Two Hundred A Day - Episode 110: Crack Back

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

Nathan and Eppy go to the courtroom in a "Bethisode", S3E21 Crack Back. Beth is defending a rising football star accused of murder during a violent robbery - but her defense is being compromised by someone stalking her. Jim wants to help her out with both, of course, but has to navigate what Beth wants (the best for her case) with what he wants (the best for her). It's our final wrap on prolific director Reza Badiyi, and with a great Juanita Bartlett script and wonderful performances from all of our favorites, it's a very strong episode! More on Reza Badiyi: * IMDB credits (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0046172/?ref_=tt_ov_dr) * Televison Academy Obituary (https://www.emmys.com/news/news/reza-badiyi-set-record-directing-most-hours-episodic-television) * Television Academy Interview (https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/reza-badiyi?clip=37896#people-clips) * Archived Interview from OCPC Magazine (http://www.payvand.com/news/07/nov/1145.html) 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) * Bill Anderson (https://twitter.com/billand88) * Brian Perrera (https://twitter.com/thermoware) * Eric Antener (https://twitter.com/antener) * Jordan Bockelman (https://twitter.com/jordanbockelman) * Michael Zalisco * Joe Greathead * Mitch Hampton's Journey of an Aesthete Podcast (https://www.jouneyofanaesthetepodcast.com) * Dael Norwood wrote a book! Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo123378154.html) * 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) * Brian Bernsen's Facebook page of Rockford Files filming locations (https://www.facebook.com/brianrockfordfiles/) * Tom Clancy, Andre Appignani, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley and Dale Church! 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 Dr. Soder. Now, my nurse tells me you've blown four root canal appointments. Well, you're finished in this office. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Poletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. Come to you today with a, to finish out the cycle, do our full wrap on director Reza Badi with season three, episode 21, Crack Back. So that's why we've chosen this episode. Crack Back. Yes.

I am excited about doing, talking about this episode. Yeah. about this episode yeah it's a in our in our between episode talk where we talk between our plus expenses episode and our 200 a day episode i think we said this is a pretty straightforward episode well i mean in context of the recent episodes we've been doing yeah we've had to had like a little bit of a strategy about how to talk about them uh either because the episode uh it was a bit of a departure or you know whatever but this one uh was a nice solid rockford files episode beth was in it which is great um a beth if you will bethisode yeah we get a little dennis rocky's and angel are both mentioned rocky is technically in it. Is he?

I don't even remember the scene. Answering the phone at Rocky's house and then he's in the lab. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. You're right. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Angel is mentioned, but like with plot relevance. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Even the answering machine plays a important role in the episode. Does it? Well, he checks it and there's a message on it. Oh, the answering machine in the physical answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have had a spell of non core character episodes for a while. So it was definitely, it did feel once Dennis showed up,

I was like, Oh, right. And if this is the very first 200 a day episode that you're listening to thank you for joining us but we don't watch them in order so the fact that we've had this uh stretch of them it's just random it has nothing to do with the actual rockford files or how they were ordered on television or anything like that this one does happen to come uh towards the end of season three almost the last episode um of that season um which you know is a real like there's like a real i was

gonna say it's not a creamy a nougaty middle i don't know that depends on how you feel about nougat i suppose there's like a real tasty middle of this show like the first couple seasons sometimes where we we talk about like oh it hasn't really found its footing yet or they're still settling into the characters or they're adapting a script from something else so it doesn't really have lots of rock pretty things in it whatever towards the end of the series they're doing more guest stars more weird stuff more episodes that like maybe don't even have a mystery in them like stuff like that which is still all good just a little different but like end of season three i feel

like is a real there's a real bell curve of like what kind of show it is and like end of season three season four is a real real rock fruity time yeah that all said we are as i said putting the rap on reza badi and so uh you know we've mentioned him in each of the episodes he's directed i think every time i've mentioned that he designed the hawaii 50 title credits with the iconic wave i can add to this now uh not with hawaii 50 but so uh emily and i have decided that we are going to watch mary tyler moore and uh we this mary tyler moore is become our time to put our troubled brains to rest before we go to bed episode show it's funny it's well done uh and it fits that zone of like it's probably not going to bring up a topic that's going to cause us any stress right now right like that zone of like it's probably not going to bring up a topic that's going to

cause us any stress right now right like that's so it's a good good like especially currently we are you listening this or not but currently uh well currently nathan and i are in the spooky season so you know you watch a scary movie and then you need something to to sort of get that out of your system before you retire to the dark anyways the point is uh we've watched maybe half dozen episodes so far and i i keep seeing his name in the end credits and but like i forget like i see his name i'm like oh raise a baddie like i did like i recognize him as the direct the rock profiles director of course and it wasn't until very recently that i paused it long enough to see what his credit is for. I think he did the Mailer and Tyler Moore title sequence.

He did. He did indeed. Including the throwing the hat thing. Yeah, yeah. That's all him. So it's two iconic TV title sequences. You know, I did a quick check. He has 21 credits on IMDb for title sequences. You know, I did a quick check. He has 21 credits on IMDb for title visualization. So that includes Hawaii Five-0, Mary Tyler Moore, Get Smart.

Okay, yeah. And other shows people may have heard of. So that's all in addition to his directing career. So as far as I can tell, he's the only person who has been awarded this particular award, which is the Directors Guild of America Award for Most Hours of TV Directing.

Wow. Which ended up over, he says it's over 420 at some point, and there was some other source where there was a specific number, but it's, at the time it was over 400 and then that he directed some more after that so it's in the the low to mid 400s of total hours of tv directed for this guy wow he's seems like a very interesting person uh he's iranian he studied uh cinema in our in iran and then he made a...

I don't have all the dates in front of me, because there's a lot. You can look them up. A lot of this stuff is from the sources linked in his Wikipedia article about him. So, you know, you can look through those. But he was a responder for there are some serious floods in Iranan in the i suppose that would be the 60s and he made a documentary film about the recovery effort about them and about like recovery and the red cross ended up showing that documentary across the world he was actually invited to come to the states it's a little vague because it's always stated as he was he

was direct he was invited by the state department to come to the states to do film to study more film he ended up at a school uh i forget exactly where but he ended up at a school where uh robert altman was also attending slash starting to direct so he ended up being a frequent collaborator with robert altman in his early career and so he's like an assistant director on like the earliest altman film and stuff like that neat and then yeah ended up parlaying that into being the most prolific tv director of of the 90s of the 90s of the 1900s at least um you know i don't know if anyone's been approaching his his uh his level since then so with all of that he did seven episodes of the rockford files and i have a little bit more to talk about with him but i i think maybe we'll do a quick hit

episode power rankings for his entries into the uh the show uh from first to to last that he directed he did the becker connection which is our episode 94 crack back which is this episode we're doing now um so i guess you know asterisk on this one because we haven't talked about it yet but yeah it's in the running second chance our episode 49 um so becker connection was the one where uh becker was framed for uh being a heroin mule or whatever drug deal yeah yeah um second chance is the second gandy episode or rather the third gandy episode whatever it's it's the other gandy episode yeah it's it's not the polish wedding right and it's not the first one not the hammer of cell block c yeah or the hammer of c block i believe you you always say it that way which is they're both good titles i think we we accept both titles here on 200 a day um the dog

and pony show our episode 75 that one is the one where uh there's a gangster who ends up in an asylum he thinks he's a cia agent trying to remember what the initial frame for it is oh right oh man that's been a while it's the one where jim goes to therapy oh yes or jim and angel go to therapy and then jim ends up in this like relationship with this woman who had had an episode and now no one's sure if she's actually if she's paranoid or if she something's actually happening yeah the imdb uh description helping a young woman with a history of mental illness leads jim into crossing paths with the mob and federal intelligence that's just beautiful just beautiful yes so yeah that's a kind of a sleeper i remember that liking that one quite a lot.

But yeah, sometimes I forget what the titles are. So that was our episode 75. Our episode 72 was Dwarf in a Helium Hat, which was the Rockstar one. A Fast Count was the one we did most recently with the boxer, the whole boxing situation. Oh, right. That's just the last one i was like i don't remember that one at all and a different drummer was our episode 98 and that was the medical horror one yeah yeah hmm we ranking them is that what we're doing or what i guess let's see

if we were going to recommend which ones out of these seven episodes would you recommend? I'd say that. They're all bangers, as they say, if they are me. Okay, so Dwarf in the Helium Hat is very, very aptly titled. Because I remember that one being a little bit of a romp. Which, I mean, it's hard because i don't quite remember all of the direction sure like i'm i'm grasping at like what the but uh i mean i'm thinking more inclusive not just not based on like i mean it's a little hard sometimes we try to call out shots and stuff

it's a little hard to say like how much influence the direction has on most of these right mostly it's the scripts but which i have something to say about actually that he talked about, but yeah, I guess just kind of inclusive as a body of a body of work. Yeah. The Becker connection is good. I remember really liking that one. Second chance.

