Two Hundred A Day - Episode 111: The Family Hour

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

Nathan and Eppy learn a lot about family in S3E3 The Family Hour. Jim and Rocky find Marin, a young girl, seemingly abandoned on Jim's doorstep. They can't help but try to find her family, but are quickly drawn into some kind of scheme centering on Marin's father involving creeps, death threats, narcotics and a cattle prod. A patron suggestion, this episode also finishes our look at writer Gordon T. Dawson, who delivers another great script that is matched by compelling performances from both series regulars and guest stars. Not really a mystery, not really a whodunit, this episode really ramps up the tension while keeping a solid emotional backbeat. It's a good one! Show Notes * Interview with Gordon T. Dawson (https://library.nashville.org/podcasts/legends-film-podcast/legends-film-gordon-t-dawson) from Legends of Film * McDonalds Commercial from 1976 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upZJtLd6Zkk) 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

Hey Jim, it's Frank. Me and Ellie's down here for our convention. Can't wait to see it. It should be over in your place about 1am. Bonne nuit, buddy. 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. I hope I gave you enough time to swallow that big drink of water you just took as I started talking. Gave you enough time to swallow that big drink of water you just took as I started talking. Ooh.

No, these are, this is the hydro flask, which I think made national news because people were complaining about when they, people brought them into the office and they fell and they made that sort of noise or something. I missed that discourse. I believe you. That seems like something that would make national news. Right. It's like, we need you to come back to the office, but don't bring your hydro flask. Don't bring your hydro flask. They just have a nice

tone. Both sizes that we have. When you bump it against something, you're like, oh, a call to prayer. I'm going to meditate. Some sort of very bell-like. Hydro flask something, you're like, oh, a call to prayer. I'm going to meditate. Some sort of very bell-like. Hydroflask, if you'd like to support us, we don't do advertising, but you can go to Patreon.com slash 200 a day.

Yeah. Speaking of Patreon, one of the reasons we're doing today's episode is because of a Patreon suggestion. However, before we get to that, I do think we should start our episode by taking a moment to acknowledge the passing of Stuart Margolin, who, between our last time recording and this time, which has been a considerable gap, um, due to, due to various circumstances, um, did pass away. So, uh, yeah. Um, rest in peace, uh, an angel, I feel like there's a, there's a pun that angel would appreciate there, but, uh, I, I don't, I don't know what it is or I don't have it in me to make it, I guess. If only i was a top tier television writer maybe i could come up with something yeah but uh what i said on on twitter which might still exist by the time this comes out who knows was that uh uh you know angel one of our one of our absolute

all-time favorites despite his best efforts yes and uh yeah i yeah, I mean, I don't know. You listen to the show, you know how much we love Angel. Yeah. And what an integral part of the texture of the Rockford Files the character is and Stuart Margolin as a physical presence is. He also directed a couple of episodes. He directed a couple of the 90s movies. Just without, you know, without him him being involved the show would just be totally different yeah yeah perhaps one of the best ways to celebrate him is uh i'll take another look at the the eulogy that was read for angel in chicken little is a little chicken yes in the background

of all the shenanigans with the briefcase exchange because it is actually a hilarious, it's just full of little jokes about how great Angel was, clearly penned by him for his own obituary. I see as I look out over this vast congregation that there are many of the deceased's closest friends who were with him in the Thoroughbred Racing Association. When it came to being a soldier, Mr. Martin was among the bravest, serving with great distinction in Korea,

and finally being discharged after several military hearings, which included the top generals in our nation's forces. There are several legal precedents that were established during these hearings, and one point of landmark law dealing with the refusal to bear arms. A statute which has moved forward the great tide of military justice. All right. Well, as I said, we do have a patron recommendation, which is actually dovetailed nicely with something I think we talked about and then forgot,

which is that this episode the family hour season three episode three uh is our final episode to look at the writer contributions of gordon dawson or gordon t dawson when we did a fast count that was him and reza uh reza body then we did raise a body his last one um and now're doing last one, the last of his for us to do. And now we're doing Gordon Dawson's last one, which was also recommended to us by patron Rebecca, um, who said that they rewatched a great episode last night that we haven't covered the family hour. I know your list is getting smaller, but this is a really unique story with a lot of Rocky

too. Yeah. And, uh, you're not wrong. That was a great recommendation. I'm looking through his, his, uh, writing credits and they're good. It's a good, yeah. So here's, uh, we don't need to do a power ranking, but I'll just run through, uh, his episodes. Um, so nine in total or eight, cause one of them's a two-parter gordon dawson wrote pastoria prime pick our episode 14 the hammer of c block our episode 48 an introduction of gandy the family hour so this is in broadcast order uh the family hour which is this one i think it'll be our episode 111 we'll see uh the The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers.

The Two-Parter, which we did our episode 45. Second Chance, which is the second Gandy episode. Episode 49. The Competitive Edge, which was the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest kind of rendition. That was our episode 33, a fast count, which we did recently, one Oh nine and the deuce,

which we also did relatively recently. And I think kicked off this whole cycle of, of kind of looking at, uh, finishing out some, some of our talent here. Episode one Oh five. Yeah,

no, uh, very strong. Yeah. I'd say of all of those, maybe I think the competitive edge is interesting, but it's maybe not the most compelling of... Like, if I had to rank it against any of these other ones, it probably wouldn't. I'd probably pick any of the other ones over it.

Well, it's tough because the list includes the bees, the trees, and TT flowers, which is... Right, which is an all-time great. Yeah, yeah. Pastoria Prime pick was an early imprint for us um i think as we just heard a fast count was really good uh it's hard to evaluate um the gandy episodes just because it's gandy and right we've spent enough time talking about him but yeah but yeah uh and and the deuce was also very good so very solid very solid and kind of like a thematic a bit of a thematic pair with this one.

I mean, they're very separated in time also, I think. But with the idea of this kind of like the theme of alcoholism and overcoming it as part of the character. Solid body of work. We did go over a bit of his background when we did the trees the bees and td flowers but that was over 50 episodes ago yeah uh so i will briefly recap um it's it's kind of hard to he doesn't there's not a lot about um gordon dawson gordon t dawson online at least that i i could easily find uh a lot of what is there is in context of um being a collaborator with sam peckinpah okay um um he wrote bring me the head

of alfredo garcia uh which is a you know a big peckinpah project i don't really know sam peckinpah that well i'm i kind of know the kinds of movies he directed i don't know if i've seen any of them um and then just looking at his credits he you know wrote a lot of tv uh produced movies and tv he ended up um being a walker texas ranger guy um kind of at the end there one thing that i did find was a interesting, uh, half hour interview with him podcast interview from the Nashville. Yeah. From the Nashville public library, uh, from 2016, I will link it in the show notes. Um, they were showing the getaway, which was, uh, he was associate producer and second unit director of, I believe that's also a Peckinpah film. Anyway, so as part of that, they did this interview.

And he talks about his background, how he came up, and a little bit about The Rockford Files at the end, which is about 26 minutes into the 29-minute episode. So it's not too much. But he does say that that's where he – he was originally a wardrobe guy. He started out working in wardrobe in the movies. I was wondering about that because his credits are producer, writer, wardrobe. I was a wardrobe man at the time. Now they're called costumers. Back then, actually, we were called rag pickers.

I was in on some of the principal fittings when he was doing that in Los Angeles before going down to Durango to shoot the picture. I was just in the room. And so I was left with the task of aging and preparing all of the principal wardrobe. And there's you can listen to the interview, but there's a whole story about basically how he came to he was working, he was doing wardrobe for a Sam Peckinpah movie, and he ended up being kind of on the ground at a very tense moment because there's all this drama with the studios or something. And he ran interference and helped out Peckinpah and that kind of brought them together. And he liked the cut of his jib for lack of a better word. And they started a creative collaboration kind of from there. brought them together and he liked the cut of his jib for lack of a better word. And, they started a creative collaboration kind of from there.

But, uh, yeah, but as a writer, he says that the Rockford files really got him off the ground. Um, for TV writing, at least they're great people to work with.

He says about like, did you write Isaac? You know, did you write Gandalf Finch for Isaac Hayes? Right. And he says that at that point he was so new he didn't have any casting you know he wasn't gonna oh in a position to do casting or anything yeah um but he wrote the character i wrote him as i wrote the character i certainly didn't write

the actor i wrote the character and actually gandalf was a typo i It was originally Randolph Fitch, and I typed a G, and I thought, that's even better. Perfect. Perfect. So, but then, you know, he gained more, he had more, I guess, pull or rapport or whatever as time went on. For the trees, the bees and TT flowers, he specifically wanted

struther martin as tt flowers and so he was able to influence that particular casting which i think is a nice uh a nice little bit anyway yeah uh it's an interesting interview um and uh sounds like an interesting guy it looked like the um wardrobe movie that he was referring to. I'm not entirely sure. So where he worked with Peckinpah was The Wild Bunch. I actually watched that like in the past couple of years. Quite good. This episode is directed by William Ward. We continue pushing through the Wardiverse.

