy so downstairs patsy hides in a in a room

and wes like opens a hatch and then when tony goes down there tells him that she went out the hatch rockford yells that the cops are coming as as wes glances and we see a butcher knife on the floor next to him like on a net tony sees that and just shoots him in the leg tony is brutal he threatens to kill wes and that gets patsy to come out of the room she was hiding in because she doesn't want wes to die for her right yes so that kind of pays that off a little bit and then we have the sill tony tension because sill's like rockford's right we can't get out of here the cops are coming we have to go now and tony's like no i'm not going we're not done here yet so tony holds patsy hostage and we have to stand off the cops show up becker shows up uh

leanne pulls up behind everyone um and so we have the standoff of all the cops and jim and our two hitmen with patsy as a hostage um jim says that he doesn't want anyone hurt but they're never going to be in a better position than they are now uh dennis is saying we have procedures it's not that he's gunshot like it's not that he's like so traumatized from when he had to shoot that guy at the beginning of the first episode that he like can't handle the situation but he is saying we have a method for doing this we are going to follow that method and that will avoid a shootout here right yeah yeah uh which is give them what they want give them the car and we'll have sharpshooters along the road as they try to leave um this is when leanne pops in and starts quoting chapter

and verse of the handbook to Dennis. Like, in this situation, this paragraph specifically says blah, blah, blah. And he's like, get her out of here. Yes. Very declaratively has another cop hustle her out of the scene so that he can do his dang job. Dennis is the ranking officer in the situation, just like at the beginning of the last episode. Yeah. But where at the beginning of the last episode, they seem to be following his commands.

Although there is a little bit where the tactical team might have been moving in before he was ready, which is why he ran to that one spot. But that aside, I can't remember exactly what what it was but like here you've got the cops who are going to listen to to dennis and then you have jimbo who's always thorn in jenna's and then you add leanne on top of it and it's just like god damn it yeah too many chefs too many cooks uh as we come back to dennis and him you know telling one of the officers to like let him have the car uh in my notes i say jim has done a fade jim is gone he is not there anymore i was like where's rockford tony and syl and patsy slowly walk towards the car and the camera kind of pans back from them and reveals jim has climbed a big pile of like boxes and nets and is over them

yeah and then as they pass under he jumps on all three of them to knock them all down. The way they do the cut is, I think, he's jumped so that he's grabbed Patsy and rolls away with her. Right. Yeah. So Tony comes up with the gun, cops fire, Tony goes down, and Syl surrenders. Syl's like, I'll be back in a couple seasons. Don't you worry. We'll get to this in a second. Yeah. So we wrap this up with Wes

going into the ambulance. He's going to be okay, but he and Jim are even now. They're all settled up. He seems to be happy that everyone's okay. Yeah. Kind of a bit of a small price to pay. Could have been a lot worse. Yeah. Kind of a bit of a small price to pay. Could have been a lot worse.

Yeah. Leanne goes up to Chapman to tell him what a great job Becker did. I think it was quite a collar. And Chapman tells her to go home. Yeah. And she seems a little confused. And he has just the most cutting line. I mean, Chapman's full of cutting lines.

And, you know, we know that he's a jerk. But he says, the police don't have many friends these days, so we take whatever comes our way. And that's our mistake. Yeah. Oh, it's so good. And I have a note that, like, Leanne, she just wants to be part of it. And I don't remember if that was from a line or if that's just how we see that she's scurrying from person to person trying to be like in the conversation about how everything went down yeah because there's this bit here dennis is going to lay into her right yeah

and the question i have about that is as audience members he's saying what we want said to her right like at this point we're like okay somebody's got to sit this this woman down and like have a heart to heart about what she's done wrong and i guess uh my question is is dennis is dennis the right person for that well it's not that dennis is the wrong person it's that like we've we're privy to more than any single other character in this episode right we want this but does any character in the episode want this or do they just want her to like thanks well done leanne we'll talk to you later and i'm not saying that that dennis comes off as harsh although he is harsh with her yeah i think it's uh earned from the audience's point of view my question is is it earned from denn audience's point of view. My question is, is it earned from Dennis's point of view?

