Two Hundred A Day - Episode 118: The Fourth Man

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Nathan and Eppy take a flight into the start of the third season with S3E1 The Fourth Man. Jim's friend Lauri, an airline booking agent, can't figure out why she's being stalked by a seemingly up-and-up rare coin collector. The menace escalates as Jim calls on the expertise of everyone in the main cast to discover the secret he's willing to kill to conceal. This season opener features a fun blend of action, mystery and tradecraft as we re-enter Jim's world for a third year. 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

Hi, just want to put your mind at rest. Found your address book in the theater last week. It's in the mail. By the way, Carol's okay, but Linda... 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. And we are making a sustained adventure, intrusion, excursion? Yeah, excursion. We are making a sustained excursion into the William Wardiverse of the

Rockford Files. Kicking off, well, I guess technically we kicked off with our last episode, but we are doing it on purpose, intentionally. Yes. Now, with Season 3, Episode 1, The Fourth Man. Oh, this was episode one. I don't know why I have this memory of pulling out the disc and seeing The Fourth Man partway down the disc.

But I pulled out so many discs and had to search through them for the episode that we were doing that I could be pulling the memory from any time, honestly. So this was not a one and done. This was a searcher. This was a searcher, yeah. Well, it was a searcher specifically because I didn't look up which – I knew what season it was in. I didn't look up which episode it was. So I grabbed the proper season correctly.

But I actually – I think I started from the back of the seat. Okay, this is just not helpful for it. I'm going through the DVDs and I'm looking, I like to play this little game with myself where I try to pull out the correct DVD on the first try. Because there are many, many DVDs. There's like four discs per season, I think. Sounds right. Something like 24 of them. There are many, many DVDs. There's like four discs per season, I think. Sounds right. Something like 24 of them.

So I pulled out season three, but the last pair of discs from season three. And I just kind of read them through backwards. So who knows? So, yeah, it wasn't a one and done. And I just assumed it was somewhere in the middle of there. But obviously it wasn't. It was at the very beginning. Is it mathematically? What I was going to say kind of off the cuff was generally you just want to go for the middle of there but obviously it wasn't it was at the very beginning is it mathematically what i was going to say kind of off the cuff was generally you just want to go for the middle because it's the greatest chance that something's going to be in the middle but i don't

think that's true because it's linear there's only one of each individual thing so there's an equal chance of any given episode being on any given dvd in a season it is a complete die roll if you have no other information to go on yeah yeah it's just a completely flat die roll you would shoot for the middle because if you're shooting for a particular season if you know the season to shoot for because i'm not even counting out the sleeves or anything like that i'm just but you're like you know that the seasons go one to six. So if you need season two, you probably want to go towards the left. I mean, I got to tell you, this is so incredibly random that I don't even know if which side of the box is season one, which side is season six.

Because it gets flipped around. Oh, sure. I do know the outer edges are. One and six yeah so seasons two and three are easier to hit or not two and three three and four yeah three and four are easier to hit because you just go for the middle right none of this is helpful well i'm sorry that you that that you had to search for this one but it is in fact episode one which i think is uh a little interesting in terms of the finale i guess because this is the first episode of the new season right yeah you haven't seen you know you

haven't seen jim on your screen for the entire summer yeah and now it's finally the end of september you've seen an extraordinary ad that is reprinted in Ed Robertson's book. Oh. In the newspaper that says, NBC sends you all the best. Nine o'clock, The Rockford Files. With a great montage of Jim. Oh, yeah. But then the subtitle or the content of the ad underneath Nine O'Clock, The Rock for Files is James Garner as the wily private eye who dazzles his enemies with the sharpest moves this side of O.J. Simpson.

Woof. 1976. Yeah. Was a different time. And the caption here does in fact say the copywriters would have to rethink the last three lines of this ad were to run today. Yes. I'd say the copywriters would have to rethink the last three lines of this ad were to run today. Uh, yes. So,

you know, this one has, has a bit of unexpected action, I guess is what I'm saying that I think makes sense for a, uh, yeah, this is a more action heavy episode than, uh,

what we're used to, uh, a show that revolves around a firebird and a private investigator. This is all neither here nor there. We will get to it when we get to it. Um, but, uh,

yes, this is indeed a William Ward and written by Juanita Bartlett. Um, just as our last episode was. So as we've done the show, we have run into, uh, and I'm,