I remember being, uh, pretty good too. Second chance has, has a, uh, that is Dionne Warwick in it too. Yeah.

So the second, second chance is a good one in Dionne Warwick in it, too. Yeah. Second Chance is a good one. In my mind, it suffers by being the middle child of the Gandy episodes. Because I really love A Polish Wedding. And The Hammer of Seablock is also a really good episode. But as we've discussed many times, um, kind of a bummer. It's a bummer.

And then they took the, the character that of, of Gandy and just changed him so that he, he wasn't this horrible or just ignored the fact that he was this horrible person in, in the other one. Um, but it is second chance is a good one.

Uh, yeah, I don't, I'm trying to remember yeah i think i would say just based on like my yeah how strongly they are in my memory yeah i mean second chance i just think it's like i agree that it's a little complicated because we have such a specific sense of right what we like about the gandy episodes and whatever but as a standalone episode it's got isaac hayes it's got dion warwick it's got yeah james garner like it's you know it's it's yeah it's good um even though i couldn't remember

which one it was based on the title i think the the dog and pony show i remember feeling like it was really well constructed like the surprise there was like a fun twist that actually felt like a twist and there's a lot of good angel stuff in it too yeah i thought a fast count was really good we did just do it yeah it's there's that other thing that i'm trying to avoid being just into the ones that i that are most present in my head which are fast count and obviously crack back yeah i think dwarf and helium hat yeah it's i don't remember it well enough to say that you should watch it over one of the other ones yeah um and the becker connection i think is like a real workhorse episode like it's real solid there's nothing wrong with it and we get some good becker of course you know what actually now that i'm thinking about it

because the becker connection has that one that seek that sequence where he comes back because it's his birthday right and he has to go and respond to a thing and then he comes back yeah and he's like in his house and has like the banner that says happy birthday becker and it's like falling down or whatever yeah yeah so from a pure visual storytelling standpoint a lot of that is coming back to me as i think about it it also has that like it has that final beat where the crooked cop is like on the ground and becker has to read him his rights while he's like all injured and stuff and they used to be friends like so that one might be pretty high up there actually i was just trying

to think of like other like solid becker episodes which is not what we're doing right now uh but if we were it would definitely be in the top you know along with uh um well that really early one where barnsworth stratagem yeah is that our first one is that our first episode it's like our third episode i think yeah anyway they're good episodes yeah i guess a different drummer maybe is the one that i'm that i would least recommend because it's kind of all over i don't know i wasn't super into it yeah i mean like if you got a one of them has to be at the bottom of the 10 or 7 there you go there's our muddled our muddled recommendations um they're good episodes uh i'll do my best to remember to put

these links in the show notes but um there are a couple interviews with him that have been archived over the years um he died in 2011 and there is a uh an interview that's on the television academy website which every so often has some great like that's where a lot of good like james garner interviews are and stuff like that that i've oh yeah yes and it's pretty extensive it's pretty long because he had such a long career but i was able to find this some the spot where he's talking about the Rockford files. So I'll link to that in the show notes. But, uh, there's a quote from where he starts talking about it, where he says that, uh, my wife used to say, I know when you're doing the Rockford files,

because when you go to the shower in the morning, I can hear you singing. And that was true. When I look back, I find the scripts that came my way to direct some of the best of them came in a rockford was truly intelligent script and the whole organization was uh was wonderful to work with and uh we were we were it was a joy to work over there and he actually goes into detail talking about david chase and how a lot of the stuff that ends up in the sopranos he saw from doing the dog and pony show and he's talking about the character of like the mafioso yeah like going crazy or whatever like working with that and then seeing how that you know developed through chase's career was you know he thought that was special um and then working with j and then seeing how that, you know, developed through Chase's career was,

you know, he thought that was special. Um, and then working with James Garner was wonderful and it was a very good time doing the show. That's great. You love to hear it. Uh, now join us for our next podcast,

the full 400, where we go through all 400 hours. If someone wants a podcast that will never end, you could do the full, the full 400. Yeah. That someone wants a podcast that will never end, you could do the full, the full 400. Yeah. That's pretty good. You'd be watching a lot of mission impossible.

That's one of the incredible Hulk in there. I was excited about that. It's like the most, the most episodes of mission impossible by any single director were done by him. Wow. Yeah, there we go.

So that all said, this episode is written by juanita bartlett uh yeah the fan favorite fan favorite and i think as with so many of her scripts the humanistic treatment of beth in particular yeah comes through pretty pretty strong so at the risk of this being a overlong episode we should probably go ahead and get to the preview montage yeah this one's actually pretty quick uh there's we see that beth's in it we see that dennis is going to be no help uh and uh we get a a good line that shows up uh part way through which is psychos get top priority with me um where beth is trying to get jim not to put her concerns at the top uh which is seems

very bethy beth like uh bethesque my only notes from this were it's a bethisode there's a threat to beth seems serious yep it moves real quick yeah hey epi did you know that we are a 100% listener-supported show? I did not know that. Wait, I did. I did. And it is because of our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. In addition to our gratitude, patrons also receive exclusive episode previews and plus expenses. That is the podcast before the podcast.

And that's where we talk about other stuff going on in our lives. Games and movies and all kinds of things. Yeah. We extend special thanks to our Gumshoe patrons supporting this episode of 200 a Day. Brian Bernson has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Check out facebook.com slash brianrockfordfiles. Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic and what it means to be human at the Journey of an Aesthete podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Dale Norwood wrote a book, Find Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold.

It's about fast ships, cheap drugs, and American political economy. Chuck from WhatYou'reReading.com. Paul Townend, who also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, Serial Killers of Color, at FruitLoopsPod.com. Shane Liebling, his site RollForYour.Party, has all of your online dice-rolling needs. Jay Adan, check out his amazing miniature painting skills over at jayadan.com. Andre Apignani, Tom Clancy, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Hawley, and Dale Church. And finally, we can't thank our detective

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you can do so for as little as a dollar an episode at patreon.com slash 200 a day. Thank you. Thanks so much. Speaking of moving real quick. Yeah. Over the opening. Yeah, we start off with our titles right over a scene of chaos as two guys in ski masks are

holding up a bar, one with a handgun and one with like a full long rifle, which is pretty intimidating um there's some business where they're like we got all the you know we got all the receipts but everyone throw your cash on you on the table on the way out and the the bar owner uh manager who will see more of later he's telling everyone just to you know stay calm just do what they want but unfortunately the bartender who has been holding up his hands the whole time, edges over to an alarm button and hits it, ringing what sounds like a fire alarm.

And one of the goons reacts by shooting him. And he goes down. Everyone, you know, is running and screaming. And I think we see one of them go over to check and he comes up and he's like has like blood on his hand or something yeah uh and then they they they make their escape as we crossfade with our additional titles um to find uh the firebird cruising through the streets of la to finally uh arrive at harcourt and lowes The one thing I wanted to say about that opening, because most of my notes about this opening thing

are just about the tension in it, right? Like, there's lots of good shots showing you that the robbers are twitchy, and you can see that the bartender is inching towards setting them off. My notes are like, don't do it, don't do it. And the other thing is that, we'll find out that his name is gibby we know that the place is called gibby's place uh from the the outside or whatever but gibby in the powder blue uh suit the who's telling

them to go along uh he to me i don't know how, but to me, he felt like he was in on it. So this is, uh, I, I remembered only portions of this episode and not what the underlying mystery or like how it all works out or whatever. So like I'm making guesses as I'm making my notes. Yeah. And in my guesses, I'm like,

I don't, I don't trust this Gibby character. Yeah. I suppose you were right not to do so, but not for that reason. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he definitely seemed kind of mobbed up just from the get-go. So, you know, that's always suspicious.

We learn quickly as Jim joins Beth that she is defending Davy Woodhull, who is a running back who's been benched for most of the season, but who was picked up by the cops the day after the robbery. And he was wearing an expensive wristwatch that matched the description of one that was stolen. And so that was some other circumstantial evidence led them to bringing him in for the robbery. So they go to talk to Davey, and Jim is starstruck as he is talking to a football star. As he says, one of the most promising running backs in pro football. The reason that Beth has called in Jim is to find a girl that Davey said he was with the night of the robbery. That's his alibi,

but she's vanished. She doesn't want to, she hasn't come forward because Davey says that she's married and doesn't want, you know, isn't willing to face the scandal or whatever. Married, but separated.

