Two Hundred A Day - Episode 96: Roundabout

Episode Date: December 26, 2021

Nathan and Eppy return to Las Vegas in S1E22 Roundabout. Jim is hired for a straightforward gig to find an insurance beneficiary - Nancy, the beneficiary, isn't making much money as a Vegas lounge singer, but it seems simple enough to give her a check. But when she runs, then is grabbed by goons, Jim has to act fast to save his paycheck. The final episode of Season One takes us to the Vegas lounge, a clown selling hot dogs and the Hoover Dam. It's a fun one! 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) * Dael Norwood's historical research (https://daelnorwood.com/) * 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) * Jay Thompson, Matthew Lee, Kip Holley, Dave P, 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

This is Marilyn Reed. I want to talk to you. Is this a machine? I don't talk to machines. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidaia Ravishaw. And we are coming to you today with probably, i miss my calculations our last episode of 2021 which makes it a holiday special uh perhaps not the best suited to a holiday special episode content wise but uh yeah looking at our calendar this should be the episode uh that releases around christmas slash New Year's.

And so we just wanted to take the opportunity to say happy holidays and thank everyone who's been listening and hanging with us this year. It's been a real one. I have been trying to mash up Vegas with Christmas in my head somehow. I'm sure Vegas does that perfectly well. I'm sure around the holidays, it's a very Vegas Christmas. But anyways, this is our second Vegas episode of the Rockford Files in a row.

And so I think that that feels like a special holiday kind of thing too. We've got some bright lights. We've got some really great color work in this episode. It's a musical episode. Yeah, it's a musical episode. The palette, that's the word I was looking for.

A really good color palette in this episode. Yes. Yeah, I mean, Desert Christmas is pretty sweet. So I grew up in New Mexico, so I had many desert Christmases. But we did basically live in the mountains so we did have snow for most of them um the more real deserty desert christmas is still uh still pretty legit is all i'm trying to say even though this episode does not have anything to do with christmas it's about the spirit yeah yeah we will be taking jan January off from releasing new episodes.

We did that last year. I don't remember if we did that the year before, but it's it is a nice. Yeah, it worked out. It's a nice healthy break for for us both to, you know, have a little less going on around the holidays with with, you know, travel and other deadlines and all the other stuff that happens around the turn of the year. know travel and other deadlines and all the other stuff that happens around the turn of the year um and also you know give us a little breathing space to look at the episodes that we have remaining in the show and strategize a little bit about what we want to do in the first couple months of 2022 we're over the hill now right oh yeah we're we're past the halfway point yeah i don't know exactly how far but we were

approaching the halfway point i think when we were finishing up season two i think we should be definitively over it by now yeah we'll do a whole state of the show thing i think you know when we come back with uh where we're at and what we're looking forward to in the next year i can i'll go ahead and forecast that's something we're going to want to do. If we don't do it, it's just because we forgot. That makes sense. So you picked this episode. I feel like it's my duty to ask you why, even though I know the answer. Yeah. So this is, I think, as you mentioned earlier, kind of a second of a two episode project. And that's simply because after i selected the

episode that we did last time i noticed that in the episode synopses in season one this episode also mentioned jim goes to vegas so i just thought it would be a fun little one two to look at these two jim goes to vegas episodes kind of next to other. We'll probably talk about this at the end, but I do think they, uh, do compliment each other in that they are about different things. And also the use of Vegas in particular is different between the two of them.

Yeah. Uh, so it is, uh, it is kind of interesting to look at them as a pair. This is season one, episode 22 roundabout. It is the last episode of season one. So it is not pair this is season one episode 22 roundabout it is the last

episode of season one so it is not close to the previous one in air order um right so it's not like they have any connection production wise yeah they're just uh um they just happen to both be in vegas and the other one is only kind of in vegas while this one is very in vegas yeah yeah the other one is the Dexter Crisis. Yes, which if this is the first time you're listening to our show, you can go back one episode and listen to the first part of this vague two-part series. Yeah, no spoilers, but... There's a crisis.

Yeah, Dexter's involved. This episode, I'll start off with the director. This one's directed by Lou Antonio. We have done almost all of his episodes. We last saw a Lou Antonio episode when we did Fowl on the first play, which was the introduction of Gabby Hayes. No, those are two different people. Which was the introduction of Gabby, the Lou Gossett Jr. character, P.I. No, no, it's Hayes.

It's Gabby Hayes. Marcus Aurelius Hayes. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah, it's confusing because Hayes is... Because we associate him with Gandhi, who is Isaac Hayes. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

So I wasn't just transposing those. We've watched a lot of the Rockford Files, folks. Yeah, we have. Wait, how have we not seen all of these? Oh, is the Kirchhoff case the only one we haven't seen of his? Yes. Yeah. So the Kirchhoff case is the first non-pilot episode.

Yes. Episode one of season one. And we have not done that one yet. So that is the remaining Lou Antonio episode. Lou Antonio, who's done all kinds of TV, we've talked about him before, but I think I bring it up every time because it's his headshot on IMDb, which is that he was also

an actor, and he played one of the half-black, half-white aliens in a Star Trek original series episode that was, you know, about discrimination. But I feel like he has a fun, real active, I feel like he has a fun real active i feel like he has a real active camera and there's some fun um reveals and stuff in this episode that yeah that are pretty pretty neat this one has a couple of writing credits so it's story and teleplay by

mitch lindeman with an additional telepay credit by Edward J. Lasko. We've seen some of Ed Lasko's work before. He wrote The Italian Bird Fiasco, which was a standout for us, or at least a standout for me in season two. Yeah. And a couple teleplay credits. And he ended up being a producer on Charlie's Angels.

So that's where the bulk of his... There we go....of his writing credits ended up after a producer on Charlie's Angels, so that's where the bulk of his writing credits ended up after, you know, bouncing around a little bit. Mitch Lindeman was a radio guy. He wrote, like, scripts for radio plays. And per IMDb,

he was apparently blacklisted after the House of Un-American mccarthy yeah the whole mccarthy huac thing i wasn't really able to find any more information about that but you know a lot of people didn't talk about it so it was one of those like there was no formal list right it was a kind of whisper network we don't work with these people anymore because they're communists or whatever uh love our love american history anyway so his tv credits are pretty limited because those you know would have been after after uh who act and this is actually his final writing credit and he did die in 1977 so oh all right i guess a little unsurprising when

you just look at the timeline nice bummer for our holiday episode sorry sorry to end on a bummer i think i always have a bit of a question coming into one that isn't written by like one of our main kind of staff people where i'm always like all right let's see how this is gonna go um i feel like this has a good good rock tradition is to it. Yeah, it did. I had this weird like when I first started watching it, it was so familiar to me that I was I checked to see if we had actually done it before because we're going to do that. It's going to happen sometime in this second half of our run. We're definitely going to sit down and both watch an episode that we've already done a podcast for. We may even get through the podcast before we end up discovering that we've done that. But that isn't the case here, I don't think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we have not done this one before.

Yeah, it was so familiar. And then afterwards, this morning, before we you know started chatting i was like okay what can i recall from the the episode and i couldn't remember any of it and now i do remember it now but what i what i'm saying is what i kind of attribute that to is it's rock traditionist like i mean obviously i've seen all these episodes before but you know my memory is not the best and so i get to see them all for the first time again as we do this podcast. But this one just felt very... It's like putting on a

plaid jacket that isn't... Yes. It's not the same jacket that you've worn before, but you've certainly worn a plaid jacket of this fit before. So it's like, okay, I recognize this. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't check to see if we'd done it before a plaid jacket of this fit before so it's like okay i recognize this yeah yeah no i i had a i mean i didn't i didn't check to see if we'd done it before because it quickly became a like oh yeah

we have not done this one but uh i agree that the sense of it is a very familiar like yep this is the show yep this is it particularly a yep this is a first season episode and i think that's mostly mostly jim's affect about getting paid and punching people i feel like yeah like i feel like he has a very specific way that he does both of those things in the first season that starts to morph as the show goes on um and we get to see both of those very specifically in this episode so speaking of we should probably start off off with what we see in the preview montage. Some things that stood out to me in the preview montage. First shot at, hit over the head, robbed of $10,000.

