Two Hundred A Day - Episode 76: A Material Difference

Episode Date: October 25, 2020

Nathan and Eppy go under cover to talk about S5E19 A Material Difference. Angel has the perfect scam - pretend to be a hit man, take the half up front and move on. Unfortunately his first gig involves international espionage, and a chance meeting with Jim draws Rockford in against his will. This is a wild romp of an episode! We found it to not be totally solid around the edges but a joy to watch, especially for the focus on the Jim-Angel dynamic, one of our favorites! We have another podcast: Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday) at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem (https://twitter.com/richardhatem) * Brian Perrera (https://twitter.com/thermoware) * Eric Antener (https://twitter.com/antener) * Bill Anderson (https://twitter.com/billand88) * Kevin Brown * Chuck from whatchareading.com (http://whatchareading.com) * Paul Townend, who recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Dave P, Dale Church and Dave Otterson! Thanks to: * Fireside.fm (https://fireside.fm) for hosting us * Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) for helping us record and capture clips from the show * Spoileralerts.org (http://spoileralerts.org) for the adding machine audio clip * Freesound.org (https://www.freesound.org/) for other audio clips

Jim, Joe Myers of Crowell, Finch, and Merriweather. We're going to court tomorrow with that Penrose fraud case, but Steno misplaced your 200-page deposition. Could you come down tonight and give it again? Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show The Rockford Files. I, as per usual, am Nathan Poletta, not in disguise. With surprise guest star Epidaeus Ravishaw. Or shall we call you Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones, yes.

Well, okay, that's a good segue. Let's talk about the episode we're going to do today. Yes, indeed. For this episode, we're going to season five, episode 18, A Material Difference. So you picked this one. Yes, I did. material difference. So you picked this one.

Yes, I did. It's been a wild, I don't know, month, year, century. Who knows anymore? It's been a wild time. So in the discussion over the next episode to do, I kind of wanted to

go with something that would be a little, I don't know, a little more rompy, a little more lighthearted, and to be perfectly frank, I kind of wanted to go with something that would be a little, I don't know, a little more rompy, a little more lighthearted, and to be perfectly frank, just have more Angel in it, because you know how we like our Angel. So I did pick this one basically

just from the description with the memory from my first watch of the premise, but I really, really did not remember. Oh, yeah. All the permutations and various agencies and everyone involved. I was like, I did not remember any of that, actually. Yeah, I was at sea.

I was trying to remember um what i remember i think i have a distinct memory of angel in this persona yes and that's the extent of it i remember the con yeah and that was pretty much it so uh so i would say that this indeed delivered in terms of rompness and angelitude i like that angelitude rock for additionist and angelitude. I like that, Angelitude. Rockfordishness and Angelitude. This episode was written by Rogers Turrentine, who only has one other Rockford Files credit. He did the teleplay for another episode

that we did. He has a plural first name. He did the teleplay for the Battle Axe and the Exploding Cigar. Oh, yes. Which also was kind of a military intelligence... intelligence yeah he has a uh a type i don't remember if we talked about him really in that episode there's not a whole lot to go on on the internet uh there's a line that says that um after he came to the attention of david chase he was

kind of a david chase guy David Chase guy later in the decade. This is not this episode, but wait, maybe this episode is where he cut his teeth, right? Like, this is the very beginning of his IMDb. Yeah, this is his first written by credit. Yeah, he was a story editor and wrote for a program on PBS before being brought to the attention of the Rockford Files. I'm just reading his mini bio on the internet. Someone has to. Yeah, I have no additional insight to share

except that I just clicked through... Okay, so the line here is his mentor, veteran screenwriter Howard Brown, brought Roger's work to the attention of the Rockford Files. Who's this Howard Brown fellow? Howard Brown wrote the episode Sleight of Hand, which we did way back in our archive, but which was the one that was based on the novel, Thin Air. And we talked about, you know, how interesting that was for the show.

Season one, right? Yep. I mean, among many other things, but that's his Rockford Files connection. So, yeah, interesting. That is interesting. And this episode is directed by William Ward. Oh, yeah. Our good friend with his many, many episodes.

Are we even remotely close to doing a complete William? A complete William? We have angelitude and a complete William. Yeah. I think not. 26 episodes. I think we might be almost halfway with his. Wow. Something like that. Yeah. In many ways, think we might be almost halfway with his. Wow.

Something like that. Yeah. In many ways, our podcast is a William Yard podcast. Again, William Yard, also directed sleight of hand. Yeah, I'd say we're maybe a little over halfway. Yeah. Considering that we've done some of the two-parters. Anyway, stay tuned, Rockford Files fans.

Maybe in another year, year and a half, we'll finish out the... We'll do a full William. We'll do the full William. So I was a little interested to see that this was not written by a series regular writer. Right. Because it doesn't feel particularly out of step with other Rockford Files episodes, but it does have a little bit of that bizarre premise that I associate mostly with a Can-All script. Right. Yes.

Who knows how much interaction there is with all that stuff. I was thinking of David Chase. I was going to say like, I guess notably, there's no mob. Right. Like there's everything but the mob in this one. David, take a break. Yeah. And this is coming right after some of the, some mobby ones so i mean in the airing order

anyhow uh we do not have the mob but we do have a hitman epi would you like to tell us about the preview montage where we meet mr jones yes uh yeah so my first note here is angel in hitman cosplay he remains in hitman cosplay throughout the entire episode it is wonderful there's just something about angel's version of what uh someone on the mean streets would look like okay very specifically what i love about that the preview montages captures right away is angel is someone who has who personally knows hitman right and he's such a hollywood understanding of what a hitman would be we know that he knows actual hitman but he is playing like a 40s spy version yeah from a movie it's exquisite uh there's some great lines in there like we are men without a country we are wanted it it has this

um threat at the ending there where they the they have angel the whoever they are some sort of goons and who are like you had to realize that you were chosen because you'd be eliminated after a fact or something like that and then we see angel with at the time when i wrote this i was like does he have a rolled up sock in his mouth we learned later it's gauze in any case case, it is a really satisfying scene. I really enjoy the scene with Angel. Something shoved in his mouth and he can't respond. Yep.

We also see Jim threatening Angel, of course. So we're going to get a lot of that. And we also have a shot in the preview montage of Jim eating something wrapped in a tortilla. This is a very satisfying Jim gets to eat scene, which... Oh, yes. Look forward to that, everyone. Hello, listeners. This is a quick break before we get into the episode to say thank you to our patrons over at

patreon.com slash 200 a day. This show is free to all, but the support from patrons really goes a long way, so we always extend a special thanks to our gumshoes. This time, we say thank you to Chuck from whatyou'reReading.com Check out the site for reviews of books, games, movies, comics, and more. Paul Townend, who also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops,

serial killers of color, at FruitLoopsPod.com Shane Liebling, you're playing games online, so check out his dice rolling app Roll For Your Party at RollForYour.Party. Jay Adan, check out his amazing miniature painting skills over at JayAdan.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Dave P, Dale Church, and Dave

Otterson. And finally, we cannot thank our detective patrons enough for their generous support. Big thanks to Kevin Brown, Eric Antenor at Antenor on Twitter, Brian Pereira at Thermoware, Bill Anderson ator on Twitter, Brian Pereira, at Thermoware, Bill Anderson, at BillAnd88,

and of course, Richard Haddam, at Richard Haddam. We follow them too, at 200pod. Why become a patron for as little as $1 an episode? In addition to supporting the show

and exclusive episode previews, our patrons get plus expenses, a bonus podcast where we casually chat about all the media we're currently enjoying and things going on in our lives 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 well we start off this episode with

a black and white spy film grain effect. So it's like black and white with like the black, I don't know what you would call those, little like location markers. So you use framing box or something. With a little circle in the middle. So someone is clearly spying on and recording this meeting

between Angel and his full hitman cosplay, as you say, dropping off a folder and exchanging passcodes with a man in a cowboy hat. The passcodes are one. So the man with the cowboy hat says something like, You like bluegrass, mister? I like all kinds of music. I don't like jazz.

I don't either. The framing of this with the black and white and an angel's costume and the passcodes the the elaborateness of them um i kept waiting for a director to call cut like i kept waiting for us to realize that angel was like cast into a into a movie or something and to find out how he's frustrating this director or something. Like that was the expectation. And so as it kept going I was like, wait a minute, what is happening here? So Angel's

costume we should mention because again he does wear it the entire episode. Yes. So he's in black leather jacket, black pants, big thick black leather gloves, and dark sunglasses. Yes. So it's like a greaser by way of a 40s spy yes perhaps the other way around it's great because i was thinking about like why is this so weird on

him because it does he looks strange yeah part of it is the gloves because they make his hands so big he has like mickey mouse hands um but i think part of his also we usually see him in like well the very last episode like colorful patterns like really garish big lapel yeah a lot a lot of color and and kind of chaotic look he's trying to give off an air of wealthiness most of the time and here he's trying to give off an air of bad attitude. Of deadliness? Deadliness, yes. I'm going to say it right now. It is an absolute delight. And I won't go on about it throughout the whole episode.