She's got a kid and she's trying to get custody of the kid. And that's why she doesn't want to come forward. And Beth says that the, you says that the cops are on it. She doesn't think they're going to turn anything up. And she had someone else on it. And Jim immediately gets offended. The phone book is full of PIs. Such a good line. I mean, it's a good line for Beth to deliver to Jim.

Like, I feel like that's a good moment oh you were my first choice naturally but you were fishing you're always fishing yes jim despite being offended that he didn't already hear about this even though he was fishing um uh he asked if he's gonna if the job is going to be for cash or for like another favor or something like that for cash yeah i want the job and i'm not always fishing sometimes i watch football yes so this is probably an opportunity for us to revisit jim and beth their whole thing yes because it's been a while since we've had a beth episode yes so i mean this episode we're gonna see uh them you know jim really cares for beth and beth really cares for jim uh some clear implications and

whatnot uh but also why you don't mix business with pleasure i guess is what what it comes down to uh in this in this moment this this thing where beth uses a pi that isn't jim uh it's clear that jim owes beth money probably for uh lawyering that she's done there's a there's kind of an eternal balance sheet with them right yeah like yeah she you know she provides him with both uh uh formal and informal legal services he does stuff to help her out with cases sometimes sometimes again formally sometimes informally and so there's often this point of like so am i on the clock for this or is this a favor right and right i have no sense do i think either of them is going to, like call in their chips to mix the metaphors, right?

Like the nature of the relationship is such that they both use the fact that this back and forth set of favors happens to their advantage when they need something. Right. Right. Um, at no point are they going to settle up in any way? Yeah.

At least not in the scope of the show. The movies give us a little bit of a different interpretation. Yeah. There's an imbalance here where I think the assumption is that Jim is probably more often in need of just the straight cash than he is in working down, in, uh, working down his debt or anything like that. So like, yeah. Yeah. And then I think this episode,

we'll see more of this in later scenes, but this is also, um, this kind of gives us a look at them operating in a, in a state of, uh, romantic parody, um,

parity with a T. So some of the other episodes with jim and beth there's another person involved in a personal relationship with one or the other of them like someone like a man that that beth is seeing or a woman that jim you know is interested in or whatever and so the fact that they have this interest or relationship with a third party creates some of their dynamic. In this case, we actually see all of the stuff, all of the plot in this one is, I guess, professional. I mean, it's personal, as we'll get into, but it's revolving around the case. the case uh and so we see them kind of in a state where neither of them is particularly neither of them is particularly attached to anybody else right so we see a lot more of their just casual flirtation not even flirtationists but they're they're casual um physical

just a relationship right yeah yeah there's a bit in here where, as it begins, I'm wondering, like, Beth is being very evasive in her answers of things. Like, she got a different PI. And, you know, Jim wasn't the first person that she went to on this. And so there's a little bit of it here where this client of hers is a young man who's attractive. And so there's this moment of like, is that what's going on? Like, is Beth? But Beth wouldn't be involved in a client. Well, she's involved with Jim, so maybe she would be involved in a client.

But like, that doesn't really pan out in any manner. It's not even like proven wrong because just isn't a thing that's happened. It's just what I'm reading into it. Yeah, the evasiveness is just the like, if I give Jim a name, then he's going to get all weird about it. Right? Yeah.

Let's just cut this off the past. I just couldn't get a hold of you, okay? Now you're on the case. You don't have to turn this into a thing with some other PI, which could be the episode, but that's not this episode. Yeah.

I think we all know that the other pi is is uh vernon st cloud i mean it loses though yep yep i think that that tracks so speaking of her client davey uh jim you know goes to talk to him from seeing him in the preview montage and then in like his first appearance here I was like, oh, this guy. And then I couldn't remember why he was a this guy. I was like, oh, this guy is such a slime ball. He doesn't have any other Rockford Files credits. I was like, where have I seen him before? Why do I think he's a bad...

I think that this is going to be a character who is a slime ball because of this actor previous role that I've seen. He's in a Col i've seen he's in a colombo he's in the there we go he's in the bye-bye sky high iq murder case and he's not the victim or the killer he's this uh ambitious accountant in this accounting firm that's owned by the killer he like tells tales and he you know is trying to to get a leg up and he ends up having you know colombo comes and talks to him a couple times and yeah it's it's good stuff but um he's a real slimy character in that and so that's what i'm yes associating which i think most of this episode is not trying to give me that portrait of this character. Most of this episode is trying to give me the idea that he's been wrongfully accused.

Yeah, he's a little aw shucks, even as some of the stuff doesn't pan out that he should be. But yeah. So when Jim talks to him, again, he's slightly starstruck. Talking to a football running back. But we, you know, get all the exposition about the finding this this woman, Doreen, that he was with as his alibi. He fills in about what you were saying, exactly why she wouldn't come forward and mentions that she's obsessed with her. She's like a stage mom. She's obsessed with her kid, thinks he has a future in pictures. He's only four and a half and he like has like red hair and freckles and an overbite so but she's

obsessed this poor kid we never see the kid well we see a picture do we see like i jim sees a picture i don't remember if we see a picture of the kid do we see a picture of the kid we do see a picture of the kid because i made a note that was like this kid doesn't look so bad yeah okay all right it's not very long it's like a little quick chat but anyway uh this is all important later we end the scene with davy saying that this whole experience has actually been reassuring because like his coach is standing behind him and his teammates and and beth and no matter how it comes out he he feels reassured that people are sticking with him, aren't going to let him go down for something he didn't do. Following this, Beth and Jim go to the elevator as he's leaving,

and he has some fairly innocuous comment where she snaps at him. Yeah. And he's like, hey, what's going on? She admits she is running a little ragged. There's been lots of stuff in the press about Davey. It's all circumstantial evidence, but all this attention has an effect um he says okay well he's going to go talk to he's going to go to gibby's place see if he can find out anything there and then asks her if she wants to go to dinner after i'm a sucker for a rotten disposition

it's true ain't true that's true but she takes a rain check um and you know it's just she has so much to do uh the trial starts i don't remember if it's the next day or soon whatever but you know she's very busy etc uh and he understands and so that whole interaction he's trying to disarm her with some humor and he sees what he's doing and appreciates it even though she can't she doesn't feel like she can actually like go to dinner right yeah so there's some nice warmth there yeah and we as an audience haven't been let in on the exact reason for the short fuse yet so we're still with jim like what what's going on beth like what's happening? So Jim goes to Gibby's place to find out more. He's the first customer of the day.

And so for good luck, Gibby invites him in to have a drink on him. No cover charge. No cover charge. And he kind of flashes his wallet. He doesn't really, like, I thought he was showing Gibby that he was a PI or something. But he just kind of pulls his wallet out and then puts it back. So I guess maybe like he was willing to pay or whatever. It's like,

no, no cover charge. Yeah. I think that's what it was. So he's asking about the robbery. Uh, and we, and you know,

we get Gibby's interpretation of the thing, which is like, it was definitely that guy is definitely Davey. Yeah. Always with a big smile. How you doing, Pop? Can you believe that? That's what he called me, Pop. How old are you, Gibby? 40. 39, what?

43. What's that? I work out. What's that got to do with anything? Well, you know, if you're 40, 60's old. If you're 20, 40's old. So, you must have been young. you were pops to them that's really all you know that they're young i know that davy woodhull knocked this place over well i was trying to remember this when i watched it and now i i don't know which side of this i fell on

because this conversation is both about uh davy and the robber and I think Gibby says that the robber called him pops right something like yeah I'm a little unclear again looking at my notes whether he was talking about the robber or talking like he didn't like Davey because Davey would call him pops I I'm trying to remember because I think specifically Jim was like oh okay so if the robber called you pops the robber is probably 20 years old that makes sense i think that's what was going down with but i remember being confused in the moment too like i couldn't figure out who they were talking about at that time i mean i was also you know looking at gibby's lapels so i was distracted yes by those as well and when jim questions him again like well

how can you be really sure that it was Davey? He takes Jim's drink that was placed in front of him and pulls it back away from him. It's really nice. He's like, well, I know it was him. Well, what if you're wrong? And so Gibby gets a little more confrontational. His two bouncer goons roll up. I feel like they're both bouncers and goons.