It's just a nice litany of bad things that are going to happen to Jim that we can check off as we go down through it. to jim that we can check off as we go down uh through it there's a a green vw bug like a lime green vw bug that just completely stands out we have a little bit of the scene and we'll get into that one almost right away with jim at some woman's door and there's that sign that says absolutely no salesman and you'll love to see it in the preview montage i feel like if i was like i'm almost certain that he was going to be pretending to be a salesman to get something uh but it it plays out a little different in the actual show uh and then there is the good once you're in you're in or you're dead and then followed by blah blah or you're dead uh a good like one two providing us with uh some consequences there specifically while jim is is explaining all the litany of bad things that

have happened he is taking big bites out of a sandwich oh yes so i noted that in all caps and then i had something to look forward to for the rest of the episode. And I think I said earlier that there's a good color palette in this one. In the just in the preview montage, I noted good greens, good yellows. Yeah. Real bright early early 70s palette. It's it's real nice. It's time to appreciate our patrons over at Patreon dot com slash 200 a day. Thanks to you.

We're a 100 percent listenerorted show. Why become a patron for as little as $1 an episode? In addition to keeping us going and exclusive episode previews, our patrons get plus expenses, a bonus podcast, where we casually chat about the media we're enjoying and the things going on in our lives. We extend special thanks to our Gumshoe patrons supporting this episode. Dil Norwood wrote a book, Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America. It's about fast ships, cheap drugs, and American political economy. Published by the University of Chicago Press, find it wherever good books are sold. Chuck from whatyou'rereading.com, Paul Townend, who also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops,

Cereal Killers of Color, at fruitloopspod.com Shane Liebling, check out RollForYour.party for all of your online dice rolling needs Jay Adan, check out his amazing miniature painting skills over at jayadan.com Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Hawley, Matthew Lee, and

Jay Thompson. And finally we can't thank our detective patrons enough for their generous support of the show. Eric Antenor, at Antenor on Twitter, Brian Pereira, at Thermaware, Bill Anderson, at BillAnd88, and of course, Richard

Haddam, at Richard Haddam. We follow them too, at 200pod. Rate and 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. So we start off our episode with the titles right over a scene of a driving range where there's someone grooming it in an adorable little cage machine. This is the kind of device that the word contraption was made for right like

this is yeah i mean it has little wings that i think are gathering golf balls and then it's just like a little tiny cage that the driver's in obviously so he does not get hit by the golf balls that are being driven uh at the time but it's very funny because we spend some time looking at it just for the titles to play and so we get a good a good eyeful of like what is that thing to modernize it is very contraptiony but clearly it's just you know that what that equipment was at the time um but jim has come to see a mr moss here at the driving range we get right into back and forth kind of not even really status it's a little status yeah it's almost just straight up threats like not even threats it's it's posturing it's a lot of posturing

yeah there's um there's a uh uh high class low class thing going on uh and we'll find out that like this guy moss um is he just likes golf like that's it that's that's his character trait i like golf yeah but the um he comes at jim hard and fast right like he he doesn't want he's trying to hire a pi but he doesn't want to be ripped off by pi so he's like i'm on to your tricks already you know yeah um and jim like takes the club away from him yeah it's good so he uh we start right off with a with a good strong first season what do you charge two hundred dollars a day plus expenses yes he wants to be clear that he doesn't like to be fleeced and i know you guys are all expense account hot dogs so he's gonna want expense he's gonna want receipts for all expenses and yeah he gets

really aggressive and pushes jim like back and pokes him with his golf club and that's when jim just grabs it out of his hand just just takes it away and pushes him back and there's a moment of physical confrontation where moss goes hey i have a black belt in karate and jim replies good i have a black belt in seven iron i guess they achieve a kind of detente at that point where at some point this guy needs to tell jim why he wants to hire him right so right after uh after all the posturing to show how he's not going to get ripped off or whatever we should we should point out that uh that moss here is played by mills watson who is a face has a face for playing like sheriffs that you have to thwart in some way or another i was just checking because i was like we have to have seen him before he is in three other episodes of the Rockford Files, but this is the first time we've seen him, actually.

What? I know, right? He played Deputy Perkins in BJ and the Bear, the television series which is about a trucker and a chimpanzee. I remember watching it as a kid, but I don't remember anything about it except that this guy was in it. Is The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo a spinoff? Because he also plays. Yeah, I think it is. Because he also plays Deputy Perkins in that entire TV series.

Yes. Yeah, I'm almost certain that is. Again, I know I've watched both of these. And, I mean, I had to. There was a monkey in it. i said chimpanzee um but yeah it has to unless they just couldn't think of a new name he also plays and this is probably more to the point friar tuck uh in a single episode of voyagers um it was a good episode i enjoyed it um yeah no he's he's uh he's got he's got a face for an authority figure that you want to thwart in some way he has a real punchable face but like in a fun way so in this episode he

is a insurance executive i guess an insurance person um and his company has a ten thousand dollar death benefit that they need to pay out for you know a woman who had life insurance who who died and they're obligated by the insurance commission to make a good faith effort to find the next of kin which would be this woman's daughter but they can't find her he says that the only thing that they know is that the deceased woman had a sister who lives somewhere in L.A. There's a bit of a standoff over whether Jim is going to take this case or not, leading up to. How about it? About what?

You're going to take it? You're going to say please? No. All right, I'll take it. Which I think is what I was getting to with the very first season kind of approach. Like in later seasons, I would expect him to be like, I don't need to deal with this and just walk away and get brought in by some other means. But first season, he wants to get paid. Yeah, he wants to get paid. Yeah, he wants to get paid.

There's something about that beat that I really enjoy because Moss, when he takes that beat, he looks at the seven iron, which is now back in his own hands. Because there's this back and forth where Jim took the club away from him. It's just, are you going to take it? And Jim asks him, are you going to say please? And then Moss looks at the fact that he still has the seven iron and then decides, no, I'm not going to say please. Yeah. fact that he still has the seven iron and then decides no i'm not gonna say please yeah so jim goes he works the phone book and looks up this woman by name and finds her immediately and has a good pithy line of like oh you really looked hard huh um which gets to my theory that i think

will get paid out through the rest of the episode that moss doesn't actually do any work that he's like a nepotism hire or something yeah i spent time in the beginning trying to decide if moss was setting jim up to fail so he could take the money or what you were just saying is he just incompetent or you know what what yeah he he has a responsibility that he doesn't care about and this is his way of discharging it is pretty much where we're at but yeah Jim finds her immediately in the phone book and we cut directly to that scene from the preview montage

where Jim is sticking his foot in the door as she slams it on his foot with a big sign in the background that says absolutely no salesman she is clearly suspicious she doesn't want to talk to anyone unless he's police and he's not police. Jim, with his foot still painfully ground in the door, explains about the insurance policy and that the money was left to the deceased's daughter, Nancy.

And when she learns that, her face falls. Nancy ran away when she was 16 and she was the one at her sister's every day and night taking care of her uh and then she leaves the money to her to that daughter of hers ain't that a bummer jim agrees that it's a bummer but does ask for her help and she wants to know how much isn't it for her and he starts at 10 and she pressures him up to uh to a hundred dollar bribe which uh i mean it's good she she has all the power in the situation including his foot physically stuck in her door uh she does specifically say it might help or might not but she wants the hundred either way does not let him in but does have a letter for

him there was a letter in her sister's letterbox that she found after she died. And it's from the daughter, Nancy. You know, she would mail letters to her mother as she moved around all over the country, even though I guess she'd been disowned and they weren't on speaking terms any other way. And she takes the cash and Jim reads the letter. This is a nice, fun transition where we get Jim's voiceover of reading the letter. The camera zooms in to him holding the letter and there's a headshot of the daughter, which is very helpful for the rest of the episode included in this letter. pan up during the voiceover from the letter to seeing one of those little electric golf ball return things on a carpet.

And we're in Moss's office and he's putting while Jim tells him what he's found out. So it was a nice little seamless, fun transition that I really appreciated. Yeah. Re-establishing that this guy likes golf. Right. But yeah, pretty much what we know from the letter is that Nancy's in a hotel. She names the hotel. I'm at this hotel in Vegas. My notes at this point are just case closed. We're done.

Yep. It was a good episode. So he did the job. He wants his, you know, $200 plus five for gas plus a hundred for the letter. And then they go back and forth about how there's no receipt for that hundred. But Moss wants Jim to deliver the money personally. It's in the form of a cashier's check.

