Two Hundred A Day - Episode 117: Trouble in Chapter 17

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Nathan and Eppy enter the publishing world in S4E2 Trouble in Chapter 17. "Feminity not feminism" author Ann Louise Clement wants to hire Jim as a bodyguard, which isn't his beat. But after witnessing an apparent attempt on her life, he can't not look into it. Unfortunately for Jim, Ann Louise is more interested in publicity than preservation, and he begins to suspect it's all a farce - until her agent is killed in an apparent case of mistaken identity. This snappy Juanita Bartlett episode isn't an "issue" episode, but we appreciate the chance to talk about how she uses the show to contrast progressive and retrograde ideas about feminism, as well as enjoy all of the Rockfordishness we know and love. 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/) * Colleen Kelly, 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 * Freesound.org (https://www.freesound.org/) for other audio clips

Jim, this is Donna. Boy, we've really been swamped today. Oh, sit. We should be talking about... Sit! I'll meet you at... Oh, get down! Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. Today we are going to be coming to you with a Season 4 episode, season four, episode two, Trouble in chapter 17. Yes.

But before we get to that, Epi, I see a big flashing red light on our answering machine. Oh, well then we should check out what our messages are. It's funny to have an answering machine where the light actually gets physically larger as you get more messages. It's an interesting design, but one I appreciate. We actually have someone who comes in and swaps out, because they're old incandescent light bulbs. So just swaps out larger and larger bulbs. Do we get the cartoonishly large Edison bulb flashing red?

He's like, oh, I guess we should answer these. It's been a while it has been a while we've we've uh if you're a recent listener we appreciate getting feedback and we do see it and then every so often when there's a critical mass that we have received we do one of these answering machine um segments to talk about it and so it has been a while and we've received a critical mass. So here we go. First off, a big thank you to patron Brian Bernson, who sent us some. Oh, God, I'm too old. I was going to say who hooked us up with some drip, but I don't think that's how you use drip.

Who dripped us out. I don't know what the verb form of of having drip is i'm out of this i have no idea swag that's what i would just yeah no we got it it's it's it's swag yeah but it's also very the look it's a good look anyway oh yeah okay yeah sorry epi drip refers to looking good okay perhaps having style that i can see why that would be the case then anyway brian sent us some incredible replica uh shooting jackets yeah they are using a a period jacket that existed at the time it's a swingster jacket it's a big puffy blue jacket. And then it has been replicated to look like ones that are in photos of them being on set for the Rockford Files. Anyway, they're very cool. They have a Rockford Files patch on the sleeve.

They're extremely warm. Surprisingly warm, actually. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah. And it was just a very cool thing to receive. So thank you, Brian. We mentioned him in our gumshoe read, but make sure to check out Facebook thank you, Brian. We, we, uh, mentioned him in our gumshoe read, but, um, make sure to check out facebook.com slash Brian, uh, Brian with an a Rockford files, all one word,

uh, where he drives his tribute firebird around to different shooting locations. And, uh, it does like then and now of, uh, of, of various locations. Um, so that was very cool. Thank you. Yep. Uh, I'm. I've worn mine around town. I have You've been dripped out. I've been dripped out, yeah. Frustratingly, nobody has commented on it yet. Aside from my wife who thought it was quite nice and I looked dapper in it. That's the terminology that I remember using. But yeah, it's a very comfortable and warm jacket and I just, it just, it's, it's very comfortable and warm jacket.

And I just, it just feels kind of, it's very, I don't want to say subtle. Cause that's not the right term, but like it is bright blue. It is bright blue, but no,

I meant just like the, so the patch on the side, it goes down the whole length of the arm. And it just, it just says Rockford files. And I think if you don't know what the Rockford files are, that it means literally nothing to you and if you do know

it's like our shirts we should mention the shirts well, by the time this goes out I think our pre-order window will be closed, so thank you to everyone who ordered a shirt, they are in process, as to the best of my forecasting knowledge

gap from when we record to when we air these episodes moving on we've received some very nice notes from listeners who've recently found the show uh always appreciate those sometimes an email and sometimes in uh the form of a five-star review. Oh, nice. Over at Apple podcasts. That is my favorite quantity of stars. Our Lindsay 58 says, I love how much these guys love the show. They point out excellent acting, writing, and directing,

which helps one appreciate the show even more. So I thought that was a very nice review and seeing how we receive about one review a year. I figured I'd. Yeah. Include it here. That's a good one for 2023. Yep.

But yeah, if you happen to feel uh feel moved to go over to apple podcasts and and leave a review uh with stars it helps other people find the show helps rankings that kind of stuff so i'm told i'm told such as the algorithm getting to some feedback on episodes. Regarding our episode 109, A Fast Count. Okay. You'll remember that there was an ongoing bit that we talked about where whenever Jim was trying to leave the... So it's the boxing manager, right?

So whenever he's trying to leave that guy's office the door like he'd have trouble with the door handle yeah we kind of called it out and speculated about it being a bit and how it like related to some of the dynamics going on with the actors well um patron bill anderson tells us that uh regarding the door the story i heard was one of an abbott and castello like situation what would happen is the door would open just like it was supposed to in every walk through no issues whatsoever and always get stuck when the cameras rolled so what you're hearing is the rare and i truly mean rare james garner stuck to the script ad-libbed line wow wow yeah yeah because we do know that he likes he's like

we pay writers to write it so let's read what they wrote um but yeah that's exciting yeah it's uh you know sometimes we speculate about whether something was was staged in the sense of you know was constructed as part of the show um versus if it just happened and they just rolled with it. Yeah. As someone who used to work in live theater, this is a thing. Things work every single time you do them until opening night. Yeah. And also actors forget how to open doors. As soon as an actor walks on the stage, they forget that you have to turn a doorknob in order to open the door.

So you have to build all the doors on stage with push latches. Like once that you can just push and pull closed without having to turn the knob. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. That's it. Fun little tidbit there. It's also like it is a danger of reading too closely into something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I would say even under that danger, the final product is the final product. And it has meaning separate from intent, right? Like death of the author and all that doesn't matter. Like this is, but yeah, yeah. I love both the read and how it plays into the dynamic and also the fact that that is not true. It was not a thing that anyone intended. Happy accident. Speaking to the same episode, Dave Otterson says regarding the cop who sits down at the typewriter during the arrest.

Because I think we were like, what is he typing when they arrest Maury? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's coming back to me. Yes. Now it's coming back to me. Yes. So Dave says, I think he's transcribing the bribe letter so they can check if it was typed on more as machine by looking for a common unevenness in the

individual typed characters. That would make sense. That would make sense. I don't know if there's any texts to that. Like maybe if you can see what he's typing, maybe he's looking at the letter or something. Um, but yeah,

that, that makes much more sense than anything we came up with, I think. Yeah. Um, and then he agrees that the percentage confusion gag is good. And it reminds him of a Maverick TV movie they made that he. So, Dave, we've talked to him a couple of times.

He has audio tapes of some of the show because when he was a kid, he would record it on tape. Right. Yeah. Which is fantastic. So he says, I audio cassette taped this maverick movie at the time so he's listened to it but only watched it once when it aired they're dividing up the spoils of some con or investment and uh garner uh brett maverick is exasperated that the promise cuts exceed 100 so when we do our eventual Maverick follow-up show, we can keep an eye out for that.

We have a lot of conversation for, for our show, uh, surrounding the three Megan Doherty episodes. Oh, I will hit some of the high points here. We mentioned in one of them that Jordan Bockelman, not Brockleman had left some comments about the nature of Jim and Megan's

relationship. And then we would talk about it at a later time. So now is later. Now is that time regarding the movie, our opposite, our episode one 12 punishment and crime. He said, it's obvious to me that Jim has a type,

all his real serious love interests seem to be highly educated, independent working women who are all very similar to Jim. The other great love interests in the series, like Claire Prescott from Claire and Valerie pointer from guilt seem to be manipulative and similar to Jim. The other great love interests in the series, like Claire Prescott from Claire and Valerie Pointer from Guilt, seem to be manipulative and abusive towards Jim. And in case of Claire, perhaps the relationship was more of a con than anything else. What I'm getting at is for episodic television that stretched over six years and with eight TV movies from decades later,

Jim's MO when it came to serious relationships remains very consistent, which I appreciate. Yeah, I would agree with that. I was thinking about it when, um, in the brief amount of time that we set up this episode, uh, between us when we did the scheduling, right. Because I was like, Oh, I'll choose the next episode. And then, uh, the whole week went by. And it was like the day of, and I was like, Oh, let's do this one. Uh,

but I remember thinking to myself i could really use uh a beth episode which we we aren't doing today uh because we've spent so much time in this other relationship of jim's that that i it's not that i've you can't forget beth but like it would be nice to go back again because we did a beth episode recently and then the megan episode so to do another beth episode to kind of bracket it might be yeah interesting but there is like there's a consistency there uh i think we talked about like she might have she was an attempt at like a replacement that's kind of the like the way that it's framed since since um uh gretchen corbett had to leave the show.