Yeah. And this is a great Rockford Files moment where the bouncers have his arms and Gibby reaches out, grabs his breast pocket where he'd put his wallet and just tears the whole pocket out to get his wallet and find out who he is. Private investigator. So he does not like that a PI who is, you know, sniffing around to help get this guy Davey out of what he did is in his place. So he tells him to tell Davey a message. He did the job and he's going to pay for it. And that's a promise. And he tells his goons before they get rid of him, show him how he's working for the wrong guy.

This is a scene that the phrase manhandling was invented for it's one of those things i can't like have we seen that before it's it's so it's good it's pure rockfordishness the just ripping the whole pocket out to get his wallet oh it's so good uh at this point get like in my notes gibby's guilty. Oh, yeah. Right. It's like, did he set it up himself and now he's pinning it? And then since someone got killed, he needs to pin it on someone. Something like that, right? There's that plus the fact that the business we see at the beginning very clearly shows them robbing every person in the club. Not just the cash register.

Right. Which makes me think, oh, okay, so clearly maybe he gets some insurance money for being robbed, but also he gets all of this. It's actually just cash money. Yeah. And he certainly is not giving us a portrait of a level-headed guy in this scene. No, not at all. We go to Beth's apartment, which is, as as we always appreciate very yellow and full of

plants yes um so this particular apartment set is not the same as some other ones that we've seen for her it's more extensive i think because we're going to have multiple scenes in there the the layout is kind of important as well that like uh she needs to have neighbors and we need to and a separate bedroom and like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so i'd have to go back to the tape about whether they've used this particular one multiple times or not but uh it is at least decorated in the beth davenport style that we've come to appreciate yes uh mid-century davenport um it's it is a mid-century davenport we uh uh we have a great storytelling beat it's kind of a combination of all the things um but there's a knock at the door we hear that it's jim and from the threatening tone of the end of the last scene and his tone

of voice when he says it's jim Yeah. You can tell me what you thought, but I expect her to open the door and him to be just like totally beat up, right? Yeah, I was expecting, and she comments on him looking like he's beat, but he doesn't look as badly. He looks fine, but he's messing with his pocket, which is all torn.

Yeah. Like, are you okay? But I'm expecting him to have black eyes or a you know a bandage or something right he says that oh gibby was out for blood mine was available but i made a couple of pretty good moves got out of it all right yeah uh that line gibby was out for blood mine was available as a just a exquisite uhford line. Thank you, Juanita. She does good ones. She does good ones.

And just the total off-screen made a couple of pretty good moves. Like, okay, we can imagine what they were. We don't need to see it. It's good. He kind of gives her like a kiss on the cheek in the middle of delivering the lines. Like, he's fine. He's fine. Yeah, yeah.

Been through worse so jim has come to uh he wants a little more information about the the case against davy while they're talking about that he kind of sits down on the couch and he picks up this wrapped present that had been on the arm of the couch um she lays out that there's all this circumstantial evidence but it can all be explained away like he had the same watch but like it's not like it's a new you know it's a watch he's had for years but there's he doesn't have a receipt for it or anything because he bought it so long ago in a different city um he has the same make and model of car is the one that drove away from gibby's but like there's lots of that kind of car

in la uh he had some blood on his sweater but he cut his lip in practice and he and the bartender happened to have the same blood type etc um so far jim hasn't turned up anything on this woman doreen and then he asks about this present and she snaps like no and i don't want to talk about it either yeah okay so he respects that puts it down uh he goes to leave um to continue his you know his investigation and she stops him saying oh she does want to talk about it so now we get into the the the meat of what's going on here i do want to say the business since we're we are talking we're wrapping on Razor Baddy here, the business with the present, I think, is a real good bit of physical something going on. He sits down and he picks up the gift, and he's just casually futzing with it. It's not a thing to him, but it's clear that it's a thing to Beth.

I think the scene is shot very well to make the audience go what's going on like what's this gift what's the um i remember because i paused it to take some notes right when she goes to open the door and in that shot the the gift is sitting on the arm of the couch so it kind of stands out a little bit it's not on the table you know and i remember being like there's a rat present um yeah and then like a couple minutes later you know jim's picking him up and playing with it and like it was just so intentionally it wasn't centered like you have to look at this but it's just like exactly in the in the frame in a way that made it a little bit more prominent than maybe it otherwise would have been yeah you wouldn't miss it but it wasn't like it wasn't

like the camera zoomed in on it with a pull focus right right and the music went you know but it yeah so she's been getting these weird presents she got a letter from something called the harriet bergstrom foundation devoted to the complete liberation of women social financial sexual uh that she was a potential grant recipient. And then she started getting these gifts. The first was an art book of nudes. Nudes. And she's like, which is fine,

but like, why are you sending me an art book full of nudes? Yeah. That was the second gift, satin sheets. And they fit. My bed's queen size, they're queen size. And the third gift will probably offer you an opportunity to buy all the swampland in Florida. I don't

think I want to know what the third one is. Yeah, Jim's like, this is clearly a con. And she reads something more sinister into it. And the presents themselves, gotta give Juanita Bartlett credit for this i think

um the the whole run of the present as we go through uh start off with such plausible deniability it it puts beth in a situation where like how do you like they sent me an art book right it was full of nudes and beth is like i know there's nothing wrong with nudes in an art book right but but as she says like who sends a 30 art book yeah yeah exactly as part of a promotion or a scam or whatever which yeah it's an expensive art book going by our inflation yeah that's that's a 150 is what our our uh back of the envelope but in addition to these weird gifs, she hasn't opened the third one yet, right? So in addition to these weird gifs,

she also feels like she's being watched. She knows it sounds like she's being paranoid, but it is something that she's feeling. And Jim again tries to lighten it with some humor, saying, well, if you aren't, there's something wrong with the male population of this town. Oh, God. It's like, nice try not the best not the best

shot no that does not lighten the tension because she's serious she's really freaked out so he says he has a line where he specifically says um if i thought there was something wrong i would tell you but i think you have the pre-child jitters. You know, you've been working really hard on this case. This is a weird coincidence kind of thing. But, like, don't let it get to you. And she does feel better for having told him about it. But then we see her put the chain back on the door after he leaves in a very decisive manner. Now, at this point, I'm like, Jim, just listen to her this is fine i'm gonna be frustrated

with jim for all of 30 seconds right right you know uh but the other thing i had is like um this this is maybe my only like i don't understand why they did it this way she's telling jim that it's not that it is something to worry about Jim saying it isn't they haven't a wrapped present there that will prove to be good for either one of their cases and they don't unwrap it and that's that they will but like in them that moment they don't unwrap it and I'm like oh that's odd all right from a storytelling point of view we see why there's a thing that's about to happen. But like, yeah, I think.

Yeah. I mean, I guess my read of that, that didn't really strike me in the moment. And I think my reader that is kind of like Beth has already Beth has already stated that she doesn't want to open it. Right. She's like, don't know. Yeah. Don't open that. So Jim does kind of have the soft like, well, that what that probably is, is, you know, the offer. Right.

Yeah. And my read of she still doesn't want to open it is is you know the offer right yeah and my read of she still doesn't want to open it feels you know yeah she's like it still freaks me out that it's even there i don't want to open it yeah because we see her go look at it in this next scene also yes so there's a this is a really nice match cut here where she closes her door door and then slides the chain to the inside of jim's door as he comes into the trailer which is very pro very nice um he checks his messages as he's looking at his mail and there's a creepy message she has a very nice apartment enjoy your date rockford creepy yeah we then go to beth where she's trying to sleep and is

woken up by the phone call. Same creepy voice saying, tall, good looking guy, but he left with his coat on. Didn't stay long, did he? Which is awesome. Jim tries to call her, gets the busy signal because he's hitting the phone while she's on it. And we have

some very ominous music come in as she does take the wrapped package we see her thinking about opening it there's a lot of good gretchen corbett physical and facial acting in this episode we have a lot of scenes where like she is worried she is going through emotions and we see them clearly in her face and her mannerisms, which is really, really good stuff. She goes to her window to close her. She notices that her curtains are open. She goes to her window to close it and looks across and sees a dramatically backlit male figure watching her from this walkway of the apartment building opposite her.

She gets very scared um again with the physical acting it's like i think we see that she is so freaked out that she can't really she's trying to close the curtains but she can't like operate them correctly um yeah like it's it's pretty it's it's pretty intense um and then she runs out of her bedroom as there's a knock on her door, and she gets even more flustered and terrified. Yeah. Until we hear Jim announcing himself. It's Jim. It's Jim.