And so it's too risky to send by mail. But he will buy the plane ticket for Jim, the round trip plane ticket for Jim toim to go to vegas and give her the the check and get the deposit notarized or whatever you know there's there's a couple little like loopholes that need to get jumped through um to discharge this this responsibility jim tries to get a little bit more out of moss with i like first class moss picks up the putter and looks at him and goes i like coach the funniest thing about this is that in the first scene moss was wearing this hat it's like almost like a service cat like a i don't know i don't know exactly what the emblem on it was but it was almost like a military style

kind of like service cap um and then here he's in a suit not wearing a hat and we see that he's balding and it makes him much funnier yeah i really i enjoy the antagonistic relationship between these two uh it doesn't i'm trying to think i don't think it uh plays out there's like one more yeah moment i think between the two of them but uh yeah it's it's good stuff and it leaves it open a little bit where we're like, is this some kind of weird setup or something? Right. But it's just Moss just wanting to get this thing that he has to deal with over with, I guess. And he's kind of making a play where he's like, you worked for an hour and a half.

I'm not paying you $200 for that, but I'll pay you to go to Vegas and I'll pay you your day. You know, I'll pay you the $ 200 to do the rest of the job i think part of why it feels like we're why we're wondering is that uh for jim the job has been too easy so far right like i mean not obviously he got his foot slammed in a door and you know all that but like it seems like this guy is frustrated that jim's not following the clues to reach the area that jim needs to be and to be set up for something right like that's uh yeah it definitely has this this sort of feel to it but uh yeah i mean and this is all going by at like a real fast fast clip so you know we we still have a lot of uh we still have a lot of story to get into we have a

brief montage of the plane coming into vegas and jim deplaning you know there's slot machines in the uh lobby of course and we have a nice little moment where jim kind of like looks at them shrugs and does exactly two nickels worth of slot machine uh pulls uh shockingly he does not win anything and then he gets into this cab and i was i was intending to look this up so this the red white and blue almost diamond patterned paint job on this cab yeah brought me delight i don't know if you noted this at all i just noticed the uh dice on the side because that's what my eyes are trained to to look. So on the side, it is the Whittle. It is a Whittle C blue cab.

That is a real cab company. And I say just because so almost all the Vegas stuff is on location and you really see a lot of the being on location. So, yeah, this is a Vegas cab company that per their website has been in business for over 70 years and has built a solid reputation on providing quality transportation service. I do. I don't think that their modern paint job measures up, however, the old Whittlesea blue cab. They still have Dyson, their logo.

Well, that's good. That's what I was worried about. Yeah, there's some stock photos of their 70s cabs, and they are fantastic. They're a thing. They're a thing. Do yourself a favor and look that up when you have a moment. Anyway, I liked them. I liked that cab.

But yeah, Jim tracks down the hotel that Nancy's staying in. It is not a nice place not a nice place i would say he has a brief conversation with the manager or whoever at the front desk who says you know i don't know anyone by that name no one has stayed here shows him the picture no never seen her before and then he turns away to answer the phone and jim just dips by him and goes directly to the room and i guess again i was kind I was kind of like, huh, I wonder if that's a thing. I don't think that's a thing. I think that was just a, when you run a place like this, you just don't tell anyone anything. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Jim claims to be the fire inspector to gain entrance into her room, and she cracks the door to look at him. We can see from the picture that he's looked at that, yes, this is her. This is Nancy. This is the woman we saw in the preview montage. And Jim shoves his foot in the door here as well. look at him we can see from the picture that he's looked at that yes this is her this is nancy this is the woman we saw in the preview montage and jim shoves his foot in the door here as well and manages to do it without injuring himself it seems and uh yeah tells her tells her the tale

there's a nice little i i didn't catch it entirely but um the woman uh that that uh that had him trapped in the door before uh nancy's aunt i guess um did tell jim that when he put his foot in the door that he's not doing it right and so i'm wondering if there was like a distinctive technique that he then did this time where it worked but i i didn't go back to watch the two to see if there's, if that's the case or not. But if Eagle Eye listeners out there notice something, please let us know, because I would like to know how to get my foot stuck in a door properly.

I wonder if it's, is it Jim's technique or is it the ability of the person closing the door? Because that also could be the difference. Yeah. It could be a more experienced door closer than her, than her. Absolutely uh absolutely brief aside uh in the google image search when i was looking up the the cab there is an ebay listing for a blue cab company canceled check oh for those that collect canceled checks i guess but it's uh number 236 it is for $6.69. It is $15 on eBay, plus $3.50 shipping.

It's a check from the Blue Cab Company, or did someone write the check to them? It's a check from the Blue Cab Company to Connelly Electric Company, company signed by V Whittlesey. So Whittlesey blue cab company. I did not know that there was a market for canceled checks on eBay, but now that I think of it, of course there's a market for canceled checks on eBay. Sure. Yeah.

Um, there's a cafe near here that in their restroom is wallpapered with canceled checks. Uh, but they clearly got the canceled checks from a bank so that uh that they're an entire like complete run of like one person's canceled checks right they're all from the same checkbook and oh yeah it's a lovely looking canceled check yeah why not why wouldn't you wanthow, that is neither here nor there.

Yeah, our listeners would appreciate that. So Jim explains the story. I think she rolls her eyes, as I think would be natural when someone just shows up at your door and says, I have $10,000 for you. Yeah. But then he explains about the insurance, and she didn't know that her mom had insurance but she does let him in um there's a bit of like she feels weird about it because of their relationship but jim very specifically says like you don't need to explain anything to me i'm just here with your check let's just go to your bank and deposit it and that's when she gets squirrely

yes yeah so she says she doesn't have a bank. She keeps looking out the window while Jim, who clearly just wants to get the job done, is like, well, there's a bank nearby. Let's go. It's a cashier's check. I need to get it notarized. Let's just deposit it there. She is clearly nervous. She puts on a whole kind of disguise.

You get up with a with a hat and giant sunglasses are you in some kind of trouble look it's none of your business if i need a guy on a white horse i'll call the circus okay glad we got that set this is another moment uh where i rather ironically write my notes case closed he's found her he's brought her to the check we're good this is clearly he's done now as they leave there's a guy in in the hallway of the hotel the camera moves to where we see this guy kind of peeking around the corner as they come down a hallway then he runs out of the hotel to the parking lot yells to another guy in a car you know they're coming and they they hide in their car jim and nancy go to nancy's car which is the bright green vw beetle uh in my notes i say hell yeah it is uh quite the

quite the vehicle um jim gets in the driver's seat of course and then we see them followed to the bank by these two uh at this point qualitatively goons in this big maroon maroon car i did have one question and this is neither here nor there so it doesn't matter but i was wondering because jim is driving it we've seen jim drive other people's cars all the time but i wondered if this was jim's rental uh oh no but he no he took a cab he clearly we just we just talked about the cab so this is her car it's just weird that she just met the guy yeah and let him drive it's jim there's also a moment where like the handle kind of sticks and this happens a couple times and the second time it happened i was like huh

i wonder if that's going to be a thing and then I think it was just that's how that car was. Like this episode has a lot of little moments that are like, oh, that's just how it was. And they just kept the shot. Like when they get into the bank, he tries one door, but it's the closed door. And he has to open the facing door instead. Like you do. Like happens all the time when one door of a double door is locked and you have to open the other one. do like happens all the time when one door of a double door is locked and you have to open the other one um you just don't see it on film very much because it interrupts the flow of you know

walking and or whatever but they clearly were on location and that's just how the door was so we get this very natural moment of him like trying the door it doesn't pull so it pushes it doesn't push then he opens the other door because that's the open one which you know one of those very normal things that we just don't see on tv too much yeah and and the one two with the uh the door on the car i same thing i think i wrote i'm like this is gonna be a payoff right like this is we've now seen the door stick for him twice now um but yeah it does not uh per the rockford files files this goon car is a red and white 1975 Lincoln Continental. In my notes, I just have yacht.

It is just a big old yacht of a car. It is a big old yacht. This will come into play later. Yeah, I love the striking difference. I love the striking difference. Both cars are super recognizable on the road and both cars are, uh, couldn't be any more different from each other and from the firebird. Yeah.

All right. So they're followed to the bank. Uh, we see the goons, you know, post up to keep an eye on, on when they're going to come out. Uh,

they go on in and we have an unexpected George Weiner appearance. Yes. He's popped up in a couple episodes. We've talked about him before when he's, he just has one of those faces. And he's usually either playing a Nebuchadnezzar county kind of guy or 100% opposite of a Nebuchadnezzar county kind of guy. Like the episode where he's like an officer in the army reserve or whatever.