Right. Right. That like, we get like Megan as like their love interest and we get, um, Coop as the legal, legal, legal who can help Jim out.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think in that way, um, well, I think that is like, you know,

a surface read and maybe that was the intention, but I think as we got into Megan, it's not best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, fact to his benefit like this is a much more um a much deeper look at one of jim's relationships which is pertinent to um a follow-up comment from from jordan um from our episode 115 love is the the Word, where he says, Just to clarify, the Jim-Megan relationship is satisfying for me as a viewer because we see it begin, we see them fall in love, we see them struggle and reconcile, we see the relationship end. Now, of course, the relationship continues beyond this episode, but as you both said, this feels like a conclusion, which I find satisfying. We don't see these same beats

with Jim and Beth, but that's satisfying in other ways. Uh, we see them going back and forth, not together personally, but not really apart. Uh, and so what we see with Jim and Beth, we don't see with Jim and Megan and vice versa. And I think some, some insightful stuff here. I think the heartbreak that we see in love is the word is proof of Jim's true love for Megan. And while we don't really see any heartbreak between Jim and Beth, what Beth recalls to Jim in A Portrait of Elizabeth about how she felt about him and how she tried to win him over

sounds like heartbreak to me. She was looking for commitment from Jim, same as Megan was. Unfortunately, it was not there for either of them to find. And then this conversation, so this was a comment on our Patreon post for the episode, and then we have some other patrons chim chiming in with thoughts uh from there as well so i'm not going to read them all here it's a good discussion um and all of our main episodes are cross-posted from our

main website feed to the patreon and our public so that even if you're not a patron you can see these discussions cool yeah so i think you know looking at kind of uh closing our chat turning the last page on our discussion about their relationship as a relationship um i feel like that's a good place to leave it yeah i want to just say that um not specifically about that but like uh the those past three episodes have been um very i say three episodes but they're five they're five episodes but the past they were three episodes that we did has shown a uh a side and of the whole uh but jim's story that we hadn't explored in the i don't know how many years we've been at this yeah uh because

you know because we've been jumping around at random right uh and we're i think we're past the halfway point now uh for for episodes uh but the fact that we just happened to not land on any of these until now is interesting and it just makes me wonder are there other like little bits and bobs uh yeah little little cycles that that we've missed yeah that we haven't gotten to yet because of our scattershot approach um i mean obviously that window closes dramatically as as we as we go on here but uh it's still fun to have this whole uh this whole new world to explore it does it does feel a little bit like we got to go off on a little journey yeah and now we're going to come back and now we're going to be a little more informed like this even makes me you know think

about some of our older episodes we've done a little differently like like how in um uh lions tigers monkeys and dogs how jim's relationship with um the lauren bacall character how that both fits into this kind of rubric of like yes the kinds of people that jim is attracted to the kinds of people he forms deep relationships with but it also makes sense that that doesn't go any farther than it does yeah and even like the i forget her name but the the the character from uh uh uh south by southeast um where he goes to mexico and then there's the like she's basically an independently wealthy woman and she's like leaving her like husband who's trying to kill who tries to poison her or whatever and then jim and her are clearly attracted to each other but it's not going to work out. Yeah. It's the class divide.

Right. The class divide is so strong. And I think in that episode, we talk about that, but also reflecting on where, where his long-term relationships do land. It's kind of like, right.

There seems to be other reasons as well, why that's not going to go anywhere. So it informs a lot of the other stuff we, we, we see in the show, which is great. And then a different kind of comment regarding Black Mirror. Listener Eli sent us an email. Great episodes. Very much enjoyed the podcast. Thank you, Eli.

Thank you. There's a couple of thoughts. They make a big deal out of no one is going to be describing anyone to Megan, etc. Really? Without knowing squadoosh about what a non-sighted person can sense, I'd go out on a limb and say someone who's walked into her office and sat a couple feet away for almost a couple years must leave some impression. Are they taller or shorter? Do they leave a certain dent in the couch? How heavy are their footsteps? I'm not saying she could pick them out of a lineup, but there's got to be some process of elimination. I mean, I would assume. What was the quantity of of knowledge squid douche a squid douche yeah i too have no squid douche

but but the thing is is like i wouldn't trust billings to be able to right to get that information in a uh in a helpful manner yeah and also i, I think there's an element of like, that's not the story. Right. I mean, I agree. I'm sure that there is like, if you wanted to sit down and, you know, what about this person would differentiate them? Right. And then maybe you have that conversation with Megan as the expert saying, oh, here's

what I can tell. Like, here's how I can help you. Right. But she doesn't want to help. First of all, this is all still to help first of all this is all still in the lead-up or this is all uh in the shadow of her finally agreeing to do the handwriting analysis thing yeah yeah yeah so there's that and then there's also i think the narrative utility or the narrative part of it where where it's a declarative statement about her making her way

through the world as an independent person, but then having, but hitting these, all these little, you know, as we, as we talked about, like these ableist areas of like people assuming she can do X or assuming that if that they can say why and have it make, you know, have it be relevant to her. I think this is kind of the most pointed part of that being like, there are moments that she has to deal with this kind of stuff and here's another one of them yeah i'm trying to think about the uh fundamental scam that the killer was pulling there and whether or not the fact that she was blind would have made it i think he wants to be identified right because that way he can yeah so that doesn't i mean i think i'm not sure if

there's really text either way on this but the my my impression was not that he intentionally left charlie alive to identify him i think right it seems like he tried to kill him and just didn't quite yeah yeah make it all the way yeah oh right yes i forgot that that's that the other person involved in all this is poor charlie well speaking of poor charlie uh comment continues doesn't jim know anyone tougher than charlie he was in the joint with gandy there must be other people say half as tough as gandy that he could call for muscle agreed agreed charlie feels like so so Jim has a. Seems kind of like a charity case almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's got like a soft spot for strays. And as annoyed as he is with them. Like, I could see Jim being like, Charlie needs work. Let's give Charlie some work here. But, yeah, I also agree that Jim has to know some tougher. Yeah. And also, like,lie's plenty big like this absolutely could just be uh charlie says bad luck with jim right right maybe if charlie just didn't end up in

these situations where like the mob was trying to yeah because they're both that's both of the ones where he gets messed up this guy's a mob assassin right the other one is when jim gets jumped going to talk to the garment yeah the garment union mob guy so it's like maybe charlie just needs to stay away from organized crime stick to the small small potato stuff a charlie spinoff would be nice just just like the the five minutes it's just a bunch of five minute episodes where he gets hired to do something and then when he gets waylaid, that's like, you just get that,

like the conversation in the car, or he's talking about his new, uh, double breast suit, you know, and then bam. Okay. Next,

next episode, the misadventures of Charlie. Yeah. Yeah. And finally, um, I didn't remember that this episode has my favorite angel line. Also don't know if he ever repeats it.

But the line I'm in for a painless 2% is something I've tried to get into ordinary conversation. Never succeeded, but not giving up. That is a good one. That is a worthy endeavor. And I will attempt to do that as well. I mean, for a painless 2%. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, uh, everything that's,

that's on our answering machine right now. So these comments have, you know, are mostly from Patreon and from our email. Um, we don't really check Twitter anymore. I stopped using Twitter. I think you stopped using Twitter.

Yeah. We do have the show account that has an automatic, um, automatically sends out when we have a new episode. Uh, so I see no reason to stop keeping that up for people who are still on Twitter, but, uh, we're not, and I don't check that account anymore, really. Uh, so if you've been tweeting at us, I'm sorry. Now that you can look at the Twitter algorithm source code, you can see that they're specifically calling out 200 a day. No, I'm sorry.

That's topical for the moment we're recording. It will not be topical. As with anything in the last six months, Twitter could very well not exist by the time this comes out. So who knows? And I don't know if we really have, I don't think there's really a huge benefit in running some other social media account for the show.