Yeah. So she's immediately overwhelmed with relief, opens the door, tells Jim what just happened. He goes to look. Obviously, the person is gone now. He says he'll go talk to the hotel manager, and she she tells him not to leave she doesn't want to be alone she's not afraid of things she can see but she doesn't know who's doing this to her how do you fight a voice on the phone as jim is opening that last present like okay let's see what the hell this is and it's a like shower massage wand, like girl's best friend item.

So again, escalating the sexual nature of these anonymous gifts. So that I think clearly puts it in the, this is a scam. This is something else. Each one of these gifts on their own may have some sort of plausible deniability. But as they start adding up, yeah. Plus the phone calls. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah jim is 100 like he's like okay this is clearly what's going on yeah he says he'll talk to dennis uh go stake out that the building in case that guy comes back and this is where bet from the preview montage beth says that no i need your top priority to

be the case he's like well psychos get my priority. There's a little bit of a back and forth here where Jim is more concerned about Beth than he is about her case, right? And Beth wants her case to be top priority. We are starting to take testimony tomorrow morning in a murder trial. First, you have to find Doreen Carpenter. I have to? Yes. How about please? Please.

Okay, counsel. It's not a good look for jim in this moment but yeah again it feels a little bit like trying to diffuse the moment with humor right and she does have a relief in her voice when she says please yeah yeah it's interesting because like i think i think these things are very well done i think j Jim is – the fact that he couldn't get Holder on the phone, so he immediately just came back over. Jim's like, oh, I was wrong. Beth needs me right now. It's not something I have to deal with in the morning. He doesn't know she's getting a phone call.

He doesn't know that – Well, other than that, her number's busy when he calls her. Yeah, exactly. So Jim is reacting appropriately. But even as he reacts appropriately, he still isn't quite where Beth needs him to be. There's a very interesting thing that happens in this episode. I think probably when we get to some of the trial stuff it'll come out but like beth uh one of the things i like about beth in this episode is that she's both a woman being

stalked who's being terrified by this but also an exceptional defense lawyer none of this is going to stop beth from being the best beth she can be Right. Right. Yeah. So, and this is, this is one of these moments where it's like, Beth, this is the thing you should trust Beth on, which I think is true. Yeah, no,

that pans out to be true. And Jim, Jim doesn't want to, because he has his own experience in his own things. Yeah. I think this is good stuff. I think from the last scene through this one, things yeah i think this is good stuff i think from the last scene through this one i think jim just isn't really calibrated into her level of of discomfort yet yeah and then i think from

now on he's on the right wavelength but it takes like this little weird bit at the end here where she says like please yeah but then he has to have one last little play where he's like, all right. And he's like, going to go continue the case. So he goes to the door again and she stops him and says, you're staying, aren't you? And then he. Yeah. I think expecting this, you know, like puts the lock back and smiles. And it's like, I'm I'm staying like, of course I'm staying.

But they had to, like, have that little I don't know, that little back and forth to kind of... Their whole thing. Their whole thing. She has to know that he wants to protect her more than whatever she wants. Yeah. It's important to him that she knows that she's his priority, even if she's telling him to go have a different priority. All right. Let's take a little pause in the action here so that we can all sit back and catch our breaths and Epi and I can let you know where you can find us elsewhere on the Internet.

Because as it turns out, we do do other things than talk about the Rockford Files from time to time. Epi, where can our fine listeners find you and your work? You can find my work at www.worldswithoutmaster.com. That's worlds, plural, master, singular. Or at dig1000holes.com, with the thousand being numeral one zero zero zero. I like complex URLs. You can also find me on Twitter at Epidiah, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. Where can we find you, Nathan? The hub for all of my stuff, from games to zines to podcasts, is ndpdesign.com. I recently started a new podcast called Appendix NDP, which is a solo show where I talk about various topics in games and publishing so i will plug that for listeners of podcasts you can also find me on twitter at nd paoletta p-a-o-l-e-t-t-a and on instagram at the same handle though i probably

will only have pictures of my dog so you know that may be a plus now we return to the adventures of jimbo rockfish on 200 a Day. We do go into some witness testimony. And this is, as you were saying, we see Beth just being the best Beth she can be. So this is one of Davey's teammates. He's being examined about this watch. And the testimony as elicited by the prosecuting attorney is that you never saw davy with that watch like through practice or anything because part of the evidence is he has this fancy watch that gibby says was stolen from from him right yeah beth through this whole thing her head's down she's

frowning she's clearly distracted it doesn't look like she's listening and even has to be asked by name multiple times by the judge if she wants to cross his salmon then she asked davey what was the last thing he said dave's like are you okay i'm fine what was the last thing he said and manages to just come out of the gate and just nail him with this uh by asking about the ring so he's like you know are you close personal friends well we're buddies well that's not close personal friends you see him you know, are you close personal friends? Well, we're buddies. Well, that's not close personal friends. You see him, you know, at practice and sometimes socially. Does he wear a ring?

And the guy can't answer for sure. And it's like, okay, how do you not know that he's wearing a ring, which is much more apparent than a watch, which is sometimes under a cuff or whatever. So, like, she comes out and she's just like, bam, just, you know, totally undercuts the testimony of this guy. Does good lawyering great great beth stuff great beth stuff the uh my thing here in my notes is just like actually i think i recognize watches more than rings but that's neither here nor there yeah what she does in the trial is great in reality i think i am more likely to recognize and maybe not recognize, but just note someone's watch that I am,

if they're wearing rings or not, because, uh, maybe not, but cause I guess if he was wearing a ring, it would be like a super bowl. Well, not a super bowl ring,

but like a, like a little bit of an ornate. It'd be like a fat, like it would be for fashion. It wouldn't be like a wedding ring, which might be like low, low key. Yeah. Yeah. I think watches is some watch is something you draw attention to right what time is it but anyways that's neither here nor there she won that scene right right yeah she won she wins the scene

and it's a bit of a it's actually kind of a i think there's kind of a subtle read to it, which is this is foreshadowing the entire nature of the case, which we'll get back to in a bit. We see that there's another package being dropped off at the front of the, I mean, I guess of the court building or office or something. uh the doorman keeps the delivery guy there long enough for beth to come down and we see her hold out a five dollar bill and then you know interrogate him about you know where did you pick this up who gave it to you etc etc there's some good back and forth here to get this information where and then it's like who gave it to you he's like i don't know some guy he gave me 30 bucks i wasn't gonna like yeah like i wasn't gonna you know ask him his life story or whatever it's like which i think is a nice little note to like establish the trouble that is being gone to because like 30 bucks is a lot yeah you could buy an art book with that amount of money you could buy an art

book so this gets clarified in the next scene but this, I think it might be a bit of a, uh, because our times have changed. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. Um, but it's a big box that's wrapped up. She opens it and we see there's this like yellow cardboard box with a brand name on it. And then there's a small, uh, there's a small thing on top and she picks it up and we see that it's a, I mean, to me, i thought it was a book cover but it's just like pleasure girl and it has like a you know a mostly nude woman on it and then she stuffs it

inside the yellow box and tells the guy like hold this for me i have to go do something i thought that it would like i was like i don't know is that something for use in the bedroom and she's so like oh my god that she doesn't even want to look in the other box. It turns out that this is, it's a film reel. Yes. We would not recognize that because today it would be on a thumb drive, uh,

or whatever. Right. But you know, or, you know, like so much technology has changed since then. It would have gone to VHS DVD. But yeah,

so, so it's a, it's a film projector with a yeah with a with a porno film included for her so somebody had to send an entire projector along with it which is exquisite i think it's just uh like yeah big big 70s energy yeah yeah um but yeah so she got the address where it was picked up from this guy. So she goes there. It's this big fancy house. There's a little plate that says

the Harriet Bergstrom Foundation on it over the doorbell. No answer to the bell. No answer to the knock. She goes in. We have more ominous music. Dim lighting. There's sheets over all the furniture.

Hello? She slowly goes up the stairs there's a room with the door kind of half open she pokes her head in anybody here turns on the light and it's covered all the walls are covered in black and white photos of her yeah from the street to work to in the shower we even get the spinning camera shot around her as she stands in the middle of the room looking at all of them and and the vertigo that comes along with that yeah the music dies down as she's taking it all in and we have a couple moments of of no no music just just the silence of her looking at them all and I think we see on her face that she goes from terrified to furious and starts pulling photos off the wall, ripping them, throwing them down.

