Two Hundred A Day - Episode 69: The Hawaiian Headache

Episode Date: April 26, 2020

Nathan and Eppy take a sun-soaked trip to S6E8 The Hawaiian Headache. Jim and Rocky won a trip to Hawaii! Jim doesn't get to enjoy a minute of it before being brought into an issue of national security by an old Korean War sergeant. Things go from bad to worse as he juggles a missing agent, a briefcase with $10K, gangsters and a murder charge. A silly episode, without much mystery to speak of but a lot of good gags! 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 Brian Perrera Eric Antener Bill Anderson 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.

Billings, I'll APD. You know Thursday is Chapman's 20th year and we're giving a little surprise party at the Captain's. I think you should come. By the way, we need five bucks for the present. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we discuss the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidio Ravishaw. And we are here with a classic EpiPic this time. Oh, yeah. Epi, which episode did you pick for us and why? Well, I picked, we actually, the why is going to be a big thing here. Yeah.

I picked The Hawaiian Headache, which is from season six, episode eight, I believe. And I chose it because the picture on the IMDb page is Angel in a Hawaiian shirt with a wonderful hat on. And I was like, yeah, I want to see this adventure. I want to know what Angel's up to in Hawaii. angels up to in Hawaii. As we record this, just after the solstice, I think, you know, a little jaunt over to sunny Hawaii is a nice little break for us out of our winter weather. I have like a foot of snow outside and it is in the early teens, temperature-wise.

I would love a free Hawaiian vacation from vacation from macy's no strings attached no strings all expenses paid all expenses paid unfortunately we don't get nearly as much angel adventure as one might have anticipated based on that picture okay so let's like cards on the table i'm going to talk about this yeah well maybe i should talk about the opening montage because that will facilitate this a little bit or do you have something to say well i have a bit of a uh framing statement and then uh we'll get into the the preview montage so this is um as you said episode eight season six uh which was the short season as uh as we've mentioned before uh when talking about season six um james garner was had

had a physical breakdown he couldn't he got very sick because he'd been so pushing himself so much physically doing the show uh and so they ended the show mid-season essentially uh so it is the short season it is the last season and then um due to the contractual disputes and loss lawsuits afterwards that kind of figured into it because he ended it earlier than he should have and or that he could have under the contract and blah blah but why i mentioned that for this specifically is that this was the last episode that was shot for that season it did not air last uh but it was it was the last episode recorded um and it was done on location in hawaii and i guess the deal is that you know the script takes place in hawaii uh and universal wanted them to do it in honolulu but there was

nothing in their contract that said they had to do it in a certain location, do an e-show in any particular location. So James Garner was like, well, we're not going to go do a location shoot in Hawaii unless we can bring the entire cast and crew. So basically, because he put that put his foot down about it, they got the entire crew out there along with the protagonist cast. Yeah. And so they were able to do it all as like a big thing and have like a party afterwards, which I'm basing on. And there's some pull quotes about this from, I don't know if he's Louis or Louis Delgado, the guy who plays Billings. Oh. There's a quote in Ed Robertson's book from him.

Usually when you go on location, the lowest man on the totem pole doesn't get to go anyplace. But whenever we did Rockford Files out of state, the whole crew went. No one was left out. The cutters, the craftsmen, the stand-ins, the secretaries, everybody went. Then we stayed an extra day after we finished so we could have a party. That is awesome. All of that is really nice. It's kind of this nice kind of high note to kind of end shooting this series on.

But then as I was watching it, I kind of felt like it wasn't a great episode to watch necessarily. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, we can talk about that. I'll just say up front, it was an amusing episode Like, there's plenty of amusing things happening Yeah, I shouldn't say that it wasn't fun to watch Or however I just phrased it, which is a little negative

I should say, I was a little disappointed Because I had a certain expectation of what would happen plot-wise It just didn't happen I wish it had been a certain expectation of what would happen plot-wise. It just didn't happen. I wish it had been a little better of a story to match kind of the obvious joy that everyone was having filming on location and having fun with each other chemistry-wise. My takeaway, well, yes. I think I'm feeling the same thing.

It was amusing. It was definitely an uh 45 minutes to watch uh but the plot it does that thing where the plot just thickens until it doesn't yeah you're not pulling anything apart in it it's not that you have to solve a mystery in a rockford files but like there's at no point did i think that we were going to get any details that explained what is happening right i mean we kind of have an idea what happens or whatever and like i said or i've been hinting at uh angels in it for like 30 seconds like yeah the cast is in it but they're not in it for long uh there's great moments with them right like? There's lovely moments between Jim and Rocky that are great.

Rocky's in it quite a bit, actually. And all the business when Angel's on screen is great, but it's just those 30 seconds, right? It's just that. And I love all the Dennis stuff. But thinking about it as the last episode that they shot, not that they planned for it to be the last episode or anything like that. Right, that's the other thing. They didn't plan for it to be the last episode that they shot. That's just kind of how things worked out.

It stands in that sort of proud tradition of 70s and 80s TV shows where they do an episode where they go somewhere, usually Hawaii, actually. And it's not quite exact. It's not what the show normally is. They're just at Hawaii and they're just doing it. There's a lot of shows from that era that would do that. And you're just like, oh, okay, this is the one. Most recently I watched the Incredible Hulk one where they did that. Well, actually, that turned out to be a pretty good episode.

But anyways, the point is there's lots of great stuff happening it just didn't for me didn't gel in a way that i would have wanted as like a send-off so it's good that it wasn't it didn't air last it's good that it wasn't the final episode or anything like that yeah i'd agree with that um yeah so uh this is Cannell script, and I think has kind of the, kind of the, like, ultra kind of premise that I associate with that. And a lot of the dialogue is very, not self-referential, but more like, there's some real characters, right? Like, some real kind of, like, this person, this character seems like they've been

imported from a different movie. Yeah. Which is kind of like this person, this character seems like they've been imported from a different movie, which is kind of fun. Um, and this is a, a William Ward, uh, directed effort, which,

um, I think he's, I think we've looked at this before and he's the most, he has the most episodes, his widest array, you know, uh, this doesn't,

this uses a lot of voiceover to frame things. So he found some interesting ways to do some voiceover shots and whatnot. But overall, you know, it's like really capturing. We're in Hawaii. It's really most of what you're seeing on screen. But yeah, as you wanted to get to and I cruelly cut you off. No, it's fine. Talk to me about this preview montage.

First of all, the general impression of the preview montage is it's action packed. And I don't think that that's wrong. There's gunfire, which is great. Also, they shove every regular that appears into the opening montage. Again, Angel's spot on the opening montage is about half of what Angel's spot in the show is. But we do get to see Angel. We do get to see uh but we do get to see angel we do get to see dennis and we get to see rocky uh the one thing that i i made sure to write down and we'll talk about it probably when we get to it uh but is my new tattoo uh be tricky be tough be a tiger

uh-huh as when it comes to motivational speeches i think uh colonel smitty has something here um i want to throw out also uh one of our one of i think the the most fun answering machine messages oh yes which not only is specifically billings calling and identifying himself as this is Billings from the LAPD. But there's apparently going to be some kind of celebration for Chapman's 20th year. And they're going to give him a gift. And if Jim's going to come, you heard it. Billings hitting up Jim for five bucks for a present for Chapman, which is chef kiss. As Jim's unofficial bookkeeper, I have put him down for those five bucks.

Debited him for the five dollars because I think he almost has to at this point. Yeah. There's a lot of Billings in this episode. I mean, compared to how much there usually is. That's extremely nice. Hello, listeners. We're going to take a quick break to say thank you to our

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by the title, The Hawaiian Headache, we start off flying into Hawaii with a voiceover of Rocky getting really excited about all the palm trees. Ignoring Jim's reminder that they have palm trees in L.A. But, you know, it's different because we're not in the smoggy air.