Yes. We'll, you know, finish it out eventually. I feel like there was one shot that I noticed that I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. I don't remember what it is now. Maybe we'll see when we get into it. 26 episodes. Mm-hmm. I think I counted it because I think you directed like the last, like the two or three ago that we did.

And I think I did a count and I'm like, okay, we still have like 14 of us to go or something. Yeah, yeah. I think I did a count and I'm like, okay, we still have like 14 of his to go or something. Yeah, yeah. So we'll go ahead and I think maybe roll into our preview montage. That's good. I was just taking a sip. I'm going to wait until you take a sip of your water before throwing to you as often as possible. That's good.

I absentmindedly committed to a candy cane in the middle of all that which listen if you're gonna do a podcast just it's fine you got food you got munchies you get hungry or whatever you can have candy or whatever just not a candy cane that is a ridiculous decision to make all right um opening montage uh i don't have a whole lot to say about this except for well okay um we're gonna get rocky we know that uh i think we i don't know if the montage made it clear that we're gonna get dennis and angel i can't remember um but my favorite well one bit was that like this montage had a lot of explaining to the audience in it that when you watch the actual show the context makes more sense like there's a there's a point in the montage where he's like she's staffed at rocky's that's my dad

and i'm like yeah we we know rocky's your dad like why are you why are you telling dennis that rocky is your dad and we'll get to it he's not telling dennis he's telling someone else in the scene um and there's like another scene where he's like is that what i think it is electric cattle prod and again like but that gets telegraphed in other ways and it works yeah but the best part i think of this entire montage is in the very end of it where he gets in the car with the girl and she just says i hate you and that musical sting like the the wah wah wah like exquisite it's very good yeah it's it's in the spot where usually there's a car going over the cliff or getting the gas on or you know or running away from a gunshot is the uh the preview montage also establishes that we're going

to be uh this episode is going to center on um that's like it's never stated i think but she's probably like 13 12 or 13 or something like that kind of like a early tween um girl who is going to be the subject of the drama to come and so that is the girl that is who is looking straight ahead and just saying i hate you i really hate you yeah hey. 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 and games and movies and all kinds of things.

Yeah. We extend special thanks to our gumshoe patrons supporting this episode of 200 a Day. supporting this episode of 200 a Day. 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 jadon.com, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P., Dave Otterson, Kip Hawley, and Dale Church. And finally, we can't thank our detective patrons enough for their generous support of the show. Joe Greathead, Michael Zalisco,

Eric Antenor at Antenor on Twitter, Brian Pereira at Thermaware, Jordan Bockelman, not Brockleman, at Jordan Bockelman, Bill Anderson at BillAnd88, and of course, Richard Haddam at Richard Haddam. We follow them too at 200pod. If you're interested in helping keeping us going, you can do so for as little as a dollar an episode at patreon.com slash 200 a day. Thank you. Thanks so much. This is one of those episodes where like, I didn't really remember it. I have seen it before when it started. I was like, Oh, it's this episode.

The fact that the first time I saw it was very pre parenthood. Oh yeah. And the fact that I've seen it the second time in a, uh, you know, post post parenthood of young girl. I mean, she's young, obviously she's a toddler but the uh uh there was a lot more emotional resonance in the latter half of this episode than i had anticipated going in um that's not bad i just wanted to kind of mark that uh going in because it surprised me um so and content wise there's kind of a hint of kind of like child endangerment but it's not it's played very it's it it's played very lightly it's not um it's not terrible and nothing you know she's fine yeah uh but we start off our episode uh on the beach in paradise cove

watching seagulls circle overhead and then come down to see the girl from our preview montage we eventually after many trials and tribulations learned that her name is marin yeah um uh at the the snack bar on the beach with her dad well now i just want to point out that my notes here are witch mountain paulie this is the this is the girl from the witch mountain series, series of Disney films. And the, her dad is Polly from the Rambo or sorry, from the Rocky series of films. And yeah,

I was just super excited. That was just the big nostalgia thing. It's a good combo. He, I was looking, so her dad is played by Bertt young um who as you say uh uh from the rocky movies um and i was looking through his credits i was like i've seen rocky is that where i recognize him from because he has such a face he's like yeah yeah such a face and i was like i

have to have seen him in something else that i'm remembering him from but i actually don't like i didn't recognize anything else that i've seen you know anything more than in passing that i'm remembering him from but i actually don't like i didn't recognize anything else that i've seen you know anything more than in passing so i'm like maybe maybe it's just from watching rocky um could be the adventures of pluto nash um no no all right yeah he's um i will say he's a consummate schlub. Yes. He was in an episode of Columbo. That was but I didn't recognize that. Like that's from the it's a 90s episode. And I was like, I might have seen that one once.

I don't remember. Right. Or just from seeing this episode before because he's so it's such a memorable look. Yeah, he's he's very, very memorable. His, um, yeah, there's something I'm trying to think of. Like there's a physicality to him that reminds me of like Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore show prime in my head. Cause I've been watching a lot of that recently or yeah, it's just very like,

um, it's a great contrast to this girl. Right. So they, they hired this, they, the actress they get for this is, uh,

Kim Richards, who, uh, at the time is, they, the actress they get for this is, uh, Kim Richards, who, uh, at the time is 76. Thank you. IMDB for giving us this ability to who's 12. Right. Um,

very young, but also like just of the time Hollywood picture of innocence next to this guy, who is the Hollywood picture of corrupt something. Yeah. Right. Or, or indolence at best.

Right. Like he's either a loser or actively corrupt or both. Yes. And so it's just a great contrast right off the bat. He's clearly agitated and is telling her that she's going to stay with her aunt Cecil for a few months, you know, that he has to, to, to go away for a little bit. He's sick and he's going toitated and he's telling her that she's going to stay with her aunt cecil for a few months you know that he has to to go away for a little bit he's sick and he's going to go away to get better yes and she wants him to get better he says that he will he promises during this conversation we see a real real sporty goon car yes uh i went to our 200 files files our our

um vehicle correspondent did not uh chime in on this episode. This is the red and white one, right? The red and white one, yeah. It's a GTO. I know this because they said it in the episode. Right. I got no... It's red with white stripes.

That is a spoiler. This episode is an all-timer for strong looks, and that includes this car. Yeah, yeah. Lots of good looks. And we see our two as i say in my notes again all-timer goons yes get out of this car uh one is uh i i refer to them as denim and flannel in my in my note they have they have names but who cares um as we have a sleeveless denim vest with like a back patch, like a biker gang back patch over tucked in T-shirt,

handlebar mustache, mirror shades. That's one guy. The other guy is the half unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest flannel with the sleeves rolled up with a receding hairline and like a piece of paper sticking out of his breast pocket. Good. They're good. The good goons.

Good goons. The dad's name is Stu. Stu tells Marin to go wash her face. He needs to go now. Wait there for Aunt Cecil. She goes to the washroom and he takes off. And we see the goons chase him and we fade out from the chase to a helicopter shot over the water as our credits roll over the opening, some opening music and a idyllic look of the cove.

Yeah, but I even made a note. It was just the nice advertising for coming out to the malibu our credits continue uh as we see rocky and jim pull up to the trailer in rocky's truck uh jim is saying that his fishing gear has been poised for three weeks for this trip but as they get out we see that uh marin is sitting in a lawn chair outside Jim's trailer. Waiting in exactly the right place. Exactly the right place. Nobody knows it yet, but she is.

This whole first part of the episode is watching Marin doing her best to protect herself from something she doesn't know why or why. And Jim doing his best to figure out how to protect her right that's what we get into pretty pretty quickly but those two things two things are at odds at first um ask her what she's doing there she says i'm waiting i'm not hurting anything i'll wait somewhere else and she starts you know take you wandering away but rocky of course yes he's on the job he's on the job he wants to know more yeah jim jim is like he wants this fishing trip he wants to go hang out with rocky and he's just put his blinders on yeah i was ready to just say all right yeah you wait somewhere else and that's it but rocky rocky's

not gonna allow it it's quite the version of the the uh don't take the job two-step where yes jim is doing his best to not get involved but rocky just won't let him and then we see that his like not as better judgment but we see that his uh uh his compassion comes through right and like makes it so that he can't walk away yeah pretty quickly there's a nice little uh technique here where rocky wants to know you know what you know what's going on who are you waiting for she says i'm not supposed to talk to anybody but my aunt cecil and then we cut to rocky telling jim here's what's going on that she told me yeah i think that's a nice uh little little way to keep

keep the focus on you know keep keep things moving along we don't have to get double exposition or whatever. She's from San Diego. Her dad took her right out of class and came up here. She was supposed to be in a play tonight and he knew that but he took her out anyway. She's supposed to stay with her aunt but she doesn't know where her aunt lives and she's been waiting for

three hours. Jim wants to go fishing. Oh, I forgot to buy the mosquito repellent. Oh, Sonny, I'm ashamed of you. Well, I can't remember everything, Rocky. No, I mean about the little girl. Her aunt is three hours late. What are we supposed to do?