I'm committing to ward as, as the pronunciation on the name. I've not run into any information to tell me to pronounce it differently. We've run into William Ward throughout as he is the most prolific director for the Rockford Files. As of our last episode, we did the math and there are six episodes that he directed remaining for us to consider. So this is the first of those six of those six. Two of them were also written by Juanita Bartlett. So if we do all those, we have a nice little trinity of episodes before we venture off into the wild waterverse for the last four. So, you know, we like to have a little bit of an organizing

principle to what we're watching next. And I think we've committed to a Wartathon. Yeah. It's as good as any, but I think it's important that we finish off Wart intentionally. Like you said, he's been with us almost the whole time. And

I think it's worth spending a little time just acknowledging that. And, uh, yeah, it's a little frustrating just because there's so little information I've been able to find out about this man. So it's not like there's a fun backstory that we get to explore. Um,

so I guess perhaps I'm putting this out as a call to people who might have more knowledge or information, uh, just about him. He can kind of triangulate from his credits. He's a little older. Uh, he was directing, um, through the, uh, fifties and sixties into the seventies. Uh, he started off as a editor. I think he started off basically, you know, like in the cutting room and kind of made

his way into directing, um, from there, like many of the directors for the rockford files and this for in the studio system i think you know at this time there was a couple anecdotes in that robertson book just talking about how like he's really efficient he knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it and he was easy to work with in that way. But yeah, I really haven't been able to find a whole lot about his life or career outside of credits. I'm just scrolling through his IMDB because like you said, this is what we have. He did die in the 80s. He died of cancer. Yeah, so I think that might be part of it is that there's it's pre pre-internet culture for sure right and probably pre i feel like in the 90s there was a lot of like interviews of people

and a lot of the a lot of the stuff that we talk about of like stories or like grounding some of the episodes with anecdotes and stuff a lot of those come from interviews done in the 90s of the people who were involved with this show in the 70s as they're getting to the end of their careers, right? Yeah. So maybe there's a bit of an unfortunate dip between when someone would be interested in recording the memories of this guy. It so happens that he just didn't make it to to that time there's a technology thing going on too because i think um it's easier to record people later and later it's cheaper to record people later and later so um yeah i was just looking at

his the rock profiles he's done of all the episodes of things that he's done he's done rockford files it appears second most with the first most being daniel boone which i think i've watched a bunch of when i was a kid this is uh from 66 to 70 and uh the doris day show from 69 to 73 she did what was it 26 episodes of The Rockford Files? 36 of Daniel Boone and 22 of Doris Day. And then, like, a lot of these other ones, it's just three or four, five episodes each or whatever. But, yeah, I mean, like, we enjoy his Rockford Files contribution.

Well, I think one thing is that he's done so many that, hmm, how do I want to say this? He's done so many episodes that the chances of him doing some of our favorite episodes is higher than pretty much any other director. Right. What's really funny, though, is that the number of episodes he's done right now, there is a slim chance there's some universe out there where Parallel Nathan and Eppies are doing their very first William Ward episode. And then they're going to do all of them as the rest of the series. Yes, exactly. Because that's about where we're at. Yeah.

That's wild. Also, just as it happens, again, I guess maybe it's just we could do some math about this, I guess. But just again, as it's fallen out, his remaining episodes are almost evenly distributed amongst the seasons. Yeah. So we are actually going to be continuing to skip around fairly randomly. Yeah. And doing a couple more episodes from each season just to finish out the Wartathon. So that's nice.

Yeah. So if anyone has any thoughts or discoveries to share about him going forward, we have time. We still have a bunch of episodes, so get in touch and we'll be happy to throw them up as we go. And then, yeah, again,

this is a one-year Bartlett script. This season, so this is the first episode of the third season. So this season is where David Chase becomes a producer. Chaz Floyd Johnson becomes a producer chas floyd johnson becomes a producer david chase is writing you know is writing scripts um this is the season where the audience leveled off so it was super high in the first season fell off in the second

season and then leveled off from third through the end of the show with basically the same core of viewers for the rest of its run this is a season where james garner gets uh a best dramatic actor emmy uh for so help me god right um noah berry gets a nomination for best supporting actor in a dramatic series for this season um i feel like it's a good blend this season season, I think, is where we get all of the threads of the things that we feel make for full Rockfordishness. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this before, but they get comfortable with the characters at this point, but not wacky, I guess. You know, this happens with all television shows.