But if you want to get in touch with us, we have reactivated the contact form on our website um for a while we're getting lots of spam but since i turned it back on it seems to be okay so at 200 a day dot fireside.fm there's a contact link and then there's a form that you can send us a a message there you can leave comments on individual episodes at the website. You can email us at 200adaypodcasts at gmail.com and of course if you are a patron you can leave comments on our posts at Patreon. That's how

to get this light blinking. As always, thanks everyone for listening and for reaching out with your comments. They're always delightful for us to behold. I am a fan of the answering machine segment. Now that we've interrupted our usual rhythm, this is around the moment where you ask me why I chose this episode.

Indeed. Epi, why did you choose this episode? As a reminder, we are talking about season four, episode two, Trouble in chapter 17. Well, as i mentioned during the answering machine thing we we kind of came down to the wire before we had an episode chosen and i literally just looked at what ones we hadn't watched uh that had been written by juanita bartlett because i was just like, Bartlet-isode? Yeah.

So I sent it to you. You responded with, I think I remember that being one of the good ones. Or no, wait. I think I said, like, pretty much every single episode, I vaguely remember it as being a good one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the moment I read that, I thought, yeah, no, I remember this one being a good one, too. So, yeah. there we go well this one is as determined written by juanita bartlett and directed by

william ward uh prolific director so i took a quick look after we after we talk about this episode we have six juanita bartlett written episodes left i think with the full writing credit i think not counting ones where she where it's like teleplay by or whatever yeah uh plus the last two movies are both her scripts oh that's exciting also after we finish this episode we have six william ward episodes left is that a coincidence it is a coincidence okay and there's at least one one other episode where she wrote it and he directed it so i'm just saying we're closing in on yeah some of our our our big guns here um and just a side note included with our uh awesome jackets were some um some photos uh yeah and at least i don't know if we got the same ones but

uh at least the one that i received features william on location with, I think, Jim's stunt double. Yeah. It's pretty cool. So, again, big ups to Brian for hooking us up. But, yeah, considering how much answering machine we had, I think we can go ahead and get right into our preview montage. We know our writer. We know our director. Let's get going.

Yeah. So I have just three points here. You're going to deny that you're her lover, which is great. We know that Jim's going to be caught up in some kind of romantic thing. Specifically, it feels very much like Jim himself is not romantically attached to what's going on

and is going to be mistaken for it. We get a good stakes line where it's murder one. We know that there's a murder happening but i think like the key to this whole opening montage uh is that scream at the end and i as a horror aficionado uh uh what is her name claudette nevins she's got some pipes she she can scream she could do a good bone chilling scream. So I had four points on this. I can't believe you missed the perhaps the most important one, which is that we see that Jim gets shot in the taco. You know, I don't know when that came up in the episode.

I was surprised by it. It was in the preview montage. I must have been like typing something up or like I must have missed that in the. Yeah. OK. I don't know if I would have been typing something up. I must have missed that in the... Yeah. Okay. I don't know if I would have made that choice. I don't know if I would have put that in the preview. I mean, certainly it would draw me in. I would absolutely watch that episode where his taco gets shot.

But also, I really enjoyed the shocking moment when it happened. 200 a Day is a 100% listener-supported show, thanks to our patrons. In addition to our gratitude 200 a day is a 100% listener supported show. Thanks to our patrons. In addition to our gratitude and editing access to our 200 files, files spreadsheet,

patrons receive exclusive episode previews and plus expenses. Our bonus just chatting podcast about media work and life. We expend special thanks to our gumshoe patrons supporting this episode. Brian Bernson has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Check out facebook.com slash Brian Rockford Files. Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic at the Journey of an Aesthetic podcast. And Paul Townend recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, serial killers of color. You can find these shows wherever you get your podcasts. Dale Norwood

wrote a book. It's about fast ships, cheap drugs, and American political economy, published by the University of Chicago Press. Find Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold. Chuck from whatyou'rereading.com. Shane Liebling has all of your online dice rolling needs sorted at his site, rollforyou.party. And check out Jay Adan's amazing miniature painting skills at jayadan.com. In addition, thanks to Andre Apagnani, Tom Clancy, Pumpkin Jabba Peachbug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Hawley, Dale Church, and Colleen Kelly. And finally, special appreciation for our detective level patrons.

Joe Greathead, Michael Zalisco, Eric Antenor, at Antenor on Twitter, Brian Pereira, at Thermalware, Jordan Bockelman, not Brockleman, at Jordan Bockelman, Bill Anderson, at BillAnd88, and of course, Richard Haddam, at Richard Haddam. If you're interested in keeping us going for as little as $1 an episode, check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you so we start off our episode with our credits playing over jim cruising to the beverly sherwin hotel in the firebird and we hear a voiceover of uh a reading slash lecture as Jim heads to a ballroom that is full of full of women who are there to see and Louise Clement, an author and lecturer, and is giving this as

the sign says, femininity forum. We see there's some really good comedic staging here where we see jim's head just pop up into this room that's completely full of uh of women as the author as ann louise uh is saying it changed my life and saved my marriage my kid jim's head pops up i don't know i thought that was very funny yeah so this this book is called forever feminine and we learn about the book and the author through some q a with uh uh with someone in the audience as jim finds a seat and then kind of uh we we cut back and forth to see his reactions to various lines this is a book about uh finding happiness as a woman. This questioner asks, as my friend is concerned, because your book sounds like you're saying that women are inferior to men. And Louise says,

you will not find that word inferior anywhere in the book. So she reads out the questioner reads out a quote about saying that women are subject to men. Yes, subject to but not inferior to. And we see Jim look a little uncomfortable um as this conversation is playing out there's gonna be some really good jim eye rolls throughout this episode this is a good good workout for the old eyeballs so the line here so this is uh uh the thesis the through line of this book and of this author's work is um it's it's kind of an anti-feminist yeah position of welcoming your role as a woman is key to being happy fulfill your husband fulfill yourself fulfill your destiny before i accepted these i was a i was a nag i was

a shrew like you know all these, all these, like, negative things. And then, which ends with, I even considered going to a psychiatrist. Which gets, like, a boo from the crowd. It's, okay, I see where we're at here. This is a good contrast to our Megan Dornan-y episodes. You know, like, but yeah, yeah. She describes there's, like, a key thing or a key kind of, I guess, almost marketing point about the book is she talks about everything changed when I accepted my role or whatever and started dressing up for my husband when he came home. And like she talks about getting a, you know, a skimpy negligee and how that reinvigorated their marriage or whatever.

And we see jim looking increasingly uncomfortable yeah throughout this portion there's definitely a tone like the narration heading as jim was driving up when you hear her reading from the book you don't know yet whether this what this book is about and it sounds like she's she's written erotica, right? It sounds like it's Fifty Shades of Grey. And I think that there's comments a few times throughout the episode that, like, that's part of what she's doing here. She has this regressive idea of femininity, but also she's kind of tying it up with this, like, make it more sexy kind of vibe. Yeah, it's of eroticism. Yeah. Yeah.

Eroticism is a far better term than make it more sexy vibe. Both. Thank you. Both appropriate. Yeah. She ends this portion with saying that true happiness lies in femininity, not feminism. Yeah.

You know, those militant ladies, they've scorned me and ridiculed me and then we cut to jim saying tried to kill you right uh we go right into our our uh reason that we're that we're here so uh and louise clemon she has been receiving threats and she says attempts on her life she says it must be the feminists you can't imagine the amount of jealousy and resentment my book is stirred up and most of them know karate were you aware of that you don't honestly think the feminist movement is into terrorist activities do you they're trained revolutionaries and they want me silenced

yes she saw jim's picture on his classified ad yeah and knew he was the man for the job i mean he has such a strong face he does i mean she's not wrong yeah there's there's nothing wrong here um she says there's been three attempts on her life they're designed to look like accidents and the cops think it's a publicity stunt they're not going to do anything jim says there's nothing he can do to help her. He's not a bodyguard, which is a good classic Jim line in the sand. And a reoccurring theme in this particular episode.

Yeah. If only he'd hired Charlie. Yeah. Jim turns down the job. I'm not a bodyguard. You can't hire me to do it because it's not what I do. Classic Jim. While they're waiting for the valet to bring her car around, we see a woman with a severe haircut and glasses watching them from across the parking lot.