And we get into the first point of contention and drama of the episode where Rocky cannot stop reminding Jim how it's a good thing he pulled that letter out of the trash or they never would have seen that they won these tickets it's a bit that runs runs for a while yeah it's funny because yeah I very much enjoy this I think there's this adorable thing about Rocky holding Jim's hand while they're flying yeah like it's I it makes sense Rocky is probably scared to death of flying. But the whole bit about Rocky, he's excited and he doesn't know exactly what to talk about. He keeps going on about, like, I love the thing about the palm trees. Like, even before Jim responded to him, I was like, you have palm trees where you are, Rocky. But he just wants to be excited about things uh but yeah they start off with this tension between the two of them that's gonna get to like a sad yeah nadir before we come back from it um yeah it's there's a lot of stuff set up here that

as you would expect comes back later right so yeah uh we get the so the premise is that um they want jim somehow won these tickets just through shopping at uh at mason's department store yes but he threw the threw it away because he thought it was trash and it's good thing that rocky pulled it out and saw that they actually won the tickets um jim was going to offer the tickets to dennis Peggy because Dennis was going on vacation and, you know, he owes him a lot of favors, which I kind of appreciate. Like, you know, I ask him for a lot. This is the least I could do kind of thing. But they were taking a trip to Canada and they'd already had it planned. So thankfully, Jim and Rocky could use the tickets. Not only did they have a trip to Canada, but Jim took them to the airport.

Yes. Which is an important clue. I don't particularly care about like continuity errors or whatever. But I did go, huh? Because as a dedicated student of the show, Rocky's like, this is the first time I've been to Hawaii. I've been to Hawaii and I was remembering how that's actually a plot point from Dirty Money Black Light is the

episode where he won a trip to Hawaii and he went by himself and then all the cash starts showing up to his house in envelopes. Yes! I think it's a season 3 episode. We did it a long time ago now. But yeah, that was a similar setup

where there was a fraudulent where there was a fraudulent spoiler alert a fraudulent uh a trip to hawaii that got rocky out of the house to run this like money laundering scam what a little all right rocky whatever rocky but uh yeah he's just so excited his mouth is running a mile a minute uh they're in the scrum of uh tourists getting onto shuttles outside the airport rocky turns around and before he can notice a bunch of guys in suits run up behind both of them grab jim and hustle him into an empty tram uh and then rocky doesn't notice that he's gone until he turns around and sees that uh

shuttle going off with jim inside so we quickly get into some suspicious behavior uh one of these guys in suits the the one that stands out in front of the trams and says this one's closed folks i think this is the guy he's he's been in uh three previous rockford files including a tall woman in a red wagon and a portrait for elizabeth i totally recognized him and i was like the moment he was saying this tram uh is close i was like wait this is the thing yeah uh he's not quite a villain in this one but he definitely looks like a rockford files villain is that lyle yeah yeah yeah yeah james murtog he's in a lot of things yes um yeah so speaking of actors we recognize uh once he gets in there who who has abducted him but um good old uh colonel howling mad smith a commander from from jim's korea days uh this is

ken swafford who was the dad and in the queen of peru he's uh a big presence he's he's had quite a few episodes yeah i think we haven't done the other ones he's been in yet though he was in the aaron ironwood but really wasn't a big character in that one but yeah this is this is an actor who plays big well yeah the fact that i recognized him and the fact that he's a character from jim's past in this episode threw me because i was trying to figure out like a lot, like when we last saw him. Yeah. Like, and,

uh, and I didn't pull out IMDB. I was doing the thing with my brain where you tried to recall a thing, trying to remember things. Yeah. And it didn't work because it didn't happen. Uh, because he wasn't the same character in the past,

but yeah. Um, and he is a mile a minute with his banter. Oh, yeah. Okay, Jimmy, here's the scoop. I'm out of military intelligence working for national intelligence. I need a guy for a piece of cake job. Somebody that's not in the agency.

Some new face that I can SC in 10 seconds on my signature. SC? Security clearance. The old meat market stamp. Government approved. I think a lot of my notes are just me writing down things that he's saying, and I will just repeat them. If you want them, watch the episode, because it's great.

He's dropping gems left and right as he's doing this. Yes. he's doing this yes uh so he was uh in korea with jim and apparently carried a wounded after after rockford got wounded in some action carried him for miles you know back to back to base uh so there's kind of this uh backstory with the two of them but now he's working for a national intelligence and he needs a fresh face for a for a for a caper yeah so he was military intelligence he's military intelligence yeah and uh there's this mention and this is so tantalizing of and i think i got this right operation kettle drum yes he says i remember operation kettle drum and a duffel bag with half a million dollars. That's it.

It was either Kettle Drum or Kettle Bag. Yeah, I couldn't make out what exactly he was saying. But what a great piece of like young Jim Rockford's life that we do. Isn't the other thing that we know about his time in Korea was like was like stealing tanks yeah he was so i think out there there is maybe not a television show but like a series of an anthology a little bit of young rockford at war like young indiana jones but young jim rock yeah young hound dog rockford oh yes and oh will we get to that? Maybe one of my favorite things about this

whole episode. There's a lot here. Yeah. The, as you said, Smitty's going a mile a minute, but the thrust here is that Smith wants Jim to do a drop for him, and he's

appealing to Jim's sense of obligation of you know being saved in the war and everything and also his patriotism is due to his country to do this thing that shouldn't that isn't that dangerous but they need a fresh face so that someone from intel from national intelligence isn't recognized as part of this operation he He's, he's not the kind of guy who would cash in, you know, like cash in a marker, but, but also Jim should know he owes him.

Yeah. Like, but he thinks Jim is the kind of guy who would honor that kind of thing. So, uh, yeah, he's not asked, he's not saying,

Hey, you owe me, but he's saying you're the kind of person who knows that he owes me. Yes. Um, Jim clearly is is doesn't want to be involved says that he's not interested but does get drawn in by these appeals finally he's like okay let's hear it so this is operation net serve and uh the deal is they want to establish a visit from the national U.S. ping pong team to go to Vietnam as this like showing like an olive branch kind of like international rapprochement. He mentions that this worked in China a couple of years ago, which I feel like I remember is a thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

That's a real thing. That's a real thing. So what he needs is he needs someone to swap a briefcase of $100,000 American for a briefcase of $100,000 of Vietnamese currency. Yes. Which he uses a racial slur to refer to. Yeah. And I was like, oh boy, that's the 70s, I guess. Yeah.

Thankfully, that's the only moment that I noticed at least. But I was like, it was in character. Yeah. For that character. But I was just like, we don't need this. Set me on edge. I kept waiting for other stereotypes to show up. And there's a little bit.

A little bit. Honestly, the most stereotyped character in this might be the Brit. And we'll talk about that when that shows up. Yeah. character in this might be the Brit. And we'll talk about that when that shows up. Yeah, so this swap will smooth the way for the Vietnamese to let the ping pong team come into the country, and that's all they want.

He's in charge of this operation, and he doesn't want his counterparts. Like this already, I'm kind of like, I still don't really understand why Jim is needed for this, but whatever. Yeah. But to the extent of Smitty is the one who arranged for these tickets. Yes.

They're in Hawaii in the first place because this national intelligence guy specifically wanted Jim to come and do this briefcase swap. This I think is what I was kind of getting at with the other episodes based in Hawaii from this time period, where it's just like, it's just the flimsiest excuse to get you there. And it's not that this is like the, the little synopsis of this is 100% Rockford files.

The fact that Smitty needs Jim, but the only because he just needs like maybe a patsy or something. Like it doesn't come to fruition that he just needs a patsy. Yeah. So it feels a little empty. Like he could have done this without Jim. Yeah. Or like it could have been done in LA or whatever.

So this is my thing. I start overthinking this and I'm like, oh, this is such a flimsy setup. Clearly this isn't the real story exactly Smitty is not actually a security like is not actually an intelligence person he's a con man or something and he's using this connection to Jim for his own purposes and from the scene on I'm looking for not necessarily the clues like I'm going to figure it out but I'm looking for the elements that are foreshadowing the the twist yeah and you're I'm going to figure it out. But I'm looking for the elements that are foreshadowing the twist. Yeah, and you're waiting for Jim to figure it out, right?