But then the last time we saw him, I think he got killed. This is a wrap on Weiner in our viewings here. Oh, is it? I thought there was one more. The Queen of Peru, Feeding Frenzy, the Real Easy Red Dog,

and then this. Okay, yeah. Yeah, this is probably the most minor of those appearances. Yeah, he got killed in the Real Easy Red Dog is the one I was thinking of where he yeah uh you know was a representative of the estate or whatever and jim got to got to totally

snowball him with uh some banter uh yeah always a pleasure glad we got to see him i wasn't expecting it because i hadn't really looked at the cast beforehand and uh this is a fun little scene yeah um so he's the clerk uh she has to open an account to deposit this. So, I don't know, maybe this is just a, this is how banks used to work. I thought a cashier's check you could just cash, right? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing too. Like that's the whole point to a cashier's check

and why you needed Rockford to, why you wouldn't send it through the mail. Right, because then anyone could just take it and cash it yeah but i wonder two things one they want to deposit it because that gets us to the plot of the episode uh and i guess is it complicated by needing to get notarized oh that's yes yeah because probably rockford needs some evidence that he didn't just cash to check himself and say he found her right so so i wonder if that's just like this is how we do it so that there's a record that I gave you the check yeah yeah I guess I don't know having not been a PI or a bank teller I can't

answer these questions I've never been bonded I think I I've gone. I had to get something notarized once where I went to a bank for it. I don't think I've ever used or received a cashier's check. Yeah, I don't know. We just have Venmo now. Yeah. It's like there was a brief period where I went on a trip overseas and I took traveler's checks. I had to get those at the bank. Yeah, I remember those.

And then the next time I did a trip overseas, I could just use my credit card. It was fine. Anyhow, the point here is that we have some business with George Weiner about opening an account, and he needs some info because of the size of the deposit.

He needs specific information for, like, legal reasons, right? I think he specifically mentions the irs which uh right is actually kind of yeah of an important little detail that for later um jim has to go to another person to get it notarized because their notary public is another is a woman who has a different desk so they go over to deal with the notarization and then uh george weiner comes over and he says well this is this is uh there's a bit of a a hiccup here it turns out that nancy already has an account at this bank

and she apparently didn't know about it and it apparently has three hundred thousand dollars in it jim turns around with the clerk to look at this like printout yeah so they both have their backs turned and that is when nancy turns and runs out of the bank i love that moment in my notes i'm like why is this guy sharing her account information with jim but we have to assume that people trust jim so yeah i guess uh yeah well and jim's like let me see that yeah it is staging such that they turn their backs and she can run away. Um, yes.

Jim pursues and outside Nancy is getting hustled into the goons car and they drive away. So Jim goes back into the bank and I think this is great where he's just like, well, can I just deposit this into her account? Like that's what he's there for, right?

Like he just wants to get rid of the check so he can get paid. But because of the amount of the check, he can't do it without her authorization. And since she's not there, she can't sign it to authorize it or whatever. She's a very strange young lady. When somebody has $300,000 in the bank, you don't call them strange. What do you call them? Eccentric. bank you don't call them strange what do you call them eccentric now jim has more questions than answers um he goes back to her hotel room uh driving the beetle

which i appreciate um and i also like there's just like a little there's a lot of just like little moments that are like that are just to make it easier for things to happen right like the reason he drives her car in the first place is so that he has her keys so that he can drive her car later. Cause otherwise she'd have to like drop her keys or he's just driving her car and we just never talk about how he got the keys. It's not a question that matters, but by having him drive the car in the first place,

it now, you know, it all lines up anyway. Lots of little things like that in this episode. Um,im goes into her room and we have this really interesting shot where jim's in the foreground and then we see a face in the background and at first i thought it was a painting yeah it looked it looked like a painting with glass over it or something or yeah yeah i had the same thing and then there's a bit of a zoom i think and it resolves a little bit i'm like is there a window that someone's looking through like is there a weird window behind the door

and then i realized it's a mirror and it's showing us the face of the guy standing behind the door waiting for jim uh so it was a good little tension building where i realized that he was actually in the room right as we see uh see jim get get hit in the back of the head and taken out by one of the goons. And the guy takes the cashier's check and his wallet. We stick with Jim as he wakes up, realizes what happened, has a good little business where he pulls out a whole tray of ice cubes and wraps it in a towel to soothe his head. This is items one and two on Jim's checklist. Actually, these are items two and three on Jim's checklist of bad things that are going

to happen to him from the opening montage. So I like that. I like putting myself in a position of waiting till when he gets shot at. Right. And then he places a person to person call to Moss who answers the phone and is still putting in his little putter thing in his office. And this is when I have my note. He really doesn't seem to do any work.

Does he? Explains what happens. Moss is like, well, you're bonded, right? And they mentioned this earlier. And Jim explains like, yes, he's bonded. So Moss's company will be reimbursed for the $10,000. But then Jim is going to get dropped by his bonding company and he won't be able to do his job anymore. So he, since they took his wallet, he needs some money so that he can get around to recover the stolen check.

Yes. Moss responds with, your job was to find Miss Wade and wade and give her the check you've lost the check and you've lost the girl you know call call me when that changes or something like that you know he's basically like yeah this isn't my problem this is your problem for some reason the way that he said you've lost i i don't remember if he says you lost the check and the girl or you've lost the check and you've lost mrs wade somehow the way that he said that i was like does he know about her like does he know that she's lost like is this is this all some kind of elaborate setup thing but i think it's just the dialogue like it's just in inference from what jim has told him we're on the same wavelength

here because my notes say you've lost her in the check like in quotation marks and now looking back on it i'm like why did i find that important enough to write down? And I think it's the same thing. It's just like, hmm, what's this guy up to? He doesn't work, clearly. He just golfs. He doesn't even golf. He just practices golf.

He drives and he putts. That's all we see. Yeah. So now we have this woman and there's $300,000 involved. Maybe this is some kind of insurance scam. But no, this is the last that we will see of Mr. Moss. The whole thing from his end does seem to have been on the up and up as we will get into a much more interesting situation as we go forward.

In our next sequence, we get to see a lot of good Vegas stuff because we just have a Jim is driving driving around the strip i assume it's the strip i've never been to las vegas especially not in 1975 or whenever this episode aired um yep 1975 nailed it uh but i assume this is the strip slash classic vegas there's lots of signs lots of marquees um good good. Just looking for a clue. And well, what do you know? He passes a big marquee at a casino and it says in giant letters, now appearing, Nancy Wade, including a poster of her picture next to her name.

So going into this, we have some competing theories about what's going on, right? Right. Is Jim being set up for something is this it because in the end it turns out that this is both the easiest and the hardest job right right like finding her was just we know this woman lives in la you just had to look her up in the phone book and then she'll just give you a an address and a picture and if you don't get that you know her name and if you happen to be in vegas you're gonna see her in lights at some point going up and down the strip yeah there's no functional mystery like jim doesn't have to discover or

uncover anything until he decides to get involved but even then it's not really a mystery it's just him he just there's just a story that he doesn't know and so this episode is just a progression of him finding out new facts that he did not know before that's not a criticism it's just it's interesting to watch it develop because we're sitting here with our finely tuned senses being like oh this guy's setting him up oh he's getting involved in this scam. And no, there's just, I mean, there is a scam, but it has nothing to do with Jim. He just keeps bowling through until he gets the answers that he wants. So we go from Jim seeing the marquee and going, well, I'll be damned to a close up of Nancy singing a torch song at a piano in this casino lounge.

And we have a little floor montage as we follow Jim moving through the space of, you know, poker tables and slot machines, etc. this this i've never seen a more accurate depiction of vegas in my entire life because there is not a single person in this scene enjoying themselves yeah no one is smiling all of their faces are so dour like this must actually be footage from a vegas casino because like the commercials are all like hey we're having It's bright, shiny lights and stuff like that. But when you actually walk into a casino, no one is enjoying themselves. The mood of a casino is always at odds with what they're actually selling you. In my limited experience. But I've been in a few casinos and it's always shocked me how much it's like this scene and not like anything else.