She's Velma in my notes. Yeah, she's very Velma-esque. There's an uncomfortable silence while they're waiting. Jim asks if she has discussed this with her husband. And she says, well, you know how husbands are. Not really. She says that her husband and she says well you know how husbands are not really she says that her husband is has convinced himself that these things are all coincidences and that's when the uh the the velmo looking girl takes a shot and everyone dives for the for the ground and jim hustles her behind a pillar so we go from there right to downtown talking to dennis the the shot my notes i'm i'm just like oh i remember this one now i was like what is going on oh right yeah yeah so we cut to dennis uh he asked if it could have been a backfire the doorman says it was a backfire jim says no it

was a shot um and they're arguing about that this was the fourth attempt on ann louise's life and he's a witness but But there's no evidence. No one saw anything. They haven't found a slug. It's just as likely that it was a backfire as a gunshot. Yeah. There's a bit about, I can't remember the exact words used, but Jim's like, no, it was a backfire. What does he know about gunshots?

He's a doorman. He's heard plenty of backfires. Anne Louise says, it's someone with the women's movement it's just like when they tampered with my tampered with my brakes and dennis asked what makes you think that was a woman it's just the kind of thing they would do try to kill me and prove they're a mechanical genius at the same time dennis says if they bring him something that's actual evidence, he'll check it out. But he can't do anything because there's nothing to go on. And so there's some banter with Jim about getting paid for doing jobs. How I phrase it in my notes is Jim is backed into taking the case.

Yeah. We'll turn something up so that LA's finest can go to work. And there's this bit from Dennis that it's like oh you won't touch this so it's my job right like yeah uh yeah this is a good dennis jim moment and also that that we've got that vital one too where jim turns down the case and then has to do the case yeah he you know we've talked about it a lot he has his his sense of protectiveness. That's kind of his version of masculine machismo. Machismo. Yeah. That's the word I'm looking for. Better word than masculineness. This is why the two of us do the podcast. manifests often as taking care of a woman who's in trouble yeah and so once he has a direct confrontation with the fact that ann louis is in trouble he is willing to to you know help her out

we go to jim reading forever feminine he's you know doing his research for his new client rocky comes in where's jim been he he said he'd help clean out the garage today half that junk is yours anyway so this scene is very funny we uh get to establish jim's relationship to this uh uh not genre but kind of this this this idea this um yeah this take on on gender roles right with Rocky as the sounding board presenting the, quote, traditional. Yeah. Position. Jim's, you know, describes the book and then says, you know, she made she's made two million dollars saying that the woman's place is in the home. Rocky says, well, it is. You know, they tell me that nowadays they even got ladies pushing rigs? Now that's something I don't ever want to see in all my life.

Tell me what's wrong with taking care of a home and a family, huh? Sweeping and dusting and so on and such. Nothing. It's just a matter of choice, Rocky. All women don't belong in the kitchen any more than all women belong behind the wheel of a semi. No women belong behind the wheel of a semi. No, sir sir and nothing you can ever say is going to make me think any different they have a phrase for that kind of macho attitude rocky old-fashioned male chauvinist this is a very contemporaneous with the show

feminist position right right there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a homemaker but it's about choice it's about having the option. Yeah. My two favorite bits out of this conversation is a lot of good stuff in here. But one of them is I don't remember if Jim's quoting someone or he's just describing the book, but it's like part this, part that, part Kama Sutra. And Rocky's like, what? What's a Kama Sutra? And Jim says it's kind of a how to. says, it's kind of a how-to. Yeah, it's kind of a how-to book.

But the other thing is, when it comes up that women can have jobs, they don't necessarily belong in the home, right? Like, they could go out and have jobs. The first job that Rocky thinks of is climbing a telephone pole, like repairing telephone wires. And I don't know, there's just something very Rocky about it. I mean, there's just something very rocky about i mean there's certainly something very rocky about him having an opinion about women truck drivers right but in particular when when rocky thinks of a job he's like yeah like the person that climbs the telephone pole and repairs the the the wiring up there women shouldn't do that so this might be

a good place to talk about the source of this episode, unless you think we should talk about it later. But this character, Anne Louise, is a specific reference or antecedent. Oh, is this, what's her name? Oh, God. I wasn't familiar just from the name, but maybe you are. So it's a very helpful section in the Ed Robertsbertson book 30 years of the rockford files the ann louise clement character was based on maribel morgan yes a miami housewife and author who attracted a tremendous amount of attention

in the mid-1970s by encouraging women to behave in a manner that was decidedly against the feminist movement i knew about this woman and for some reason I placed her in the mid-80s, not the mid-70s, I think because of the Reagan era. But yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, this is before her time, so it couldn't be a reference to her. But it makes absolute sense that it is. Yeah, this is a reference I wouldn't have...

I mean, I kind of felt like, oh, this is kind of a pastiche of this kind of person. Yeah. I didn't realize there was a specific person being modeled here. Doing a lot of damage. Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably pretty clear from how we've been talking about it so far and also from how Juanita Bartlett talks about it, which I'm about to quote.

This is a retrograde position. Yeah. Morgan's two books suggested that housewives could only find happiness through total submission to their husbands. And among other things, she thought women should try to put sizzle back into their marriages by wearing erotic costumes when they welcome their husbands home from work. Though both books were huge bestsellers, Morgan was soundly panned by critics who found her methods demeaning to women. Others find Morgan's ideology naive and ridiculous. to women. Others find Morgan's ideology naive and ridiculous. Juanita Bartlett chose to address

the issue constructively by patterning a character after Morgan and placing her in a situation with the always discriminating Rockford. Rockford was and is a no BS guy, explained Bartlett. So if you put him with someone who is all BS, you're going to have fun. Something will happen. They may connect or they may clash.

That will be interesting and fun to watch. So I wrote Trouble in Chapter 17 because I knew that Rockford would find a character like Maribel Morgan absolutely repulsive. He'd hate everything she stood for because it was so manipulative. There's no honesty in that kind of a relationship. So given that backdrop, that episode was particularly fun for me to write. It comes through. Absolutely. You know what?

need to write it comes through absolutely i you know what i gotta say i love the um the playfulness there where she's like she she realizes you know rockford plays well against people that are all bs so let's let's throw this character at him and see what happens right like yeah as if she wasn't in charge of what happens right like you know like we we all know that experience right like all right let's roll the dice let's's see what's going to happen. And yeah, the manipulative stuff, it's very pointed in our next couple of scenes. But I thought since Jim and Rocky are specifically staking out Jim's position

vis-a-vis this content, I thought it was worth bringing up that this is a, I mean, all of the writing is intentional, but like, there's no winking here. This is a very specific send up and knock back of this ideology, which I'm here for. Agreed. Jim leaves the trailer. And while he's going to the Firebird, a car pulls up.

A guy launches himself out of the car and just punches Jim right in the face. Jim doesn't seem to be that stymied by this blow. Easily turns it around, gets his arm locked up behind his back. Turns out this is Bud Clements and Luis's husband. He calls Jim dirty, rotten scum. And when Jim lets him go, punches him in the face again. So Jim finally settles him down with a good gut punch and a what's the matter with you? And we learned that Bud is under the impression that Jim and Louise are having an affair.

And so he is coming out swinging to make Jim leave her alone and get out of her life. And this is where we get from the preview montage. You're going to deny you're her lover? Yeah. And Jim says, yeah, I'll deny it. Bud leaves. You stay away from her i'm gonna kill you and then as he's leaving he yells out the window i'll kill you and rocky comes out what have you been up to sonny not what he thinks yeah it's a good exchange it's a good i mean like we all love when somebody comes to beat

rockford on his doorstep so this is uh this uh, this is good. It is an interesting, uh, dynamic that they're setting up between these two guys, uh, because it points in a direction that the show doesn't end on. Yeah. Yeah. And it's actually almost the most interesting thing about this episode to me.