You know, what if she's a runway or abandoned? Jim says, well, I'll call the police. You'll let a squad car haul that little kid off and so jim says compromises on we can drop her off at the juvenile facility on the way to baja either that or leave her in the hot sun and it turns out that she's waiting in the front seat already for whatever they're they're gonna do next i think this is the point where we see like just this wonderful bit of acting from james gardner where he uh they're talking about her so you can see on his face that he's got these he's putting up these defenses because he just doesn't want he doesn't want to get

involved he wants he wants rocky to drop it and all that but rocky gets to him and you can see on his face where he thinks about her just like I don't even remember what the line is. I wish I had written that down. But like he just gets this smile on his face like, oh, that that nice girl, like just like that, that hard wall just disappears for just a moment. And then the smiles replaced with a grimace when he realizes I'm going to take this job. Right. I'm going gonna do this thing like this is the so there's it's not a spoken thing it's just the like this this sort of transformation as rocky's berating him that i really our next scene is at the uh juvenile hall oh yeah ask for her name her aunt's last name her mother's name and on that she says i don't have a mother she's dead jim has her stay in the truck with rocky while he goes in to fill out the

paperwork and we get this this vision of the very officious and bureaucratic staff at juvenile hall um dealing with you know all these truants and, you know, mostly older teenagers, right? We don't see any, like, kids. Like, she's clearly, Marin is clearly younger than most of the kids in this system. Yeah. And as Jim looks around, he sees, like, they're all behind chain, like, not chain link, but these walls that that are you know uh that are basically like chain lattice partitions yeah yeah it's loud there's like you know people in uniforms all over uh and he gets to the the duty clerk and she just goes in this you know extremely bored bureaucratic

manner bring and take and her visiting come on mister step up to the county you're next extremely bored, bureaucratic manner. Bring in, take in, or visit in. Come on, mister, step up to the counter. You're next. Hey, let's go, huh? Yeah. And Jim doesn't say a word. He just gives his head a little shake, and we cut back to him coming back out to the truck.

Yeah. The way the scene plays out where he, it's not that he goes up to the first clerk and he's able to, that occurs at the first clerk. He just keeps, he's pushed deeper and deeper into this, you know, this Inferno,

this Dante's Inferno, right? Like he, like literally going through layers as he goes through the different partitions. I really kind of appreciate that. Like he's like, oh no, she doesn't come out of this like

that's not a thing and this whole i mean this whole episode but like especially this whole part from here and then there's a lot of like dancing around like sending her you know into the system keeping her out of the system it's a real it's a real indictment of the system yeah yeah i don't know i can't speak to to how well or poorly the general system for for introducing children into the mechanisms of justice such as they are. I don't know how good or bad it is. I assume it's not very good for the people involved. I assume are not great uh because this is america but yeah this the vision given to us here is like i can't send her into that yeah yeah that all said while he was in there she ran away from rocky uh he couldn't follow her because he's wearing these boots uh cut to finding her she's sitting on top of a wall in an alley she doesn't want to go to that place and jim says he changed his mind i don't want to leave you there uh they can't they also can't

leave her here by herself um jim tries a couple different attempts a couple different maneuvers to to get her to help them out help herself out ending with uh well if you don't care why should we we'll just leave you here in this alley full of rats and snakes and vampires there's no such thing as vampires um he after getting a a straight promise that he won't take her back to juvenile hall he she finally tells tells jim her name and we get a big Garner smile in response as he helps her down off the wall. So up to here, I think it's been, it's been a lot of fun watching Jim, uh, stumble over and attempt different techniques to get her to let her defenses down and get, so he can get the information that he needs to get or whatever. I do love that. The one that works is this rats, snakes, and vampires. He's like, leave her here with the rats and snakes.

That's a threat. When you throw the vampires on top, he's kind of opening it up to like, I'm kidding with her. One of the things I really enjoy about this show is just seeing how jim can uh put people at ease or intention like get them in the state of mind they need to be in for him to get his job done i guess that's manipulating them i don't want to call it that charming them let's say he's charming charming yeah yeah they say that she can stay in the trailer for the night and we introduce the the the uh her her main character flaw foible um does it have a tv yes we uh end the scene with them getting back into the truck we have good banter about trust she says that uh i trust johnny carson rocky you can trust. And we have a crossfade on Jim saying,

what was your dad's name again? Stu Gailey. And that's when we fade into seeing Stu walking up to a door, pressing a buzzer. We see there's a little label for Cecil Goss. So Aunt Cecil. There's no answer. He knocks.

And then our goon car rolls up on him and they jump out and take a take a shot at him with a shotgun uh from like the the roadway is kind of elevated from where he's he's uh knocking on this door uh they miss he takes off uh and they they're on the chase again as he uh apparently did not evade them at the pier so we're definitely getting a picture of some serious trouble that uh her dad is in yeah sir i would i would characterize that as serious so we cut to jim and uh his good friend dennis becker uh at the station asking dennis for advice what should he do with he finally has her full name marin rose gailey um dennis says to

take her take her back to juvenile hall jim tells the you know tells him what we know from seeing you know the first couple scenes how is he going to track down stew gailey dennis tells him i think to uh go to the jungle gym or check out the jungle gym something like that uh and that apparently is slang for uh put a personal ad in the paper that's how people on the run keep in touch so jim wants to use his phone uh i think he says like i'm just going to call the hospitals like first i'll call the hospitals before doing that and then we have a great oh god it's so good little snapshot snapshot of the Dennis-Jim relationship, or the tension that underlies the Dennis-Jim relationship. This episode isn't about it.

It's just in this scene, but it's a great one. I don't know why, and no, Jimbo, you can't use the phone. I hate working nights. I only got four more shifts to go, and I'm not going to blow days by letting a lieutenant catch you making personal calls on my extension, which is why I'm working nights in the first place oh dennis i'm sorry about that yes uh i do appreciate the occasional episode where they show us why jim and dennis are good friends i mean i love jim but if i were Dennis, I would think twice about loving Jim.

Well, we get that as well, because Dennis says he can't do anything because no crime has been reported. Jim says, well, I'm going to report one. And Dennis is like, all right. Fine. I'll take your statement. Thank you, Dennis. Jim is surprised. Yes.

Yes. But then she goes back to Juvenile Hall until the next of kin can be located. That's the rules. And Jim takes the paper out of his typewriter. Yes. Yes. But then she goes back to she goes back to juvenile hall until the next of kin can be located. That's the rules. And Jim takes the paper out of his typewriter. Yes. I'll use a pay phone. So, you know, we get the the the connection moment of Dennis willing to do Jim is solid. But then Jim being like, this actually isn't what I want.

Back in the trailer, Marin is watching TV. Jim is making omelets perhaps yeah he gives rocky some sass about only bringing eggs and nothing to go with them so she's watching tv and they're kind of talking in the kitchen area like you know so that you won't hear them and uh my note here is just they judge her dad's parenting yeah you know what kind of guy leaves her like this her look at her clothes like that kind of stuff i know we're establishing that stew is like not necessarily the great a great guy or may not even that the episode gives us a little bit of question about whether stew is like a good guy or not right yeah. Like whether he's involved in something dangerous

because he's a dangerous guy or whether he's kind of a victim. Yeah, whether he haplessly fell into it or not. And here they're kind of assuming like, oh, he must be, you know, he must be like a bad father. Yeah, yeah. Which I don't think the episode tells us is true. I think the episode tells us he's flawed,

but doing his best. Now, in this scene, I spiraled down an Internet hole. There's a throwaway line from Rocky that said that triggered a memory in my head because Rocky talks about her television viewing habits. Right. She's just constantly watching television and then he says she can do that burger commercial backwards faster than the kid in the commercial and i remembered the commercial and i have found it i have a youtube link we can put it in the show notes um it is a uh mcdonald's commercial for the big Mac to all beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, all on a sesame seed bun is like that was the jingle that they had around that time.