You're waiting for Jim to be suspicious of it, which is usually what happens. He's like, oh, wait, this doesn't add up. But he wants out, which is he's pure Jim in this. He's like, no, i want no part of this there are moments in this where uh he clearly knows and sees all of the danger that's ahead and he's like this is ridiculous i shouldn't be involved but he doesn't suspect that it's something other than what smitty is telling her it is and so that's throwing me for a loop yeah uh because i'm in the same spot you're in i'm i'm thinking okay this guy is running some sort of con on jim but he isn't right but yeah he's

not as we'll get to um and so uh he's gonna jim eventually is like okay fine like he's appealed to to him in all of these ways. He finally calls him a wet one. Like, well, if you don't want to do it, I guess we have a wet one here, guys. That's too much. Jim's like, okay, fine. I'll do it. Smitty gives him a celebratory cigar, calls Dwight Whipple over to sign out the briefcase. And he's going to be the field agent that's going along with Jim for this operation. Man, I had such trouble with his name in my notes. I got to tell you. I kept going between Whiffle and Whipple.

And I think I just settled on Whiffle. It's something that's both of them. DW. DW, yes. Well, I guess that's appropriate given how much screen time we take up talking about his name. Yes. Well, I guess that's appropriate given how much screen time we take up talking about his name. Yes. We should also point out, because there's a very important bit here, where Smitty gives Jim a cigar. Yes.

Yeah. We'll keep track of that cigar. Because I did. I watched that cigar. I also, this episode, I did so much noting of things that I thought were going to be a thing, a thing. And then they weren't like signing over the briefcase and how he like wrote down his initials on that tag. And there was like a tight closeup on it.

Yeah. And I was like, Oh, that's going to be a thing. And then the same thing, like, Ooh, DW,

who's who else is DW? How are we going to have this? Like, what does that mean? They're like, Nope, Nope. So,

uh, uh, they return Jim and, uh, I'm, I'm going to call him Whip because that's what he wants to be called. Jim and Whip back to the cab stand, essentially, where they reunite with Rocky. But not before finding out that Whip here, he's only been in the field for two weeks, but he's very excited. And that's the whole thing. He's not he is an agent, but he's not well known. that's the whole thing he's uh he's not a he is an agent but he's not well known and so that's why he's been assigned to this it's low risk so

so this is where i start not to just make this all about my emotional journey while playing while watching this but this is where i start to think that uh colonel smith uh howling mad is on the up and up because this is exactly the kind of thing that happens to rockford like you know like when this guy clearly could have just been the guy or rather i don't think that howling mad is on the up and up i think that howling mad is national intelligence i just but there's something else with this operation that isn't what he told jim like he doesn't trust someone in it or, you know, whatever. But there's something definitely going on. He ends that conversation by going, oh, wow, postcards.

As he promised to send his wife back some postcards. And he has this line, which in retrospect is very sad. Yeah. Oh, I need to send these postcards back to my wife. We're four months pregnant. Yes. Jim has a wry line about that. But thinking about it now, that's so sad.

That is sad. Rocky comes up while he's looking at the postcards. And he's like, hey, what happened to you? And when Dwight comes back, postcards in hand, he knows who Rocky is. He's like, oh, this must be your father that you told me about. And he has this whole, and I thought very competently done, like quick talk kind of story of like oh we we met on the other tram turns out we're in the same hotel i can just drive us and jim keeps on kind of undercutting him with these snide comments this must be your father you were telling me about i was hi i'm dwight

whipple i met your son jim on the tram i suggested we share my car on the way to the hotel. It's parked right below here. It turns out we're all staying at the Royal Surf. Well, now that's a real coincidence, huh? Not really. So Jim is having none of it. Yeah, there are three different conversations happening all at once, right? Yeah. You've got Rocky, who's just excited to be here and is happy to meet a new person. You have Whip, who is also excited to be here and is happy to meet a new person you you have whip who is also excited to be here and

is happy to meet a new person like those two just really get along and then you have jim who is angry at whip for the situation he's being put into and so he's undercutting him the whole way and then you have rocky who is starting to boil over on jim right like it doesn't come to a head during this but like you can see he's like he he like won't let it go about this you threw the tickets away yeah yeah he keeps bringing it up oh this is also uh jim there was this awkward moment where uh rocky asked jim where he went like yes and then jim like just offers him the cigar i don't smoke um and we get this good garner face he does lots of good faces in this episode he also does like uh he lies poorly to rocky yes his heart isn't in it i think for he's really good at lying at other

people except for one particular moment in this episode. But generally speaking to Rocky, his lies are very blatant and they just don't add up. I don't know if that's a conscious choice on the part of making the show, but I think it's a good choice because it means that he's not bringing the full force of his powers to bear against his father. Right. Yeah. We get this explicated a little bit more later. But basically, he's in a position where, A, he knows he's not supposed... Like, this is like a national intelligence thing. He's not...

Yeah. He's undercover now, right? Like, he's not supposed to tell other people about it. But his heart isn't in it. He's not invested in it. But he doesn't want to tell Rocky because he also doesn't want to put Rocky in danger. His way of threading that needle, like, I. They're just vague excuses that don't even respect Rocky's intelligence enough to, you know,

try and build some kind of better story. They leave and we see some Hawaiian goons pile into a car and follow them from the airport. With an amazing mustache. Very good mustaches in this one. Dwight is driving and we have this whole scene where he's bantering with Rocky about names.

Rocky's like, oh, me and my son, we have the same name. So people call me Rocky. And Dwight says that, oh, you know, my friends call me Dwight. Jim says, oh, what do your enemies call you? But he really wants his friends to call him Whip. Because Dwight Whipple is such a straight name and rocky agrees that whip is a good is a good name uh and this goes on for a while yes they get to the hotel and uh the valet tells dwight that he has a phone call or he got a message or

something he's got he has it written on a piece of paper. Right, right, right. So he has to go make a phone call from a public phone. So he has this briefcase with $10,000 in it. Or $100,000, right? It is $100,000. Yeah. And he's not supposed to let it out of his sight except when he gives it to Jim to take to give to whoever he's transferring. Yeah. But he has to make this call.

He tells Jim, he's like, hey, can you lock this in the trunk? Jim thought that he was supposed to keep it. But Whip says that he's not comfortable carrying the case by himself through the parking lot. And it'll be safer if Jim, if they lock it in the trunk and Jim watches the car. Yeah, sure. Sure, whatever. And I'm like, okay, so this is a setup, right? So Whip goes off.

Ten minutes pass uh the valet says that he has to move the car jim goes to look for dwight he finds the postcards on the ground by the payphone poor whip is nowhere to be seen he looks like he's not happy about this and then he throws the cigar in the trash can on his way back to the car i made such a note about this cigar because we focus on it after he does it right like he throws it in the trash can on his way back to the car. I made such a note about this cigar because we focus on it after he does it, right? Like he throws it in the trash can and the camera focuses on it. And I'm like,

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but is it like what's going on? And the end result is this is just a cigar. It's a little piece of symbolism for like, I'm done with it. Yeah. is just a cigar it's a little piece of symbolism for like i'm done with it yeah it it's reasonable to think that colonel uh howling mad would think that jim would be so excited about being part of this operation that he'd want a cigar like you would get if you if you had a child born right

like uh and it's useful for him to come up with that really poor lie to rocky about where he was that wasn't what the colonel was thinking but that was just a thing that we could do in the story and then it is this symbolic way of jim being like i'm done this is it i'm out but i totally expected that cigar to be important have like a message in it or something or like yeah no not all cigar exits the story here and then i expected jim to come back and like the car is gone or something right like i expected this whole thing to be a setup to get the money away from jim but then we cut to jim coming into the hotel room carrying the suitcase or carrying the briefcase i'm like oh okay i guess that wasn't a thing um we have some business where

rocky says that dwight isn't isn't as much of a whip as he or he notes that that wasn't a thing um we have some business where rocky says that dwight isn't isn't as much of a whip as he or he notes that whip isn't a great nickname he's not much of a whip yeah because rocky can't remember to call a whip and then uh rocky just starts busting jim's chops about this trip you're bringing me down yay lion you're not excited about this why are you trying to ruin this vacation because jim's like look just go go get a drink hang out in the bar there's a couple things i have to do i have to work something out i'll be done in 10 minutes yeah and rocky gets so mad you know i just don't understand you no more it's because i'm deeply complicated and moody full-headed yes because i guess in his head

right it's like oh now we're doing all the father's time stuff and now jim is he's ignoring me you know he's like waiting out in the parking lot then he comes back and he wants me to leave but uh he does throw up his hands and leave to go down get his rum drink jim waits till he leaves and then opens the suitcase and then just has the most like oh no look on his face when it is indeed full of cash that actually i think is one of the payoffs for what we've been kind of dealing with which is like we're looking for the con that's being played on jim and maybe this is the moment that jim realizes there's no con that's been played on him. Yeah. Now, Whip is most likely dead. Now, like up till then, it could be all part of a way to leave Jim holding the bag, if you will. But now it's not.