Well, it does seem slightly harsh just because Dennis is usually not such a plain speaker. Yeah. The sense that I got was that Becker gives her more slack than other cops do. Yeah. Just why she's so attached to him. And this all came to a head with her... He a soft touch right yeah he's a soft uh refusing to tell him what was going on if you can't it's almost like a weird like inverse like rita situation it's like yeah if you can't even use the fact that you've taken advantage of me for so long

to help me out on this he's lost it with her like yeah there's no longer any reason for him to be nice to her yeah um yeah it didn't strike me as that weird but i kind of i see what you're saying about how like as odd it's because as an audience member it's like yes this this has to be said dan what's happening you're asking me what's happening you don't know god you're a liar. Somebody got killed because you didn't call the station fast enough. As it was, another man got shot in the leg. And it might not have happened if we had gotten here sooner.

Well, Doug had been on that case. See, I just wanted to do what was best for everyone. Leanne, you're lying again to me and to yourself. You don't hate crime. You don't hate criminals. You hate people. You hate life. You hate your own life so much that you pretend that all that like this is your life is kind of what that seemed to mean to me. You want to avoid your real life so badly that you make this your life when it's not.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And so she has this moment where she just looks absolutely devastated. But then we keep with her as we see her shake it off and then smile like, okay, like everything's fine. Yeah, it's good. It's good. I'm just going to forget that that ever happened is what I read from that transition. Yeah. So we go to our near finale.

We get our emotional payoff here where Jim is walking on the beach with Patsy before she goes off to London. They have a bit of bonding over Wes. He says that once he heals up, he's going to come after her. And Patsy says that the man's a total sexist and a dinosaur.

And he's beautiful. Yeah. He has a good heart, right? She asks if Jim will ever come to London, maybe. And Patsy says that the man's a total sexist and a dinosaur. And he's beautiful. Yeah. He has a good heart, right? She asks if Jim will ever come to London, maybe. And she kind of spins out this whole fantasy about when she's established in London, she'll come back. Maybe New York, maybe L.A. Yeah.

She's heard that Oregon is nice. She can hide out up there and Jim can join her. Yeah. And Jim, you know, gently, not harshly, is basically like, you're in a bad place. Like, you have a lot going on. Once you're out of danger, you'll find your own place. Don't force it. Right. Let it happen naturally.

It'll take time. Maybe your place will be here. Who knows? And they share a sweet kiss on the beach then we end this with a shot of an airplane flying away so two things one there's this great line about like when do you have to be at the airport and she's like less than an hour before the flight i guess the airport is pretty crowded. Oh, that changes. And then the other is my note in here is like, oh, they're taking their sweet time with this ending.

That's interesting. Again, thinking maybe they have a little filler or whatever. And then I write, oh, no, it's sad. Because... Right. So this is actually a really great transition so yeah the camera we're like from the ground watch it's like stock footage watching a plane fly away and then it kind of fades into the la skyline and like lights coming on at night and then that fades into or cuts to

leanne lying in bed in the dark listening to the police scanner with just this look of just sadness. Just like a look of just total like defeat on her face. And then we fade to black on her face listening to the police scanner. Oh, that's good. Gut punch.

Those were great episodes, I thought. Yeah. Really good. I was just looking at the IMDb reviews, which are good. One little piece of trivia. Apparently, Officer Mazurski, that actor is Noah Beery's son. Oh, wow. He had bit parts in the show, but this is like the one where Buckland Beery.

This is the one where he had lines. That's great. So that's nice. Also, I don't know if this is addressed in The Man Who Saw the Alligators, but Tony is the one who comes back. Oh, it's Tony, not Syl. Okay. Because in here there's the line of one man is dead. Oh, this is an exciting mystery.

So we'll find out if they address that or if it's just like, we wanted to bring character back so i guess he wasn't really dead it's fine wow i'm looking forward to that then so it makes sense that it's tony because tony is clearly angry with rock yeah tony's the one who has the grudge i feel like oh stills listed in the credits for it too i think he's back like still still around yeah okay so i think like he gets his old partner back basically unless i'm totally misremembering which is possible but the actor like it's the same role yeah and everybody has his last name in these credits i'm looking forward to watching this next episode um it makes sense because he he from the moment when he gets kicked in the knee throughout you can see him frustrated and upset with rockford and making it personal at the end during the the whole uh standoff he's like yeah he calls him beach boy or something like

that and he's like he's he definitely doesn't like that rockford is this this uh fly in his ointment if you will he's taking it personal. So this whole story, it's the story of three broken people. And one gets better, one gets worse. And one, we just learn how broken she is by the end. I don't know if she changes. We see Patsy come to terms with what's happening to her. And we end on a positive note where we feel like she's going to get better. Yeah.