When you first start off, you've got to get a feel out what the characters actually are and how they're going to interact. And then you get like, you know, writers and actors and directors that are all like roughly on the same page about how this works. I mean, I never ever worked in the industry. I might be completely making this up, but this is how it feels. Right. Like you feel like it gels. Yeah. And then after a a while you also feel like those same people who've done that are like what do we do now like and they start throwing uh wilder stuff into it and rock for files kind of follows that pattern a little bit yeah the little stuff goes a little i think again we talk about this all the time but it goes goes outside the formula as established in the first two or three seasons.

There's a beautiful formula. And then starting in really starting season four and I think peaking in season five is when it's kind of like treating the characters as characters to play with as opposed to what's a detective story that we want to tell this week. I think that transition kind of starts to happen, you know, in this next couple of seasons, but that all said, I think, I guess this one would be remarkable to me just in the sense that most of

the, most of the Juanita Bartlett episodes I go, okay, there is a, there's something here that is usually a, a consideration of a female character in particular and with, or in juxtaposition to a social issue that Jim is going to bounce off of. And sometimes it's more for comedy.

Sometimes it's more serious. Like she has a great sensibility of course. But I feel like this particular episode actually doesn't necessarily have that quality. And if I were to watch it without having seen the credits i would have assumed this was uh probably a um cannel episode well it's about a hitman it's it's about a hitman it has like a weird kind of off the wall um profession involved yes yeah uh so like that kind of feels cannily to me yeah yeah this is not a

criticism it's just more of a like i was i generally will say like oh this is a bartlett script and here is one of here are the ways in which it feels like that and this for whatever reason actually doesn't feel like has her kind of like signature kind of bit to it yeah which is not to say it is bad by any means but uh i was surprised as i was saying the words that i did not have yeah yeah anything in particular to add um one thing about this episode uh that i really enjoyed was that we get pretty much the whole crew like not throughout the whole thing but everyone has a good moment we get we get beth we get angel we get dennis we get rocky and each of them has a great moment uh and that's great like that's that's a lot of fun you know that's what you want for your first episode of the season and we don't

get billings but we do get jack yes but as we say we'll get to it when we get to it we'll get to it when we get to it um but first of course we do need to go over the first preview montage for the Rockford files. We would have seen in this year, 1976. Um, so this one, this one's a good one.

Uh, I don't think Rocky appears in it, but again, we get angel Dennis and Beth all make an appearance in the preview montage, which if you're like, you were saying like the, they had high numbers in season two, this would be a good reassurance that you're coming back into the,

the show that you had just seen, but we get high stakes. There's guns being pulled. There's a great, that great juxtaposition where he's like angel, I'm not in a very good mood. And then he's throwing angel against the wall and a very good mood and then he's throwing angel against the wall and pulling a gun on him that's not the order in which things happen in the show

what's the order but not the but but we can't wait to see why that's happening yeah exactly uh and then then cut straight away to a kiss not between him and angel but between him and uh Cagney part two, I guess our guest star is Sharon Glass. Yeah, Sharon Glass, who's the second woman to play Detective Cagney in Cagney and Lacey. The first one was, I'm blanking on her name, but she was in They Live. And she was also in Behemian and the Masters of the universe film where she played evil in the way this is described in Sharon glasses biography, which is extremely extensive, is that she was not available for the role for the pilot and first episode, but then took it over for the remaining run of the show. Okay. Yeah. Here's the thing. I have lived a life where I just have happened not to have ever watched anything this woman has been in, but she's an extremely big deal. It was Cagney and Lacey.

She was in Queer as Folk in a fairly significant role. And then she's in Burn Notice, which I've seen like one or two episodes of, I suppose, but like, uh, you know, it's a long running,

uh, regular there. I had that experience as a, I don't know, just someone who's just not in the demographic, I guess. Yeah. Of being like,

okay, let me look up like we like to do. Let me look up the guest star, see what her deal is and be like, Oh, Oh, Oh, she's a big deal.