I am in love with this version of Angel. I'll just leave it at that. Well, his client here wants it done right away. And is giving him an envelope of $5,000 in cash. And that's the half now. And you'll get the other half on completion. He says the line like, we want it done right away. And Angel goes, well, you want in one hand and you spit in the other.

And you see which one gets full first. Now, I use this line all the time. My variation is a little more graphic. Yeah, I think the standard saying is a little more scatological. Yeah, and it's usually you wish or you hope in one hand rather than want. But I love this line. This is one of my favorite cranky old man lines that I've been using my entire life. This is his badass persona.

Yeah. Oh, that's good. So we go from here to a slow pan of, you know, the real camera, our camera, to see who was watching this recorded footage. Yeah. And it's this group of people in a room. Oh, there was an establishing shot

before we went to the footage of, like, a consulate with a Russian flag or a Soviet flag, I should say. Yeah, Soviet flag, yeah. So we see the Soviet flag outside this building. Then we go to the spy, black and white. Then we come back to the people watching this film inside this building. When they eventually talk, they're speaking in what I assume is Russian and it's subtitled. So we see that there are people watching this.

Then we go back to the footage. Angel's leaving. this is this like outdoor seating area on a pier or something he's leaving and jim walks into the frame and he's on a date yes and he goes oh hey angel and angel you see him whip around as if to like try to avoid being seen but it's too late rockford uh greets him by name and then asks him uh what what are you angel a clone of lash larue and angel uh mutters something and walks away very cool and calm while someone from off frame yells like hey open table for rockford so that the people watching get rockford's name out of this as well yeah i think it's like it's a phone call for jim rockford it's a slightly awkward moment but you get why that's happening.

Yeah. Yeah. For so we know that the people watching. I am not familiar with this reference to Lash LaRue. And when I first tried to look it up, I was like, OK, this clearly is not the same Lash LaRue as the wrestler who was active in the late 90s. I don't know if you you know what this reference was, but apparently he was an actor in westerns in the 40s and 50s. And he's apparently the main inspiration for the character Indiana Jones.

Oh, okay. Yeah, just looking at his IMDb. There's apparently an 11-film Lash LaRue series. Wow. Where he's playing himself? So the character's name is Lash LaRue series. Wow. Where he's playing himself? So the character's name is Lash LaRue. The actor's name is Al LaRue. Oh, right.

A little bit of kayfabe. Yeah. This is interesting because he also reminds me of... There's a DC Comics Western, The Bullwhip. Anyways, I'm sure all of this comes together. I'm sure there's Maverick connections. This is a realm I've not delved too deeply into, which is the huge glut of Westerns during their heyday.

Right, right. Yeah. Well, they mentioned the Rock for Files episode, a material difference. Yeah. So if you want to look up Lash LaRue's Wikipedia,

you will learn all the things that we just learned. Yes. You could, you do could be experts like us with just one Google search. But yes, Angel walks away and we go back to our watchers. And they're saying that this is a film that was taken a week ago. But Kramer is still alive. Yes. And they don't know where Jones, his working name, where Jones is.

And there's a line here where someone's like, he's a man of many names. Mr. Jones, Angel, Lash LaRue. But what about... Jimmy Rockford. Jimmy Rockford, yes. We then go to an establishing shot of Washington, D.C., February 20th. And we have our credits play over this fairly long montage of stuff in Washington. Yes.

We just want you to know we're in Washington, D.C., which is important for the next five minutes. Right. If that. Right. So we come out of the montage and we just see a man walking up to a woman wearing like a, I was going woman wearing like a, I was going to say like a babushka, but it's not quite, I don't know, just wearing a head covering

on the end of a dock throwing pieces of bread at birds or whatever. And we have more passphrases back and forth between these two. And the man, he wants to see Kramer and something about, he needs to see Kramer and something about Formula D. Yes, not Formula Day, not the racing board and something about Formula D. Yes. Not Formula Day. Not the racing board game, but Formula D. D as in vitamin. Yes. This woman says that it will cost $1,000 to see him.

And why so much? Because the dollar just took another dip. Yes. And then we go to Jim's trailer, February 24th. So I want to say something about that $1,000. Because I'm trying to figure out if... So obviously we've both seen this episode. We know the twists.

Well, the twists that we can know. I find that often I don't know the twists until we talk about the episode. But we know the takeaway at the end of this episode uh and i think that this thousand dollars is a hint because it's not it's actually not that much money like yeah even for inflation it's about it's a little over five thousand dollars right like that's what what it probably is nowadays and that's i mean that's a lot but it wouldn't i would think international secrets would go for more than that. I mean, I don't know.

I've never traded international secrets, but it seems to be an indication of what the actual stakes are in what's happening here. Yeah, I guess I read it in the moment as like, this is the fee for me to connect you to this person. Right. Which might be reasonable then. So, but here's my question. One, so I did have some trouble with this episode and I think it was mostly because of my poor facial recognition. Oh yeah, me too.

There's a lot of factions in this episode and there's lots of men with faces. Lots of gorillas, lots of agents. Which who I eventually started realizing I could identify based on what they were wearing. Yes. But I didn't go back to check. Is this guy, is he the naval intelligence guy? I don't know if he's the, there is a naval intelligence guy.

There's the main naval intelligence guy who we see later. But there's one I recognize by his voice alone. Yeah. Because I am not a fan of his voice. Yeah, that's the like main one. Yeah. Kind of like tells us the story at the end. But I think this works if it is the naval intelligence.

I think that's who this would have to be. Also because we're in DC. But I guess I don't know if this man, if this actor is also one of the other goons that we see later or not yeah i don't think he is so i would have to go review that again yeah it doesn't matter too much oh boy we're gonna have ourselves here's the thing this episode is super fun and the plot doesn't matter yes let's let's do that but but keeping track of who was who at different times did throw me occasionally. Even now, with the names and the pictures of the actors directly in front of me, I still don't.

Not quite sure who was who. Yeah. All right. So anyway, we go to Jim's trailer. It is now February 24th, four days later. I don't remember if we got a a date over the russian consulate i don't think we did i kept it so i wrote these down because yeah so there was the episode where um uh jim is set up uh with the arms deal like the smuggling guns um and they have all

the like very like international intrigue like typed out dates and times oh yes yes and it was like kind of funny. I expected this to do that, and then it didn't. It just gives us these two dates. Yeah. My notes are Washington, D.C., whoa, and then Paradise Cove, whew. Whew. We're back at home.

And that's it. We're done. We're done traveling the country. And the rest of this just goes on from now. Yeah. So Jim is coming out to, you know, he has some business of some kind.

He's coming out to his car, two guys with, um, pamphlets roll up and intercept him. Um, they're with the church of divine metaphysical awareness and they're, they're talking to people about the future. Jim is more interested in the present than the future.

He tries to excuse himself. But one of these guys flashes a gun and asks about Angel. Oh, I just wanted to note just how quickly they dropped the mask. It is a beat where they are selling religion. And then the very next beat, oh,, we're just, we're thugs. Like, you knew we were thugs. This reminds me of the previous episode where not Anthony Boyd,

but the same actor is like, this is stupid. We look stupid. He looks stupid. Right. Like, why are we all pretending? Yeah. They want to get in the car

and go somewhere where they can talk about where Angel Martin might be. Jim gives them a good James Rockford, whatever. And then as they close with him, a classic Jim maneuver, where he slams the open car door against the two of them as they approach him, sending them sprawling. And then he can jump into the Firebird and peel out to make his escape. The goon with the gun gets to his feet and takes some shots at him, and

we hear that the gun is silenced. It has a little pew, pew, which made me go, oh, okay, so these are like... These are agents. These are agents of someone. Because only agents use silencers. Yes. Because that's what TV has taught me. And it also taught you how to

perfectly imitate the sound of a silencer. Pew, pew. There's a nice little gag. I don't know if this is intentional at all, but there's a back and forth. I think it's right after they got their gun out. Now, where can we find the man called Angel? I don't know. He moves around a lot. Why? Never answer a question with a question, Mr. Rockford. Let's get in a car and go someplace where we can talk about it.

Whatever. They say never answer a question with a question. Yeah. But this whole time, they've been answering Jim's questions with questions. So, I don't know. I enjoyed that little exchange. I have no idea if that's an intentional joke. There's a lot of fun dialogue

in this in this one and we'll get some more in our next oh yeah so we cut to angel in a mirror practicing his his hitman character like he has to shake someone down for the money after the job yeah my favorite thing about this is that he is so non-threatening yes like the way that he pulls he has like a little pistol and like the way that he pulls it out is not threatening at all like it looks like he's a little scared of it and doesn't want to be doing it uh it's a really good piece of work by uh by stewart margolin it i mean this becomes becomes evident in just a few moments, but he's practicing a scene that he never intends to have. Right. This whole con is on just doing the first half, not the second half.