And then there's a noise and she stops. And our music comes back up as she slowly creeps down the stairwell. And there's one real thriller movie style close-up of her on the banister like looking over the banister yeah like it's not really a horror movie look but it's like a hitchcock yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah it's a it's a very effective tension building close-up of her face as she's trying to figure out if there's someone in that house with her or not. Yeah. And then she finally does run out of the house without encountering anyone. And it is a hell of a scene. Yes.

We go to Beth returning to the house, this time with Jim and Dennis. And this time that room is empty. Everything is gone. And she insists it was real. And there's kind of a beat. But then Dennis is like, gone and she insists it was real and there's kind of a beat but then dennis is like oh yeah it was real you can see all the pinholes in the walls where everything was stuck up yeah this is good dennis yeah jim says that it was a setup someone wanted her to see it they went to a lot of trouble to make sure she got the address to go see this

whole display yeah i think you're like dennis can you check this out jim says that he already checked it out through angel in the paper yes there's our there's our angel for the episode his useful position as a you know uh uh nepotism hire at his uh whatever his brother-in-law's paper right so there's no society this harriet bergman is just she's this kind of recluse who died a couple months ago um you know didn't have any foundation uh it was just a name picked out of the obits to attach you know this whole thing to dennis can put a tap on her phone but so far all this is just harassment there's nothing actionable there's been no threats right so they can't actually you know there's no like recourse at the stage and like and and beth

knows that like beth agrees with that it's like you know we can't do anything well we could try and track them down through the gifts we will put some men on it dennis you find out where the gifts were purchased we might get a lead on who bought them do you know how many man hours that would take yeah that's why i can't do it myself uh while presumably dennis is you know following up on that jim is uh following up the one lead he still has for finding this woman doreen which is that she's obsessed with her kid and wants, wants, wants him to be a star.

So Jim is in an office. Uh, all right. I think actually, I think you skipped this scene earlier. Oh yeah, you're right. I did.

I totally skipped it earlier. Womp womp. Yeah. All right. So no, that's all right. Like when you skipped it, I was like,

Oh, maybe I have my notes out of order. Nope. I just straight up skippedp. Yeah. All right. So no, that's all right. Like when you skipped it, I was like, Oh, maybe I have my notes out of order. Nope. I just straight up skipped it. Wow. I, I was your accomplice. Um,

so it could happen now, but it, it actually happened to have happened earlier. So we went to Jim in the office of like a, a casting director or something who specializes in child actors and yes he is first of all with a wonderful look where his shirt is unbuttoned kind of down to the middle so we see the like chain of the like necklace he wears and he's also smoking a cigarette and he's looking for the face of a new national campaign for nature's naturals, a real cereal for real people.

So he doesn't want a kid that looks like an actor. He wants a kid who looks like an actual kid. There's a good line where he's like, this one's too cute. He looks like he makes $50,000 a year. He made 75,000 last year. Because he has the specific description, which is red hair, freckles, overbite, four and a half.

And it's like the kid has to be four and a half. So they go back and forth. The kid that's three but can play four, right, and stuff like that. Can write his own name or whatever it was that they thought they'd have to get an adult. Right. But she sighs and reaches into her desk drawer and is like, well, he doesn't have any experience, but that's what you're looking for. Not one ounce of theatricality, a boy's boys, real people. Sure enough, this is the, the child that he has described.

Um, he's like, well, I'd like to talk to the mother, set something up. He's like, well, the mother moves around a lot, uh, but she calls in often. So when she calls me, I'll give her your number and he leaves with a well let's hope we hear in time yes like a little little little pressure so after going to that house uh with dennis and beth uh we go to jim talking to davey and showing him the headshot of the kid, uh, apparently who's been named blaze Mendocino. Yes. It's a hell of a name for a kid. Um,

and yeah, they're, they're like, wow, like poor kid, blah, blah. I'm like,

I don't know. He looks fine to me. Like it's just a pic. Yeah. Yeah. Picture of a kid. I had, um,

the woodchuck overbite when I was a kid. So I, I sympathize. Then I got braces and those were horrible too so life is suffering that's all i'm saying that's the real takeaway here he explains his his his gambit here and and uh beth says that she would like it if jim didn't misrepresent himself and he asked do you know any better way to find Doreen? And she's like, no, I guess not. She's like, she doesn't like his methods, but she doesn't have any better ones.

And it's a good little moment of their, you know, general standing tension. There's a call for her after she leaves the room. Davey asks Jim if she's all right. He's like, yeah, she's fine. And Davey says, she's a neat lady. And Jim says, says yeah very neat uh beth gets a phone call on the payphone in the lobby and uh of course it is another harassing phone call and she comes back in and they they see that she's scared like immediately he must know that the police have her phone tapped he knows everything else about her and this is where

apparently this is the first that davey knows that she's been getting this harassment right uh so she says that she's pretty shaken but he's entitled to competent counsel and she doesn't know how competent she is right now because of all this so if you want if he wants a new lawyer he should do that and he says that he has no complaints as As soon as Doreen walks into that courtroom, he's walking out. All they have to do is wait a day, maybe two. She says that it's bad enough. You know, this would be bad enough anytime, but in the middle of a trial. And that gives Jim a germ of an idea.

Because this all started when she took on Davey's case. And it might not be a bad way to get him convicted to ensure that he doesn't get a proper defense you know who would want to do such a thing and Davies says what about Gibby he really seems to have it out for me I didn't do a thing to that man except spend money in his place like there was no tomorrow I do I do want to uh say that I appreciate that Beth tried to pull a gym and remove herself from the case yeah so at this point again i think similarly i didn't really remember you know how the plot of this one falls out so at this point i was kind of like okay is this a everything is related episode or is this a there's stuff going on with the case like there's like the harassment yeah is one thing and gibby and the case is another thing and

they're crossing but they're not involved and i was like either of those feels like it could be happening there's a a thing in here where um a little early on i start writing to myself in the notes where i'm like why is davy being framed? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the motivation? Yeah. Is it that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? So he's a convenient patsy or does Gibby, because at this point Gibby's guilty in my head,

or does Gibby, you know, particularly hate Davey for some reason. And so I think these are the things that need to be resolved for us to resolve the case. I am wrong, but this is, this is at this moment in time, this is where, where I was. Yeah. I think at this point I was kind of thinking I wasn't, I wasn't a hundred percent in the boat of like, it's Gibby there's, you know, but I thought, you know, there's clearly something going on with Gibby. There's something going on with the harassment are they related are they not i did think that the elaborate setup to show beth all

the stuff felt too elaborate for like a mob thing yeah like i did have that set so that's kind of why i was like i think i think there's something else i think there's the gibby thing and i think there's another thing happening. But I, yeah, I too didn't know who, you know, I was like, okay, maybe there's another player yet to be revealed. Right. Or something like that. Yeah. Like someone else, like maybe someone from the football team who doesn't want him to come back. Right.

Or something like that. Like, is there some third vector? So we'll find out. vector so we'll find out um because in our next scene jim is going over to rocky's because they have coffee while rocky right asks him how come you suppose she hit out like that she could have freed that boy weeks ago well i'll settle for having her clear him now but why didn't she come out with the truth right in front as a student of human nature, Rocky, I'll give you a very definite answer. I don't know. And Doreen calls.

They have a bit of a business about calling over Mr. Turner or whatever, the trainer, whatever his alias had been. And so Jim talks to her, finally talks to the elusive Doreen on the phone. You get the impression that Rocky enjoys being in on the con. Yeah, yeah. Like, he plays his little role in it. He feels good about that. And Jim says, you're getting good at this. Yeah.

Three seasons in, finally, Rocky's helping out. All right. So we finally talked to Doreen. We cut back and forth to see her in the phone booth as she's talking to Jim at Rocky's. We established that she's not with her son right now, which is important. The kid's with her, you know, with his grandmother. And that it's too crazy in the office. He'll come over to meet her at her place to talk about to informally talk through preliminaries about this like perspective ad campaign and this is where i start feeling very bad for doreen doreen is a pitiable character you

could you could just see it you can she she reeks of desperation of this like oh my god a national ad campaign for my kid this is the key like. This is it. Her body language and everything. Yeah. Like this is it. This is finally going to, this is what I've been working for. This is the key to getting out of whatever her situation is. Like it's pretty intense.

Um, and it's, it's kind of a shame. Like I feel bad that Jim is going to have to let her down. Right. Yes, exactly. And that's not even the worst thing that's going to happen to her.