Yeah. Most pop culture slash TV conversant is and be like oh oh she's a big deal yeah most pop culture slash tv conversant people would be like oh she's in this episode because as it turns out at the time she's not a big deal but as it turns out she's kind of a groundbreaking person for female roles on television so uh looking at her imdb i'm a little surprised. This is her second Rockford Files episode. We haven't done the first one. We haven't done the first one. But more surprising,

she's in a Richie Brockleman where she plays someone named Darcy Davenport. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, there's a TV movie, Richie Brockleman, The Missing 24 Hours,

which I think is the pilot for the Richie Brockleman. Oh, it which i think is the pilot for the richie brockleman oh it could be yeah do not worry listeners we will be doing the leg work on the richie brockleman show just yeah yeah just not just not yet i don't think i can live with myself if we didn't but yeah all right so that's great to know um little something to look forward to so yes she we get a bit of uh there's a kiss with jim and her um in our preview montage we get some some yelling a little little bit of gun gun play with we could see dennis in action as well it's very exciting and then as opposed to most of our well i guess it's still action but many of our preview montages end on a car chase or on something going over a cliff or exploding or a gun being shot, something exciting.

And our exciting ending to this one is a very ominous look at a lock as it's getting picked or getting tried as it's shaking in the door. And that's our action beat to end the, uh, in the preview montage. 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 Esthete 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 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 have our opening credits over a very pretty sequence of a plane

landing at sunset, and we kick off our story in the terminal where where we have a mr farrell who is being greeted by uh we'll eventually learn actually after like a long time we don't get her first name for like half of the episode yeah um but this is laurie this is um sharon glass yeah she works for reservation agency so we see this interaction where she greets this guy mr farrell and and has kind of like a uh just a small talk kind of like that says that he's a regular it's like oh mr farrell you're a regular and he's and he does

not seem to know who she is he's like i'm excuse me uh but she's handled enough of his flights in the last month that he she considers him a regular because yeah um you know she's seen his name so much um he says well in this case you must be wrong she mentions you know you had this flight to there you had a flight to detroit you had this other flight he's like well you must be wrong i've never been to detroit and she seems a little confused and just kind of uh shrugs as he walks off so. So this exchange here is, it's fun, it's awkward in a good way, like as you would expect it naturally to be, right? Like this is, I mean, I've been in situations like this before.

Yeah, it has that vibe of like you see someone where you're like, you recognize them, you recognize them, you say hi. And then as you're saying hi, you realize they're not the person you thought you recognized. Yeah. And then you get to follow up with like, hi.

And they're like, hello. And like, I'm sorry. I thought you were this other person. I remember distinctly having, this is like one of those moments of like, uh, where you still feel shame as an adult.

When I was younger, when I was a teenager, there was a 24-hour restaurant that we spent so much time in. Because it's 24 hours. You're up late. You're before you can go to bars and that kind of thing. Ours was an IHOP. Yeah, ours was a Perkins because I was from the Midwest. Then one day on a weekend during the day at a mall, the waitress that waited on us most of the time walks up to us and says, hey, how's it going? And we're like, hey, we do not recognize her at all out of the context of the – because she wasn't wearing her waitress uniform.

We're incredibly friendly with her. She sits down with us and we just chat the whole time, you know, because it's late at night. There's not many people in there or whatever. But for some reason in this context, all of us just couldn't remember who this person was. So bad. But that's a bit like how these interactions kind of go. But the thing I like about this is that I,

I don't know if it's because I know it's a Rockford files. I just saw the preview montage. So, you know, I know something's coming up, something's bad, but this feels very much like when she starts saying you're a regular and he's like, no, I'm not. It's ominous. It feels ominous. Yeah.

I'm like, Oh, is this guy a spy? It's like, what, what's he hiding? What's he hiding right now? Yeah, no, he's great. So this is, uh,

uh, John McMartin is play playing this character. I don't think he has any other Rockford files, um, appearances. He's a face. He's a, he's a guy with a good face.

Uh, he has lots of, lots of TV appearances. Uh, he was in all the president's men. Apparently it's been, most of these don't have that mustache and i'm wondering if that mustache was his or something they put on him his vibe really holds

this episode together for me yes and it starts now where it's like oh he he is hiding something and does not like that he is being called out about where he flies. Right. Mark. Yeah. He does a great job of being both possibly an ordinary business dude, but also if not very threatening, right? Like the,

the, the tension between the two comes out in this. Yeah. And we get the tension immediately. Uh, as our, our next scene is just following Lori as she is going to her car. And we see that she starts to look nervous.