Tony, he's a hired killer. That's not a great start. But then he gets this obsession with Rockford. And it drives him to make even more suboptimal choices than he maybe otherwise would. And then we're going to see that all come back with a vengeance. Yeah, and then Leanne is just like, it's a real character study of someone who's just like so, I don't know how else to put it, just so deeply broken.

Yes. And it's a real testament to Joyce Van Patten that she's compelling. Yes. And not a joke. She could very easily be a joke. She could very easily be a joke. She could very easily be just an annoying character. And this is something, it's definitely a testament to her, but also to the Rockford Files in general. They know how to take a character personality that, you know, like it's a thing about Jim Rockford.

that, you know, like, it's a thing about Jim Rockford that people, he attracts certain people, like Angel, you know, or Gandhi, or people that won't listen to his reason, and he gets exasperated with them. And that's easy to make annoying. But I think the Rockford Files, they tend to do it in a way that gives sympathy for these characters, but also like where you actually want to see how they, they interact with the, uh, Jim.

Like I loved the scene with Jim and Leanne at his trailer. He comes home and a strange woman has, is in his trailer. And his first concern is, is she all right? Not she broke into my trailer, you know? And then his his frustration comes

from how she won't won't let him help her yeah yeah like that's where he really gets frustrated with her um yeah it's good stuff it's uh it's kind of low-key it's an interesting mix because it's like it's not an episode where jim is kind of secondary. Like, he's important. Right. But he also is the, he's the eye of the storm, right? Like, these other characters are swirling around him, and he's the one just kind of doing his job. And he's actually very straightforward. It could have been a backdoor pilot for Becker and the Buff.

You think that everything is a backdoor pilot. I know. Yeah, but it's almost more of a Becker story in that way. But it doesn't feel like it's not a Rockford Files episode. And it doesn't feel like Jim is secondary to the other characters. It's a really, really well-balanced piece with all

these new characters, old characters, plot points. Maybe in a way that it kind of had to be two parts. But you know what I mean? Plot like plot wise this could have been a one episode a one episode story but i think you'd have to cut leanne right yeah yeah and leanne fits it even though like her tale intersects with this one only because uh her interactions with dennis? Like it's not a weird coincidence thing. The only slightly forced bit, I hesitate to characterize it this way,

but is Chapman putting pressure on Dennis about Michael Kelly. And even then there's some bit about it that makes sense. Like Michael Kelly is a person of interest to New York mob. And so- And he even spells out to Dennis later about it that makes sense like michael kelly right is a person of interest to new york mob and so and he even spells out to to dennis later that like we could save a lot of money by not having the stakeout going on if yeah we just knew what he was why he was here right like he has this like very departmental character motivation um there uh yeah it's good the only the only thing that i thought that was kind of like

slightly narratively convenient but i think it's more that it's a dramatic i don't know if it's pathos it's so the the fact that dennis comes to to the desk the third time that leanne is called yeah like in one way it's a little bit like well dennis had never sat down that the whole thing never would have happened but it is dramatically necessary for the story for the character stories to complete for dennis to take that call right um so it's not like narratively convenient in the way that sometimes we i meant i i notice it's it's more the like this is the dramatic outcome that we've been waiting for yes uh and it's even with the third time she calls, right? Like rule three's thing. Like it's very constructed to be like, here's the moment, here's the big beat.

And then that takes us into our finale. Yeah. I was surprised by how good this one is just because I hadn't remembered. This is one where really breaking it down made me appreciate it more. Yes. Yeah. That doesn't always happen, but this is one where really breaking it down made me appreciate it more yes yeah that doesn't always happen but this is definitely when you start looking at the craft of this one you start thinking oh wait a minute this is this is thought out yeah it's really satisfying yeah plus we have the extra we have the extra excitement of seeing where it goes in that follow-up episode yes which is like

three years later so who knows all right uh i think we have lauded this enough uh do you have anything else before we sign off of uh to protect and serve i just wanted to know uh, 187. That is a homicide code, if I remember correctly. And I only know that because for a while when I was regularly playing Magic the Gathering, one of the slang terms for a creature that you could play to destroy another creature was a 187. Ah, makes sense. Because it was murdering the other creature. Yeah. She kept mentioning one 87.

So I was like, I should look that up. Yep. Uh, wonderful episode. Well, Rockford made his cool grand. Yes.

So congratulations to Jim. Enjoyed some jello and maybe potato on the way. We'll take our $200 for this day. But we will be back, as promised, with the next episode of the Anthony Boy story. Yes. That will be our next episode of the Rockford Files.