Yeah. How their story unfolds. Yeah. And, uh, one of the things I like about it is that this guy is clearly um i mean i hesitate to use the term emasculated but that that's what this fight's about right like he punches yeah it's a no-sell fight from from rockford right like he punches him yeah there's

a little bit but like jim is a better fighter than bud yeah he can take a punch and give a better yeah uh i don't know if this comes out as pure text but there's certainly implications that uh ann louise is setting this up i think that's what jim i mean that's what the next uh the next scene kind of covers oh that's right yeah because there's something in that was chapter 17 right yes it is text apologies we cut right from there to jim talking to ann louise um and she's like why would bud do that he must have misunderstood i i told him that you were working for me right yeah he must have not not understood what i told him jim tries to return her money uh i love this detail he's about a hundred dollars

short of the advance that she gave him but he'll make sure she gets it had to renew that investigator license needed that cash for something so jim again tries to reject the case i'm i'm walking away here's your money but if jim isn't there to help her she has no one else to turn to you know what about your husband let me handle bud he's just he's just insanely jealous which i noted as a yikes statement to make that's all uh jim doesn't handle domestic cases well it's not a domestic case i promise you bud won't bother you again if he does you can keep the money walk away i won't try to to keep you on the case this is where yeah he has the line where our title comes from. It was just a little misunderstanding. Well, maybe, but I keep getting the feeling

that I'm chapter 17 in your new book, the beneficial effect of the other man on domestic tranquility. What this kind of comes down to, though, is that Jim, in addition to not wanting to deal with a domestic situation, doesn't have any leads. He has nothing to go on. And that's when Anne Louise reveals that her publisher has a whole file of of threats and crank letters and jim's like well why didn't you tell me that before yes you know at least it's something maybe there's something there during

this conversation they're interrupted by uh daisy uh who's clearly coded as a maid as domestic help yeah who who arrives at the estate and is telling ann louise that she's going to go start on the oven there's a there's this it's not a gag but there's this ongoing starting now there's this ongoing undercurrent of like of hypocrisy right like your whole thing is like being the ideal housewife taking care of the household but you have a maid to do your chores because you're rich and don't actually want or need to do your own chores yeah she tries to play it off for jim's benefit oh we've done enough tests on that oven cleaner can you please type up the notes i'm on my desk you know

in my in my office she's like oh your office right she's my assistant much more than a secretary jim i'm sure she is yeah everything we get in this episode from her is hitting all of our bs meters right like we're uh but there's like she's clearly embarrassed isn't the right term because she just wants to hide the fact that they yeah that she has a maid she's not the domestic goddess that she's uh presenting herself as and of course not like she's got this whole business that is this book and like, yeah. Yeah.

And I think it is, is, is given to us as something that is faintly ridiculous. Yeah. Anyone who thinks about it for two minutes. Right. Would be like, yeah. Like you're always on the road doing speaking tours.

Like, of course you have someone who cleans your kitchen. You're rich. Right. Like, yeah, this doesn't, this is America.

This does not, this isn't, you knowica this does not this isn't you know this computes totally fine but she has an image that she needs to uphold that she feels like she needs to uphold for the benefit of others at all times even when she steps back and is i don't know it's there's there's a moment later where jim asks her like is she lying you know who are you lying to me or you yourself? Right. And yeah, you get a sense at some point that she kind of has a dual consciousness or of, of her own life.

Right. Yeah. Anywho, I think there's a sub genre of, of episode where it's like, okay, this story could just be over now, but then something else happens.

So, um, uh, they go to her publishers, uh, and Louise introduces Jim to, to to lyle there's a bit about offering jim a drink he must be tired after walking up those 10 flights of stairs and she reiterates this later but she never takes the elevator she always takes the stairs it's good

for the heart to say nothing of the calf muscles uh and then she goes to walk back down the stairs and then there's a scream and the two men run over and we see her lying crumpled on the landing down the first flight of stairs. I will note, not the aforementioned scream from the preview montage, but a quality, quality scream nonetheless. We go to the hospital. We see Billings handling the press. They're all asking dennis what happened asking who rockford is and what dennis wants to know is i'd like to know who tipped you all off we know who tipped them all off yeah in her room uh so she's her her leg is broken she has a big cast on it but the doctor says it's a clean break and it should heal up just fine

i think we come in on bud ending a sentence saying it's your money spend it however you want and she says like oh no darling it's our money and we get the first hint of their relationship yeah um there's banter with bud and jim um where were you well i'm not a bodyguard etc uh dennis asks you know what his version of the story is and jim says i didn't hear or see anybody i heard her scream found her unconscious um and louise says they must have been waiting for her she always takes the stairs how would how would they know that well it's in her book so bud tries to instigate jim like tries to start some kind of fight but it's an extremely good thing my buddies are here to hold me back kind of situation because Dennis is there.

And there's, there's something where it was like, Oh, you want to go and starts taking off his jacket. And, and we, and we go to Jim, we see him just smirk. Just like, yeah, we both know you're not going to swing on me right now. Like, come on, what are you doing? Dennis isn't going to let anything happen in this, in this hospital room. And Louise is ready for the reporters. they've been waiting such a long time um and so jim dennis and billings uh take their leave they have a walk and talk jim and dennis are talking and billings is

standing behind them this is important in a second um we finally get some some on-screen discussion of what we're seeing as audience right yeah jim thinks dennis should check out bud he's really not showing much concern for his wife in this situation just for bank balance and if something happens to her he is the one who stands to benefit yeah there's a motive i got a hunch i also got a hunch jimbo falling down the stairs doesn't make headlines but getting pushed does and to a woman like Ann Louise Clemon, publicity is like money in the bank. You could be right. Of course I'm right.

But you could be wrong. He leaves, and I don't know why this is so funny, but Dennis looks at Billings and says, What are you looking at? You. My notes, QBC, quality billings content like i also loved it i don't know why i can't i cannot describe what the comedic timing timing maybe it you know like there's something in it that's that's great so funny so okay we got a mystery for the viewers here yes uh spoilers she's faking a lot of this stuff right i think we're all

on the same page of like she probably is faking all these yeah i mean there we did see the woman take the shot but also when we see that shot taken she looks nervous yeah i don't know there's something about it where it's kind of like and maybe it's because i'd seen the episode before but i'm like is this something that she set up just so that jim would think that she was being you know like that kind of thing i too vaguely recall this episode though i don't like recall enough of the details to know much but i one of the things that made me think of it is that she looked very feminist like a caricature of a feminist right with like the severe bangs and the glasses yeah and i think that that's actually not an not an intentional thing to set the well it might be

intentional set the viewers at least into a mode where they're like she might be right you know that kind of thing but later on when we get introduced to this woman uh i think it's just there for this contrast uh to show off just how how much uh ann is not buying her own medicine but um my question has to do with the break right like did she trip and was like oh this is an opportunity or did she throw herself down the stairs i don't i mean i can't imagine she would just throw herself down the stairs but she is engineering things and it would have been uh a good moment where there were almost witnesses i guess that's a little unresolved yeah i guess my assumption was like she threw herself down just because that seems like the kind of thing that she would because she's

in a position where like i need to escalate what's going on to keep this interest and she could have like deliberately not thrown herself down the stairs but was like oh i have to make this look like a stumble and then actually broken her leg in the attempt that was my read is that like the break is real because she did fall down the stairs she might not have been intending to break her leg yeah that's probably not the goal um yeah i mean i think the way that is framed for us really is like there's no way someone else was there because like the guys are right there by the time they run to the door they would have you would have heard footsteps or someone leaving something like also they just came up there. Like, are they just hiding right? There's not even really space for someone to hide.

Like, yeah. Dennis's read seems to be the correct read for us as from based on what we've seen. Um, but yeah, whether she fell in is taking advantage of falling or whether she, you know,

threw herself down. I think that is a little, it could go either way. Yeah. Sound off in the comments, like, and subscribe, like, it could go either way. Yeah. Sound off in the comments. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