We will find out. Yeah. But, and, and Rocky even says like, what the worst thing that's going to happen to her we will find out yeah but and and rocky even says like what do you think she's going to do when she finds out there's no ad campaign yeah jim says that uh she's going to leave bobby with grandma or whatever like yeah it has to happen i guess no yeah um the courtroom is coming uh back in session and the uh uh the bail of hands who i think is jack garner um oh uh his brother yep court deputy jack we see him in a couple scenes uh but yeah so jack good old jack garner hands hands beth an envelope that came for her and she opens it uh during the the preliminaries and it's a like cut and pasted ransom style note that says i think we should meet and it's paper clipped to a magazine

where her head has been cut out of a photo and put on the face of a woman who's has a knife up to her neck and it's like you know a magazine like a sensational magazine like murder and something something i i think it's called real crimes um it it's the kind of magazine that um uh oh man i'm blanking on his name the colchak no well yeah uh no the the the mechanic who oh oh stole rockford's identity for a while beamer yeah it's the kind of magazine that beamer would absolutely and there's a great shot where she is she's having like a total trauma response when each of these things is happening like she's just been so overwrought by all of this so not overwrought in the sense of she she shouldn't be she's having an appropriate response which is like yeah freezing like she's just totally frozen we we see her stay sitting as off camera we hear like honorable judge whatever

all rise everyone around her stands up and then everyone around her sits down it's it's really good it's good it's i think it's particularly effective because the fact that it doesn't get noted upon. Like nobody makes her stand up or anything like that. She feels even more alone in the situation when nobody even bothers to find out why she didn't rise or anything like that. Yeah, it's really good. So Jim goes to talk to Doreen in her apartment where she's apologizing for being messy and everything um she tries to show him headshots and he pretty much gets into it right away he uses her full name and she's like how do you know my name and tells her the truth you know

i've been looking for you for on behalf of davey etc i think we see her go through a gamut of emotions yeah as well where she's like oh there's no ad campaign is there puts the headshots down and turns away and jim's like you have to testify like you can't let this guy go down for murder when you can save him there's there's like a sense so my sense here is that she knows what the right thing to do is but she doesn't want to go through with it so this is the nudge she needed to like she just needed someone else to tell her to do it but there's there's another layer that we're gonna find out right here yeah because what she's agreeing to is a lie right because we don't know that yet but we're near the end but like not to spoil the ending of this but she's not his defense she's agreed to pretend to be his defense yeah um but

she goes with jim they go to their car to his car to the firebird as he goes around the you know around the front to get to his, to the driver's side, he turns and we see him see a man with a rifle leveling it at them. And he shouts to get down. He drops, we hear one shot. And then we see the guy with the rifle kind of pause and then turn and kind of like slowly run to a car.

And I'm like, that's weird. You'd think he'd be like fleeing or taking more shots but it's because he did what he was there to do as jim turns around to see doreen lying on the ground he goes over checks her you know pulse and nothing which felt like a big escalation to me yeah the tragic tale of dory it's so sad It is. But I was just on the internet saying that not every Rockford Files episode is about a murder. And here we have presumably two murders. I don't know if the bartender died.

No, he did. It was, yeah, Davey's on trial for murder. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So now we got two murders. Oof. So we go to Jim and Beth walking and and talking establishing that his testimony is hearsay uh so it's not admissible as evidence um but just stating it out loud in front of the jury

that'll probably do it yeah right which is a very this is how thing this is how trials actually work as opposed to the you know official system there's a big media scrum outside the front doors asking her lots of questions. And it's a lot of no comment, no comment. And then we go to Beth examining Jim in court. You know, he gives his hearsay that she was, you know, Doreen was going to testify that she was with the defendant. And it's objected to. It's sustained. The jury's instructed not to pay, you know, not to take that into consideration.

But then Beth asks him, why is she not in the courtroom? Well, she was on the way to testify and she was murdered. And then these reporters all run out of the room and there's a big, ah, and the prosecutor has no cross-examination. Yeah, here's my question. There's the gasp and the reporters run out of the room but i could have sworn leading into the room the reporters were asking her about her witness being murdered right right maybe it was like a rumor but unconfirmed or something that could be yeah because she was she was doing no comment so yeah okay i'll i'll go with that it

sounds good so we go to uh jim talking to denn to Jim talking to Dennis where he's been pulling some favors, but Chapman's really breathing down his neck. So there's only so much he can do. It turns out that the movie projector lead paid off. It's a Japanese import that's handled by a company called Count Co., which is a discount house for civil employees. Dennis and Peggy have their own card. I've been going the wrong direction. Big surprise. You know, Jim has been going on the like, kind of from the like, like Gibby or something like that.

Like, yeah. But if it's like a county discount house that this was bought at, that means the person is a county employee or some kind of civic employee. It's unlikely that Gibby would be buying from it. Right. There's not much more Dennis can do unless Jim can tie Doreen's murder to the projector, but it's pretty unlikely. And we end with Jim going, who stands to profit the most if Beth blows this case?

And we cut to Davey from Bethh as beth and jim are eating pie in beth's apartment in dim lighting um and they talk out you know okay let's who stands to benefit what happens if she loses uh because she can't handle this case you know because she's being harassed and she you know whatever she whatever. She's distracted, etc. While they're talking, there's a wonderful bit of business where Jim finishes his piece of pie and then switches the plates with Beth's where she hasn't been eating it and leaves the pile of crust in front of Beth while he finishes his pie or her pie, which is. That's great. Wonderful. But yeah, so if if Davey is convicted, but then can claim that his counsel was incompetent, then he gets another shot at another trial with another jury.

Um, and Jim says that someone's gone to a lot of trouble to let Jim in as a witness to say that, yes, Beth is being harassed and is having these reactions. Right. He can testify to her agitation. Uh, Beth isn't really buying it because like why go like going pretty far including why would you kill your star witness like doreen could get him off the like you know if she testifies if she's his alibi he walks so why would he have her killed that's which i i agree that also i yeah none of this makes sense jim yeah it's going to the jury

tomorrow for deliberation it's almost over she thinks that once the case is over the harassment will be over right it's linked to the case jim says get your coat i'm going to give you a chance to convince me and takes a big bite of pie while uh while she's getting her coat it's a good food scene it is a good food scene jim gets to eat a lot of yummy, delicious pie in this scene. And I think he's riding high because he feels like he's got it figured out. Maybe not the murder, but he thinks he has the motivation figured out. He's not wrong, but the energy he has reminds me of the episode where they fake Angel's death. Where he's super excited about running a con that isn't,

that nobody gets it. Nobody understands. Yeah. Yeah. So they're driving around in her car. Cause he, he's like, if they're following you,

you know, we're going to flush them out. Uh, Beth says, we've been driving around, you know, nothing's happening. Just take,

I don't, I still don't believe this. I don't think Davey's doing this, you know, take me home. He take, I don't, I still don't believe this. I don't think Davey's doing this, you know, take me home. He goes, not yet. And then he just slams on the brakes and pulls a middle of the middle of the

street. J turn. We don't get the full view of it. We kind of cut from him starting it to seeing the car fishtail around at the very end, but we can employ, there's an implied, it's an implied J turn because it brings him face to face with the blue car that we saw the guy with the rifle run into

that has been following them since they left her apartment and we have a good shot of the guy's terrified face as he reverses away uh having been discovered and jim notes his license plate aren't you gonna follow him no let him lose this why you got a gun of course not well neither have i it's so good he'll run the plate in the morning but he knows what he'll find a county employee who bought a projector at count co and is a good friend of davy woodhull so So we go to a, what looks like a college football practice. There's a blonde guy in a hat running drills.

We see Jim kind of come up to one side. One of the other players is like, hey coach, I think you busted something. And he tells the, he tells his guys, or rather his ladies to take a break. So, you know.

Yeah. Really fulfilling the stereotype. And then Jim goes, hi coach. And he turns and runs and Jim tackles him. Jim is in such danger here because he's tackling the coach in front of the football team. But yeah,

yeah. And they do go to like pull him off, but he's like, okay, everyone settled down and he flashes a badge. And he says he's a cop from Tulsa. And he's, he's,

he's performing an extradition. But but he says you call the cops call call becker at the hollywood station and confronts our guy he's the coach um it's like i don't know what your deal is with davy woodhall but you're you're good for the murder of darine carpenter and our coach says it wasn't my idea he told me to do it uh And we get a little bit of exposition here that Jim forces out of them while they're waiting for the cops to arrive. Davey did do it. He gave Doreen just as a name for his alibi because he knew she was going to be out of town. But then she came back to town. So he had this guy, his friend, this coach, pay her off to testify that they were together.

But then he got nervous that she wasn't going to pass a polygraph test, which, while not admissible in court, is still like... They were going to use it to get the prosecutor to just drop the case. Right, right. Yeah. And so it was all... So he told them to do it. It was all David's idea. We go to the courtroom.