And then they would show people unable to do that, that series of words in that order or something like that. And at some point, a kid they have one in one of the commercials that came out the same year that this episode did so it would be very recent uh they just had a kid do it backwards bun seeds sesame on onions pickled cheese cheese, lettuce, sauce, special, patties, beef ball, too. What was that? 12 beef patties, special sauce, sauce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun backwards. So you would just have probably two or three years worth of this commercial just constantly people saying what goes on a Big Mac in a particular order in a certain cadence and failing to be able to do that. Now, the reason why this sticks into my head at this time, I'm too young to have

watched the Rockford Files, right? Like I probably saw this episode in reruns, but McDonald's kept this up. Like you probably have heard, do all beef patty special sauce lettuce cheese all in a sesame seed bun um like it's it's burned into my brain at some point they did a promotion where instead of just doing the big mac they did a jingle that was their entire menu right not describing the ingredients that go into each thing in the menu but like just listing all of the things on their menu and the promotion was if they did it to a song and uh what they did is they delivered records these floppy records uh in your sunday newspaper and you would take it out it was like this floppy vinyl you put it on your record player you play it and they would have this chorus that was like all right now we're gonna try and do the song we're gonna run it through once and then you're gonna do it on your

own and if you manage to do it on your own whoever owns this record is going to win a bajillion dollars or something i don't remember what the actual prize was but it was the sweepstakes so to get everyone to listen to this record to see if they could play them anyways. We got it. There's a point to this story. We got it. It was around the same time of the moral panic with heavy metal and all of the satanic backmasking and all of that. We had two record players.

So I took one. I put it in neutral. Let's call it neutral where it just re-spins, right? And we took another one and I wrapped a rubber band around, like a big rubber band around them. So when I hit play on the other one, it would spin the first one reverse. And I put the record on that one and I listened to it in reverse, convinced that there would be back masking or some kind of message i wanted to be the one to discover this right like yeah this is now when i'm talking about this what i'm doing here is the same activity that somebody on social media would do in a matter of like 30 seconds like they like it would the commercial will come out they would

upload it to the computer they play it backwards and'd put it on YouTube and it would go viral or whatever. I don't know. But what I did was just for my own edification. And I did learn something. There are hidden messages. And what I learned was the word egg, because they also had their breakfast menu, egg, sausages, and apple pie are auditory palindromes. They sound the same backwards as they do forward. Egg, sausages, apple pie.

And to this day, I know that fact. And now you do too, dear listener. If this has not been edited out of our podcast. I would never dare. I may, in in fact clip those and reverse them and we'll see yeah see how it sounds all right i have no graceful transition back to the rockford files we go back to uh uh jim telling rocky to go buy her some new clothes and to use the gas money but what about our trip to baja yeah what about it and with that the idea of that trip is

put to bed it's so sad she uh she gets up because uncle marty is on tv he used to be married to aunt cecil uh and it's a news broadcast i suppose yeah showing a body bag being loaded into uh an ambulance and some voiceover saying there's nothing to confirm or deny that he was a police informant. On the heels of that, the phone rings. It's Dennis and he says he thinks he found Stu Gailey, but he needs him to bring Marin to identify the

stuff. We're still looking for the body. Yes. I just now as we're going over it, I just realized that that is quite a bit of an exposition dump to get both like the television news report exposition. Events have happened that affect your story directly, followed by the very well-timed phone thing. But it works because it's economical. It kind of like packs it all in together.

We get to our next thing. Yeah. And you do feel like, oh, maybe this uncovered that. Right. Like this thing that they're reporting on has been worked through the police department and gets to, you know. Yeah. Yeah. We go to a bridge or underneath a bridge with Dennis, who is asking Maren questions.

All she knows is that her dad said he was sick and was going to get better. You know, Jim's like, you know, she's had a rough day and kind of leads her away. We have like an emotional core moment before getting back into our story. Yeah. Where Marin's looking out over the water. I hate him.

What? I hate daddy. I know you're sad and scared i don't blame you but don't call it hate i mean he's kind of acting as a parent here like you're feeling these big emotions you know good like you feel you know feel your feelings you know but hate's a pretty specific word like that doesn't mean that's not i mean what you what you what you're trying to express um i mean i don't you what you're trying to express um i mean i don't know if we need to go into but like obviously like he's kind of abandoned her

now he might have really abandoned her yeah what we learn in a second is that the the evidence suggests that he jumped off this bridge so yeah she's really having a kind of a traumatic moment here and jim's doing his best to to to ease ease her uh landing i guess um but he goes to talk to dennis doesn't doesn't necessarily buy that stew gailey jumped off a bridge uh like there's all this stuff his wallet and his coat he took off his coat uh why would you take off your coat to jump off a bridge unless you want people to know that you jumped yeah jim's on the case now jim's on the case but until he finds something different dennis is calling it a suicide and jim there's a nice little functional bit here where

jim's like okay well maybe if if you call it a suicide then he'll think the pressure's off and he'll come out of hiding so fine you do that like that yeah tell the papers and we'll yeah unfortunately this means that he denn Dennis has to take Marin. She's a ward of the state now. He tells her that. And she's upset. She says, you promised to Jim. Jim takes Dennis aside and goes to, I think, a moment where he's like, Scotty. He uses Dennis's son, Scott, who we all of us viewers know as Jim.

Is he Jim? He's Jim's godson. Right. Right. And probably not his namesake, but he's been told. But he's been told is his namesake. Right. Because it's James Scott Rockford and Scott.

Yeah. Anyway, if Scotty was in trouble and he just learned that you, you know, that you jump off a bridge, would stay with me and rocky or in that as he says wire mesh hellhole yes and now he has the and we see dennis being like i know what you're saying jim but like my hands are tied like these are the rules right but he says i have the right name on the ant her name is cecil goss give me a couple days to find her uh and if she stays with us that'll save the taxpayers a little money like all the reasons and then he ends with a please yes and dennis is a big old softy when it comes to the taxpayers money that's really what tips it over and uh we cut from there to a hospital where jim has found cecil goss she is in a hospital bed. She's been all beat up.

The first thing he says after confirming who she is, is that he has, he has Marin. She's staying with him and, and Cecil is glad she's okay. She's obviously relieved. So we, you know, have the conversation here where we learned that Stu called Cecil, wanted to leave Marin, uh, with her, but didn't want to drop her off at the house. So that's why they're going to meet at the pier. So as she was going to leave her house, two goons showed up.

They wanted to know what Stu said. They knew he had called her, wanted to know, you know, what the conversation was. And she said, I didn't say anything, even while they beat me up until they pulled out of the cattle prod.

Yeah. Like, Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't know who they were but probably marty was mixed up in it so i guess they're not related related but stew gailey and marty goss were both baggage handlers at the airport this woman cecil and the woman that stew married also worked at the airport and that's how they kind of all met. And then she says that I, I drew Marty and you know, the other woman married Stu. So I guess they're not like blood related, you know, but they're, you know, family friends, right?

Well, the, the two women could be sisters. And so the, the two handlers are in-laws of each other. Uh, yeah, I was a little confused at that point. And so the two handlers are in-laws of each other. Yeah, I was a little confused at that point. It doesn't really matter. I mean, but that's who these people are that we're talking about. Stu's wife was killed in a car accident. And she says that he couldn't handle his grief. And he basically crawled into a bottle. And that's his sickness.

And she and Martyy is split up marty's her ex-husband at this point through this whole conversation they have it without knowing without her knowing that marty is dead and jim finally tells her that information she takes it pretty well yeah my notes are this is kind of harsh the way he delivers it but i guess it's okay like she's she's been through some stuff. And it's a little bit more of a like he recognizes that she can probably handle it. But yeah, because he just hands her a newspaper and points to where he's his obituary, I guess, or the article. The story, because it's like police informant found dead is like the story.