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And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimbo Rockfish. At the Clements home, Bud is tending to Anne Louise. I was kind of interested. So from kind of the hospital on, I kind of didn't remember how this episode played out. Like I kind of remembered some of the early stuff and then the rest of it. I'm like, I don't actually remember where this goes. So that's which is a nice place to be in. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think the same with me. Like I remember that beginning moment and that was about it. I thought it was kind of interesting that we got to have a scene where, for us as audience and not from Jim's perspective, because it's kind of like, oh, we get to see what's really going on, right? Yeah. But what's really going on is that they have this incredibly toxic relationship where bud brings up grievances and and louise passed like passively deflects and claims that something else is going on

i talked to the doctor he said you didn't even need a wheelchair he told me you insisted on of course i did i thought it would be easier for you not to have me stumbling around the kitchen on crutches. Not that you'd complain. You'd never complain. I just didn't want to be a burden to you. Stumbling around the kitchen, falling over Daisy, our undercover maid, who happens to have been doing all the cooking here

in the past two years. Well, you know how I fought about having a maid. It was you who insisted. After you stopped cooking altogether. I mean, a guy can just eat so many turkey pot pies she uh deflects says she's kind of glad that it happened because now they'll finally have time for each other after all this time with being so busy blah blah blah and bud just goes honey will you stop it please i'm getting sick and tired of being set up as material for

your new book yeah it's kind of the the core of their dynamic wishes she would just leave him out of it how can i leave out the most important part of my life so i think this is interesting in the context of me being like oh we get to see what's really going on and then what's really going on is she still acts like this even with the one person who knows for a fact that she is full of bs yeah there's no turning it off she just keeps up the whole the whole act and also there's almost there's an element and this is kind of interesting in how bud and jim interact part of it i was like oh are they like both kind of in on it like it's kind of a right like his aggrieved husband act is kind of like kayfabe like you know they're both

acting for the benefit of other people to benefit her career. But then here we see that, no, she's the one, as a wrestling observer would say, she's the one keeping a kayfabe. She's always acting. And he's trying to drop the act. And she's like, no, absolutely not. Well, he's going to leave. He has a very important business meeting but tells her to call call Marge and Bill over for for bridge and here we see a little bit of just the tiniest bit of why

they're married yes like this is always a great thing if you want the audience to care about a relationship that you're showing is bad you need to give us something to understand like how did these two get together like what was going on here you know i have no head for cards honey come on i used to watch you play at the sorority remember why you're a killer you go for the throat i know guys in vegas you'd leave weeping oh well whatever you think is best he not reminisces but he brings up these these times where he's like i know that you're really good at this and it's something that i find exciting yeah it's one reason i was interested in you because you have this like killer instinct or something it's like okay i i buy that i see that and then he does indeed leave for his business

meeting and she just has a big eye roll yes when she's finally alone but the card thing is great because it not only establishes that they that there is a history here and there's a reason why these two are together but it also establishes that she is shrewd it's not that we don't think that already like we're just witnessing her but like her act could be a little maybe she's naive about who she is. Maybe, you know, like that. But no, she knows what she's doing. Right.

Yeah. She's playing it as a little more naive than she actually is. And she, because, yeah, she's great at cards. She's got the killer instinct, right? Yeah. Well, Jim, of course, has the place staked out and follows Bud as he leaves for his business meeting. Some good drumming music here.

He follows them to a house. We see Jim see him unlock the door with a key. And then as it opens, there's a couple who's come to the door to to meet him a taller guy and a and a shorter woman later the guy leaves alone the tall guy and jim gets his license plate number it's always good when jim gets a license plate number but also clearly this is not a business meeting this is some kind of assignation we cut back to ann louise who's talking to marty the woman who shot at her who establishes immediately is bad enough you had me fire those blanks you could have been really hurt in that fall yeah and so this is her agent i guess or her business

manager um i think agent because later she says more than just an agent. She gets like a percentage. Yeah, 10%. She gets 10% according to this conversation. A painless 10%. Painless 10%. She tells Marty that maybe she did go too far, but she was just taking a leaf from Marty's book and how good she is at business. She says not to worry about the police. They're questioning all the people I work with just in case.

Don't worry about it uh it's not a good idea to drop entirely from sight maybe we'll do some tv maybe the carson show but do it soon while i'm still in the wheelchair walking cast is too clumsy this is the closest we get to her dropping her act like you know she still has a bit of the like i was just taking a lead from your book you're so good at business and marty's like okay whatever but then they talk some nuts and bolts strategy and that's like this is all going according to plan yeah yeah um she tells marty there's some revisions to her new book on her desk uh you know can you go get those so marty goes into her office the lights are still off she's just grabbing a couple things

off the desk but she sits down to like shuffle through the papers and find what she's looking for or pull them together or whatever suddenly the end of a rifle breaks through the window behind her we hear the shot and we hear that incredible scream that you love so much and a dramatic cut to uh marty's broken glasses on the desk as we were leading up to that, until we saw the rifle barrel, there was definitely a hint in how it was filmed that I was like, my nose was like, I fear for this woman.

I was like, oh no. Something bad's about to happen. And it sure does. Jim is leaving his trailer the next morning and two reporters pull up and ask him if they're the first ones there and if he has a statement on the murder of Marty Bach. Who's Marty Bach? That's a quote.

Yeah. The L.A. News. We have a good sequence where Jim is watching this televised conference. Then we go to our new characters that we're going to meet watching the televised conference to kind of get us get our new our new characters in here uh ann louise is talking to reporters uh it's a televised thing she was more than an agent she was a close personal friend whoever killed marty must have been trying to kill ann louise saw her at her desk and shot the wrong woman right mistaken identity after all she's been getting all these threats they ask about the private investigator she hired and she names him specifically jim rockford and bud uh specifically

says he was hired as a bodyguard yeah and we see jim just go like so they run down jim in front of the press on television he was being paid to protect-Louise while Bud was at a very important business meeting. Where was he? And then we go to the other people watching the TV. It's the couple we saw earlier. Turns out they're a sister and brother. Jan and Jack? Yep. Janet and

Jack, yeah. Jan says to turn it off. Jack says, this solves everything. He's married. He's gonna stay married. and so through this conversation we learn that bud and jan are having an affair jan is his secretary jack is jan's brother who recently came out to like stay with her or whatever and wants what's best for her she needs to look at this clearly bud loves his wife's money he's not gonna leave leave her jan says she shouldn't have told jack

about it at all but they don't have secrets from each other he just doesn't want to see her on the short side and he wouldn't like that yeah which is also ominous when they introduced these two i was like this one has a cast of thousands because they just you know felt a little bit out of nowhere but then i was like oh right these are the two from the house buds business meeting and this is the guy who who left early hmm hmm interesting i think about that we uh go to another jim and ann louise scene where jim is confronting her about this newspaper article, quoting all of the things that she said, running him down.

She doesn't know what he wants from her. Think about how she feels. Someone tried to kill her. I took a sleeping pill. It didn't do a thing for me. I couldn't turn off my mind. That's a strange reaction. Strange?

What's so strange about it? Well, somebody took a shot at you at the hotel you bounce right back then somebody pushes you down the stairs you're just as perky and saucy as ever now all of a sudden you start to unravel well i i suppose it's a cumulative effect well let's just suppose it's something else and louise huh so jim tries out the theory that he's developed which is that bud was starting to slip away from her. And that's bad for business. So she tried to keep him, yeah, keep him around using sympathy with these faked death threats. And when that didn't work, she went for jealousy with telling him that she was seeing Jim.

You know, and that didn't work either. They're both trying to save their careers is a line in there. And she says, no, I'm trying to save my marriage. Well, in your case, that's about the same thing. So she then has like another round of like, again, maybe this is true. Maybe it's another story. It's hard to say, right? Where she's like, I will confide in you.

But if Bud ever finds out that I told you this, it will destroy him. He's so fragile and proud okay um but after the publication of her first book he developed a physical problem it wasn't his fault but things started to get more difficult jim's like what he was impotent you men you just come out and say it you know he's getting fed up with her right come on lady you set up the game and someone else capitalized who stands to inherit it can't be bud he's welcome to the money already which is fair right like yeah yeah i think there is that is a problem with that thesis that he already is you know yeah buds what we have so far, Bud's trouble with the relationship is specifically relationship trouble.

Like it's not like he married for money. She got the money after they got married. They themselves are just having a lot of problems. And none that raise to the point of murder. Right. That we can see. Although Bud is a bit of a hothead. Like, he came at Rockford.

And I think, and I'm thinking here, that the other thing is that of anyone who was going to wait for her to go into her office, Bud would know that that's not his wife. Right? Those are two very different heads. Right.

Like, maybe he hired someone, I guess, is maybe where you would go with it. But yeah, I'm so I'm and since we have this other couple in play, I keep calling a couple since we have these two other characters in play. There's another twist here somewhere. Their conversation turns to, well, you know, are you trying to say there's another woman and Jim wants her to give him a break? You're trying to say this isn't about Jan Avery. Bud's secretary, you're not suggesting that they're having an affair. And Jim has a wonderful point. Like, you got it.

Yeah. That's the one. You've got this lying thing down so good. It really is hard to tell when you're being straight with me and when you're not. Yeah. And we end the scene on a very strong pair of lines. There is no other woman in Bud's life. Well, there's one less in yours.

Marty Bach. Oh, so cold. So cold. The only other thing in that scene I want to point out is the great line from Jim where he says, You play some nasty games, lady, and 200 a day doesn't put me in one of your team shirts. Yeah, that's very good. We go to Dennis talking to Bud, interviewing him about where he was during the murder. He reiterates that he was at a business meeting. It's fun to see Dennis being a cop as opposed to being Jim's buddy or, you know, Jim or something.