We have lost any ambient sound. We're just hearing her footsteps. And then we see ominous steps of a shadowed figure. Just the feet. But I was like, oh, there's slacks and dress shoes. This is totally that guy. And we have this great sequence where she hears footsteps we see this figure moving we see her moving she starts moving faster we hear her footsteps

she starts to run she stops and then this dark figure steps out in front of her and it's totally backlit it's wearing a hat and other than that we just have the like silhouette she she screams the big the good scream from the preview montage and then a car behind her just happens to turn on its headlights and that um gives her the opportunity to run and we see that she's dropped her purse yeah so this is the thing the filming style here is like i don't want to like say that it's revolutionary or anything like that. But it was something that I noted that both here and later on, I really enjoyed the back and forth between her. So what she's doing in the parking lot. So, OK, if this were a horror movie, right.

Right. It would be her doing things, being oblivious to her being stalked, and we would cut back to the stalker stalking her in some way. But what we get is her feeling uneasy and realizing something's not right and making adjustments to how she's acting to prepare for it. And we keep cutting back and forth. And it's not as prominent in this scene, but I really like how that builds the tension right like it creates this feeling of this inevitability but not because she's blithely walking into it we're going to have one later on uh that's also a very well done extended moment of tension uh where we see her making very smart decisions and and trying to keep ahead of of this man yeah um the other thing i want to bring up is

that like i love the scream what did she see i mean i was reading that just as like pure like surprise slash yeah like a jump scare kind of thing yeah yeah yeah it's also possible that it's like a complete mask off moment for this guy right like so this guy we know who this guy is right right we do but i mean it's not like i think we are we are meant to understand that she can't actually see his face either yeah yeah right like that's pretty clear i think from the staging yeah uh and this is also important later she cannot positively identify yeah this man um back in the airport uh she has called jim for help like the show so often does we we get told through how

they interact that they clearly are friends um have some kind of history question mark um we don't get like a detailed backstory or anything and i think we learn later that like it's not like they're super close it was explained in the preview montage uh they're all fishing buddies they're all fishing buddies yeah anyhow um she was afraid to go home or back to her car and she dropped her keys and her wallet and everything in her purse and jim is comforting her and saying it's okay he's here now asks about she called the cops and she did but there wasn't anything for them to do or see their uh her handbag's gone but you know maybe that guy stole it or maybe someone else

picked it up you know it was impossible to say um and then we get into the emotional component where she is turning to jim for some some uh comfort and she's saying uh you know what i felt tonight mortal like he's like do you think it was like was it an attempted rape or a robbery like uh, comfort. And she's saying, uh, you know what I felt tonight? Mortal. Like, he's like, do you think it was like, was it an attempted rape or a robbery? Like he's kind of like, what do you think was the intention?

And she doesn't really know. She has no reason to think anyone would be coming after her for any reason, but it made her feel, you know, vulnerable or as she says, mortal, which is, I think a really interesting way to put it yeah she does a

great like contrast of like we go through our lives just basically pretending that we're not we all walk around acting like we're in more well you gotta watch that kind of thing that's the kind of thinking that'll have you rushing into a burning building you're trying to stop a runaway train or missing your shuttle so jim has his like arm around her shoulders so they're like really tight together and they're filmed slightly from below as they walk through this airport like corridor with this big like bulb fluorescent yeah lights above them and it feels almost like they're in some kind of like endless walkway or something. The way that like airports feel like Logan's run or THX 1138, that had the same feel, right?

Like, yeah. Yeah. It was cool. I liked it. You know, they have a bit of back and forth that she, you know, explains how she feels and she feels like she's made one mistake after another. I think she says like maybe calling you was a mistake and he's like, no, you know, you can always feel like you can call me.

Yeah. And then she mentions that she even had an argument with a passenger today. And that never happens. That in and of itself is, I would say, pretty impressive considering my experience with air travel. Just the one argument. Yeah. So Jim escorts her home. She says that she shouldn't be alone.

Her four roommates are all out of town. There's five of them, including her in this place. They're always out of town. That's one of the nice things about living with stewardesses. Minimum expense and maximum privacy. But yeah, I guess through here now it's like, so Jim, maybe they've had a thing or whatever, but like Jim doesn't really know about her life. Yeah.