So he's front front page. And then I guess stew's suicide is also in the paper um and then he says something like you're the only one who didn't make the paper because he placed the ad trying to get in touch with stew um but now he's probably gonna have to change it because of what's happened uh but if stew is alive and goes for it i'll be standing right there so yeah so now we're kind of getting into like okay it's clearly whatever the story is whatever the backstory here is it has to do with some some kind of plot that has to do with these baggage handlers yeah and and i

think because uh we didn't mention this at the top but uh there is a particular moment in the opening montage where the words narcotics is mentioned at this point i'm like oh okay baggage handlers narcotics say no more we don't need to know any more details that's what we're adding to it yeah this isn't really a mystery episode at all it's really a yeah i don't lance the boil episode like something is wrong and it needs to be fixed someone needs to be kept out of danger but there's no real mystery to investigate it's mostly the logistics of like how do we connect with the people that we need to connect with how do we find the people we need to find yeah there's less of a mystery for us although we don't know the exact details about anything quite yet i i don't

know if it was my memory of the show i don't like i couldn't recall the exact details of the plot or anything well we've talked about that i just don't that's not my thing uh but um i definitely spent most of this show thinking uh that all my notes call him paulie i gotta look him up here stewart stew stew yeah uh stew that stew is an okay guy trying to make the best of a bad situation yeah yeah that was my assumption at the very beginning uh not because i was on critic like it's not that they didn't offer any evidence otherwise it was just i'm just assuming that this is the way it's gonna go yeah and it could have been like you know just because he had this uh daughter that he clearly cared about and so you're telling me that there's something good about this character and that's what we need to know

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? world plural master singular or at dig a thousand holes dot 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 ndpaoletta, 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 go to Marin watching TV in the trailer. Rocky's hanging out with her. They're kind of talking through the strategy of the game show that she's watching. And there's a moment where he's like, if you were on there, you would win big. I guess fun trivia note from the Ed Robertson book.

All of the names that are mentioned during these, there's a couple times that she's watching a game show on tv and we're hearing the game show dialogue yeah all the names mentioned are production people from oh from the show fun little bit um there's a phone call rocky answers and from his side of the conversation it's like oh your daughter's here she's safe it's so good that you called so apparently her father has seen the ad and is calling and as he's talking like rocky come on yeah exactly like i got a knot in my stomach i'm like rocky rocky get off the phone but he gives gives them the address over the phone 29 cove road tells marin she's happy they hug jim comes in he sees that they're all excited he gets a big hug hug, too. My dad called him. I'm going to see him. He asked how her dad sounded. And she said, oh, I didn't talk to him. Rocky did. And we see immediately on Jim's face like, oh, yeah, but my notes are like, come on, Jim, you got to get wise to this because there's a little business before that happens yeah and then when she said they would talk i'm like there we go okay like again jim's on the case yeah i say that jim is capital c concerned yeah so without really saying like uh-oh or that anything's wrong he's like okay well how about you get all your

stuff and go over to rocky's just in case and i'll meet your dad here and then we'll come and get you. Rocky's got a better TV and a remote control. Yes. He kind of talks her into it by with a, don't you trust me? And she's like, yes, then go to Rocky's. And I think the,

the bigger TV seals the deal while she's getting her stuff. Rocky's like, I really like this moment too, because so often, I mean, not so often, but a lot of the rocky jim stuff that we see is like you know rocky kind of getting on jim's back about something or yeah being kind of willfully misunderstanding about how he does his business and stuff like that

if whoever shows up at this door doesn't look like the picture i saw on Stu Gailey's driver's license. We've been had. She's been had. Oh, man, I'm sorry, Jim. Hey, you didn't do anything wrong. Who knows? Maybe it'll be Stu Gailey. Yeah. And it seems very legitimate.

He's not, you know, he's not busting him over it. He's like, you did what any reasonable person would do. It's just not a reasonable situation. Yeah. Yeah, because Rocky's like, I've been had. And then we have a bit of a, a joke in the cut, uh,

where he says, maybe it'll be Stu Gailey. We cut to the, to the red and white goon car coming down, coming down Cove road. A goon transit object, a GTO. That's very good.

GTO. Our flannel goon is driving. Our denim goon is lying down on the back seat we have a nice little um scene played out for the benefit of each other where yeah uh flannel goes up to the door jim answers it he says he's stew's good friend duffy he's wanted him to bring more in just in case because these ads sometimes are used by bill collectors to hassle poor folk. Yeah. There's a great line where he's like, yeah, he has a bad case of the shorts. And I was like, what is this? Oh, it's money trouble. Like he's coming up short. Yeah. It's not diarrhea. Oh, this is horrible.

Whatever that is, the shorts. And Jim is kind of going along with it, you know, like, OK, well, you know, hey, Marin, get your stuff. It's your Uncle Duffy. And as he comes in, this is maybe the scene I was thinking about. During the conversation, we cut from outside the trailer to inside the trailer. And we see that Jim is holding a big red glass decanter over the door. So that when this guy, Duffy, or Flannel as I'll continue calling him, comes in, he can just smash it down on the back of his head immediately. You love to see it. So many times we've seen goons.

Jim gets the door open a little there's a bit of a conversation and then they like busting just shoulder into him or you know something this is this is good to see him it won't last long but it's good to see him get the drop yeah he gets the drop he kind of gets his knee in the guy's back he starts being like what's your interest you know what are you what do you have to do Gailey for blah, blah, blah. Uh, but before he can really get anything, uh, denim, denim goon comes in and hits Jim from behind himself.

We hear get the prod. So we have some business here of like they're threatening Jim. Jim starts playing really scared. Like, okay, okay. I have a really good memory. Yes.

I can remember a lot of things and you're going to like them. Yeah. This is also the moment when the, from the preview montage where it sounds like Jim's explaining to the audience that that's a cattle prod, but Jim has already been alerted that they're, that they have used a cattle prod. So now it naturally does fall from the dialogue where he's like,

wait a minute, that's a cattle prod, isn't it? You know, like, I mean, that's not what he says, but it's a, it's a little bit of him also playing up like an electric cattle prod

like right so that he seems more scared than he actually is and more likely to spill the beans yeah so this gets them to the point where they're like okay come with us and as he leans as as our denim goon leans down to haul him up, Jim uses that leverage to pull him down instead. And we have a little rumpus in here. He gives Flannel a good punch full across his face and then throws one of them into the other, which just gets them out of the way enough for him to run out the door. They chase. We see that at least one of them has a gun but they can't find them anywhere and then we see a cop car coming down the road so they uh they take off they pass

one of those nice shots so like our goon car leaves as the squad car that has dennis in it comes up dennis gets out looks around and then jim pops up over the roof of the trailer which is where he was hiding where were you five minutes ago he got the roof of the trailer, which is where he was hiding. Where were you five minutes ago? He got the plate of the car, gives him the description. But Dennis is there with someone from Juvenile Hall. There's like a woman in a uniform that gets out with him. It's official now.

They need to take Marin. But Jim, he has a document notarized by the guy at the nurse's credit union that he's Marin's legal guardian until Cecil Goss is back on her feet. Yes. And Dennis says, all right, Jimbo, good for you. This is a quintessential Jim play, right? Like this just feels like a Jim knowing the bureaucracy and then also like the shortcuts he can make through it because it doesn't – it's notarized by the guy at the nurse's credit union. It does not sound – It doesn't sound official. Yeah, it doesn't sound like – I mean like it is official.

If it's a notary public, then yeah, then it's official. But it's like the closest person who could notarize a document at the hospital oh the nurse's credit union clerk or whatever yeah it's it's very good good it's also like a really nice uh uh it's really nice structural element for the story because now we can stop worrying about whether they're going to take marian away like we've had a couple beats of like, she has to come with us. Oh no,

not yet. She has to come with us. I'll just let her stay with me. And now it's like, okay, now we can just stop worrying about that as an element of the story. Yeah. For,

for now, for now. Yeah. Um, Oh, and PS, there's a drug enforcement, uh,

fed, uh, DEA official looking for Jim, but Dennis told him it wouldn't be necessary to issue a warrant a little threat there cut to uh recurring i don't know if he's a fan favorite but i think recurring show favorite uh ken swafford as al gillette the dea agent kind of similar to mills watson i feel like ken swafford is someone whenever his face pops up i'm like oh yay this guy m was watching over my shoulder and she's like that guy looks like a fed

and i'm like he's not only a fed he's fbi he's dda he's a colonel retired colonel in the army uh he's a pi we haven't seen that one yet. Uh, and he's, uh, an RV enthusiast. Yep. You've covered him. Well, yeah, I think you're, we have the one more episode that he's in that we haven't done. It's a early season one. Oh yeah.

Right. Say goodbye to Jennifer. Yeah. So we haven't done that one, but yeah, we've done the Aaron Ionward School of Success where he's FBI agent Patrick. Um, he's the dea agent here so the i think the one that you know probably his best his his most significant role perhaps is the carl ronco in the queen of peru uh but he's also howling mad uh howling mad in uh the hawaiian

headache in season six yeah which is a fun episode that that was like the last one they filmed or something yeah yeah like well it was the last one that uh it wasn't the last one that aired but yeah it's it's almost the end of the it was there like we get to take the whole crew to hawaii episode and and they chose they chose uh ken swafford to come with them. Yeah. So, I mean, that says something definitely a face. It's always fun to see, uh, here. He is, uh,

giving Jim the lowdown of why the DA is involved. So Stu Gailey was involved in a narcotics ring that they busted last year, but he got off on a technicality. He also turned on his, you know, on the other narcotics gang members or whatever, the ring. So he's been sitting on a stash and waiting for the heat to cool down before he can get it back out in the streets or whatever. An informer told the DEA that Stu was ready to,

you know, start selling the stash. This informer was Marty Goss. And so Gillette drew $100,000. That's government money for the buy. Our little shorthand here says that that's roughly half a million in today's bucks. So Goss was supposed to make the buy with this $100,000. Somehow Gailey must have found out, evaded a tale, met up with Goss and killed him, took the money. So now he has $100,000,

as he says, of the taxpayers' money. His superiors don't like it. And on top of that, I think he says he has like a flawless record or something like that. And he's not going to let Stu Gailey destroy that either. He's going to keep looking for him until he finds him or finds a body.