We have a report that you entered this residence. It's like, who told you that? Rockford? I forget what he says, but it's like the origin of the report is incidental, which is fantastic. But yes, that is his secretary's house. They were working on cost analysis and they often meet there to do business things because it's more convenient for both of them. Um, and then he kicks Dennis out,

says any further questions can go through his attorney. After Dennis leaves, Jan comes in and wants to know what the police wanted. And Bud says that maybe you should go on that Caribbean cruise we've been talking about. Yeah. But maybe you should go by yourself just for a few weeks, maybe a few months. He wants her to leave until it all blows over he can handle ann louise so that she doesn't find out and leave him or whatever um but he doesn't want her to get caught up in everything so maybe she

should just get out of town and so he says i can handle ann louise and what about Rockford? I can handle Rockford. No, you can't, dude. Cut to Jim at the taco stand. And those of us who are paying attention go, uh-oh. Wonderful banter here with him and Sam, the taco stand proprietor. This is, I feel, kind of a legendary scene. Yeah, there's the just great lines like, build me another one and go easy on the lettuce. And he's asking him about like whether Sam is using a different kind of sauce. Yeah, different kind of hot sauce.

And he says, the customers were complaining about it being too hot. And Jim's like, I'll tell you when your hot sauce is too hot. Yeah. If you're going to keep working out here, I'm going to charge you rent, like all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, bang shot goes right into the taco.

A surprise to some of us. A surprise to some of us. I guess it's hard to tell whether he, the taco is actually shot or Jim kind of throws it because he's surprised and is diving to hit the deck. But either way, it's, it's, either way, it's extremely, it's very sad. It's a very sad moment. Everyone is okay except for that poor taco.

That poor taco. Wonderful, wonderful scene. Up there with the hot dog stand with the accountant guy. Yeah, that was a good one. So good. All right. So, of course a good one. So good. All right. So, of course, Dennis has responded to the scene.

Can't even eat lunch anymore without someone making a target out of you. Sam, the taco proprietor, wants to know who's going to pay the damages. This kind of thing happens all the time. He's had a bottle of hot sauce in some of his finest china. Knock it off, Sam sam put it on my tab that's like saying forget it okay then forget it yeah all right so he tells dennis in more detail

i guess about seeing this other guy leave that house maybe he was paid to take out ann louise and since jim saw them together now he's a target dennis is saying think about his perspective the department's under a lot of heat. Newspapers are saying that we failed to act on threats. And Jim has a really good line. If bad press could put the cops out of business, you would have folded a long time ago. That is an amazing line.

And he does give Sam some cash to cover the damages and tells him to keep the rest as a tip. Probably not enough. probably not enough probably not enough we then go to jim in a neckerchief so good so good his usual disguise is a pair of glasses yeah yeah this is like we'll see him in just a moment without it the change is so little but it's so much well he's he's artistic now yeah yeah exactly so i guess this is the first time we get any sense of what clements what bud's work is i guess he's an architect or a or like a construction manager or something something jim comes comes into his office in the snecker chief

there's a a secretary who is not jan at the front desk yeah and. And Jim says that Mr. Pay made the arrangements. He has a appointment as an, I am pay the architect. I forget what it was, but you know, at the time he would have been known for a certain building and like now he's known for other buildings, but yeah,

that's a name. One, one might reasonably expect your audience to know as a famous architect or as they, as they are called in the business, a stark attack this whole time i'm like this is not a disguise that clement's going to be fooled by right not that jim wears the kind of disguises that fool people like it you know what's going on but oh he's out yeah he's called out to to a site but he'll i don't know when he'll

be back he's like well you know mr pay's airplane is warming up on the runway and I have an appointment. It's like, well, I'll call him. I'll get him back here. You can wait in his office. And so I think that's what I was like, okay, Jim arranged, you know, he made a call or something. He, he made, he constructed this so that Clement would not be in the office when he,

when he arrived. Yeah. He goes in and, and pokes around and we go back out to the outer office where Clemens comes back and he says, there was no problem at that site. Yeah. I didn't have my plans and I called to check and they said they never called me. So he comes in and sure enough surprises Jim and Jim hears them talking. So Jim's like, okay.

So he comes in, sees Jim. I think the secretary's like, oh, I never got his name. And Clemens says, I know his name. He's gone through the trouble of taking the ascot off, the knickerchief off, which is exquisite. It's just like, ha ha, Jim Rockford all along. If it weren't for you meddling kids, I would have eaten that taco. So they get to have some face-to-face banter. He says, so you're the one who finessed me out of here, huh? Jim's like, yep.

Yep. So he calls for the police, you know, breaking and entering or whatever. And Jim says, you can arrange for adjoining cells. Yeah, for what? Murder one. There we go. So he confronts Bud with what he saw when he followed him. And Bud says, well, that's Jack, Jan's brother.

Seems good to hire to kill your wife. I didn't hire anyone to kill my wife. They've been married for 15 years. 15 years ago, she didn't have $2 million. Bud gets slightly confessional here. Yeah. He's like, okay, fine. Our marriage has been on the rocks since she started that book obviously i mean this is the root of the problem right but like he is ready to unburden himself of this issue and jim is not only in need of uh some explanation right like because he's being he's going to be accused of, well, he's being accused of murder one.

Right. But also, Jim is a convenient stranger who knows enough that he can finally unburden himself too, right? Well, and my note is, Jim kind of gets it to BH. Yeah. His attitude is like, you know what? You're like, I hear you. Yeah. I'm not her husband anymore.

Now I'm research she looks at me like she was looking at a bug stuck on a pin she watches and then she writes everything down jim's like i i've met ann louise i get what you're saying yeah but if there's anyone you want to kill it's jim um jim floats what if the Jack, decided it would be better for everyone if Anne Louise was out of the picture? You'd end up with the money. Jan would end up with you and the money. And you think he wouldn't help his sister out with that deal. So we cut from there to Bud talking to Jan at her house, telling her about the conversation he had with Jim.

You know, he thinks that Jack wanted to kill Anne Louise for all these reasons. Do you think I should tell Jack? You should. He should be prepared because Rockford is going to come after him and he's paranoid. And so then he very specifically tells Jan that he followed Jim, saw him pack up his bags and go to a little house in the valley. I think a family member. The name on the mailbox is joseph rockford

as if he's going to be safe there and so you know i'm here being like okay yeah for whose benefit is this slightly stilted conversation conversation yeah is it for our benefit as the audience or is he telling jan because he knows she's going to tell Jack. Right, right. Is he setting up something? Yeah. What is, is he engineering the situation? Yeah. Which I assume he is because generally I don't feel like we get those for the audience still conversations.

It's not a usual Rockford file deal. We go to an ominous shadow over Rocky's mailbox. And Jim is just sitting down with his TV dinner when there's a knock on the door. And indeed, it is Jack Avery. I think we better talk. Jim says, no offense, but I don't think that's a good idea. And he closes the door. And that's when Jack, who's a very large man,

kicks it down and then jumps in with a gun. And sure enough, Bud told Jan and Jaden told him about the whole thing. But we're not in it together. Jan's a born victim. She never learned how to make the most out of a situation. And Jim says, maybe she's smart. On the other hand, I get the feeling you're dumb.

He's like, when it's all over, Bud ends up with the money, Jan ends up with Bud, and I end up with as much as I want of a nice piece of change. Jim says, well, I already told Becker what I know. So if you shoot me they'll know exactly who did it and they'll come right for you did i say anything about shooting you you're gonna take a nasty fall down the cellar stairs and break your neck nobody would believe that i'm known for my grace at this point the way jim is dealing with him very confident very confident and like to the point

where i'm like oh okay jim has set something up here because it's usually a little more cautious about people with guns yeah if he thinks he's actually in danger he's trying to de-escalate the situation but right now he's actually escalating the situation so clearly he must have a plan you know jim says give me the gun he takes a step towards jack jack gets kind of a panic look on his face and pulls the trigger and just goes click tries again click click and jim says maybe it's still under warranty and that's when bud steps out from the kitchen with his own gun i was i was legitimately surprised i did not expect this particular twist.