I really love what this says about what's going on with Angel. And maybe what goes on with Angel with every con, he is convincing himself he is the character he's pretending to be. Right. Like, this is not a thing that Angel's plan ever, he never wants to actually kill someone and then collect the money. He's just collecting the first half of the money. So why would he have to practice these scenes about being a badass, about collecting the second half of the money?

He doesn't. This is him pretending to be a hit hitman he's he's he's a kid he's he's he's enjoying playing pretend right now and uh it's it's a delight um he is interrupted by a knock on the door uh it's jim of course so he has all this money too because he has the money from his oh yeah first half you know payment uh which he was using in his little scene. Yes. You just call me Mr. Jones. Now, you got some back sheets? You're a thousand short.

What, are you trying to do a number here? I don't play, Omi. You either pony up or you take the pipe. Whatever, so he stuffs that and the gun into his pocket and goes over and tries to claim that. Wait a minute, Jimmy. I'm going to be right with you. I got kind of a flu or I didn't bite you in, Jimmy. But why don't you give me a call and we'll talk it out on the horn later.

We'll talk now. Hey, what's the matter? What are you angry at me for? What did I do? Jim is very mad. We a lot of jim being mad in this episode uh he lays out that guys with guns tried to shake him down for where angel is so you know what have you been up to yeah what's going on now angel has this line that i think is a wonderful little meta moment for the Rockford Files where he says, you're always getting into this kind of trouble, Jimmy. Yeah. It's like, that's your bag, isn't it?

You are always getting into the kind of trouble where I accidentally drag you into a situation. So good. Jim sees the cash poking out of his pocket and grabs it and it's wrapped around that gun. And he's like, you know, what the hell are you doing? Angel says that he's fixed the gun so that it doesn't go off accidentally. He's like filed down the firing pin or something. He's like, it's all for show, which I love. Then he goes into how he has the sweetest scam, where, as you say, he is impersonating

this hitman. He takes the half up front and then he just fades away. He's only done it once so far. So this is the first, you know, gig. But he did just have the ad put into International Mercenary Magazine. No, I didn't look this up. I actually kind of want to look this up. Because I remember as a kid around this time, a friend of mine had a copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

I wonder if International Mercenary was an actual magazine. I think it would be. It had a good title. Like the typesetting on the title was very good. But it did strike me as a prop magazine. Yeah. But these sorts of things did exist and i feel like they they existed for the sake of angels for for grifters yes yeah and for like little rural

boys like myself to sit in a farm field dreaming of a day when we'd i guess go out and because like we would mainly go through the ad section they had like throwing stars for sale or nunchucks or like learn martial arts or something like that yeah so i don't know if this actual one existed but like the concept existed oh yeah it was a thing so jim i think of course he's the flaw in this plan which is that well you have burned a client and so now they're coming after you because you didn't do the thing that they paid you to do yes so he wants to go to the cops and angel of course can't go to the cops yeah ruin the whole thing uh jim tries to get who his client was out of him he said it was an anonymous uh rhinestone cowboy uh and then he

tries to pitch jim on taking this game on the road they could do a circuit while he's making this pitch he goes over to the fridge turning his back and giving Jim a chance to find a envelope with a headshot in it who of course is the mark that he was supposed to hit and then Angel tries to claim that it was just a friend of his from like the typesetting department at the newspaper which as we know is where he I think until sometime in this season worked for his brother-in-law's newspaper

but he stumbles on the name and Jim's like this is who you're supposed to kill so maybe if they find the victim people usually don't hire hitmen to kill people they don't know so then they can figure out who hired Angel and then go from there.

And so Jim gives him the choice. We can do this or I can go to the cops. And that for Angel is no choice at all. The scene ends with, you know, Jim hustling Angel out. Angel kind of mutters under his breath. You might be right about the repercussions on this deal. Why didn't I think of that? We just get the greatest James Garner eye roll.

Yes. On the way out of the scene. I also want to put a shout out to Angel's ad copy, which is let Mr. Jones make your bones. So Angel, of course, has an address for this person because he got all the info. He just was never going to try to kill him. And it is a laundry that is called Kramer's.

The Kramer that perhaps we heard in that first scene of Kramer's still alive. It's closed. They go around the back. And while Jim looks in the van that's parked back there to look at the registration, Angel peeks in the back window and he sees a body lying on the floor. The camera just shows us the lower two-thirds of the body. And then later, Angel mentions that his face is gone. Like he was shot in the face.

Yeah. That's important for later. But in that moment, when he said that, I was like, oh, okay. The camera does not show us that face. Yeah. That's important for later. But in that moment when he said that, I was like, Oh, okay. The camera does not show us that part. Yeah. We, we see angel being horrified,

but it seems a little out of proportion to like, yeah, just there's a body, but then it's angel. So of course he's going to be horrified. Yeah. One of the clues is that angels not like Jimmy, Jimmy,

Jimmy, Jimmy, we got to get out of here. You know, like it's, he's actually in shock of some sort. Yeah, but I don't pick up on that. Angel doesn't tell Jim that he sees this body.

And so as they go back to the Firebirds to follow up on the guy's home address, Angel starts going, you know, what if the guy had an accident while I was supposed to kill him? Like he fell down or got electrocuted or something. Then I'd be off the hook, right? And Jim explains that, no, that would be too coincidental. It would not help you out. And then we see in the adjoining storefront an old man with a mustache

watches them drive away. It looks like we cut for a commercial break and we come back with a police car that is arriving to talk with same mustachioed man who says that he heard two shotgun blasts and then he describes the firebird as the getaway car and he has the license plate number of course firebird kind of a copper color fancy wheels on it fancy wheels on it yeah um so this kind of gives a bit of a timeline

i think that it's like they just missed it like the shotguns happened then between when the guy heard them and he came to the front. That's when the firebird arrived. So whatever the timeline was, it was pretty, pretty short. And then we see two goons in suits roll up to the scene and they see the cop

car and say that, uh, it looks like they're a little late. Check the radio band, the police band on the radio and see what's happening. I thought that these were the missionaries just in suits. So my notes at this point were lots of parties in play. Yeah. Are these the Bible thumpers? I don't think so. They are not, but I thought they were,

which confused me until I realized that they were not. So yes, we have the, we have the missionaries and now we have goons in suits. Yeah. So those are who are in play currently, plus the police. Sometimes I take ridiculous notes. My very next note here says, I knew it was coming and I loved it anyway. I don't remember what I'm talking about. So I'm looking forward to hearing.

So our next scene is Jim and Angel in the Firebird on the road and Angel needs to use the bathroom. So Jim pulls over somewhere. I know what it is. We all know where this goes. We have this great sequence where Jim watches Angel go to the bathroom that's on the outside of this gas station or whatever. And we see like on his face him make kind of like a resigned. Yeah. Eyebrow raise. Like we have to play through this. Yeah. Angel goes in the front. or whatever and we see like on his face him make kind of like a resigned yeah eyebrow raise like we have to play through this yeah angel goes in the front then we cut to the back we see angel climbing out of the back window he comes around the corner and jim is standing there waiting for

him to come around the back corner and angel tries to explain that i was trying to open the door couldn't bang it away on nobody heard it so it stole it, Angel. Your beard's beginning to sweat. That's such a good line. As a bearded man, I have had moments where my beard starts to sweat. Are they after you witnessed a murdered body and then you're trying to escape from your best friend because you don't know what he's going to do once he learns the truth? It was after a very similar incident where I took a shot of ghost pepper hot sauce. Oh, okay.

I assume those are very similar incident where he took a shot of ghost pepper hot sauce. Oh, okay. I assume those are very similar feelings. Jim could tell that something was wrong in the car, and Angel admits that he saw the body of Kramer. He's already dead. So Jim's like, okay, there's a body involved. We're going to the cops right now. Yeah. And then we have one of our great narrative devices of television. So a cop car pulls up to take a break or something.

Like they're just in the parking lot. And Jim pulls Angel by the arm. He has his like hand on the arm like he usually does when he's like guiding a female friend through a space. But he's like grabbing Angel in that same spot on his upper arm. Pulls him over to the cop car as they approach the apb for the firebird in relation to this 187 at kramer's cleaners comes over their radio and so the guy's like oh excuse me for a moment sir and he looks down and he writes the notes as he's listening to the thing including the license plate number ocean king george and he looks back up and he's like, can I help you?

And Jim gives the embarrassed smile. The tire pressure on your front tire there looks a little low. That might be dangerous. Okay, bye. And then Angel just makes relentless fun of Jim. Yes. He's a good citizen. He's going to do what's right.