So that is the situation as presented. There's this, you know, there's some back and forth. Jim has some wry comments, but that's basically this, this scene is giving us all that background. So at the end of this scene,

I was definitely feeling like, I don't know if the portrait that we've been given of Stu Gailey by this story matches the character that we've seen so far. Yeah. One of these things I don't think is correct. And I think that's intentional. I think we're in the right place as audience members feeling like something doesn't seem to make sense here. We go to a establishment shot of Palisades Park where Stu is looking at an ad that says,

Sun sets on the magic toad today, Palisades park where stew is looking at an ad uh it says sun sets on the magic toad today palisades park i don't know how that yeah actually i wrote that one down and uh i mean sunsets is meet at sunset and palisades park is the location but uh i don't know how magic toad is like a word that you know like at no point, Rose magic too. Yeah. It doesn't. Yeah.

I, it doesn't really matter except that I wrote it down cause it's a fun phrase. And now I'm like, at some point, like, is that like a fun thing that he would say? Like,

is that an inside joke or something? So we do know that he talked to, um, uh, what's her name? Uh, Cecile Goss uh and and he did specifically talk about the these messages in the paper right so he might have gotten some sort of inside jokey thing that

would have conveyed it but yeah i wrote it down too thinking oh maybe i'll i'll anagram it or something or, but I mean, I sunsets has stew in it, but it's just, that doesn't help. Uh, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out, but it's fine.

I mean, like it doesn't matter. Yeah. These things are often in kind of like a little like interpersonal code inside joke kind of thing. So I kind of feel like maybe there was a line that would have explained it that got like cut or something i've really enjoyed in this episode reading the the classified directly above and directly below yeah there was it this one or the next one that was

like woman 70 looking for a widower she's a widow she's in her 60s and she's looking for a widower. She's a widow. She's in her 60s and she's looking for men with homes and income in their 70s and 80s. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Well, however it worked out, Stu responded. He's at Palisades Park at sunset and Jim comes out of nowhere to confront him. He wants some answers. Stu is immediately relieved to hear that Jim has

Marin and she's safe. Yeah. But as Jim says, you're hotter than last July. Yeah, that's a good line. So if you don't tell me what's going on, I'll have to feed you to the big blue machine. This is, you know, a lot of exposition here about the backstory. So he

said he didn't kill Marty, but there was a narcotics ring at the airport he didn't know about it until he walked in on it and then became part of it it was set up by a skycap or something and then he and marty were bag of chandlers they had a hole in the wall uh with a locker in front of it on the other side of the conveyor belt coming from international flights so they could without anyone knowing pull bags off of the conveyor take stuff out of them put them back on and by the time they get to customs they're clean and presumably this stuff ended up in a locker and somebody picked it up out of the locker whatever yeah distribution from there yeah um jim says very creative so Stu came across the ring.

He told Marty he was going to go to the cops. Marty wanted to go with him. When they went to the cops, the cops had them stay involved so that they could get more evidence. And Jim's like, that's standard operating procedure. They're not going to move until they have a lock on the charges. Jim's giving the cops a lot of credit throughout this episode. There's an earlier one where he's like, sometimes people run from things that aren't the police. And we're about to learn that that's not the case here.

So the bus came down and everyone involved got 15 years, but they kept cases pending on him and Marty and and had them keep the operation going and now they were getting uh they were getting their their orders from the feds who had orchestrated the bust sometimes they would take stuff out of uh luggage sometimes they would put stuff in and jim's like ah instant evidence they weren't supposed to look at the and sometimes they just take bags entirely they weren't supposed to look in them mart and sometimes they just take bags entirely. They weren't supposed to look in them. Marty always did. And a lot of the time they were full of money. They couldn't stop because if they did, they'd, the pending charges would come down and they'd go to jail.

And then he's like, and then I was fired four months later. Jim's like, so who are the guys chasing you? Who are these two mastodons that are on your tail? Duffy and Manny. Those are the feds I'm telling you about. They look like creeps because they work undercover. They're under suspension, but they're part of Gillette's operation. Al Gillette?

Yeah. What? I told him where I've got Marin stashed. You did what? Yeah, my dad's with her. Yeah. Nice shout out to Mastodon. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Topical. It's fun watching their competing concerns at the very end of this scene and the beginning of the next one. I shouldn't say competing, but Stu is worried about his daughter, period. Right. Jim is worried about Stu's daughter and Rocky. Right. And that just, in light of Stu's worrying about his daughter, makes it seem like he's, because he's like,

I told her where I have a marine stash. My dad's with her. Yeah. It's just like, he's worried about both. And also Jim's like, well, why didn't you go to the cops? And he's like, well, I couldn't go to the cops. So Stu's at the point where he's like, no cops. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't want any cops involved.'t you go to the cops and and he's like well i couldn't go to the cops so stew's at the point where he's like no cops yeah yeah like i don't want any cops involved i don't trust the cops etc so that's also a competing thing going on um they go to rocky's and sure

enough it's all in disarray he's been jumped two gorillas uh came in they took marin kicking and screaming uh and he he mentioned something like she wouldn't like over purse stew says oh she would never leave that behind that was her mother's purse that's important later while jim is tending to rocky we see stew uh open a bottle of something that is you know was sitting on rocky's uh sideboard so jim's like okay what are they after the final element of all of this is that mart Marty kept a book of everything they did so that they would have something to deal themselves out if they needed to. So they basically have receipts for all of these illegal operations. Marty was supposed to meet with Gillette, get official statements,

like clearing them or whatever, or dropping the charges. And then he would tell Stu and then Stu would mail the book to Gillette. That was the plan. Marty never called. Then he turns up dead. Jim's like, we have to go to the cops. This is a police matter. He's like, no cops. And Jim, he goes to, I have a personal friend, you know, who I know will help us it's like yeah but what about his boss how do we know he's not in on it yeah yeah but jim talks him into it uh or at least into letting jim kind of lead the next part uh so this book is in a locker at the boat terminal marin has the key but she doesn't know it because stew sewed it into the lining of her purse so important that she sells has the purse.

They can't blow the whistle without the book. So they need the key to the locker to get the book. Rocky needs to report the kidnapping so that Gillette doesn't get suspicious. And then Jim is going to sit on Stu until they can make their move. Their only advantage is that Gillette doesn't know that they've teamed up. And then there's a bit of business where Sue's like, what do you mean teamed up? but doesn't know that they've teamed up and then there's a bit of business where sue's like what do you mean teamed up yeah uh but uh jim's like you know we're in this we're in this together now he makes some uh some some comment when he as he takes the bottle out of stew's hand and puts the cork back in yeah um which is also you know a nice little piece of business there's also a little bit i i don't have the exact words here that but like rocky goes to defend jim uh to stew being like you know like what who's teamed up

here whatever rocky rocky gets offended on jim's right right that's fun that's good and we cut to angel angel stew and jim are holed up at angel's place. Okay, I just want to say, the beginning of the episode, Stuart Margolin's name shows up in the credits. And so I'm like, oh, Angel's going to be in this? But he wasn't in the opening montage, was he? I don't remember. But I noticed his credit as well, yeah. Yeah, I just spent most of this episode waiting for Angel and Polly to get together.

They're a power duo. It's fun. I really enjoy this scene because it's a gym between the two of them. It's really good. There's three different energies going on. They're very, very different energies. I love it. First of all, the picture of angel's place

we don't see angel's place very often yeah but i feel like this is maybe the ur version like it's different every time they don't you know it's like whatever they need for for the scene but this is like there's just stuff every it's not dirty but it's like full of stuff cluttered it's cluttered it's not in a nice building like so everything's run down it's very cluttered it's cluttered it's not in a nice building like so everything's run down it's very cluttered it but there's a giant uh there's a giant texas flag on the wall like the lone star flag which is amazing um and and a little bit important actually uh and yeah just the energies are are amazing streets are fidgety hi jimmy i mean both sides are looking for a piece of this slinko now i don't know how much longer i can let you stay here yeah jim sees in the paper that there's a reward out for stew there's a reward out on you now how much 10 grand angel listen jimmy i don't know this guy

10 grand 10 grand where'd you find this creep hey, you're staying in my house. This is my house. What do you say, Jimmy? Opportunity of a lifetime. Yeah. He doesn't even, like, modulate his voice. Listen, I don't know this guy. Ten grand is ten grand. Yeah.