Now it's probably all true. And now everything's bad. Everything's horrible. So he does a little play to find out where Whip's room is. So he calls the front desk. Turns out he has the room next to him, but he hasn't checked in yet. So then Jim calls that room, I think just to figure out which side it's on. Yeah.

So like we hear the phone ringing and then he knows that's the wall that is adjoining. Yeah. So he can do all that's the wall that is adjoining. Yeah. So he can do all that without leaving the room. That makes sense. That wasn't the thing I thought of at the time. I guess what I was thinking at the time was that he was hoping to get one of Whipple's, you know. But I think you're right. I think that's more of what goes on in Jim's head.

He's like, okay. Well, because he ends up, it rings a couple times, he ends up hanging up, and then he gets a glass and starts, like, listening through the wall. And we zoom in on that glass. But then Rocky comes back in, and he's steamed. What are you doing? I thought you said you were going to come down,

et cetera, et cetera. And Jim is trying to concentrate. I want to know what in tarnation is going on here. Dad, just shut up or get out. Shut up. You ain't never said that to me since you was a little boy and I put you over my knee and banged some sense into you. Dad, I'm not fooling now.

Either shut up or get out. Go on. Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is a question I have for you. I feel like culture has changed a little bit. I remember as a kid telling my parents to shut up about something, and that being the worst thing I could have done. Like, I might as well have dropped an F-bomb.

Like, that is extremely rude. Yeah, you don't tell your brother to shut up. You don't tell your sister to shut up. You don't tell us to shut up. I guess I feel like for a while there, that wasn't the case. Like as I became an adult and I witnessed children, I don't want to say that like I just witnessed a whole bunch of horrendous children yelling at their parents. But, you know, you live a life. You see people yelling at each other from time to time.

Teenagers slamming the door, telling someone to shut up just seems par for the course. And I don't want to sound like an old funny daddy, like back in my day or whatever. But this really felt like that. Like I was like, oh, yeah, it's not just that they're fighting. It's that he would that this is would be an untenable tone to take with Rocky at any point. Yeah, it's it's like offensively rude. Yeah, yeah. I feel like you can see it.

I mean, I'm reading into this, but I feel like even through his body language and everything, you can see Jim thinking, I will fix this later. Yeah, like... Like right now, I need to hear what's going on on the other side of this wall. Whatever I need to do to get Rocky out of here, I'll do it and I'll fix it later.

It's even better if Rocky is upset and storms off. Like I'm trying to drive him away. Yeah. We, I need this distance. Which he does. He, uh,

finally, like Jim has to say like two or three times, shut up or get out. And he finally does. We see Jim, here's something through the wall. We see some hands going through drawers and a cut. And then he goes out onto the balcony,

take some decorative flowers out of a vase and surround. There's like a little half wall between the two balconies. He peeks around that wall. And then there are two Hawaiian goons are in the, in the room. They see him and start taking pot shots at him with a silenced gun. We have a brief chase through the low rooftops of the lower

part of this hotel. Jim finally makes a break for it by bowling through the center of a hula lesson. And so when the guys chase him out of the bushes, he's standing there and then apologizes for being late. Yes. And they are not willing to continue the chase in such a public place.

So they fade off. I enjoyed this chase. I think most of the action that happens in this episode is pretty fun. I liked how this chase felt like an on-foot car chase from the Rockford Files. But there was this weird reaction in the Hulu group where they're upset that he's there. Then they turn around. They're shocked to see these other people. And then he's like, sorry, I'm late.

And they're like, oh, oh, I guess you're just part of the class. Yeah. Then they leave and they turn around and they're shocked again about those. And it was just like, what's happening? Like, do other people see this guy and his gun? That is my question. Or is that just an okay thing in Hawaii? Well, we had a commercial cut there. And then we come back to Jim saying that telling the someone at the front desk that he needs to be paged.

He's expecting a call back from someone at the federal building. It's very important. He'll wait in the Lanai area. he'll wait in the lanai area and so we follow him over there where rocky is glumly sitting in front of his undrunk drink which jim asks how long have you been letting that grow little flowers coming out of it and this is a jim tries to make it right and then you told me to shut up your own pa shut up you said you ain't never told me to shut up in all your life dad i know i know hey you're right yeah so jim tries to explain as much as he can he's like i can't go into it i've been asked to do something for the government and i can't talk about it and rocky like doesn't believe him yeah

he's like i ain't falling for that you're in trouble somehow. You're into something. But Jim specifically apologizes for telling him to shut up. Tell me you're sorry you told me to shut my mouth. Come on, you know I'm sorry. It was a terrible thing to say. I know that, Dad. And so now we get into, like, rocky emotional manipulation where he brightens up. He's like, like okay you know apology accepted hey let's go to the beach well i was gonna stay here i'm waiting for this phone call

oh okay okay okay we'll go to the beach like all right let's go like he gets sad and that yeah jim do what he wants it's good i like their dynamic right i mean we we always love their dynamic it's yeah yeah it's it's so good and feels so, like, emotionally true. And this is maybe slightly exaggerated from maybe the baseline I would expect. Right. But it makes sense. Like I said, it's been boiling for a bit. Like, in this episode, they start from the beginning where Jim, before any of this is happening,

when Jim does that thing on the escalator where he's like, what are you doing? I'm giving you my full attention. Like, you're an ass, Jim. Yeah. Rocky's being an ass, too, but he's being an old guy. He's being kind of crotchety and, like, Jim's just being, like, I think Jim doesn't actually want to be in Hawaii. Yeah. I think that's part of this whole underlying thing.

Like, they want these tickets and they're there because Rocky wanted to go and jim doesn't actually want to be there very much and nothing that happens while he's there makes him feel like he made the right choice what one of the things about their dynamic that i uh kind of ties into the part where you can't lie to rocky is like when he says that line about how long have those been growing? He's trying to be cute. Yeah. He's trying to cheer him up and it falls flat and I can feel it. Right? Like this isn't the type of show where you're often cringing for people.

But like that moment I was like, oh God. Oh, he's just upset, Jim. You can't fix that with a joke. That's good. Well, before this can escalate into another thing, Jim does get paged and he does have a phone call. So he goes to get that. But it is not what the person he's expecting. It is, in fact, Howlin' Mad.

He's giving him a call because the drop has been blown. You were supposed to be there an hour ago. He's pissed. Jim runs down what happened. Just kind of lays out all the facts. And Smitty says, all right, it's time to call audibles. We're going to have to go into a new plan. So he wants to give Jim a gun.

There's this whole thing where he's like. Oh, God. Where Jim's like, no, I don't want a gun. He's like, no. What kind of heater do you want? Yeah. We'll give you a 38 with hollow points. Jesus.

Way over the top. Here's the deal. Well, you'll take the briefcase, go out the front of the hotel. My other guys will pick you up. We'll arrange a new drop. You're going to have to do this one on your own because we're, you know, we don't know what happened to Dwight. They have this bit where they synchronize watches. And I was like, ah, this will be a thing.

But it wasn't. I kept on thinking of these just specific details were playing the things and they just didn't. They were just bits, which is fine. I just, I guess, I don't know.

My expectations were just different at a certain point that this episode is not interested in going to that length, I guess. Um, and this is where we get the great line that you already have gotten tattooed across your chest,

which I thought was yes, a good commitment between watching this and coming to record. Oh yeah. It was hard to find a tattoo parlor that, uh, would take that last minute. And baby be tricky, be tough and be a tiger.