And, you know, if someone's dead, then the police should be involved. And then as soon as his skin's in the game. Yeah. It is very good, but it is a poor calculation on the angel's part. Yes. So they go, they walk past the firebird because Jim's like, as soon as they see the firebird, we're done. Right. So they abandoned the firebird, which I think is notable.

Yes. And they go over and they're at like a fence kind of on the other end of this area. Angel's making fun of Jim and then Jim just loses it. Yeah, he snaps. I mean, this is you can feel the full weight of all four and a half seasons before this moment. Like you were saying before, with the line from Angel saying jimmy you're always getting yourself in these kinds of messes this is another one of those that almost breaks the fourth wall it's it's almost jim uh being like why are we still doing this angel and like he's so mad he has his hand around

angel's throat and he's like choking him which is pretty pretty brutal for yeah for jim driving me crazy do you understand i am going crazy i can't take it anymore years and years and years i'm going out of my mind you stupid ridiculous lies and games year after year. Give me my windpipe. Look at me, look at me, look at me. All right, James, emote. Yeah. Get it all out. The part that really struck me is that he's like,

the stupid ridiculous lies year after year. Like you say, he invokes the multiple years of this behavior. like you say, he invokes the multiple years of this behavior. I, at least I saw that he is so mad that he can't believe how mad he is. Yes. He's like, look at me. Yeah, yeah, he does. Look at what you've done to me.

It is, it is gorgeous. And then we end with Angel just with a very, very quiet. Hey, Jimmy. What? I'm sorry. Stick the fruit gum? So good. And the look on Jimmy, because he accepts it, right?

Yeah. It's this wonderful moment. It's a wonderful moment. It's not a moment where angel is forgiven it's it's sort of like a moment of like okay this is what it is we're moving forward it's kind of a moment of acceptance yeah yeah oh it's it's very good it is very good pretty much any episode that focuses on the angel draws jim into trouble trope yeah we talk about you know we talk about this stuff i'm pretty sure i brought it up so in our uh the last time we really focused on this was uh when we did drought at indian head river which is the one where angel is like the the patsy for like the mob like development uh scam

like land development scam oh right yeah yeah so he like, living the high life with all this money that isn't actually his? Yeah. I think. Is that? Yeah, that's one where he's Angelo. Yes. So, and he's the snails. Sorry, I'm looking at our tags on our website to remind me of these. Of course, snails would be part of the tags. Right. And the Wawa. It was like, oh, Angel owns the Wawa or something like that.

Oh, yes, yes. Anyway, so that has a scene where Jim snaps and, like, Angel owns the Wawa or something like that. Oh, yes, yes. Anyway, so that has a scene where Jim snaps. And, like, we get the close. I think at the time, I'm like, I think this is the closest we ever see Jim to, like, not being friends with Angel anymore. To, like, abandoning. Like, why are we even friends? And I think Angel apologizes. And then I think at that time, I just not remembered this episode.

Because this is closer. Like I said, that was our episode 51. That episode is in season three. So just looking at it as a linear timeline, you know, at the beginning of season three, Jim was already at the end of his rope with Angel. And now we're almost at the end of season five. And it's even worse. Guys with guns are just walking up to him and being like,

take us to angel. It's good. It's good stuff. But that apology is key. Yes. At the end. Yes. I mean,

we talk about this and we probably talked about it back then, but like a thing that sometimes gets overlooked in these is the, you, you still have to show the characters being friends in the end to explain why anyone's on the hook for anyone else. Right. Like, why would Jim be on the hook for helping Angel out if they weren't in some fashion friends? Right.

Yeah. And I think this is the admission here where Angel's like, I actually need you in my life. Yes. Here, have a stick of fruit come. We go from there to police headquarters where Dennis is helping a man in a uniform who we

shortly learn is from Naval Intelligence go through a mug book and he finds a picture of Angel which I did not recognize because it is a picture with no beard and a big handlebar mustache. It is an amazing, wonderfully out-of-date picture of Angel. This is a good episode or a good scene doing multiple things scene where we get some exposition in their conversation, which we'll get into. But we also see that Dennis is being put in a bad position because Lieutenant Chapman is bending over backwards to help Naval Intelligence.

But Naval Intelligence isn't giving anything to Becker, who is kind of in charge of whatever this investigation is going to be. So the exposition here is that this naval intelligence officer has reason to believe that Angel has taken on a contract to kill someone named Kramer. Chapman comes in with the information that Rockford's car was ID'd leaving the scene of the shooting at Kramer's. Their known associates will put out the APB for both of them. And he offers to take this one off of becker's hands yes the the motivation here for chapman is interesting because this seems to be uh at first i was like oh yeah chapman would just wants to get at rockford which makes sense like that's that's a thing that that we see a lot of but i i think he feels like there's good publicity in it for him. Like there's that angle as well, which is interesting. And we see that play out because the clash that ends up happening between the police and naval intelligence is about publicity.

Yeah. Yeah, because Lieutenant Chapman, I don't remember if it's in this scene, but there are other scenes at least where we can't say that to the press because that makes us look like chumps. Yeah. And the naval guy's like, I don't care what you look like. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so Becker's kind of caught in the middle where he's the one who has to actually work with this guy. But this guy isn't telling him anything.

Like, why do you think Angel got a contract? Oh, we can't tell you. Right. Why is Kramer a target? That's not a that's not something you need to know. In another perfect timing moment, Rockford gives a call to Dennis. There's actually a message from a switchboard.

Sergeant Becker, there's a Rockford for you. There's no deniability whatsoever. Chapman says to talk him in, and he's going to trace the call, right? Yes. This is not one of the greatest Becker Jim phone calls of this type that we've seen, but it is fun enough where Jim's calling from a payphone and his first question to Dennis is basically like, so theoretically, if you were a witness after the fact to a murder, but you were wanted in connection with the murder, would you get immunity in exchange for your testimony?

but you were wanted in connection with the murder. Would you get immunity in exchange for your testimony? And Becker says that, you know, it's not up to him. He'd have to talk to the DA. Why don't you come in and we'll talk about it? And that's when Jim hears a click on the line, which he knows is they're now tracing the call. What is interesting is that, like,

it seems like Jim wouldn't need to even hear that click. Right, yeah. It's just the way Dennis is responding to him that jim should be like all right dennis i think anytime they have a normal conversation yeah if dennis isn't yelling at him for for bringing this up right if dennis isn't going what have you gotten yourself into right well and also i think if dennis uses the phrase why don't you come in and we'll talk about it? Yes. I think Rockford knows. He never says that when they're just talking.

Yes. So then Becker asks if he is nearby, and he says that, yeah. Yeah, I'm playing ball in the past lane of the freeway because I'm stupid. I don't know from last week. Right, Dennis? And then he hangs up. Such a good line my favorite bit here is he hangs up and then angel checks to see if to get like the quarter coin yeah oh perfect angel moment uh chapman of course is mad

he only needed 30 more seconds because that's a real thing that he only needed 30 more seconds for the telephone trace yeah i don't i remember i don't know what it was back in rockford's day but that certainly isn't the case it's it is one of those things that they do for television cop things now to create drama about the phone call that it it just isn't the case they just know like you know what the number is so you know where the phone is it's a pay phone but yeah and by you i mean the phone. I don't know anything about tracing phone calls. I do know that the horror movie, the 70s horror movie, Black Christmas, has some great things that they do with that. I think that's the name of it. There were some remakes of it, so make sure you get the older one, because that's the one that has some good things going down with that, if you're into that.

The modern version of that, of is is uh rerouting your signal so through the internet so it seems like it's coming from a different ip address anyway uh we we cut to our goons in the car who have who are monitoring the police band and they hear the app go out for angel and rockford which includes that address in Malibu, I think. Yeah. Or in Paradise Cove. But the name Rockford they key into. The guy who's driving is like, all right, let's go.

Surf's up. So we should know, maybe not by now in the fiction, but you and I should know who these people are right now. Here, I was like, okay, these are different than the missionary guys. Mostly because they were like, if they were the missionary guys, they've already been to that address. So they know. Versus these guys are like, oh, let's connect the name Rockford to this address. Let's go check it out. Yeah.

So I'm like, oh, okay, they are different. They're not just those guys in suits. Yes. Right. So now we have the missionary guys. We have these guys. And we have the missionary guys we have these guys and we have naval intelligence that is uh quite the collection who have all been established i think is not being connected because why would the guys in the car if they were naval intelligence they wouldn't need

to listen to the police band right anyhow we then go to rocky driving a red pickup and i immediately in my notes i'm like that's a different pickup. Yes. That's not Rocky's truck. Somebody made a mistake. Jim then pops up because he's been like hiding in the seat next to him. And Angel is there too. And they're pulling into Rocky's house. Jim pops up and is like, all right, do you mind if we take your truck? And the first line out of Rocky's mouth is, this is a loaner the truck agency had, so be careful with it. so thank you for telling us long time viewers who are invested in rocky's truck that your truck is okay and this is a loaner yeah i had a moment uh because right this could go one of two ways this is either

we're just quick explaining why this isn't the truck you're seeing, or this is a, how do we rack up costs for Jim here? Oh. We could put him on the hook for damage to a loner or something like that. It's probably the former. I mean, nothing bad happens to this truck. I think it's just for the Rockford fans to explain why we're in a different truck.