So good. And he's like, oh, you don't want the ten grand. And then when he finds out about the war body, he's just like, oh, that's what Jim's angle is. He wants the hundred grand. I'm wanting on that. You buddy, he's just like, Oh, that's what Jim's angle is. He wants the hundred grand. I want in on that. You know, it's just,

Oh yeah. His inability to see Jim doing the right thing. Like, he's like, he has nothing. It just doesn't phase him. It doesn't. Yeah.

Yeah. It's extremely good. It's like a pure distilled scene of angel-ness. Yes. He's in one more scene a little bit, but this is pretty much it. Yeah. And it's extremely good. We end the scene with Jim seeing an ad in the personals.

Ramp Rat. Call by six. Or it's Adios, Maren Rose. Now that one makes sense. That one, very clear. Yeah. I'm just realizing that, because they call him a Ramp Rat a couple times. Yeah.

I'm just realizing that that must be slang for a baggage handler that's what i'm guessing too yeah i was like does that have to do with the pier like as rat and pier is what where my head goes but i'm with it now i figured it out as we're going through well that's why we do a podcast to figure these little things out um he makes the phone call to it's to a pay phone. Flannel Goon answers. They want the book. They'll meet in an hour. Is Marin okay? He says something like, she's fine in the trunk of my car.

Yeah. Like just cruel, right? Just like needlessly cruel. Stu asks, how do I know she's alive? And he says, well, like we all have to take gambles or something like that. You're just going to have to find out. So they set up a meeting in an hour. Trade the book for Marin. That's the deal. or something like that. You're just going to have to find out. So they set up a meeting in an hour trade, trade the book for Marin.

That's the, the, the deal. Um, Jim has a plan. Stu is like, I don't know. Why should I go along with you? It's like,

well, my plan has a 90% chance of failing because it depends on you. It's a hell of a thing to say, but, uh, we followed them back to the apartment as Jimim is rigging a rope through some furniture this will be important later as he literally says we have to rig the game to have a chance and uh stew reiterates no cops and it was like no cops that you got it but you have to do like

we have to do this we have to take these chances we don't know what the plan is obviously that's you know we are we will find out as through the next couple scenes uh but stew wants a drink to calm his nerves and jim says you told marin you're going to get better now's the time to start so those are a little undercurrent of uh i don't know jim jim acting in what he thinks is the best interests of a little moral authority yeah um all right so the next the next couple scenes are pretty there's a lot of good banter we're in the caper phase we're now watching a caper being executed it's not quite a con it's kind of a con um yeah but it's more of uh yeah just like let's see what jim's plan is yeah let's play this out and see who ends up with the upper hand.

So Jim takes a cab to the viaduct. And at this point I realized, huh, I guess the, uh, Firebird just isn't in this episode. Oh, you're right.

That didn't occur to me. It's just though. Yeah. And it's fine. And like, it makes sense that he takes the cab because he needs to be, he needs for it to make sense for them to take him with them. Yeah. And he doesn't want to leave his car there or whatever i'm sure so like that makes sense even without that but i'm

just like huh yeah no firebird in this episode stew didn't come because he's too shaky uh and he's sure they already killed moran so he doesn't think it's worth going through on the deal but jim can help make everything happen he just wants a cut of the money that's where he's dealing himself in because he knows there's this hundred thousand dollar pot sitting there uh jim has some leverage because if stew doesn't hear from jim he's gonna as he says uh have the book in his hand when he blows his brains out on the police lawn yeah so he he winds up it's the flannel gun he he winds him up and kind of aggravates him to where he's like, threatens him. And then he's like, is your boss going to be okay with this? Do you have the ability to make this decision?

I don't negotiate with the hired help. Yeah. And so he's like, fine. He's going to take him to see the boss. But he jabs him in the back as they walk away. And I think we see real irritation jim's face as he turns around like that's one yeah yeah it's it's a good it's a good empty threat it's not empty it turns out it's not empty but it's a good like uh position where he's like i'm tolerating this you don't

get much more yeah um gillette shows up uh so it's just the two cars outating this. You don't get much more. Gillette shows up. So it's just the two cars out at this viaduct. There's more banter. As we get to Jim's terms, they're very simple. He just wants $10,000 in exchange for getting them the book. But he has a condition. Marin stays alive. $10,000 doesn't buy me as an accessory to murder.

Yeah. He wants to see the money, but as are they have the entire upper hand they want to get to stew gailey first and if that all goes down you're on and then as he says otherwise you're off he gets another pro i i wasn't sure if it was the gun again or if he actually got the cattle prod the second time yeah i don't know but he gets like jabbed again and he's like that's two and when they put him in the back of the car, Marin's sitting there, not in the trunk, thankfully. Yeah. And this is when we get from the preview montage.

I hate you. Our goons in their various cars with Jim and Marin in tow go to Angel's place. Jim continues to play his character here. He's like, OK, we're here he he's like okay we're here he's in there yeah i want my money i don't need to see whatever you're gonna do right he's like my part is i just want the money for connecting you to where he is but they want him to come with them he's going through the door first we see jim uh palm marin's purse and then drop it on the street outside the car we'll remember that is where the key to the locker actually is,

which is important because there's no way to get into a locker without a key. We also see angel creeping around behind a fence. Uh, so, so Gillette flannel goon and Jim go in and the denim goon stays with, uh, Marin in the car. Yeah.

Uh, they go into the apartment, confront stew. This this entire scene is very tense at least it was for me yeah so stew needs to both keep it he needs to keep it together to to convince gillette of their story which we'll go into in a second yeah but he also needs to be emotional to be convincing. It's a really, I mean, this is a really great performance. Yes. When I was watching the scene, I started off watching the scene just gleeful because, you know, I like watching them at work. You know, I like to see what they're but then it occurs to me like there's this great line that uh stew has where he's like because i knew i can't walk out of here alive once i worked that out the rest was easy

it's a punchy line it's a great noir line it's a very you know like and all of that like it's just really good it's delivered in front of his daughter i think or is that just before it's just before that okay then i'm thinking of what's happening coming up uh right but no basically like the beginning part of this scene is this wonderful hard-boiled detective kind of scene and then they bring his daughter into it and they have to continue with that scene and that's heartbreaking for her like because it's it's a fiction she's not in on yeah and it's a fiction where her father has accepted his own death and is about to do you know it's really powerful i think well has accepted his death and hers um yeah i'll hit the the the storytelling points here the the emotional intensity is i mean

it's in the physicality but it is also in his voice yeah um so it's it's really it's really strong but the uh the story beats here as you say he so when they come in without her without he says i knew she was dead and and then he has the line about, I knew I wouldn't get out of here alive. The rest was easy. He left the key and a letter for security to find at the boat terminal. It's in an envelope labeled notify police. Like he already did that. That's happening no matter what happens here.

Gillette pulls a gun on him and there's a beat. And then he says, come on, everybody I love is dead anyway. Since he is now presenting as I have nothing to lose. Now Gillette sends the goon to bring in Marin to be like, okay, no, you do have something to lose.

Right. So Gillette is playing it pretty at a pretty high level on his end. Yeah. Yeah. So once they take her in, we see Angel grab the purse. Yes. We know that something's happening. Yeah. Yeah. So once they take her in, we see angel grab the purse. Yes. We know that something's happening.

Operation angel key is, is in opera is, is going ahead. So they bring Marin in and then Stu says, well, none of us are going to make it out alive. So what does this matter? And Jim,

who's still playing his part, it's like, Hey, don't bluff with my life. Yeah. Like, and, and, and she says, he's, he told them where you were for money. matter and jim who's still playing his part it's like hey don't bluff with my life yeah like and and and she says he's he told him where you were for money yeah she's still very much hates jim yeah gillette says uh he's going to give him 10 seconds and um flannel goon has his shotgun on marin and this is extremely tense yeah does the countdown nine seconds eight seven six daddy five four three two we'll be together baby i love you july gets to one and there's another beat and i think we

see on his face he's like well what do i do now don't look at me she's not my kid well what do you want to do well he's telling the truth that book could get us a big 20 a life for the book that's all i want now okay she can go flannel is also like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna pull this trigger like what you really want me to do this like yeah yeah exactly like we see that you know we know he's a he's a a real creep but yeah he needs something more concrete from his boss yeah to make this next step yeah and gillette isn't quite sure what to do since this threat, his final, his ultimatum didn't get what he wanted. This is when Stu says, her life for the book, that's all I want. So he gives them the out, right?