I think the only person who seems to be enjoying themselves is the guitar player accompanying Nancy. Oh, yes. He seems to be into it. Yeah. The song's good. Love will abide. Take things in stride Sounds like good advice

But there's no one at my side And I It's called Long, Long Time, and it is a Linda Ronstadt song. Came out in 1970 on the album Silk Purse. So Nancy singing this song made me think, well, is this the actress playing her actually singing this song? Because she's doing a very capable job of it. I mean, I think she is. Yeah, I think she is, too.

So I went to look her up because, you know, sometimes somebody is like, you know, is she the 70s Lady Gaga? And I'm just not aware of it. You know, like, did I not know that she was like a singer and was in this also an actress? So let me guess. Yeah. I went to go look her up and was like, huh, I wonder if she has like other stuff going on. And then he went, oh, that's why she's so familiar because we've seen her in another episode of the rockford files oh i that isn't even it because that was my experience

because i did the same thing i was like i'm gonna look her up and i did it in this scene and she's the other lead in two into 556 won't go oh yes we're and she's in another episode as well this is her first of three episodes yeah uh jesse wells um is uh you know we have seen her be the foil to rockford as the main female lead before anyway that was my experience what were you going to say my experience was that she was the voice of eleanor in the ralph baxi classic wizards which there's no way in hell I'm going to recognize. But, uh, that was,

that was fun. Yeah, actually. And we have one more episode with her in it. Well, that's, that's exciting. That's something to look forward to.

There's a great closeup on her. She finishes the song. Like this is a nice, like lingering, like let's celebrate her doing this thing right now. Yeah, exactly. I appreciated that.

Uh, and she has a great voice. Jim then watches as, as soon as she's done with the song the two goons hustle her off stage and then out the kitchen out the loading dock and he sees them peel out in their uh peel out in the lincoln continental so he runs back to the to the bright green volkswagen to follow we are we're in for some fun here uh green beetle versus red yacht but before we get into it like this okay now they have abducted her from the bank she's been afraid of someone this whole time right she's constantly looking out the window put on disguises they abduct her from the bank and they seem to have taken her out to do this set and then

they're rushing her off to somewhere else at this point like the only thing i know about this show and i i have to confess that i do know that there's a money laundering scheme coming because that's in the blurb right right like maybe the first thing said on the IMDb blurb. But I am mystified by this goon behavior. Like I know it. I feel it. It is threatening. It's goonish. It is goon behavior.

But what is the purpose of this goon behavior? Where are they being steered? Why is this woman being handled like this? is this woman being handled like this if they're just abducting her to do something why is it singing at a place on the vegas strip and not you know like it just so i'm intrigued that's what i'm saying i want to find out i'm i am with rockford even though i feel like rockford should have been a little more concerned about her being abducted straight from the bank there's a little bit of that that's true he was like uh i'll just see if i can deposit this check yeah i mean it might be like i need to just get this deposited right now otherwise i'll never get a chance uh but yeah yeah well let's take a little break uh we want to make sure that you know where you can follow all of our other projects and interests online.

Epi, where can our listeners find you? You can Google Epidaya. I am the only one out there that I know of. You can go to dig1000holes.com. That's the number 1000. Or you can go to worlds, plural, without master, singular, dot com and find my work there. How about you, Nathan?

My internet home for all things NDP is at ndpdesign.com. You can find all of the links and information for all of my various games, including the Worldwide Wrestling role-playing game, my zines, and podcast podcast projects of which perhaps there may be more than one you can also find me on instagram and twitter at nd payoletta as always if you want more information about the podcast go to 200 a day.fireside.fm and now back to the continuing adventures of jimbo rockfish we. We get a very little hint at just how good

Rockford is at tailing people because he's a lime green beetle following them and they don't appear to have seen him do it. Right, absolutely not. Yeah, he follows them. They seem to head out from the strip slash

commercial Vegas out towards more residential in the desert Vegas, where we now see vistas that warm my southwestern heart. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. That's what it looks like out there. But there's a big fenced in compound that they turn into. So Jim leaves the beetle right outside the gate and sneaks in over a cinderblock wall. We keep getting horse foley, so there's clearly some kind of ranch situation going on.

There's horses. We do see a horse head over that wall, which made me wonder how big that horse is, because Jim had to climb over that wall. That's true. Yeah. We don't really get a great sense of the layout of this place, but he climbs a wall, gets past a horse,

sees Nancy being hustled inside some kind of room. He's also able to see like the front entryway where two guys in suits come out and they're having a conversation where we learn that one is mr robertson he is uh as we will soon learn our bad guy um and he is having a heated conversation with a japanese man who has spent long enough with his books and has nothing more to discuss with him so they had some kind of deal that is now being called off because uh his books

are suspect robertson is unable to convince the guy to keep talking to him and he leaves and then the first clear shot we get of him like waist up his shirt his jacket is open and his tie has a golfer on it and i was like aha yeah moss is involved somehow but no it's just it's just it's just a tie with a golfer on it um so jim is close enough to overhear this conversation right and then he sneaks back around to where nancy is he sees her through a window with one of the goons he finds an intercom like in the shed next to that area with helpfully labeled switches for different rooms so he calls into their room which i guess he deduces which one it is saying this is robertson bring the girl into the house and the goon assuming that of course no one no one would imitate uh the boss right jumps to it so great little

gym action moment he waits around a corner sees them come up jumps out in front of the two of them grabs the goon by the lapels pulls him around into the door to the like bathroom that's there and then punches him straight in the face

falls backwards through the door and then there's a beat and he shakes his hand and he's like oh darn i do that every time go after our last vegas episode we had the same thing we punched the punch the guy the other pi and then he's like oh i think i broke my hand um good season one rockford bit that i think is think starts to fade away a little bit over the run of the series. They wanted to punch slightly more often, I think is what it is. Maybe he gets better at punching so he stops breaking his hand. So he grabs Nancy.

They run. They cross the front entrance right as Robertson's coming out with the other goon and they are walking out to the car or something and then see them at the end of the driveway and start yelling and the goon takes a shot so there's the jim's been shot at bit yes i've checked that off my checklist we've got done it the chase is on is on as Robertson and the goon get in the Continental and Jim and Nancy jump into the VW and it heats up from here. This is a very fun chase. As you mentioned earlier, the differences between these two vehicles is going to get highlighted. And I mean, this first the end of the first season of rockford files but we're seasoned rockford files aficionados we knew that he was going to try and use that to his advantage

oh yeah uh and it was it was fun i like part of the fun of what happens next to me is him seeking that out like because like quite often he knows or you see him just immediately make a good decision and do it. Right. Right. Where this chase felt like he kept trying to find the way to take advantage of the differences between the cars until he eventually pulls it off. But yeah, it just felt fun that way. You know, he really only has one advantage, which is cornering because the other car is faster and more more powerful so he's able to get away get some distance between them by taking a fast corner through like a highway

intersection so the other car can't stop in time and has to back up and turn um and then it gradually catches back up with him as they drive back through the strip until he turns into a construction yard there's like some you know some looks like some apartment buildings or something being built and there's a big unpaved lot in between them and we get all the good uh he's he's cornering to get through like these walls that aren't quite built yet so they just have big holes on either side so he's going through those like they're like little underpasses and kicking up all this dust and then he finally finds a spot where there's two construction trucks it looks like a water truck and something else are backed up really close to each other and he shoots right between them and he knocks the fenders off of the

vw yes and there's a great i backed it up just to check um and you can see them kind of come off in the shot and then we cut to the continental coming to a stop because it's way too wide to get through there but we see the two bright green fenders on the ground in front yeah so i backed up to see if you could you know if, if that's where we saw that. Cause it's kind of a, it's kind of a visual gag. And when I played it again, you can see Nancy give Jim this look when they pop off the car. I don't know how they film that so well, but, uh,

it's a, it's a masterful little piece of direct, like we are watching Jim drive that car and we see those fenders come off. And I don't know how many times I had to do that take but it it works great it's i loved it and and this is one of those things where you you wonder if they gave jim a vw bug to do this shot or once they established that jim was going to have a vw bug at his disposal, they decided to do this shot. Like, I really, I kind of, I'm very curious about that. Yeah, definitely. Could have gone either way.