I think that's all it is. They drop Rocky off and then take the truck. Angel still has the address where he was supposed to meet his client to get the rest of his money after the job. Oh, I do want to point out, because this comes back a little bit later, Rocky's attitude towards Angel here is magnificent. He's like so long sunny angel i have never seen rocky so catty so dismissive yeah yeah oh it's good he's well he's clearly mad at angel and i mean he always doesn't really like angel but i think his feeling about angel fluctuates in proportion with jim so when Jim needs to butter Angel up,

like, for example, giving him, you know, a full fried chicken dinner, Rocky's on board. But when Jim's mad at Angel, as we'll see, Angel is not welcome to any of the food in his house. Yes. We'll get to that later.

We're going to take a quick break so that everyone can walk around, stretch, get a refreshing beverage of choice, and find out where you can find us on the internet when we're not talking about the Rockford Files. Of course, 200 a Day can be found at 200aday.fireside.fm, patreon.com slash 200aday, and on Twitter at 200pod. You can also email us at 200adaypodcast at gmail.com. Eppie, where can our fine listeners find you elsewhere on

the internet? You can find my games at digathousandholes.com that's dig and then the number 1000 and then holes dot com. Or you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and games at worlds without master.com

or you can find me on twitter at epidia e-p-i-d-i-a-h uh where can we find you upon this internet all of my stuff including my game design my freelance graphic design and layout work and other projects that i do like zines and podcasts, are at ndpdesign.com. You can also find me on Twitter at ndpeoleta. I'm also on Instagram at the same handle where you can see pictures of my dog. I hope you're comfortable with your favorite beverage in hand as we return you now to the show. They're going to go and see if they can meet this client. Maybe if they can grab the guy who hired Angel,

maybe then they can deal that with the cops. Angel figures that if the guy's going to die when he was supposed to kill him, he might as well get paid for it. We are on some kind of warehouse dock area. There's a battleship in the background, so that's uh yeah cool jim tells angel to go for by those bins and look like you know what you're doing uh angel hangs out for a for a beat and then a yellow van comes out of nowhere and pulls up to him and it is indeed our

cowboy uh with i was like is the other guy one of the missionaries and then i think yes but there's another guy in the passenger seat right yeah my notes are at this point i'm like i literally i'm lost i don't know who this is and then i'm like oh there's a chase right so the cowboy hat guy gives angel the envelope with his like payment angels in character here which is not like he's not like he's all afraid and and nervous and everything with jim but then when he's like on he's back in his like cool guy hitman persona um but then when the van pulls away uh the other guy the other missionary leans out of the back and starts taking shots at angel oh no thankfully there's the pile of bins there. So he ducks and then Jim rolls over to pick him up and the chase is on. I think the keys here are Jim going, all we have to do is push him. We'll pick up the cops sooner or later. And Angel going, Jimmy, don't push him no more.

Yeah. Yeah. What did you how did you feel about this chase? I think the main thing I thought about it was that it came at just the right moment to keep me from thinking about what's going on. Because I'm still going, I don't know all the characters in play. We've now associated the cowboy with the missionaries. But, I mean, I already associated him with them, I think. Jim was already making that association, right? Right. Jim was already figuring that they were the ones who were coming after Angel for not fulfilling the contract.

Yes. But anyways, it hit this moment where I was thinking about it, and then they flew into it. I remember thinking distinctly at the very beginning, oh, they've picked this location to do some interesting things. But now I can't actually remember any interesting thing they did with the chase. No, it's pretty straightforward. So Jim is basically trying to keep the pressure on so that either they'll make some mistake and crash maybe, or as he says, we'll pick up the cops sooner or later.

So I think the goal is to get them going, and then someone's going to call the cops, or they'll pass a cop, and then they'll all get pulled over. A standard Rockford maneuver. But it fails because of somebody unrelated to the chase is having car problems. Right. And creates a bit of a traffic jam. Yeah.

I don't remember the. There's a car that's stuck when the semi comes out. That's why the semi stops where it is because it can't get past this car that's stuck i'm pretty sure that's what happened that seems about right my pulse was pounding at the time so so the van shoots through this like entryway into another like yard of some kind this is all like industrial yards and then a semi is pulling out and then it stops blocking the entire entryway and so yeah uh rockford and angel cannot pursue um he opens the envelope which is a folded pamphlet from the uh that one of the missionaries was holding

missionaries i'm you know in quotes uh from the church of divine metaphysical awareness and a suicide note signed by angel yes but he's like seen the the error of his wicked ways and he can't stand his own life anymore or something like that yeah uh it seems like a pretty transparent effort but also maybe they're figuring on uh no one really caring too much about what happens to angel yeah we go back to jim's trailer which has been torn apart and our two goons in suits are uh coming out of the bedroom in the back of the trailer and they're they're tossing the place looking for the formula yes this is the second time we've heard of the formula right and i was like right there's a formula right i know one of the guys says uh that he found some jeans back there new ones. And I wrote that down because it was funny.

And in context, it's like, so these guys are looking for a formula, and this guy's like, oh, by the way, I found some genes. Turns out this is important, but I think this is intended to be kind of like a funny moment here. Yeah. And then they build on it later. It also had me thinking about if I've ever seen Jim in jeans.

Right. And I don't know. I feel like there's some, like maybe when he's on the beach, maybe when he's like coming back from fishing, but they do find Rocky's picture and you know, his name. And so they can get his address and go look up,

look up pops. Yes. And we cut to them pushing right into Rocky's house when he opens the door. Yeah. Danger. They want to know if Rockford said anything about a formula or stashed anything in the house. And Rocky, of course, isn't going to tell them anything.

And they sit him down and start tossing the place. They come in, they ask him about it, and he answers their question with a question. He's like, what are you talking about? And then in the single most effective moment, he's, get out of my house. Go on, get out. Yeah. Nothing. That's very good.

Jim and Angel return and they see the goon's car in his driveway. Jim sneaks around and sees what's happening through a window. So he goes to the house next door, where of course he knows the people and uh makes a phone call to rocky this is a good bit of rockfordishness this is a good con that he pulls here i'm i just i love what he does with this my favorite part about it is that he's making the call and in the background is just like a woman cooking yes and it's so casual and it's like oh yeah he just knows these people because they're yeah the neighbors of his. Of course, you could use the phone. Go back to my eggs.

So inside, one of the guys comes out of the bedroom and he has a stack of jeans. And he says that some of them look new and they'll run them through the lab just in case. I was like, oh, OK, the jeans are actually important. They're not just weirdos who are like, oh, I might steal some jeans from like from time to time. Again, my notes. What the hell is with the jeans? And then such a mystery. The phone rings. The goon with the gun tells Rocky to be careful about what he says.

Jim calls and says that he's going to keep the truck for a while. He's down at the pier on a payphone waiting for a guy that's supposed to meet Angel. And then he makes it sound like, oh, someone's coming. Angel's waving. I got to go. This manufactured urgency being a hallmark of Jim's cons, both to keep people from thinking and also to get them to act. So they buy it. They're like, let's go down to the pier.

Yeah. They leave, take all the jeans, except for a a couple pairs which we'll get to in a minute yeah jim then pops in the back and he's like oh it's just next door who were they dad did they say no they didn't say but those are the kind of guys that'll do anything those are the kind of guys that start out by lying to their own father oh you've heard of yeah i heard it on the tv news before those fellas got here because he heard the apb on the news and realized that the only reason that Jim wanted to borrow his truck was because the Firebird was hot. Oh, it's so

good. Angel comes in the back. Yeah. And goes right to the fridge. Which Rocky yells at him to stay out of the fridge. Yeah, the business between Angel and Rocky with that fridge is just wonderful. It's worth watching the episode for that. Just so angry with them.

And Angel not respecting it in any way. Not only does he not respect it, he talks back. He's like, we've been on the road all day. I'm starving. Yeah, yeah. Rocky explains what happened and says that. And then they took my jeans. $18 a pair.

I think with our back of the envelope, it's like, what, 80-ish? Yeah, yeah, somewhere in there. And, you know. Not great jeans, but not cheap jeans. Yeah. Yeah. And if you took an armload of them, you'd feel it, right? Yeah.

Like, you'd be like, wow, they just stole several hundred dollars worth of clothing from me. While they're having this business uh angel has brought stuff out of the fridge and i missed exactly what it was it's herring it is such an angel food yeah he asks if he can finish the jar of herring and rocky says no i'm tired of feeding you they're not chronologically related but coming from our last episode where he cooked an entire fried chicken dinner for Angel, I appreciated it. Let's see. Rocky mentions the Naval Intelligence guy in context of, then they asked that Naval Intelligence guy something in the press conference. And of course, he said no comment.