To my eternal regret, I called that tattoo parlor, I set it up and got it done after watching the opening montage. And when I get to this part, it starts with, and baby, be tricky, be tough, and be a tiger. And I'm like, God damn it. You'll have to go back. I could have had that. So now we have to get tattooed across my rib cage and baby.

No, that goes on your neck. So you read down. Yes, there you go. So he hangs up and then we have this. This might be my favorite part of the whole episode. Yes. So Jim's on this phone in the hotel that's this like handset. So it's not like the earpiece with the big separate microphone part.

It's like an earpiece with kind of like a smooth part that comes down. So it's a little more like 70s modern. Smitty hangs up. He looks at the receiver and then he throws it at the... He's upset. Where it hangs up like aphone, is a vertical cradle. So he throws it at it, and it hits it and just bounces off. And then Rocky's there staring at him. And he goes into this whole stammering explanation of like...

Oh, I was just trying to throw it, see, and make it stick. It's a little game. I saw a guy do this once once it's really a little trick you know it's it's harder than i thought rocky's just staring at him and i was like was this just extemporaneous like it feels like it's just something that happened and they're like just let the cat just keep rolling keep rolling get all of this like he was supposed to hang up and it didn't or he threw it when he was supposed to just put it up. Or like, and they just ran with it.

I don't know. There's something about it that doesn't feel quite so planned. And I love it. I mean, my read of it was that he's angry. And Rocky catches him being angry when he's trying to have a good vacation with Rocky. And he's again lying to Rocky. Yeah. which is the thing that he has trouble with. But there was also this other bit where it's just so ingrained in my head now. Like when he threw it on there and he said he saw someone do it.

Later on, as I was like prepping my notes, I was like, did he mention YouTube? Because he didn't. But my brain had constructed him watching this trick on YouTube and tried to reconstruct it. And I was like, what's going on? I thought that he was going to make some specific reference. Like I saw it on Johnny Carson, like on, you know, like some show. And in that vacuum, my brain was like, oh, clearly it's a TikTok orcker. Well, I mean, it was the 70s, so it was probably a vine. Right. Well, he tells Rocky to go go down to the pier, rent a fishing boat so they can do some sunset fishing.

He has a couple of things to do. He'll be there in 45 minutes, maybe an hour. And so when he gives these vague timeline, Rocky gets mad again and storms off. And so when he, you know, gives these vague timeline, Rocky gets mad again and storms off. And so Jim, frustrated, angry, gives the briefcase that's at his feet a big kick. So it shoots open and just shoots a wad of cash across the floor. And there's all these people there staring at it. And he has this quick, lame, like, oh, this isn't what it looks like.

I'm with the, like, Hawaiian repertory players. What does he call it? Like, we're doing a... The money machine? Yeah, the money machine. This is all prop money, and he's, like, gathering it all into the suitcase. And then he ends with, hope you like the show. Yeah. I think we're supposed to get that he's really flustered with all this. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

But it is, uh... It was a good bit. That might be my favorite part of the whole thing happy i need a quick break i'm gonna grab a taco you tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the information super highway i'll be right back one way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at epi di e E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to worldswithoutmaster.com where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games. And if you like role-playing games,

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

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

I'm back. I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into Rockford's books again. All right. Well, I'm done with this delicious avocado taco. Well, let's get back to the show then. Jim gets picked up by Lyle who's driving, gives the passenger seat. He wants Jim to take a gun.

Jim doesn't want to take a gun. But now, the rules have changed. The plan hasn't gone how it was supposed to so now anything could happen. Sign this receipt and Jim doesn't want the gun. And he just keeps hammering on this until finally he takes it under protest. Again, thought that signing the receipt would be a thing. Not a thing.

You know, there's a point, we'll get to it, but there's a point where I thought that this might have been what the whole deal was. That has to do with this signing the receipt. But I don't think it, it doesn't pan out. Lyle's taking him to the spot to make the exchange. it's a restaurant that he says he doesn't like very much because it's a hangout for wrongos and commies um and the the middleman that he's supposed to exchange briefcases with his name is lance sue yeah and he's already already spooked because things haven't because the first drop was canceled um so take the gunfighter's seat. Yeah. So now Jim's like, look, I thought there was no danger. This wasn't supposed to be dangerous.

And now I'm carrying a gun and I'm sitting with my back to the wall, which is great. He's like, what's the rush? Why does this have to happen right now? And I was like, I too would like to know what the rush is. But according to Lyle, it's what the Secretary of State wants. Who am I to, you know, I'm not going to get in the way of that. He's sure he'll be fine. The colonel says that they can count on Hound Dog.

This, this is the most Jim Rockford moment, I think, of this entire episode. Hound Dog. You ought to know where I got that nickname. I was wounded in Korea. Colonel Smith picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me 15 miles in the snow. And every step he took, I howled like a hound dog. That's right.

And this is so, like, it's such a badass name, the hound dog. He finds what he's looking for, you know, or whatever. But the truth of the matter is, and the fact that Jim really needs people to know and but the truth of the matter is and the fact that jim really needs people to know and understand the truth of the matter is that he's human he was hurt and so he cried out like he's not some superhuman like operative that could do you know whatever no he was he was injured and he cried because he was injured. Not cried, but like whatever. And yeah, I love it.

It just cuts right through the BS, cuts through the machismo of it. And just is like, nope, this is what that is. It's good. Well, Jim has the briefcase. He gets shown to the table where he's supposed to meet Lance Sue, who has apparently gone off to the bathroom.

So everyone here is like kind of like slimy, underworld-y kind of deal. So the guy ushers him in and asks him, so what's your deal? You with the company? And Jim says that he's just a man on vacation. So he orders a water because his mouth is starting to get pretty dry. And then the camera shows us the bartender tipping a powder into the glass of water. So he takes a swallow and then goes to the bathroom himself.

Starts coming over faint and then notices that there's some feet under a stall door. Opens the door and a man with a knife in his back comes falling forward out of the stall. I do like the touch of the knife. It's such a classic murder mystery trope, and it's completely unnecessary. Yeah. You don't need to show a wound. We just poisoned Jim.

I guess the only reason for it is to let us know that the poison that Jim ingested might not be fatal. Yeah. Because this man was killed by some other means. Yeah. Jim, again, kind of gets a little bit of like, oh no. Like, of course, but also, oh no.

Look on his face, but he's still woozy and he's stumbling. And he stumbles out the back of the restaurant right into a group of goons who have been waiting for him. And they rough him up pretty brutally. Give him some gut punches and they rough him up pretty brutally, give him some gut punches, and then hustle him into a waiting black limo. This is of a piece with the episode we did last time,

which is part of our ongoing The Altered States of Jim Rockford. No oral surgery this time around. So this moment here felt like a commercial break, right? Yeah. And I took that opportunity to put in my notes, where the hell is Angel and Dennis? Yeah, it's like we're halfway through the episode. Yeah, like what the hell is going on? Yeah.

I also was kind of like, okay, so we're finally getting some something. Right. But this still doesn't seem like it's related to Mad Dog. Yeah. So, like, on the one hand, we always love when there's multiple, like, factions, right? Mm-hmm. And so we're getting it, we're essentially getting another faction. Because these aren't the Hawaiian, or are these, no, these aren't the Hawaiian goons, right? No, no, they're not.

They're the Vietnamese guys. The ones who poisoned him might be the Hawaiians. I think that's the case. I think the ones that beat him in the alleyway belong to, who we'll just meet, it will meet in a moment, Dutch. Who might be British, I'm not sure. It's hard to tell. I think there's a line where he's supposed to be British. Yeah, no, he is. I

wrote in my notes. So we have a blurry coming back to consciousness. Yes, yes. Looking out over the beautiful Hawaiian beach into the water as Jim comes to, but he's tied to this

big tree stump. We are again visiting with another of our old friends. No, not Angel, not Dennis, and not a character we've seen before. But this actor was also in The Queen of Peru. And he was the British jewel heist organizer, Ginger. So now my headcanon is that Ginger and Ronco from Queen of Peru have decided to go into business for themselves and reinvented themselves in Hawaii. As international super spies. As international super spies. But yes, this is his name here.