Go to a hell of a yellow room. Again, our palette really hits here with a big yellow wallpaper where Jim's saying that they're in an out-of-the-way location. They'll never find us here. So, he's bringing,

so this is a big exposition scene. We finally get kind of like what's going on. So I'll run over that in a second. The important thing here is that Jim brings in two cups, presumably of coffee, maybe water, two packaged sandwiches and two beers. So got a full meal

for each of them. Why did you stay out of it? You didn't bother to ask me if I wanted to go with you. It never occurred to me. I could have handled it. I could have promised that it wouldn't make any more trouble, but then you come charging in like this. Why are you eating? I'm hungry. You'll love to see it.

Overall, the story is that, as we know, Nancy was bouncing around the country. She sings at clubs and whatnot. Around six months ago, she was working at a club in Lexington where this Mr. Robertson founder said he thought she had talent and wanted to back her career. She went for it because she just was so sick of you know not making it yeah uh and signed contracts with his record company so she mentions like a couple things like i signed this i signed this i signed this and we see that jim's like okay i see where this is going she's been performing this lounge act in this lounge act in vegas and says that says that she's been making more money than she's seen before in her life. $200 a week. $200 a week for a Vegas lounge act. It has to be more than that. Well, that's all

that she sees. But recently, Mr. Robertson got a new secretary who is friendly with Nancy and told her about the secret ledgers. And in the secret ledgers, she's apparently been making $25,000 a week in the lounge and $20,000 a week from the record company. But no, that's all. Uh, all she sees is the 200 Jim sounds like you've been doing laundry. Yes.

Yeah. She says that it's syndicate money. Uh, Robertson's connected. She's being used to launder it into these legitimate business fronts but if she went to the cops the irs would get involved there's no records of anything and it's all in her name in her bank accounts so she's the one who would get in trouble and go to jail so that's why she hasn't you know she has no motivation to uh to spill

she ends up saying that she wants to she'll just apologize and promise that nothing like this will ever happen again uh and jim of course it's like uh yes it's not how these people work yeah there's no bargaining here once you're in you're in um so uh yeah that's so i guess that's the that's that's the story um her whole deal is that she kind of just wants what she thought she was getting which is like a record deal a good contract and to make money doing what she loves she doesn't seem to have any real like moral or like ethical issue with what's been going on with the the laundering or anything like that yeah yeah but she's aware that she's not getting what she was promised yeah um jim asks about uh the the guy robertson was talking to that's a mr mamato and he represents a japanese company called audiometrics so jim thinks for a moment and then says not to open

the door or look out the window he'll pick her up in the morning it's a fun scene uh there's there's kind of an opportunity for a fairly standard rockford thing which is like jim gets i don't know not under the skin but like like jim shares some of his like you know moral sense with the person and she changes her right or something but that's not what happens in this no no well mainly jim's appeal is to how much danger she's in right that's right that's all he's really on about right now he's concerned about his own prospects of you know this ten thousand dollar check that he's supposed to deliver or whatever and also he's concerned that she's in physical danger but she continually resists him kind of him him trying to be like you

know you could not do this and she's like no but i want my record contract right yeah so yeah so we have a scene break and then we cut to jim with nancy talking to mr mamato in his office and we come in mid-conversation and kind of get it backfilled, but Mamato's saying that you know, like, I'm not a citizen of this country. I'm not going to commit any crimes. Right. Which is fair. But Jim's asking him to do a

legitimate second look at the books, just to look at the ledgers one more time for this, for Robertson's record company. But while he's doing that, he's going to be an accessory to the breaking and entering and stealing that jim's going to be doing to get the secret ledgers yes ten thousand dollars isn't a lot to mamato but it's a lot to jim um and it's particularly not a lot compared to the three quarters of a million dollars that he thinks his company might have uh been been swindled out of by this deal yeah um so his company might have been swindled out of by this deal.

Yeah. So his company, Audiometrics, they manufacture audio cassettes and players and have been getting into the album market. And they've been buying into Focus Records. That's the record company. They've been wondering what exactly they've been buying with that money. So they talk about how they both have an investment at stake, even though they're of vastly different sizes. Butancy of course what about my contract don't you care about people and she wants to know and jim's like reassuring her like this is all going to work out

you know etc etc well how are you going to take care of my contract and there's this long pause before jim jim says just one thing at a time. This is what I really appreciate scenes in which it's clear that each character has their own concerns and none of them step away from it. Right. Right. You know, Ken Mamato has his company and his company's interests in mind, which is why he's like, whatever the $10,000 doesn't mean anything to him. He's got bigger fish fry jim needs that ten thousand dollars otherwise he's his whole the whole scaffolding of his pi business is going to fall apart and like you said before uh nancy just wants to be a singer like her thing is the most difficult thing of all to to actually resolve because whatever they do her

contract is gone right like either either this this mobbed up guy deals with her and she's the contract's the last of her concerns or they deal with this mobbed up guy and then who's going to honor the con like what nobody holds there is no contract right like it's so uh and it's just kind of fun i i just really enjoy that because sometimes you'll get in things like this, somebody who clearly has a stake in what's being said, but because it's not fronted, it falls away. And so they're present in the scene, but they're not defending their stake. Anyways, I'm just showing my appreciation for what went down in this one.

This one was a nice one. It's good where it's like the motivations are all crystal clear everyone's interest is very apparent and yeah there is no way to harmoniously resolve them just by talking like you have to do something uh all right so we get into the uh the the subterfuge part um so ken ken mamato has requested another meeting with robertson to look over his books one more time um they go up to a conference room and he says this time no phones no interruptions you'll be here to answer all of my questions uh this is all of course to get um robertson isolated so that jim can break into his private office is It's helpfully labeled as Mr. Robertson Private Office. This is fun because he clearly picks that lock, right,

to get into the office. And he snoops around. He finds the lock cabinet. There's an earlier detail where the secretary said that the ledges are in the mahogany cabinet or something like that. Yeah, the antique cabinet. Yeah, something. jim finds it then he tries to pick that lock but can't i guess like

he gets down with the flashlight and i was like all right we're gonna see jim do some lock picking stuff but he kind of pokes at it and then gets up and moves it so that he can get to the back of it instead and we see him yeah brace himself against the wall and just kick to the back of it instead. And we see him brace himself against the wall and just kick in the back of the cabinet. I want to point out that there's really good snooping music going on during this scene. Mm-hmm. There's been some pretty good music cues throughout this episode,

but I really did enjoy the snoopingin' take on the Rockford theme here so in the conference room Robertson hears the crash and he's like huh i wonder what that was i'm gonna go check it out and that's when ken is like no no i want an answer from you right now about this song it was on the charts for 10 months but according to this it didn't make any money what's up with that um she says in a more you know professional manner and that is enough to get robertson's attention and make him he's like you see here and he takes out a pencil it's like he's just gonna start writing like in the account whatever make yeah making up numbers right then and there uh yeah this is this

is a fun tension too because i i do have this moment wondering like is ken gonna be able to right right like it's it's over to Ken now. Ken has to save the day. Will he do it? And he does. Then we have a brief shot of Jim collecting the ledgers, and then he's away. And then we get to the most outstanding scene. Yes!

Well, actually, there's two outstanding scenes, but this one's one for the ages, I think, in terms of just the, like like this scene did not have to be like this but it is so we start with a shot of a plaster gorilla in the middle of a fountain and jim is walking with with someone around the fountain and we shortly learn that this is a district attorney that he's talking to he's offering him a chance to be a hero so jim has these ledgers these secret ledgers proving that robertson is laundering money through his record company he just wants his ten thousand dollar check back and he can get it back from robertson either way but he would prefer he

prefer for the government to get involved and also put rober a way. While this conversation is going on, they stop at a hot dog stand and get chili dogs from a clown. Yes. Not a happy clown. Not a happy clown. A sad clown. Yes, a sad, grumpy clown in full face paint and hat

and, you know, get up with the frowny face painted on serving hot dogs at an outdoor stand in the middle of vegas so jim lays out that he wants to be he can make the exchange just wire me for sound we'll agree on a code word let's say geronimo ger how are you gonna work that into a conversation how the hell do i know so now i know to pay attention to that word during this back and forth so the d is not sure about it you know jim did get them by committing burking and entering that's not great yeah and so the back and forth we keep cutting to the clown and he keeps looking between the two of them as he's

spouting out their chili dogs it's wonderful because what they're talking about is so like you would think you they would need to keep it quiet right like they're discussing a wire they're discussing you know trying to bring the mob in um and like jim has this great line where you know the the agent, like you said, you break any entry or whatever, and Jim's like, I'm sorry I didn't do it by the book. That's just the way it is. Yeah.