And so this brings that involvement to Jim's attention. There's this physical action during all this where Angel is still trying to get the jar open and he can't. So he hands it to Jim and Jim opens it and hands it back to Angel. Yeah, the business is great in this one. Angel has a thought. These guys stole your jeans, right?

And Kramer, he ran a dry cleaner, right? And there's a beat and Jim's like, and? That's it. That's what I got. Yeah, it's so good. cleaner, right? And there's a beat and Jim's like, and? But that's it. That's what I got. Yeah. It's so good. Which reminded me of the bit in Gear Jammers where

Rocky does a similar thing where he's like, these guys stole these trucks and those trucks had oranges in them or whatever. Yeah. And then, I'm just saying they're related. Yeah, like, you're the detective. I gotta do all of your job. Before Angel can get anything out of the jar, Rocky takes the jar away.

So good. Back to Dennis and the naval intelligence guy, who is going through a drawer that was taken from Kramer's. Dennis is displeased because they're going through police evidence without authorization or whatever. Look, Lieutenant Chapman said it was okay for me to go through whatever I wanted. Poor Dennis. There's a thing going on here that I didn't delve too deeply into, but I think that there's a, I don't want to say complex, but there's a story going on with Dennis Chapman and the Naval Intelligence.

Dennis is a little suspicious of him. And there's a read in here where I can't figure out if Dennis is actively running interference for Jim because Jim's his friend, or if Dennis just kind of hates that the Naval Intelligence is all up in his business and is trying to, you know. I feel like it's more the second, but probably influenced by the first. Yeah. You get the feeling that there's like another episode here where the focus is on the police department. Right.

And like all the machinations of naval intelligence and finding out about Jim and stuff. But like, we're actually watching that political drama play out while Jim and Angel are running around. Yeah. There's not a ton of screen time to it, but the amount of frustration that Dennis has in every scene with this Naval Intelligence guy is palpable. That scene ends with a Naval Intelligence guy giving a call to the Naval Intelligence

officer in San Diego. Then we go to Jim, Rocky, and Angel. Jim talks through what they know so far. Gotta get back to square one. There's too much going on, which is fair. Yeah, absolutely. Let's touch base for the audience. Figure out what we know. I mean, like, we've seen this from Jim several times before.

This is one of his maneuvers. It's like, wait a minute. This is too weird. And he actually does it twice in this episode. This is the first time. And it's a framework. It's a structure for the show. For an episode like this where there's a lot of, like, plot going on. Yeah.

Usually around halfway, a little after halfway, they'll have one of these scenes to ground the audience a little bit into, like, okay, here's what's important. Yeah. They're going to drop Rocky at LJ's. So LJ reference. Woo! Yay! To keep him safe. like okay here's what's important yeah they're gonna drop rocky at lj's so lj reference yay um to keep him safe and then jim wants to go to the church that those missionaries came where the pamphlet came from so i will say this this scene is great and we'll go through it this i guess this conceit or this plot point of those two guys were actually part of this church totally threw me. I spent the entire first part of the episode being like, they just picked that up somewhere and that was just a cover to talk to Jim.

But then the fact that they actually are involved with this church, it just feels weird to me for some reason. Okay, so this is deep cover, right? Okay, fine. That's great. But then... But there's also the cover, right? Okay, fine. That's great. But then... But there's also the dentist's office? Yes, exactly. And at that point, it's like...

So you have two covers? Are the KGB everywhere? Right. Who's not KGB? That's all I want to know. Oh, yeah. So, spoiler alert, these guys are KGB. Sorry.

I thought the Soviet flag gave it away. Well, I did think that there was a little bit of a confusion for me also about, like, clearly the KGB is involved from that establishment, but they were reviewing the tape. And so that didn't make it clear to me that they were the same people who hired Angel. Exactly. I thought they were spying on the other guy. And we know that the people that hired Angel had this cowboy. Right. So they had

the cowboy, the Bible thumpers. Right. Okay. So those two groups are connected. Like the cowboy is not like a group, but it's a group, right? Like he's a cowboy. Right. The cowboy, the Bible thumpers, the dentists. It does get a bit confusing. I think how it's supposed to work is that the, and maybe this again was because I didn't recognize faces, but like the people watching that tape were the people going, this guy, Mr. Jones has not killed the guy we hired him to kill. Yeah. And that's why they were reviewing the tape.

Yeah. To track him down. And that makes sense. It's just like in this moment, I was like, wait, these guys are actually associated with this jury. It's fine. moment i was like wait these guys aren't are actually associated with this jury it's fine it's it's maybe one quirk too many for this plot that's already full of quirks that makes it a little non i mean it's already a little nonsensical but that makes it more confusing for me to follow

as someone watching at like kind of a more analytical level but it's fine and so we can probably at this point guess that the the kgb who were watching the video right sorry the film uh killed kramer right and the reason why they were looking for angel is they still needed to frame up mr jones sure and and to get mr jones to commit suicide right like that they needed to make that happen yeah yeah it would but yes i agree with everything you said including this next scene is a joy to watch um i think this scene might jump right into malibu madness contention yeah i mean it's jimmy and angel working a con together and when angel's not at odds with jimmy about it like when he doesn't have something else to get out of it, it's a work of art.

Again, you see why they do have this connection, why they do work together. So they go to this church. Jim is a lawyer who has been hired by his client, Angel, who is a printer. And he wants to see, so he has the names from when they first encountered Jim. Because they were like, I'm Brother Leonard and I'm Brother Burke or whatever their names are. So Jim wants to see those brothers, you know, Leonard and Burke, because they contracted his client, Angel, to print this extremely high end version of their Bible. It says they wrote up a forty five 4500 printing bill and then they have not fulfilled that and so you know they're gonna sue the plot points of this scam here are jim's the reasonable one angel keeps on flying off the handle yeah i'm gonna sue all of you into the

ground i'm gonna take everything right it's like no no calm down all we're here to do is to establish you know that these two men owe my client this money are you really contending that you have never received any of my telephone messages in this regard none whatsoever i find this a little hard to swallow brother randolph but i think i should advise you that if this should escalate into a full-scale litigation, that your position would be somewhat untenable due to our phone records of telephone calls placed but never answered. Well, we have had some new people on the switchboard, and the place has been rather hectic with the holiday crunch and all. And this very reasonable pastor or whatever he is, guy in charge at this church, he's saying that,

well, a purchase order like that would go through the mother church in Milwaukee. We wouldn't handle it. But he escalates it a little bit, right? Because he has all these very straightforward, like, deniable things. Like, we didn't approve that. Even if we did approve it, it would go through our mother church. They would approve the purchase order. We wouldn't buy that. Like, no one called us, all

this stuff. So Jim escalates to, well, then I guess it's going to have to be a big public trial, and I'm sure your church wouldn't want to get dragged through all that bad publicity. Brother Randolph, we would like to isolate the church, per se, but when we're dealing with a public hearing and a fraud case involving two of its members the attendant publicity

could result in a stigma i can imagine a proceeding of this kind not having a negative effect on donations we would like to avoid that if at all possible yes But all we really want to do is establish liability with those two people specifically. Yeah. And so this guy gives in and he's like, okay, I'll see if I can find their addresses, I guess.

And he goes to do that. And so it is a successful con. The joy of this scene is really the bouncing back and forth between Jim and Angel. And I love when Angel comes in with describing the beautiful printing job that he did. Four color prints, plastic overlay in Moroccan leather with parchment for the songs and a photo supplement. You should have seen the song of Solomon.

Beautiful outlay. Thumb index with a concordance. Well, I must admit, it all sounds quite impressive. You got that straight. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's extremely good. This is where he's like, I want to give this gang a holiday crunch they'll never forget. Yes.

And also we'll take every possible precaution to disavow the church's liability. Uh-uh, forget it. I'm going to give this gang a holiday crunch they'll never forget. He's the attack dog and Jim is the one pulling him back on the leash. And then when this guy cooperates or when it's apparent that he's going to cooperate, Angel just dials it all the way back. Like it is just kind of like just like a nice guy about it. Like, oh, yeah, no, we can work together. That's fine. Jim and Angel just have the perfect rhythm

for this kind of thing. Angel is the attack dog and Jim is the reasonable one. It's so good because it is what they are. It just comes through. It's good stuff. Yeah, I think what you said earlier is really the great part where it's like, where Angel

is on board with the con and is not trying to undercut it for his own purposes yeah it actually reminded me a little bit of um one of our recent episodes uh resurrection in black and white where where jim and uh the reporter susan have oh yes cons where like like she falls into that supporting role like right off the bat and really enriches it with all the little details. You know, we talked about how great that was in that episode. And we so rarely get to see Angel do that, but he's so good at it.