I'm Dutch Ingram. I'm the bloody king of this stretch of beach. he's i'm dutch ingram i'm the bloody king of the stretcher beach and you you're the bloke what's going to tell me why you got the money that was supposed to be delivered to lance sue and while you're at it you can tell me who packed lance in because i don't take kindly to my blokes being um jim is have has a bad headache hawaiian headache if you will yes the the titular headache and i feel like there's a lot so this headache. And I feel like there's a lot. So this scene, like, it's not like there's a lot to this scene, but I was so confused. I was trying to understand.

So what they tell us in the scene is that he's the middleman. So he's the one who's arranged this money transfer to get the U.S. ping pong team access to Vietnam. So the guys with him are from the Vietnamese government. Yes. So they're on the beach behind him counting the money. Yes. While he's trying to find out from Jim why Lance Su got killed. Right.

And so Lance Su's money has gone missing. Lance Su. And that's the $100,000 in Vietnamese currency. So, yeah, there's... Okay. I feel Jim's headache. So, wait, are they Vietnamese or Hawaiian? Is this guy lying?

Or is he working with the U.S. or not? It even pans out. We learn more about it a little bit later, and it doesn't clear it up. He is working with them and on his own. These guys, he specifically says they'll probably just split it up amongst themselves. That's just how this works. Yeah.

Okay. So here's the thing. Not to get too critical of, because once again. Well, so I'll just say, so I'm here. I'm like, okay, here's what I'm being told by the scene. I feel like there's still something else going on that has yet to be revealed. Are there clues to that here? If there are, I'm not getting them.

That's fine. Let's just see how this goes. That's kind of like where I'm at. No, that's exactly where I'm at too. Like, again, this is a romp that I enjoy watching. There are lots of good interactions with the characters. But when it comes to the plot, when it comes to the, not it comes to the not the plot like the plot of the story although a little bit of that but the plot that the cia is cooking up yeah the operation

the operation i am so lost it's a bad plan so yes and but what they what they don't do just to get like critical of it for a moment so we can kind of learn from it here they never hand off the bouncing ball to us right like so if the money means nothing right if it was like these guys that have it now they'll just split it amongst themselves it won't ever really make it wasn't ever going to make it back to right vietnamese people or whatever uh then that evaporates in my head as a concern so what is our concern like what's left right is it is it the murder mystery behind uh who killed lance oh yeah we're so we're transitioning to a murder mystery but we're not really in that spot these people say they want to know that or lance not lance uh dutch dutch says he wants to know that but it's it hasn't quite transferred there and it will in the next scene

or two but then it won't yeah and i think that's what it is is that we kind of we kind of keep getting handed these cards that tell us what the plot is and the none of it carries any weight because it'll just be undone in just a moment and it won't be undone through i mean roctor does stuff it's not like he doesn't have agency but he's not really changing anything i think i have a takeaway about about jim in this that may i'll say for the end that's kind of about that um yeah and then the thing that really kind of confused me was that dutch says all right let's go see your friends at the federal building yes so i mean that could be read as right, let's go see your friends at the federal building. Yes. So, I mean, that could be read as a legit, let's take you to the U.S. intelligence people. Or that could be a wry, like, we're going to round up your friends.

And I couldn't tell which way that was supposed to be read. But it doesn't matter too much because Jim takes a moment where neither of, so it's like Dutch and his like main goon, the big, the beefiest one are carrying him over to the car. And then the other guys are still dealing with the money. So he takes a moment where the two of them are not focused on him to do a classic Jim Rockford shove you away when you're not expecting it. And he gets he gets the drop on the two of them. He punches them both out and then he jumps into the limo and uh peels out and gets away as the uh vietnamese government guys start shooting at him yep great or gunfire because it's important that he's stopped but we don't know why yeah um and then we get i think

the moment you've been waiting for yes so we cut from the limo like disappearing into trees to well angel to jim yelling angel yes and we get the exact image that's on the imdb which is the whole reason why i selected this episode uh in that wonderful hawaiian shirt and he's like jimbo and the white the white hat the white hat. The white hat. As Emily watched this with me, she pointed out that there's just wonderful hats abound in this episode. There are wonderful hats.

So Jim shouts Angel and Angel's response is so wonderful because he says I'm not going to do it. Angel Hello! Hey Jimmy, what's happening? It's beautiful and it's, you expect like I'm not going to do it. Angel. Hello! Hey, Jimmy, what's happening? It's beautiful and you expect like, oh, oh, now this is going to hit the fan, right?

But I don't want to set your expectations like mine were. They're not. But we get some really good lines from Angel. We do. These are some good lines. He heard that his pard had a whole expenses paid trip to Hawaii, to paradise. And what's the only thing missing? An angel in paradise. Yes.

He has this whole line about how he got a hot ticket to come out there. And all he needs is Jim to tell the guy at the bar that that's his signature. So that angel can charge his tab, Jim's room for the expenses, which is great. So I love that he's already grifting. Yeah. And it's great that Angel just assumes that Jim's going to be okay with this plan. Yeah. And Jim just straight up is like, get out.

Yeah. And Angel, one of my absolute favorite responses. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I heard you right. Did you tell me to get out? So good. So good. So good.

But before anything can happen, there's a knock on the door and it is the Hawaiian police. They have a search warrant. And as soon as they say police, Angel starts trying to talk his way out of the room. Like he's the caterer or something like that. It's like, we'll talk about those flower arrangements when you're ready. We'll see you later, Mr. Rockford.

Um, but no, they, they pat down both of them. And then, uh, they go down to the parking lot where the rental car is there. And he says,

this, this, the rental car that you rented. And Jim says, no, I didn't rent any car. It's like, well,

your name is on the contract. So Jim continues denying that he rented the car which he did not yes says that uh he wants to talk to his lawyer and they're like okay that's fine but first we're going to open this trunk they open the trunk and it's uh poor poor dwight folded up in that trunk and angel in there gets in a i'm not with him before the book of murder one so okay yeah um this is the part where my brain was saying oh this is the receipt for the gun he signs the receipt for the gun and it's actually the car rental contract or whatever so that he could be framed for this murder i don't know why i mean other than somebody has to be framed for a murder.

But, again, this is the thing that just keeps happening in this episode where you keep reading into things. Yeah. Because there's nothing to be read into. And you're like, because who did that? Yeah. Who put this car rental in his name? It would have to be Colonel Smith's people because they're the ones that rented the car, right? Like this is Whipple's car.

Right, but it's not. Or is it the Hawaiian Mafia? I think it's the Hawaiian Mafia. We'll get into this at the end maybe. I think maybe it's Dutch, right? Oh, maybe. Maybe. Because Dutch is getting back at the U.s yeah i don't know people for

the murder of his guy it's it is never addressed yeah i mean i guess there's maybe something about part of getting them out there was that they also set up the rental car in jim's name without telling him so that he'd have it so it it just happened to be in his name? Yeah, it could be. But that was never telegraphed. That's just reading into a possibility. So, like, who knows? The point is, Jim's getting framed for murder. Right? Like, that's the point. That's why

we're here, to see Jim get framed for murder. Exactly what that mechanism of that framing was is never explained. Yes. But Jim is able to make some phone calls from from the hawaiian equivalent of downtown and he's trying to get to dennis and so here's our second the second best part of this episode where where we have jim on the phone talking to captain mackinrow aka jack garner who doesn't believe it's really Jim. Anyone could call and say that they're Jim Rockford.

He's trying to get in touch with Dennis. And basically Captain McEnroe holds Jim up for Lakers tickets. It's like, I know you have tickets that you should, you know, I know you give tickets to Becker for some of the Lakers games. And Jim's like, okay, I can get you a pair of tickets like well i like to go to multiple games you know yeah make like a thing out of it make it a weekend thing yeah it's like okay i'll give you three tickets three pairs of tickets i know they're in canada they took this plane that i drove them to just tell me where they are but turns out they're not in Canada. They're in the Hawaiian Garden Hotel.