Which is great. That's just what happened. And here we are. I so love when the agent orders one chili dog and Jim is like, make that two. You're buying my chili dog here. Did Jim pay for it? No, I guess he doesn't have any money. Like you're buying my chili dog here. Did Jim pay for? No, I guess he doesn't have any money. Oh, interesting.

I don't remember. His hands are out of the frame, so it's hard to say. But yeah, the end of the scene is the DA walks away. Jim takes the chili dogs and then tells the clown. Don't worry, pal. We'll make it work out. So as I'm sitting here going like you know yeah what a conversation to have in front of some stranger and then jim clearly was also aware it's wonderful it's pure

rock for dishness it is it is and just the the exquisite bit about that that clown having like the painted on tears and everything it's very like like jim be like cheer up we'll figure it out uh it's good it's it's wonderful yeah i love how it's just like that scene could be in any episode yeah like it's in this one which is great it could be in any episode it's it's uh it's a it's a perennial it's it's a good one they're probably in front of circus circus right like i'm guessing that that's what's going on i guess yeah um i'm seeing if if he's credited and he's not i uh there's there's a little bit about this in in um the ed robertson book but like this they have like three days of location shooting in vegas so i wonder if this is just this is the guy like this is what yeah

this wasn't like cast like this is just how they serve hot dogs at circus circus or whatever um anyway it's great so uh we get to the setup uh where jim gives robertson a call and wants to make a deal all he wants is his check and his wallet and you'll in exchange he'll give robertson back his secret books know, how do I know you're not setting me up? He says, you set the place. We both come alone. We'll make the exchange. So where do you want to do it?

Just a quiet little place where we can have a private business dealing. And then we cut to Jim driving and driving and driving as he's going up to the Hoover Dam. Now I'm wondering if all of this was paid for by the nevada board of tourism right like this is oh well maybe we'll talk about that after that in our in our wrap-up preps yeah and yeah and so this is a you know a nice elongated visual of uh watching jim get up to the top of the dam. Robertson's waiting up there. And sure enough, they trade. Jim has his books. He gives Jim the check in his wallet.

I think Jim says something like, all right, there's your ledgers. And Robertson replies with, you should know you stole them. And there's a beat and Jim's like, well, I guess we're done here. Everybody's happy except Geronimoimo we let that pass without comment as robertson says that they're not quite done he wants the girl um he doesn't know where nancy is and then uh the goons pop out of the car where they have been uh

they've been hiding this whole time there's a a, you said you'd come alone. I lied exchange. Either Jim gives over, you know, gives up where Nancy is or he's dead. And then Jim sees a car slowly coming around the corner. You wanted your books. You got them.

Even Geronimo say that's a fair deal. What? And then Jim runs behind his car just going, Geronimo say that's a fair deal. What? And then Jim runs behind his car just going, Geronimo! And then another car comes around the other corner, and indeed the feds or whoever the cops have arrived, pulling out guns, and they have the goons covered. But Robertson makes a break for it. And Jim...

So... Yeah, yeah, yeah. First of all jim's like i got him i'm like okay jim you're very you're very ambitious yeah and he chases robertson and we have one of the most elongated foot chases in all of cinema my my first note the same thing he's like i'll get robertson and i like i'm like okay like we'll we'll let that happen because we're watching the rockford files and not watching agent what's his name's files agent hanzer sure looking at the credits why not um and then my first note is he goes into the dam, like that Robertson flees into the dam. And they just go down this incredibly long set of steel stairs. And having myself gone down 40 flights of stairs, I'm like, that would be so tiring.

That would just wipe you out. But that's just the very beginning of this chase uh at some point i'm like is jim gonna wake up in the village after this like because there's so many tunnels that like um yeah it is a long so they go through yeah these the steep stairs and there's no score through this whole thing so this is all a foot chase through this dam with just the footsteps and gasping yeah i just have like several lines of clippy cloppy those shoes just hitting this concrete oh man there's this long chase it's through a tunnel they go into like like i guess a turbine

room result you know yeah equipment and then we see them both getting more and more tired they go down another tunnel it's good comic pacing right it's happening and you're like okay where is this going and then it repeats and you're like is this what this is and then it keeps going it's like okay this is actually funny yeah yeah it has the right like the the capture at the end is because it's just uh robertson coming out of the dam and then jim coming out and just saying gotcha yeah they're both gasping for breath swaying on their feet yeah robertson like they come out of the like doorway or whatever and there's a little landing and there's more steps and robertson like they come out of the like doorway or whatever and there's a little landing and there's more steps and robertson stops like i can't go down any more steps

and just reaches out just gently touches him on the arm and does the gotcha and they both sit down next to each other on the top step the camera's pointing at them and then it pans up so we see the entire height of the dam all the way up to the top where they started it's so funny it's so good i i really enjoyed this episode but the that chase and the hot dog clown like both of those really ramps up at the end huh yeah they're they're worth the price of admission, like no matter what. There's a little bit about this in the Ed Robertson book. Apparently, first of all, the original script was a did not have a foot chase. It was another car chase. Oh, yeah.

All right. But it was to be staged to accommodate location yet to be selected. And then they had three days of location shooting in Vegas. But none of those mentioned the dam. Um, so they don't. And by they, I mean, you know, Robertson at Al, who he talked to for his book, don't know how or why they ended up filming that at Hoover dam. Like it's not in the script and it's not really in the notes.

Uh, though no one could recall for sure. Roy Huggins believed it was Steve Cannell who came up with the idea of staging the climactic action sequence at hoover dam and changing it from a car chase to a foot chase so you know obviously it happened but it does not seem to necessarily have been a let's do this in in partnership with you know national parks or something like that so that's a that is a hell of a thing. But yeah, it's a good one. Our criminal was brought to justice,

but that is not quite the end of the episode. As we go to a final scene with Jim and Nancy and a hell of a dress meeting with Ken Mamato. Ken wants to talk to Nancy about a new uh with he he calls it the focus recording company of japan i guess so i think there's some implication that like you know they're acquiring the company or something right out of all this they are making eyes at each other this whole time yes which feels a little sudden but okay and jim is kind of trying to mediate a little bit but then eventually gives up he's he's a very he's very much a third wheel yeah yeah yeah you're watching this you're like wait

why is jim here what's going on yeah and i think that that is in the text as well as uh yeah so uh ken's like the deal isn't set yet but here's roughly what we're thinking and he says something like fifty thousand dollars and guaranteed promotion seven percent of something and a five-year contract with annual renewal clauses and goes on and on and jim breaks in he says what's the hurry she just got out of this situation you don't need to rush into another contract ken tells him hey why don't you go take a dip in a pool? No offense. Why don't you go soak your head? No offense. And turns to Nancy to tell her to slow down and really think about this.

You know, this is her future. You don't want to get into another bad deal. And Nancy, with this barely restrained ebullience, turns to Jim and says that, I know you mean well, Jim. And I know you really want to do what's best for me, but bug off. And, uh, Jim just goes, just gives like a, all right. Yeah. And a freeze frame on his face as he's kind of like getting up from the table, but looking down. It is a weird expression that they choose to end on. It looks like, you know,

back before phones were the cameras that we used, sometimes you would take bad photos where your eyes were half closed. That's what this looks like a little bit, but it does reframe on a great joke. Right, right. It's a good joke. And it's like where he's, it's where he's just throwing in a towel and he's like, oh, look, I tried.

Right. I tried to be the helpful person in this situation, but clearly you're going to do whatever you want. And he's, yeah, so he's out of it. And that's the end of the episode. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. I think I didn't really know where it was going the whole time and it

definitely had those fun twists and turns at the end uh with the there's like the reveal of like here's what's going on and then we see jim make the plan to get the ledgers or whatever and then each scene after that just escalated in a different way just to be a fun scene um yeah uh which i liked um do we think he got paid so i was yeah i was wondering about that because moss disappears right and it's definitely more day i don't i don't think so if he got paid he got paid for no i don't you don't think he got paid at all yeah i don't think yeah because i can't imagine moss paying him for not succeeding in delivering the check, right? Well, but he does deliver it at the end. He does, but that's after Moss fires him.