When Jim said, maybe it's still under warranty, that was when I was like, okay, I don't know how Jim did it, but Jim messed with his gun. And then when Bud stepped out, I was like, oh, but then why does Bud have a gun? Like, that doesn't seem like a thing that Jim would have him do. Turns out it probably isn't so yeah bud steps out from the kitchen and jack's like you set me up he's like no he set you up but i helped just by filing down your firing pin yeah because we all know how to do that yeah um he confronts jack jack grabs for his gun so that ends up firing into the air as they struggle. And then Jim pulls him away, gets a good punch across his face, and he's down. Right in my TV dinner. Jim can't catch a break with his dinners. So the implication here that we get to fill in for

ourselves is like Jim and Bud's conversation continued on for quite some time. Right, right. They came to the agreement that it was probably Jack here who did it. And there's a way to set Jack up so that they can, they can catch him. I got to say Jim owes Rocky for bullet damage. Now, why choose Rocky's place, Jim and his door.

I guess it's to see the, to make Jack think that Jim, he's going to get the drop on him. Yeah. Yeah. Or something because he says like, he's paranoid. He thinks someone's out to get him.

Yeah. And so he went somewhere else. Yeah. And that's like, so he's like running, but clearly he went to a place that's easy for, to find for, you know,

to find him. Yeah. Yeah. We go to our final scene where ann louise is giving another interview for the for the television reporters she presents jack as a poor sad psychopath you know what about uh his statement that your husband and his sister were having an affair he's like well you can't believe anything that a man like that says. But he deserves a fair trial. So magnanimous

is of her. This tragic affair has brought her and Bud even closer together. She does finish with one more thing. She showers Jim with compliments about his work for her and states that he's the one who brought Jack to justice.

Probably under pressure from him one would imagine and i think the reporter even says like but you're the one who told us like right right we're just printing what you said what you said and jim comes in at the end to be like and you're going to print what she said again right right um the gaggle breaks up um and she says in another one of the few glimpses of how she really thinks, I think her new book will be published in six weeks and all this publicity ought to boost sales. Yeah. But she is going to it's going to be a lot of work. She she needs to make a lot of revisions about how Bud and her were drawn together in this trying time.

And that's when the door opens and Bud is leaving the house with a full suitcase and says, you know, don't worry, Daisy's on the way to take care of you. But where are you going? I'm not really sure. Well, is it a business trip? I mean, I don't understand. I know. And she is aghast.

Doesn't he know what that's going to do to sales? Jim? Yeah. I don't think he cares. What about us? What about our marriage? What am I supposed to do? Rewrite the last chapter. And then we freeze frame on Anne Louise's face. In my notes I say, she will

probably just do that. Yeah, yeah. It lands pretty hard on her. Deservingly so. Yeah, it was a fun episode. I'm sorry that i missed the taco in the opening montage i think it's good i think you got to really experience the visceral terror as intended going through it again uh jack is maybe a little under motivated it's not clear why he would i think we're supposed to get that he's so protective of his sister

yeah right and he has the line about like she's a born victim she never yeah uh she doesn't know how to take advantage of a situation but like he's the one who takes advantage of a situation yeah i think there's something maybe just about the actor where he's a little blase yeah because well that doesn't play in too well with him just leaving the house like if he's protective of his sister we already know that you can beat up bud right like like he should just beat up bud um he's like i want you to be happy but i also want you to be clear about what you're into which is you are i mean you are the side piece right like that's kind of he has he tells her you have to understand he's not going to leave his wife.

Yeah. And she's like, you don't understand how we feel about each other. And he's like, uh-huh. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. It's, yeah, I don't disagree. I think I see in the writing where the motivation is supposed to come from, but I think the presentation isn't really that convincing.

But yeah, a lot of fun. One of the good ones. One of the good ones. Something I mentioned earlier that I wanted to kind of touch back on is that I think the journey of Bud is actually kind of the most interesting thing. Especially my feeling about him,

where I went from just loathing this total jerk to right in that final scene being like good for you yeah no it's interesting because like um like we were talking about in the beginning our introduction of bud is that he's a ineffectual at trying to beat up rockford uh and he doesn't have all the information, right? Like, and so he's, he's, uh, he thinks that Rockford is having an affair with his wife. He's being led to think that, uh, and then, so he's going to, to beat him up and he just can't, he just like, he's out of his element. Uh, and so it's a little pathetic. And so it kind of does a good job of convincing me that Bud is somehow responsible for what's

happening. Uh, and then it, yeah, it definitely turns around near the end. Uh, and then you get this whole thing of like, Oh yeah,

this is just kind of a bad situation that he's in. He's been led by the nose left and right. Like he's, he's not, uh, he's not an agent in any of this. Right. Yeah.

If he's also kind of victims too strong a word, but yeah, he, I mean, I think earlier you said he didn't want to call him emasculated. And I think that does have a connotation that is not correct for this character. But yeah, he is his agency has been severely reduced in his own life. Yeah. And, you know, no one wants to feel like a prop. I think that's very understandable. So even though I think, you know, he is clearly a hothead and maybe an unpleasant person to be around. I, you know, I'm all for autonomy. Right.

And for him, like making the strong move of like, I'm done. I've tried. Like you get that sense is like, he's tried. We saw him have the earlier conversation with, um,

and Louise, uh, he, he specifically tells her how he doesn't like being the example of her books and like you just get that feeling that she never gives him any kind of assurance that things will ever be different yeah yeah so yeah him kind of being like this was i made the last straw or maybe just like having a little bit of context for what things could be like without her. Maybe he's like, I'm just going to give that a shot.

Yeah. All the conversations we see with her, like you were saying before, like every conversation we see with her, with Rockford, she's lying to him. And we can see that. And we're like, oh, OK, Rockford, she's lying to you. But with him, she's lying to him and he's not lying back. Right. Like he's not participating in the fantasy. And it seems very frustrating that she's still presenting to her husband who knows for a fact that all of this is is fantasy as if as if it were real. And yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think I was unexpectedly taken with how I was like, okay, my personal journey over the episode was not one I would have anticipated of feeling sympathy for this guy. So, yeah, good.

Good job. Good writing there. Good acting. And I think there's something I thought about earlier. I don't remember if i mentioned it so i'll just say it again now in case i didn't which is that you know i think what we were talking about the the woman who and louise is modeled on and everything and how it's kind of a it's a it's a reactionary you know position ideologically um i think this episode is a good a pretty good example of like, I don't know. There's, there's, there's a trend or maybe a theme or a vein of criticism where it's like, because you included this in your fiction,

you are tacitly acknowledging, or you're tacitly giving it air, giving it air. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

which is fairly easy to argue against, I guess. But this episode is a, is a fine example of a writer creating a character who is interesting and engaging to present the opposite viewpoint to how they actually feel in order to show in this case not why it's uh not why it's a harmful viewpoint for a society or not why it's you know has some societal impact, but more like look at the kind of person who acts this way. It's just it's a hollow viewpoint.

How? Yeah. How hollow is this person's life? There's a power to that portrayal of something you consider to be bad that I think is done very well in this episode. And it's not simply a villain character because she's not really a villain. No, she's in the beginning. She embroils Rockford in a con that she's running on the public and and her husband, I guess, to some extent. And then by the end, she's a victim as well. But like, she'll be fine. Right.

You get that sense. Like, she'll be fine, which is its own issue, I guess. But like, yeah, I don't know. There's something about like, I think it was it was it was validating to read the quote from. Yeah. From Juanita just to be like, yes, what I think this episode is meant to be is exactly what she set out for it to be. Yeah. Like, I did not have to interpret that.

Like, that is, in fact, what she wanted me to take away from it. So that's, you know, that's good. That's good stuff. I agree. It's a good, um, I was going to say there's not a lot of, like, mystery. And there's not really. It's a good episode where it's, like, just learning about the characters and seeing their dynamic is most of the episode. There's not really a lot of like mysterious plot that needs to get unraveled or anything.

Yeah, yeah. But it's satisfying. I think it's a satisfying amount of twists and turns. And I was legitimately surprised by Bud's role in the final reveal. So, yeah, that's all good all good stuff agreed yeah uh it had um yeah its purpose was mainly about the the facade of this this fiction that this woman has created uh but the there was enough mystery there to keep us going. And, of course, the taco scene. And, of course, the taco scene.

A new, yeah, an instant classic. All right. Well, I think we have hit all the high points for this episode. Anything else about trouble in Chapter 17? No. Not until the book comes out. We'll see how that 17th chapter reads. Yeah.

Well, with that all said, I suppose we'll say goodbye. Thanks again to everyone for leaving feedback on our shows. Yeah. Always appreciated. We will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.