Jim is now on the phone with Becker. He's in the foreground in a hat and a Hawaiian shirt, and in the background is Billings in a Hawaiian shirt. Poor Peggy. Well, it turns out that it's something of a policeman's holiday. He's there with some other cops on business, and he had to tell a little white lie to Jim because he didn't want to offend him

by turning down his tickets to Hawaii because it wouldn't look right if he took Jim's tickets when he was going to Hawaii anyway. So to avoid making him feel bad, he made up that they were going to Canada. Apparently to the extent of drive us to the airport. Yes.

He's so deep into it and I love how he just, he's in the middle of drive us to the airport. Yes. He's so deep into it. And I love how he just, he's in the middle of the explanation and he kind of abandons it. Ah, Jim, how are you? Yeah. I can't go any further with this. So of course now I'm like, oh, okay. So now there's like, so Smitty is rogue and there's this operation. Yeah.

To like keep an eye on him and they're just letting that play out so they can get all the evidence and now Jim's going to be able to work with Becker to like spring it from the inside. No, not there for anything related to what Jim's doing. Never explained why they're there, which is fine. Like that. I don't care about that. It's just like, yeah, I again immediately started plotting out the next twist that never came. Yeah, exactly. Oh, and so Jim says that to get him out of this, he's going to need to see if Becker can run a license plate for him. Which is good. Like, that's a good gag.

Yeah, that's a good gag. Down at the station, Mad Dog shows up, which I did not expect. I thought that Jim was just on his own from now on but no mad dog's there and he's mad at the cops because they are now interfering in a u.s covert operation and he needs this man so you know you need to let him go immediately i don't care what charges you have against him and when the chief says uh i don't understand any of this he says you're not supposed to understand yes it's secret which i think is the thesis statement for the plot there's this great thing about mad dog uh in that he's doing these covert operations the whole thing

is about it being secret and he is the loudest person on yeah like jim yells at him on the phone for just belching it all out where so many switchboard operators can overhear it uh and in this moment where he's like you're not supposed to understand it it's a secret just shouting it as loud as he can be this is also mad dog brings up this ploy that he has that originally i was like wait why is he still in hawaii right this is the second time he says this yeah he's like i have to be on a flight to hong kong in an hour to hurry people up uh it's it's fun but yeah no it's fun but it's also like okay i need to just stop caring about what the story is yeah exactly at this point it doesn't matter like jim's in jail no he's out of jail yeah he's

already setting up to get himself out or to you know do something and uh the mad dog just shows up yeah it's i don't want to complain too much about the episode because like i said really enjoyed watching it yeah a lot of this business that just turns out to be just business i kept expecting something from it that yeah we get a fun little joke reversal here where jim from a pay phone is calling dennis who now dennis is down at the station because he had to go down there to run the plate um so uh mad dog took custody of jim jim said i think he said something like oh i'm off the hook and dennis is like yeah no you're just in his custody. They still have the charges against you. So he's still on the hook for this murder charge, even though he is in custody of Mad Dog.

But Dennis did run the plate for the limo that Jim got away in. And even though it comes up with a bunch of like dead addresses or whatever, Scuttlebutt at the station says that that is uh dutch's car and that he lives at this certain address um you know somewhere and then just the most amazing dennis like humoring jim thanks dennis i'm sorry to put you through all this hey no sweat uh that's why i came down here if i don't run a plate every couple of hours, my hands start shaking. All right. See you soon. So good.

And then Smitty comes back to Jim after he gets off the phone with some aspirin for his terrible headache. And my notes here are just like, and they have banter about dying for your country. Yes. Dwight went down in the service of his country. You know, that's how I want to go and all this stuff. And Jim is not having any of it. Because why would you want to die staring at a vase when you get shot in the head? Yeah. Or whatever it was.

And it's just like, yeah. So they go to Dutch's fancy house. Smitty's on the radio in the car calling in a pincher action. Jim and Mad Dog will go in the front. And then he wants his guys to come in from both sides in the rear with lead in the air. And Jim's like, why are you giving that order? And on the radio one of the guys is like, sir, you're going to be caught in the crossfire if we do that. He's like, I can take care of myself. so i guess he's just really bad at his job yeah we're gonna end on that note like when we get to it but that's what we're learning it's just that that this guy

just doesn't doesn't do well well he hasn't been in a good firefight in two years so yes you know he he's he's looking forward to some action it gets dark here too like he literally i think confesses to shooting a guy for not going i think so yeah he's like you know what happened to the to yellow bellies who don't go up the hill and he's like holding the gun threateningly and staring at jim yeah i was like, I kept waiting for Jim to like jump him from behind as they're approaching this door because this guy is a danger. Mad Dog is a sociopath. Yeah.

I guess he does throw, he's like, okay, here's what's going on. Dutch is playing both ends against the middle and Jim's like, okay, but why kill his own guy? Like that doesn't wash. And it's just like, things get weird. Yeah. Things change all the time. He'd sell out his sister

for a dollar. He was in a situation where he was on the payroll of three different countries at the same time. Who knows what he'll do? And so with the threat of, you know, you know what happens if you don't go up the hill behind him. They go in the front. There's a bit of a gag where they knock

on the door and it's answered by a woman who in the front they there's a bit of a gag where they knock on the door and it's answered by a woman who in the credits is mrs ingram which is great uh she's just she's this very voluptuous uh bikini wearing woman who she who does not believe that john smith wants to come see dutch that is smitty's name this episode is her sole imdb credit she just she had to be like a local extra right i i wanted to look it up because dutch is british uh and i wanted to make sure the actor was because i was having he's a kind of australian a little bit yeah there's like i was having trouble with his accent but it's legit i guess but maybe it was just his dialogue it was very bleeding and blah blah blah blah blah blah uh and then when she came on i was like come on

because she's putting on an accent as well or maybe again like she could be uh british as well i don't know uh her impb is very scant well dutch Dutch is hanging out with his Vietnamese government pals by the pool. And we get this, like, very strange, it's not even exposition, confrontation, I guess. So Smith comes in. Jim's behind him. He's like, you set up this double cross. Dutch says that. There's no double cross.

I sent in my best man for the drop. You know, he ended up dead. and then this ringer shows up, and he doesn't know anything about spycraft. He's bumbling around. Bad Dog wants to take him to a cold drop where he can, or whatever it's called. I think that's the term he uses, where he can ask him questions until he's satisfied. And then Dutch calls for his go goons and they show up with their guns that doesn't change a thing you're still the first to go oh i see the old american

favorite other standoff all right i'll play well i'd rather not is there someplace i could wait until you guys are finished where did you find him look there are times when everyone is right this seems like one of those times now if i might make a suggestion why don't we all just back away from this thing and make a time for a new meet when cooler heads prevail shut your hole rockford this guy's dead either way i do love how as soon as things start to escalate jim takes the role of like trying to calm everyone down yes de-escalate the situation mad ducks has no way and then dutch yells and then guns start firing and then everyone dies for the floor. And there's just constant gunfire while Jim grabs the radio that Mad Dog dropped and calls in backup, calls in the government guys.

So they finally storm in and kind of apprehend everyone. At the end of the day, Jim is the only one who was injured in all of that shooting. And he has a big bloody spot on his shoulder. Mad Dog picks him up and starts patting him directly on the wounds to congratulate him, and Jim's just with the most savage like, don't touch me.

Most disgusted is the word I'm looking for. Most disgusted line, don't touch me. Yeah, so that happens. Yeah. I's a it's a good uh ending to this action here we don't know again what the stakes really were but in the moment the stakes were very clear there was danger to rockford's life and he had to find a way out he had this great line in it where he's like uh is there some place i can wait until everyone's finished yeah like this doesn't seem to be about me yeah it's just again weirdly unsatisfying

because i had a moment where i was like why do the operatives need rockford to call them in there there's a lot of gunfire going on yeah i wonder if that moment was to kind of establish that if rockford hadn't done it like mad dog wasn't going to yeah maybe that maybe that's the case maybe they're they're just following orders and they're following the orders of a mad dog yeah or howling mad that's we keep calling a mad dog but it's Howlin' Mad. Yeah, you're right. Like, uh... Howlin' Mad. What's his name from Nick Fury's commandos? Well, we go from there to the hospital, where, just like us, Rocky doesn't understand what happened. Jim has his full arm in a cast.