I don't think he was fired. He said, call me when you have... Oh, you're right. Call me when you've rectified the situation or something like that. You're right, yes. Well, at the very least he's uh it would be disputed i'm sure moss would try and fight paying him especially certain expenses so he certainly well he got the flight like the flight was paid for up front so he did get the

flight to vegas and back and then based on the little that we see of moss my head canon is that he jim's like all right because we there's clearly at least one overnight in Vegas. So Jim, I imagine, would make the play for at least two, possibly three days of work plus expenses. And then Moss is going to be like, you barely work the first day. Then you lost the thing. So I'll pay you for one day. Yeah, exactly. But he doesn't pay for the bribe because he didn't get a receipt.

So that's down to a hundred dollars yeah he was he was out a hundred dollars on that uh yeah and moss would definitely try and get that first day prorated and uh i'm guessing he would be on the hook for the uh damage done to the vw oh yeah yeah i mean obviously the idea is to go through each of these episodes and see who can nickel and dime rockford for whatever they can he's down 10 cents from the slot machine yes but he did get a chili dog he did get a chili dog and i guess he probably used nancy's money to get the sandwiches the sandwich yeah sandwiches and the beer and i think that's it i think that's the extent when he sat down with them at the end they didn't they weren't necessarily eating at

that moment no they were just like at a hotel or something it was hard to say yeah the best case scenario i think is that jim got a free trip to vegas and maybe a little up on the deal yeah probably not much uh uh i think in the intro i mentioned that this episode and the previous episode the dexter crisis use vegas in very different ways yeah and i think that makes it kind of a fun compliment of the two of them next to each other because in the dexter crisis it's much more about the people and following the people through locations and we do get the casino that's more of a i think as you were saying that's more of a like tv casino where people are having fun yeah and it's staged for the show um

but then we leave vegas and then there's a lot of driving on the highways and all that stuff while in this one the location stuff is all vegas as it was at the time we see all the great facades all the um all the signs all the lights and then the very grim casino floor and you know like they they take they take your their time showing us her singing act right like i don't know if it's the entire song but we do get quite a bit of a song that just feels like taking in a show at vegas or or what have you yeah and this one definitely has a lot of scenic like like my notes are shorter than usual um and our you know so far as we record we're going a little shorter than usual because the episode content a lot of it is actually taken up with visual stuff with um yeah you know showing us the the strip and

everything and driving around showing us her song showing us that long foot chase yeah and the car chase was pretty long too and the whole snooping business was pretty long as well like it wasn't like super long but like when you add all of these together, a significant portion of this episode is not him interacting with other people. Or sorry, not him talking with other people, but him doing the physical stuff that doesn't require. Yeah, moving through environments and watching things happen in a good way. Like I think it's like the pace is nice. It's not like you're sitting there going like I'm waiting for something to happen. And it fits well with the pace of the the the plot yeah it's interesting because there isn't much of a

mystery uh there is i guess if you don't know that she's involved in a mundry laundering thing because you didn't check imdb before you watch the episode uh but but aside from that it there isn't like a ton of uh like trying to stitch things together. So it allows for this sort of fun physical scenes and whatnot. It's a very appreciation episode. We get to appreciate a lot of things. And they're in the service of a plot that is not complicated, but does require Jim to find out the truth of a not complex situation just one that is being kept from him because why would he be involved we get these episodes from time to time where somebody is

tangled up usually with the mafia uh or the mob in some way and it's up to jim to arrange something that undoes it whether it's putting the people responsible uh in the eyes like putting them in front of the authorities or if it's conning them or you know what have you so it's there's no reason not to reveal what's wrong because once we reveal what's wrong is where the meat of the episode that's where the real sort of comes in problem is is the solving of it not the finding of it. Yeah. This one also has an interesting twist on the, I guess,

as close as you get to the standard formula with Jim. So Jim's interest in the situation is all Jim-centric. Like, he's hired to do the job, and then because they take his check, he has to stick with it because otherwise he's going to lose his bonding, and then he's not going to have a job anymore right i would expect and i was kind of half expecting that we'd have the transition to jim being like well my interest is resolved but you usually you know female person who is still entangled with this right you're in danger so i'm gonna stay involved to help you to you know get get get you out of the situation but that actually doesn't happen here and if like she keeps trying to push him away and if his check wasn't involved you get the sense that he would

have just left because she doesn't even want him there and not in a like no i don't want you but really you should help me and they like i literally do not care that I'm laundering money for the mob. I just want to like, I don't know. It almost has a, it has a bit of a resonance almost with the, with the Dexter crisis in the like, uh, in that one, uh, Susan is the woman who's like on, you know, on the run or whatever. And her roommate gets the lecture from Jim about meddling. Like when you try to run someone's life for them, that's meddling.

This is Jim's Jim gets up to the precipice of meddling and then just doesn't. It's just like, yeah, it's like, all right, you've made it clear. You don't want my help.

All right, I'm out by, uh, which is non-typical and thus was fun to watch though. I kind of feel like you get the sense that, uh, Nancy does not end up with a great deal at the end of the day though maybe she does maybe ken's into her and they work it out i don't know

it's a it's a big question mark uh yeah i mean it's also one of those things where i'm like well whatever deal she gets is probably better than the one she had right right exactly like if anything else this guy's not mobbed up and laundering money through her. Yeah. And she was so close to happy with the one she had that like, sure. Yeah. You know, it's fine. Stay out of it, Jim. She'll enjoy your life. Right.

This was a season ender, right? Like this is the end of season one. Yep. This is the last episode of season one. It's not like modern shows where you'd be like, all right, let's see how they pick up these stories in the next set. Like, that's not how this show is constructed. But I think it does leave, leave you with a fun a fun like that was quite the foot chase through hoover dam that was a fun funny

memorable sequence that is leaving me that i will remember next fall when the rockford files comes back on my tv guide yeah right the the sort of three beats at the end there with the the hot dog clown the foot chase uh the geronimo joke in the middle there i guess and then uh this so we're getting more than three and then finally the just jim being told off um which is just a small thing but it's you know i yeah those have a momentum to them that could that i mean obviously brought people back in the fall i like we can't say just because of these like if i had to pick an episode to end the season on i may have well have picked this one i don't know i like i did i don't recall all the episodes of this season if i had them all you know and was shuffling them about trying to decide what's the one that brings people back um the way this one ended would

definitely put it in the running yeah i mean i think it is something that is like we will remember and be like what episode was that in again but yes yeah those two scenes that the hot dog clown and the who are damn foot chase i those are memorable scenes that will stick at least stick with me for sure all right so uh yeah so i guess just as it was a fun one to end the season on i think perhaps uh we can say it was a fun one to end our year on oh yeah well well picked not intentional but i'm glad it worked out that way again assuming this this uh this episode comes out somewhere around christmas new year's which it should but if it doesn't sometimes that's how it goes future historians will be able to line up the dates

and see how accurate we were with our prediction. I know it's not by the book, but it is what it is. Or whatever that quote was. I'm sorry, I couldn't do it by the book. That's just the way it went. Any final thoughts on Roundabout? The only one that comes to mind as I say that is I'm not quite sure why it's called that.

Oh, yeah. I have no idea. I expected her to break into Yes's Roundabout while singing, but that did not happen. Maybe it's because he goes roundabout to Vegas and back? I don't know. I feel like it's something like, that's a good title

for a TV show episode and it could be any TV show episode. Right. Yeah, exactly. It could have been the title for pretty much any episode in this season. And I would probably have the same question. So anyway, that's not a knock on the episode. Just a realization as I ask, what are your final thoughts on Roundabout?

Yeah, I agree. Not sure why it's named Roundabout but enjoyed it quite quite a bit thanks again to everyone for uh joining us for our continuing exploration of this wonderful television show we still have plenty to get to as we go into our sixth year of uh wow the show i mean pretty, pretty soon, uh, we're going to break the a hundred episode Mark. So prepare yourself for that. Yeah.

Nothing is maybe feel older. Well, I'm glad I could do that. That is a lie. That is an absolute lie. Yeah. Six years. It's very cool that we are still getting new listeners and people telling us,

you know, their thoughts on the show and joining us on, on, of course is always appreciated yeah so i guess i'm just here to say thanks for listening and if you don't hear from us for a while that is that is intention we're going to take that month of uh january off from posting uh but then after that we will be back with another episode of the rockford files something about a christmas theme well i was thinking the chances of me putting in the yes song are pretty high at the end here yeah I'll be the roundabout The words will make you out and out I'll spend the day your way Outro Music