Yes. It was a really fun scene, which I guess, ironically enough, just did not need to be in this episode. Yeah. The slightly straighter line is just like the missionary thing was just a cover. And there's some other piece of evidence that leads them to that, to the dentist's office. Yeah. I mean, like even the address for the missionary could be the dentist's office and that's it.

The suicide note is written on one side of a piece of stationery that has the dentist's office on the back or something. I'm not saying this scene shouldn't be in this episode because it's great. Yeah. But that's just like that little element of extra complexity to these really one, like we only need them to be the one thing characters that adds that kind of chaotic sense of like, what is going on? That's a little much for, I think,

the payoff of what they bring to the episode. Yeah. That all said, they go to that address that they're given and it is a dental clinic. And Jim says, like, it's weird that this isn't a house or an apartment. They pick the lock to break in. And we see another little moment of them working together where, like, Jim has Angel hold something so that he can, like, get the lock pick in or whatever.

There's a little bit when they get in where Angel is trying doors, almost like, well, if we're in here, maybe I can take some stuff from some things. They do snoot around and find a room full of recording gear and spy stuff, including a cipher machine. And Jim picks up a code book that is in Russian. They're Soviet spies. Yes. And they do say, so the church thing is just one of their covers yeah angel has uh this wonderfully naive line who do you think they're like ham operators yeah and russian spies

come on jimmy no no i'm serious i think i'd say yeah that line's a great funny line and it triggered in my in my notes i'm just like oh, man, I can get into ham radio. Don't nudge me. But it also kind of runs this thing where Angel, the internal mechanism of Angel is he's got the paranoia, but he also has this bit that's like he can't imagine himself in the full danger that he's in. Otherwise, he'd be panicking. So it's almost like this denial thing that he does to keep himself from going over the edge. Totally.

Of course, before anything else can happen, our two missionaries burst into the room, guns in hand. They have trapped our heroes. We go to a commercial. When we come back, Jim is thrown into an office and locked in while Angel is strapped into a dentist chair, which is very ominous. Yes, I think my notes are just, oh no, dentistry. And he immediately starts spilling everything he knows, as Angel is wont to do. Hey, you're just trying to scare us, right?

It worked. What do you want to know? do hey you're just trying to scare us right it works what do you want to know so this cuts back and forth between angel in the chair and then jim in the other room kind of hearing through the wall what's happening and finding a like a scalpel or something so he can cut his because his hands are tied behind his back and he can cut them free um i was unsure whether we were supposed to hear the stuff that he was hearing on my tv. I couldn't really make out stuff. It was just murmurs. So I was like,

it probably doesn't matter if we hear that or not. But what we do hear in the going back and forth, Angel offers to tell him everything he knows. But what they want to know is where the formula is. They still don't know. They still haven't found the formula. This is where we get the line from the preview montage that Mr. Jones was hired so

he could be eliminated after the fact yes uh so they they spin out like some threats and stuff while he has the gauze stuffed in his mouth uh and then when he starts making all the mumbly would you kindly remove the cotton i didn't kill kramer i didn't even know who was kramer till last time i didn't know nothing about formulas that's the truth then why can't we locate the formula i don't know and then jim manages to short out the power from the office where he has freed himself so the lights shut down uh one of them goes goes to find the main breaker while the other one goes into corral jim but jim is of course waiting for him and overpowers him in the office. And Jim and Angel escape.

My main thing to point out is that it's a delight to watch Angel with the gauze in his mouth try to confess everything. He's trying as hard as he can. Yeah, a very good scene. But perhaps not as good as the very next scene. So we cut from there to the big neon sign that says Mexican food. And I'm 100% sure we've seen this restaurant before. And I think it might be from, this is a while ago, but, oh, actually, maybe it was in Droughted Indian Head River. I don't remember.

But I'm associating it with the scene where Angel makes like hot sauce soup. Do you remember this? Yes. Wait, no, but he makes that in his own home, I think. Because it's on the hot plate. Oh, you're right. You're right. This is where he just keeps dumping hot sauce in chili or something.

Or he just keeps crumbling crackers into it or something. That's what it is. I think it's the same episode, whichever episode that is. Anyway, I'm sure it's the same restaurant that they've shot in before, which I appreciate because it's kind of like, this is the good Mexican restaurant. Throughout the scene, we get to see Jim have dinner.

Yes. I would say that he's eating fajitas, both because he's actually doing some active rolling of ingredients in a tortilla and also because he says uh something like are you sure you don't want anything they make great tacos here just super salsa but they might be tacos that he's just kind of like assembling into a roll instead of eating yeah folded style so he talks through his his dinner uh while angel is too nervous to eat. I like how we get two alternate ideas here, because usually it's like Jim tells us what he thinks, which is what's

happening, so that we can kind of get moving. So first he says, so what if Kramer was a Soviet plant, and he wants to defect, and the Russians want to kill him, but then he gets killed in a robbery instead, and then they lose track of this Formula D.

And then these other guys think that we have it because my car was there. But then why do they steal the jeans? And how does naval intelligence fit in? And Angel gets in here that the KGB is worse than the cops. Yeah. That they'll throw people in jail just for not going to a parade. A little bit of Angel's weird version of American exceptionalism. And the other part of this is Angel's plan.

Yes. Well, because they're men without a country. Yes. So they're going to Mexico or Guatemala. Like how specifically Mexico or Guatemala. Yeah. Those are our options. All right.

So Jim tries again. So Gramer gets hold of this formula. It's worth a lot. Or Guatemala. Yeah. Those are our options. All right. So Jim tries again. So Gramer gets hold of this formula. It's worth a lot. He decides to sell it to finance his defection, but then he gets killed. And then he's like, what if he wasn't killed? What if he faked his own death? And that's why the body was shot in the face. That frees him to sell the formula to the highest bidder.

And nobody knows that he's dead. And that's why all this confusion so i have to correct myself from earlier in this episode when i should have known better uh that the kgb hasn't killed him they they hire angel to kill him so when they go just before the chase when they go to kill and mock up mr jones's suicide i think they think that that mr jones killed him yes so they can finalize the plan. Which actually still kind of tracks with that very

first scene because Angel, as Mr. Jones, does have a line where he's like don't tell me how to do my business. Yeah. I'd like it done as soon as possible and it's like what are you trying to tell me how to do? Do what I do and he has the line about hoping and whatnot and spitting and see which hand fills first.

So there is kind of a connection to so he took a long time but he finally did it so now we can eliminate him. Yeah. On the side of the KGB. Anyway, Jim is musing about the jeans again. These guys at Rocky's are stealing the jeans. Oh, not that

again. Come on. That's absolutely hopeless. So they can run them through a lab. But they don't steal stealing the genes. Oh, not that again. Come on. That's absolutely hopeless. So they can run them through a lab. But they don't steal all the genes. They leave the pairs of bronc busters because they don't need them. Oh, no, maybe. Maybe it's because they already know everything about them. Huh? Huh?

What? Mm-hmm. A light bulb has gone off for Jim. Fueled by his Mexican dinner. He thinks he has figured something out. He's done better than I. While I'm still sitting here going like, what? Okay, apparently the genes are a thing.

So we have an establishing shot of the Bronc Busters Corporation sign. And Jim and Angel go in with another story uh this one is a bureaucratic fast talk yes where they're from the state board of industrial safety and it's an unannounced inspection can you please point us to the lab and they're talking to the you know the front desk receptionist because she's going to call someone and be like oh let me call mr whoever and check i'm afraid that won't be possible. Not since the legislature amended Title 20 of the Noise Level and High Toxins Act, February 1. All inspections are now unannounced. Anyone who communicates prior knowledge is guilty of misdemeanor collusion.

I know, I know. It's a pain to all of us, but it's something we have to live with. Nader, you know. What a lovely moment in history. Nader, you know. What a lovely moment in history. For those who perhaps are unaware, this is right when Ralph Nader is kind of spearheading seatbelt safety. Yeah.

Right. regulate you know safety protocols for products so that the profit motive doesn't just create dangerous situations for individuals while companies don't need to care about it so the receptionist buys it she points them to the lab but then there's a group of three men that walk into the frame and angel kind of like pulls jim down and so they've kind of turned their backs and goes those are the guys from rocky's and jim's like oh and then they walk past and they go out the front door and then to excuse themselves he goes uh oh we should go get the kelvin meter let's get that now so we don't have to deal with it later and they turn around and leave we have this great shot of the receptionist just with this like whatever you say like yeah puzzlement on her face uh and they peace out to follow these goons uh who are with a another man um uh out of the parking lot and they pursue in the red pickup so our car

goons are guys who work for bronc buster or work for whoever this guy is who's the bronc buster guy yeah uh we pull up to a foggy warehouse on the pier. Jim and Angel get out and spy through the windows, and they see a payoff in progress between the Broncbuster guys and a man who matches the photo that Jim, I think he still has it,

which I had forgotten about. So the photo of Kramer, the original target of Mr. Jones. He's not dead after all. Apparently, Broncbuster is buying something from Kramer. He original target of Mr. Jones. He's not dead after all. Apparently, Broncbuster is buying something from Kramer. It's getting more and more ridiculous. But also, we're approaching the end.