The jury's coming in. We have the drama with the verdict. And it turns out that the jury has found Davey Woodhull not guilty. So Beth did it. Beth did it. She won her case. Good for Beth. They hug.

Beth is relieved. And I think Davey said something like what you know what you didn't you didn't think we were gonna win he's like well it could have gone the other way and then davy goes well then i would have just asked for a new trial and beth immediately we see on her face like bam like what why and he says all the phone calls the creepy g gifts and she kind of shrinks away from him and it dawns on her that jim was right davy was orchestrating this whole thing because she never told davy about the gifts and so it all falls into place and i think again this is carried on the efficacy of gretchen corbett's facial acting yeah yeah all the you know any doubts she had anything

that she was trying to paint the best light on you know from the evidence that was mounting it's all just like totally blown away and she is horrified and terrified all those emotions are still there he like touches her like he like touches her hand or something. And it's really creepy. And he, he, he gaslights her. He's like, you,

you must've forgotten. And then she's in shock. I think as they go out of the courtroom into another media scrum where they're asking and she's like, I still have no comment. And she's like trying to walk away and he has his arm around her and she's just, yeah,

it's, I mean, it's awful. Like it's very uncomfortable. It's creepy. It's all very well communicated visually. Yes. Yes.

Davey says he's, it's, he's glad it's over and all he wants to do is play football. And by then Beth has left and Jim has slid in kind of behind him to say, well, they have a good football team in San Quentin. And that's when Dennis and another cop come up in front of all the reporters right after he's gotten the not guilty verdict to arrest Davey again and take him to the waiting car. And then all the reporters follow them to the car as Jim takes Beth's arm and they walk away the waiting car. And then all the reporters follow them to the car as Jim takes Beth's arm and they walk away the other way. We've been giving Gretchen Corbett a lot of credit here

for her acting in this episode, which is absolutely she deserves top-notch acting, Jim top-notch acting. We're about to witness some of Joe Santos' greatest acting. So we have Jim, Dennis, Beth, and Rocky in Jim's trailer watching Dennis' press conference on TV. Yes. Making a reading the prepared statement about the case. So good.

We have the sworn statement of Preston Garnett, athletic coach at Foreman High School, that David Woodall planned and helped execute the robbery of Gibby's discotheque. We have a log of telephone calls made by Mr. Woodall during his incarceration at county jail to Mr. Garnett, during which the alleged murder of Doreen Carpenter was planned. The department will issue further information regarding the case as the details become available. Can I just say that my favorite beat is the oh like when he's there and he's reading it and there's a pause and he goes oh and then he continues it's just there's just something it's so funny and then rocky of all people is like

why don't you lift your head i can't see your face bending over that paper that was a prepared statement and then it says oh i i did more than that they cut out all my best stuff yeah uh david woodall is currently making a full confession to the to both murders or something like that ah so i suppose uh i suppose justice is served um we do have a quick line between jim and beth about like the original robbery like i guess if you've been benched for the whole season and you think they're not going to pick up your option the cash starts looking pretty good yeah it's a little um little point blanky is what i'm thinking like it's a uh like maybe he's in it for the thrills i don't know it's under motivated yeah i mean there's

there was the line earlier where he says like i didn't do anything to give me except spend money there like it was going out of style so between these two things maybe like he spent so much money there then he felt like yeah i don't know he didn't have a high opinion of the place and he wanted to get he needed to get some money or whatever there's yeah like you say it's a little under motivated um he's clearly a huge creep so my original assessment of him from from his character from colombo i think was borne out was was correct yeah um we have a wonderful ending to this episode dennis and rocky have gone over to the kitchen portion of the trailer out of the shot. Jim and Beth are there.

Jim asks Beth to pick up that rain check to go have dinner. She says all she wants to do is go home. And Jim says, suits me. And they both smile. And they head out towards the door of the trailer. And as they're about to open the door, Jim goes, later you guys.

Just leave it up in his trailer. And we freeze frame as Jim and Beth, as they're about to go back to Beth's place to presumably celebrate the ending of this very traumatic time of her life. Yeah. Yeah. Good episode. I had a lot of fun. Hats off to everyone involved, but in particular,

raise a body. Yeah. Putting in more good work. I mean, I think we're both, you know, looking for, I think directorial stuff,

um, for this one. And it, I think that pays off. There's some really good, I think we called it out as we, as we went through it, but like really good match cuts.

There's the sequence going through the house like really good match cuts there's the sequence going through the house was really really well done um almost cinematic with some of the framing of beth uh just to contrast with like tv but like you know some good like dramatic uh like the dramatic close-ups and stuff like that which are a little more yeah yeah like you said hitchcockian um yeah all the all that all that stuff all the stuff was good the stuff it was good the stuff was good yes no it was a it was a very solid episode yeah i mean that's the thing like i want to praise uh raise a baddie for it but also i want to praise oneita bartlett for the uh the script and I want to praise all the acting in it. It was all very well done. Yeah, the script is great. I think I might have mentioned in passing, but the cross-examination

scene with the watch and the ring, I think that kind of foreshadowed the whole nature of the case because Beth was effective in her cross-examination. fulfilled you know her goal as a defense attorney however the truth of the matter was you know what was being clearly communicated by the original the original like case right where it's like well i never saw him wear a watch and i was wearing this expensive watch like that's not untrue even though that undermined his credibility as a witness in the matter. And I felt like that was really nice going back through it, a fairly nuanced nod to the truth of the matter as it is revealed over the course of the rest of the episode. She she wins her case. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the the best way to put this without being

flipping because it shouldn't be flippant about it but like she does her she's an extraordinary defense attorney and also uh they get comeuppance for um her client who happens to be harassing her right and yeah and be a murderer so and be a murderer yes So it'd be a murderer. Yes. Uh, uh, robber and murderer. And, uh, probably like by the end, you get the impression that he was into the harassing.

I feel, I feel like there was like the, that last scene between him and her, he couldn't resist being menacing towards her. It's not that like, Oh, you caught me. It was more like, yeah, he, he thought it was all over.. It's not that like, oh, you caught me. It was more like.

Yeah, he thought it was all over. Right. So he's like, yeah, I can be. I don't know. I'm in control. I'm in control here. Yeah, it's definitely not. He's not painted as someone who's like totally obsessed with her or whatever on its own merits.

But there are a couple of tiny little things like when he says like she's a neat lady, like there there are a couple tiny little things where it's like he's spending a lot of time with her part of the juice of the whole thing is probably also that he's leveraging this power over her that she doesn't know that it's him yeah right like that's part of why maybe why it escalates so much because it goes pretty out like it's pretty intense yeah all the photos and everything and like that's a lot of work and like his buddy like really puts in the legwork right for whatever hold he has over him so it's uh the magnitude of it gets pretty serious and i think yeah him kind of letting his guard down enough to be like, ha ha. I get to enjoy this moment where she finally realizes that it's that I'm the one with the power here, even while he's deflecting. I think that comes.

I don't know. Maybe I'm reading a little too much into it, but that's a good. No, I think it's there. I had some weight to it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a good one. It's a recommend probably with some content warnings. Like, I think if the stuff that Beth goes through is not, she doesn't feel physically in danger, but it's harrowing.

And Gretchen Corbett definitely gets that across. And, yeah. Yeah, there's one thing I think that I'll carry with me going forward is that the subtitle of this one is like the tragedy of Doreen Carpenter. Yeah. Not only I mean, obviously, she gets killed for pretty much no reason, which is awful. But her whole arc of like putting so much weight on this like perspective break for her and her kid. Yeah. putting so much weight on this like perspective break for her and her kid yeah and then that being not panning out but like but she's gonna get paid to like lie in court okay and then she gets killed

just because the guy who was paying her got worried that she wouldn't do it right yeah it's pretty sad yeah but but yeah adds adds some, a little additional emotional weight to, uh, to an episode that's already pretty, pretty heavy, but not depressingly. So dramatic, dramatically.

So, which is what I, but yeah, it's a thriller. Yeah. I think the whole thing has a little bit of a Hitchcock bent to it, which is nice. I agree.

Uh, I think that's pretty much, I think we've pretty much gone through all my thoughts on it nothing more pithy to say nothing more pithy to say so i guess uh i think we can rest easy with the knowledge that beth is going back to her standard relationship with jim jim and beth their whole thing the whole thing will continue without undue harassment um and maybe we'll see it again as we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rock for fuss.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Put a little stank on that.