Oh, yeah. So it's a pretty serious injury, I guess. And Howlin' Mad is in there. He's saying he has a Coast Guard chopper coming to take him to the mainland. And they'll get his treatment covered. The government will take care of all of it. The charges here have been dropped. They don't need you for the trial.

You've done a good job and you can go home. I don't remember what order this all came in. I went back to make sure I got each bullet point just to see where this all went in the dialogue. So Dutch was working for both sides. Dutch killed Dwight. Lance Sue was killed by the Komoda brothers, who are apparently Hawaiian mafia. Yeah. And those were like the two guys that chased Jim out of the hotel.

So they were working for Dutch, but also for themselves. So that was like a completely off-screen, unrelated issue, I guess. And then Dutch was working for the U.S. and himself. The Vietnamese guys were working for the Vietnamese government and themselves. So they all just wanted to get the money from each other, from the other side, I guess. And that's what happened. And the whole thing turned out better than a grenade and a wedding cake well jim's like but what about the ping pong team yes

smitty says well we didn't make the exchange but we took five no goods off the playing field It's so bad. Yeah. We do get a nice classic Rockford ending. It's not as tidy or... Sure, yeah. It's not a happy ending. He gets on the plane. We get Howling Mad. Talking to Lyle. Yeah, Howling Mad gets him on the plane by saying he's got to catch a flight to Hong Kong in...

Come on, hurry up, I've got to catch a flight to Hong Kong in ten minutes. And then Lyle finally asks him about that flight to Hong Kong. Caroline, we better hurry, sir. Hey, I'm not going anywhere. I just wanted to hurry him on his way. He then says that, you know, Rockford was a real disappointment. I don't like seeing one of my guys get hurt that sloppy or something like that. So now he's like blaming

Jim for getting shot. And then he tells Lyle to do the paperwork. He doesn't want that mud on his file. And he was technically under your direct command. And Lyle's like, oh, come on. I was like, oh, this guy is the worst. Yes. Which

as it turns out was probably the whole point to the episode. Right. So, yeah. And then we end with two great voiceovers. The first is we cut to Becker and Billings in their Hawaiian shirts walking down like a golf course or something. Yeah. Beautiful Hawaiian scenery as the plane flies overhead and they're talking about Rockford. It's like, where did he go?

He just disappeared and they very specifically say the hawaii police don't want to question him in that murder well if he leaves the state you know they'll just pull him back with a subpoena so like how mad lied yeah lied to jim created more trouble for him down the road and then we get the voiceover as we see the plane going by uh rocky asking jim if he's comfortable and jim's saying that sure he's comfortable enough but we're off the ground can you let go of my hand now dad i'm with rocky on that and we end with a freeze frame on uh on the plane as it leaves hawaii yeah so that was the hawaiian headache yeah i mean it's it's silly fun yeah it feels a little bit like i don't know not even like a first draft because like there's good jokes and stuff but it feels kind of like at a certain point they're like

phoned in i guess is more of the who cares let's just we're gonna be in hawaii we'll just enjoy that we'll have some murders it'll be great yeah i think so too i i think it's very uh not kennel's best work in terms of uh structure yeah but the dialogue stepped up lots of good stuff between uh rocky and jim yeah the brief moments with angel and the brief moments with dennis were all gorgeous and there was the action was pretty good uh it i think the action itself if it suffers it suffers from the fact that we're just like i don't know what in our discussion of it when jim gets mickeyed and he leaves the restaurant yeah we have to like stop and think to ourselves wait who's doing this yeah and why yeah there's a lot it's like so did did dutch kill dwight when he

went for that phone call like right i guess right or abduct him and then kill him later or whatever but why like in order to get the money? But he didn't have it with him. Right. And it was not Dutch who was up in the room. It was the Hawaiian mafia. But they were working for Dutch. Oh, that's right. That's right.

But, like, so was his thing, I'll arrange this meat, and then I will take the money from the Americans and just give give that to the vietnamese and then they keep their money and that's the scam i think there would have been easy ways to clean this up and that what this is armchair yeah quarterbacking or whatever but like if you just spent a moment and had dutch and howling mad in cahoots exactly Exactly. That's what I was just thinking. Yeah. And putting Rockford in the middle of it so that they had somebody who the government wouldn't try to back. He can just go down. Yeah.

Then you have a plot that you can, Jim can like suss out and try and figure out how to get out from underneath it and blah, blah, blah. You wouldn't have to change a whole lot. Yeah. I think that was kind of my takeaway

about Jim in this is that he's not, it's not just that he doesn't figure anything out because there's kind of nothing to figure out. It's kind of that he's, he's always behind the ball and he's never that one step ahead that we kind of assume that he is like, like that's, that's, that's the joy of Jim Rockford, right? We get to see him be good at

what he does and in this he's just not good at what he does he's basically played the whole time but there's no con yeah that's the thing so it's not like he's being tricked he's just kind of like being pressured to do things he doesn't want to do and then when there's consequences he's like oh guess now i'm getting suckered another way. I don't know. It's not a great showing for poor Jim. Yeah. I mean, it's not like it's even like, I don't know.

It's not a bad episode. For those of us who are invested in the structural underpinnings of how the mystery plays out, this episode doesn't care about that. No, it doesn't. But it kind of has enough of the trappings of caring about it that I kept getting tricked into caring about it. It's kind of how I feel. Because there's some episodes that aren't about the mystery. They're about the characters.

But they don't have so much going on that's mysterious. And it's not just the plot details that do that, though. The filming does that, too. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like there's an alternate edit of this that has like one more scene and a little different dialogue that is a three-pronged like u.s intelligence dutch hawaiian mafia collision with jim stuck in the middle now we're really speculating here but like when you take into account the amount of like voiceover work that's done as well, that's entirely possible.

They might have had something that they looked at and they were like, oh, it didn't hang together. How do we unspool it a little bit? Yeah. How do we make it work with what we got? Yeah. It's a bit, as they say, of a headache. A Hawaiian. a headache a hawaiian but i do you know i do appreciate that they wanted to kind of get as much in in the hawaii shoot as they could right like with getting angel like right how do you

reasonably have a let's all go to hawaii episode that the studio was paying for and not get angel and dennis to be in the episode yeah i'm i'm, I'm down with that. It's fun to see them, but, uh, this, this, this would be a, this would be an episode that I would just let play while I did other

stuff. It wouldn't be an episode that I would screen for someone to like show them how great the rock for files is. Right. Cause it's not, it's not an early, uh, early recommendation.

It's so good that it's, uh, in the sixth season. Yeah. Damn near the end of it. Yeah. I don the end of it. Yeah, I don't want to belabor the points any more than we have. So I think that's pretty much all I really have to say about this episode. Fun episode, if a little confusing.

Yeah. Yeah, so I think that will be about it for us. Jim did not, obviously, did not get paid for any of this. No. Unless you count an all-expenses-paid trip that ends up being a U.S. government-backed trip to the hospital counts as being paid. I mean, obviously, Rocky got a free drink out of it. They may have gotten the boat that they never used. Angel definitely got some drinks out of it.

Yes. Angel definitely got some drinks out of it. Yes. Jim is out $5 for the answering machine message. Right, right. That's going to the present for Chapman. Yes. And then, of course, Jim is probably out the entire return trip.

Well, the Coast Guard is taking him back. Oh, no, but I mean, when they bring him back in irons. Oh, oh, yes. When they subpoena him to come back to Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. So all in all, in the long run, not his favorite vacation. Well, hopefully it'll be sunnier skies ahead for Jim as we go into some other episodes. I feel like I got my dose of Hawaiian sunshine at least this time around. A cure for the winter blues. Cure for the old winter blues. Yeah, I'm glad this one wasn't super serious.

Like, we've done some pretty serious ones recently. It was a nice break from that for sure. Agreed. Even if you don't see the episode, just look up the IMDb entry just to look at the screenshot of Angel in the Hawaiian shirt. It'll be worth your two seconds, I promise. screenshot of Angel and the Hawaiian shirt. It'll be worth your two seconds, I promise. With that, we will go ahead and sign off and go off to our little winter vacations.

Yeah. But we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files. Bwa bwa. Bwa bwa bwa. Aloha. Aloha!