Gillette agrees. Tells her to run to the church that's two blocks away. They'll take good care of her. No. Just do what I say, baby. It's not fair. You're all better now. We're out of here now! She goes. There's a few more beats. He finally tells Gillette that the envelope is in the time clock slot for the security guard so he can't miss it when he clocks out at

6.05. Gillette goes to get the envelope before the time runs out. Jim at this point has been maneuvered over to sit next to Stu so that the goons can keep an eye on both of them at the same time. He sits down on the couch. We see him palm the rope that he had been threading in the last

scene and we have a final explosive bit of action where Jim gets the drop on them literally by pulling the rope which tips the dresser down on top of uh flannel knocking him sprawling uh i think as he says hey duffy how'd you like to make it three yeah and then he pulls the rope there's a real meaty brawl uh jim and stew get the upper hand there's punches stew picks up a card table and kind of like hits the the denim guy until he uh stops fighting with it and we end the scene on we better get out of here i lied about the cops poor uh angel's apartment yeah it doesn't really

look that different no at the end of the day um yeah it's a great scene the one-two punch of the like you know the the the bluff through the countdown that was pretty pretty intense and then uh stew telling we're in to go and her not wanting to leave him and her being legitimately yeah overwhelmed terrified scared not wanting to leave him all that stuff uh that that was a lot yeah yeah it's all fun and games and then she shows up and you and nothing about it changed except that she's there and the context then is like wait hold on maybe none of this is fun and games like what's uh and i thought that was really well done oh yeah it's it's really well done the the structure of it is great the acting is all

really really good throughout and i was i was surprised with how uh how hard it hit me watching yeah a girl not want to leave her father like yeah hello it's me the guy who became a dad and now you know sees that stuff and has it really, really, really hit. Every time cats in the cradle and the silver spoon. How's that song go? Anyways. Yeah. But yeah, so well done, I guess, for targeting dads. You did it.

Unexpectedly big kind of finale. I mean, we'll follow up the story, but like, that's the finale, right? Like, that's the i mean yeah yeah follow up the story but like that's the finale right like that's the that's the climax of the episode and it really kind of went bigger than i had anticipated or remembered but it's it's worth it it's very strong um we cut to gillette at the terminal looking for the time clock he finds it he finds the envelope with the key he opens the locker and inside the locker is a letter that says dear Dear Al, you're under arrest. And he turns around and it's Dennis, some cops and a guy in a hat who I assume must be a fed. Oh, yeah, Dennis.

We end our episode back at the trailer. Marin and Stu are there. He's circling things in the newspaper. He's looking for a trailer. They can just about afford one if he sells the rest of their furniture. Then they'll be able to move around. He's a good mechanic. He can get work.

Maybe they'll go to Oregon. Jim and Rocky come in with groceries. No goons slapping them out of their hands. It's a wonderful thing to see. Tell them about this trailer idea. There's a joke about where they're going to put the TV for Marin. And she says that Jim says, I'm a TVaholic. Is that as bad as an alcoholic?

No, it's a lot cheaper and it doesn't hurt the next day. That's a good line. And then it follows with, plus that's not for the gailies. That's for people who can't see tomorrow. So, you know, again, it's a bit of an undercurrent uh but you know we we see that he's finally dealing with his own dealing with his own grief and his own pain by seeing that he has something to live for as opposed to you know run away from right that's kind of the the context that we see him uh coming out the other side of in this scene he thanks jim for

everything including the hundred dollar loan he'll have it back as soon as possible and then we get the real surprise reveal rocky has a present for marin uh can't hold it back any longer he has to give it to her yeah she opens it i think he mentions like i spent 20 minutes wrapping that or something like they don't appreciate his wrapping job. It's a nice leather purse. It's kind of the same style as her mom's purse, but it's like nicer. I think it has her initials on it. And there's something inside.

Since Marin told Dennis about the money in Gillette's trunk, she gets the $10,000 reward for the return of the money. So it's like cashier's check or whatever with yeah the reward i think jim says how about that sweetheart you won the big deal and we have a freeze frame as stew and marin look at each other smiling and overwhelmed with disbelief and joy as turns out everything's gonna be okay we hope we hope yeah uh jim of course not making any money on this rocky out of pocket for the clothes and well they had they had their gas money so i guess that got spent i don't know how much more they spent yeah i imagine jim gets his hundred dollars back pretty quick yeah that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that episode.

It had been a long time since I'd seen it. Yeah, I think it was the recommendation, you know, said it was a bit of an unusual episode. And I think in the sense that, like, it's not really a mystery. It's certainly dealing with a kind of person we don't usually see. We don't usually see, like, usually see like young you know kids as the right central pivot of the story is not formulaic in that matter but adapting the kind of rock Britishness beats to that story is really nice like I said yeah he kind of like tries to reject

the job and then ends up taking it like all that kind of stuff um it's pretty good uh he leverages his knowledge of bureaucracy to get you know get out of a little bit of the trouble the guardianship that's good too yeah and he orchestrates a pretty i guess it's not complex but it's elaborate and he orchestrates a pretty high level con that really depends on stew yeah yeah pretty much 100 it depends on stew but it also depends on stew just being how jim uh like characterized stew right like yeah what i need you to be is uh like at the end of your rope stew just be yourself stew and don't give into this instinct to try and it's like you you need to be 10 more hopeless than you actually are yeah exactly don't let that 10 of like maybe i can deal my way out

of this don't give into that jim you get the sense of like i know how these people think you know he cares more about saving his own hide than about getting revenge or something like that. Right. Like maybe if it was like the mob, it would be a different approach. But I think you get the sense. He's like, I know what a corrupt is going to care about. And so if we can keep them on the string for the book, that will be our way out. Listen, I knew this guy when he was a PI and an FBI agent.

After this, he gets busted. He moves to the Midwest. He buys an RV. That would be very funny. Yeah, no, it's definitely good. I just talked about it, but the unexpected impact of the father-daughter drama definitely makes this one stick with me more now than, you know, after the first time I saw it. Yeah. Yeah.

All around, just lots of great performances, too. I think that that was, I mean, that's not saying anything new about the Rockford Files. Yeah. All the interactions with the normal, the the normal the core cast was just classic all good stuff good rocky jim stuff good angel stuff good dennis uh yeah like i'm thinking back to the where dennis reveals that he's been on nights because jim used his phone. That's good stuff. Perfect. And as kind of a final entry in our Gordon T. Dawson episodes, definitely on par with,

with the other ones. I'd say that a lot of these scripts are a lot of these episodes have that element of like, here is this person with this personality flaw. Our episode is not about that, but the fact that they have it and that part of the episode is addressing it is like a lot of the emotional content. Cause like,

like I said, it's kind of similar to, um, the deuce, uh, where it's a little more forward in Mills Watson's character about his alcoholism, but that's,

you know, in there. We talked a lot about the character flaws of gandhi yeah yeah um so those are the the big ones i guess the trees the bees and tt flowers tt flowers is more of a victim than a flawed protagonist in that yeah but the situation that he's in is one kind of his own devising if i remember you know i'm trying it's been a while since we saw it but it's like because he has a like his son-in-law is trying to basically get his property out from under him or something like that right yes so they like have him committed and then jim jim and

rocky like break him out and all that stuff uh so that one might stand out in a slightly different way um and in a fast count like the uh uh the promoter um mori i think uh i mean he is certainly a flawed person he's he he's running a pyramid scheme without knowing it kind of unintentionally yeah yeah he's willing to take advantage of you know certain things in order to get his get his his main interest which was like you know getting his protege the best bookings because he deserved it because he's finally has a boxer that he can that he thinks can go all the way yeah and we learned that he's like working weekends in the warehouse and like all that stuff he's never made money as a promoter so like there's that that

element um is kind of there in that one as well i don't know so there's definitely a reoccurring uh motif there that that uh um gordon t wait gordon t dawson yes uh hits upon in his stuff yeah uh i think this happens to me quite a bit with these where we'll close someone out and then realize that this person has had kind of a big influence on what we've enjoyed about the show or, uh, or, I mean,

we can't necessarily say so, but they've been, they've had a hand in making some of our favorite episodes or, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's like the,

uh, show did a really good job of bringing strong writers and directors on to do their episodes. There's something about this show that's just well done. Someone should talk about that. Yeah, it's just good. All right. Well, I suppose on that note is a good time to say that since someone should talk about it, we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.