So, you're sort of like, yeah, fine. Yeah, let's wrap this up. I think I checked, I was like, alright, there's like six minutes left of this episode. Where is this going? Yeah, yeah. Jim goes to find a payphone to call the cops and we then cut to the naval intelligence guy who's in a car on like a radio with some dialogue saying uh we're following the the tracker we planted in bronc buster yeah we're closing in angel while he is

peering through the window of course manages to knock over a barrel and get everyone's attention and get his hand stuck he gets his hand stuck in the grate and then leaves his glove behind, which is the first time his gloves have come off this entire episode. But then I believe it stays there to kind of indicate for when Jim comes back that Angel is, you know, something happened to Angel.

So the Broncbuster goons grab Angel and then two cars full of naval intelligence guys roll up, and they, you know, get out and tell everyone to drop on the ground. You know, the jig is up. Kramer is standing in the middle of this group of guys. The Broncbuster guys drop their guns, but Kramer grabs Angel and holds him as a hostage. He starts backing away. But Jim, who came back from the payphone, is hiding behind a car,

and he jumps on Kramer from behind, knocking Angel flying. And they get into a scuffle. I believe that Kramer gets a good punch in on Jim, sends him sprawling, which is when the naval intelligence guy takes a shot and shoots Kramer, who then falls down. And I think we have a shot of seeing that he's still alive. Right. He is taken down by naval intelligence. Everything's cleared up now, right?

All right, so we get into our last scene. We cut to the dental clinic where Chapman's walking around and all the communications gear is gone. So Chapman, Becker, the naval intelligence guy, Jim and Angel are here. Naval intelligence, I think, one of them says, all right, well, there's no proof that there was any KGB here. That makes it easier with the press.

And he spins out, I'll write a press release. Police still have no leads concerning a shootout in which Louis Kramer, believed murdered earlier this week, was injured. Kramer refused to talk. Wait a minute, wait a minute, Bob, just a second. Uh, that makes us sound like imbeciles. Rockford wants to know what the hell

is going on, primarily so that he'll know what his legal position is. Yeah. Chapman, uh, brushes him off. You know, you don't need to know any of this stuff, but Jim's position is that he can go right to that press room and tell them everything that happened. It's, it's great because there's jockeying back and forth between Chapman and the naval intelligence,

and then Jim's just like, never mind, I'll, I'll do it. I'll write the press release both of you have incentive to spin this in a certain way i have no incentive to do that yes so tell me what's up uh because he knows what happened but he doesn't know why right yeah uh so off the record the our naval intelligence guy says that well american genes are difficult to get in the soviet union as they're a symbol of western decadence and there's like economic sanctions prohibiting their sale and stuff but uh soviet teenagers are willing to spend a lot of money and send it out of the country in order to get these genes yeah soviet i guess intelligence scientists someone came up with a formula for denim formula d

which is superior to current american denim it wears like iron for six to seven years and so between the two because jim like asked some questions and what we get some more exposition so why is the navy involved naval dungarees if they can have superior denim for naval uniforms, that will save the American taxpayer millions of dollars. And so that's why the Navy wants the formula. But Kramer, who has the formula, I guess, decided to defect and sell to private enterprise. And so if Broncbuster, the jeans company, buys Formula D, then the Navy is going to have to pay out the nose to buy the jeans from bronc buster yeah they have to pay retail price or whatever so this whole thing was over the navy wanted better jeans yeah so it's the the soviets wanted better jeans well yes the navy wanted better jeans uh none of them wanted to pay the free market value of the jeans. And somebody in that equation famously is for the free market while the other isn't. Yeah, it's a little catch-22.

It's a delightful ridiculousness. Yes. And as Angel says, I risked my life for some lousy blue jeans. Yeah. I thought at least it would be for a missile component or a cover for a satellite. And I'm feeling it. Yeah, which is good. Again, it's like I have this movie conception of

what spy stuff is about. Yeah, exactly. So I guess Jim is satisfied, but Chapman has a whole litany of charges to book Angel on. You better be interested in blue jeans. You're going to be wearing them for at least the next six months. I'm talking about confidence swindling, conspiracy to commit murder.

Jenkins, get in here. And so we get a classic as Angel is getting hauled out of the door. Jimmy! Yes. One of them says, here's the only thing we found. And it's a box of cigars and so jim opens it and takes one out and goes you don't suppose these came from havana and we freeze frame on jim smiling at a cigar end of episode yay uh like the moment that box showed up i was like ah these are cuban cigars right i even wrote oh there's a box of Cuban cigars. Yeah.

It's funny because the ending definitely has like the patter of a satire of a political situation. But I'm not entirely sure it's actually saying anything about it. It's like that Nader comment, right? Like it's a little bit like that's the world we live in. Yeah, it's kind of like a reference to the times but it's not really a critique here are the bizarre things about our times i mean because i think the thing about genes is true i think is my understanding that like bootleg american gene or not boot i mean also bootleg but uh yeah smuggling american genes into the soviet union was like a big business for organized

crime i think yeah like a historical thing that happened so so that is referencing a thing yeah we do have the fun thing where it's like this whole plot was about blue jeans yeah no i really enjoyed that uh it's a funny episode and it's well i think that the one bit about it is that it it's it's like in two or three inches not absurd enough right yeah or or two to three inches too absurd it's kind of uncanny valley between yeah those two because like it's not quite over i think again like battle axe and the exploding cigar where that actual plot right was like we're gonna sell uh defective arms to these these like soviet insurgents so that when they blow up in their face it's gonna make it harder for them to revolt against democratic you know whatever i was like

sure oh okay that's like far enough over to like kind of the more absurd stuff. While this was kind of like sneaking in at the end. Yeah. I think the bit that knocks it a kilter weirdly is the scene at the railing when Jim has finally had it with Angel early on. And that scene is so very real and so very dramatic. And like there's a lot of pathos in it uh and you know has that nice stick of fruit gum ending and and just all of that going on but it doesn't um doesn't quite fit with the blue jean thing i really don't have a problem with that kind of whiplash so i really did enjoy this episode but i i do think it could have gone again like just a toe more over the line

and then you would have you know yeah or a shade less like i guess a shade more like mcguffin-y i mean like yeah like the blue jeans are kind of are a mcguffin but like a shade more like there was a twenty thousand dollars in counterfeit so Soviet currency or something. Right. And that would be a little, bring it, bring the needle back from absurd a little bit. Um, yeah, it's,

it's in a little weird tonal place, which does not make it not a good episode. No, it's a joy. Like I really, really enjoyed it. Yeah. What's fun about the episode is all the gym angel stuff,

of course. And kind of that feeling of just like, it kind of has like a fun feeling of like, what going on which i think is intentional right and then yeah because you learn about the blue jean thing at the very end that's the explanation for like why it was so crazy um i think as i've probably been harping on too much there's like one loop extra of craziness than i think it really needs yeah but that loop did bring us the lawyer and printer con right so like i can't be mad about it yeah yeah exactly i i think that that pretty much nails it it's just like yeah the whole isn't a perfect hole but what it is is uh made up of wonderful parts yeah it's one of

those episodes for me where all of the elements are great. They kind of don't really gel together. Sometimes the whole is greater than some of its parts. Yeah. And then sometimes each individual part, once you pull it all together, the whole is like averages out to be a little bit less. Yeah. And I think this is a little bit on that end of it. But if you're just watching it, if you just put it on and are just kind of like watching the episode, you'll hit each of those parts and enjoy each of them in turn. And you don't need to worry about the whole thing. By the time you get to where Jim is tied up in a dental office

and Angel's in the chair, like who cares about all the stuff that already happened? Like we need to see what happens now. If you're not watching it for the sake of recording a podcast where you think you need to know what's happening. Right. In the mistaken belief that you need to know every detail, which we do not. Yeah.

If you're not in the business of making podcasts that are longer than the episode, this is a perfectly, this is a great episode. Oh, so called out. But yeah, so thanks for hanging with us on this one. I think we got a little all over the place, but that kind of is the spirit of the episode. It's a little all over the place, but in the fun way. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I'm going to go take off my leather jacket and the thick gloves that I've been wearing this entire time because, boy, are my hands sweaty.

I'm going to go try on some new blue jeans. Six to seven years out of those blue jeans. Six or seven years out of the blue jeans. And then you got cutoffs for another six or seven years. It's great. 12 to 14 years of pants. Well, with that, perhaps we will leave you to think about your own jean situation. But we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files