So I guess we get that sense here. This apartment. It's a wild set i i was i was trying to figure out having never lived in la um so it appears to be at least two stories we get this shot of the uh stairs going up to where the bedrooms are or whatever and i think it's a sunken living room yeah and there's a small staircase up to like the surrounding floor and then there's another floor yeah it's i mean it's gorgeous i would love to have lived in an apartment like this and then with the exterior shots i was like is this an apartment is it a duplex but it is an apartment it's an apartment complex and later we see there's like a central pool yeah her apartment is on like one side and then

there's like a facing apartment on the other side and i guess there's just like i don't know it it doesn't really matter i suppose but uh yeah it is a hell of a space yeah i mean i loved it i was like i wish i lived in here there's like decorative wrought iron in the little handrails along the walking area. I don't know, the landing. Their bookcases have little like painted columns. Like, I don't know, you know, what kind of column, but like kind of like Grecian style, like fluid columns. Doric, ionic, one of those. Exactly.

It has like decorative little caps over the edges of the bookcases and there's like there's there's i think fake plants everywhere um i my notice it's a hell of a space tiny little tv on a tiny little tv tray that was great so she just wants to like move on like i had a scare It was freaky. I just want to, you know, get back to normal. Um, in Jim's professional opinion,

she shouldn't be alone because her purse is missing. Her driver's license is in her purse. Her address is on her driver's license. So someone is coming after her. They know where to find her. So he offers to take the couch, but she doesn't want to be babysit, even though she'd love him to stay.

Just not for tonight. I think that line uh is the clearest indication of what their relationship is maybe i'm reading way too much into this but i feel at this point jim is saying i'm gonna stay here to keep an eye out for you and she's saying i i've had a kind of a bad day. I'm not looking for a romantic evening. Right, right. Like, I do want a romantic evening at some point. Right. But tonight's not the night. I don't want this to have the tension of, is this going to turn into a romantic evening?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And he respects that, obviously, which is great. They do have a more than friendly kiss, I would say. And a little flirty exchange. You sure you don't want me to stay well he does leave and he specifically says don't hesitate to call me i'm just a couple minutes away yeah and she says he's a good friend so that that's their relationship they're good friends later on rocky brings us too, that they are kind of neighbors. Outside, we see the menacing silhouette appear in the foreground as Jim leaves in the Firebird.

So, of course, this is not going to be an easy night. In the trailer, Jim is having his Oreo and milk before bed. You love to see it. You do. You really do. I mean, like, my note, it's just oreos again you know season premiere let's we're checking off some some some things off the checklist oreos check yeah there's a great match cut where he's getting ready for bed he looks at his clock and that is a match cut to laurie setting the alarm on her clock as she's getting ready for bed and

then we get into our second tension filled sequence as our mysterious stranger i want to i just want to point out a thing that did not happen that i was fearful for because as we're building towards this tension uh we see her bed she's got like a shelf behind her bed behind the headboard or whatever where she has a giant glass sculpture of a fish or something i don't think i noticed that oh my god i was i was just thinking that better not come of her where she has a giant glass sculpture of a fish or something. I don't think I noticed that. Oh my God. I was, I was just thinking that better not come down on it.

Like, like I would be terrified of having that over egging over my head every night when I slept. So I just wanted to point that out. Don't worry, listeners that no glass fish were harmed in the making of this episode. Yes. So this sequence is a great uh uh

arrangement of cutting back and forth between our mysterious intruder and lori and also the uh soundscape of him breaking in and her hearing various sounds obviously it's unrelated but uh it reminds me of the effective no use of sound in our uh our megan episodes uh down to the we hear the waves because they're close to the beach because she's neighbors with jim so our our ominous shadow jimmy's open a sliding door she hears that little slide noise of the door she locks her door and we see him in the the living space uh she does call jim he tells her to call the cops and he's on the way come back to laurie's apartment to see our the gloved hand discovering that the bedroom door is locked getting out a lockpick so we've escalated from like a screwdriver okay whatever oh a lockpick yeah this is a pro right

yeah yeah exactly i think the escalation is the important part here right like that's the the part of the storytelling that i'm really enjoying about this is that they uh exactly that like we know who he is but like we don't know what he is yet right right right we don't know the nature of his threat yeah and it's so it's it's such a a tasty bit of storytelling that instead of like revealing it in dialogue, it is the fact that he's like, oh, I have to go to a fancier set of tools, which I happen to have on me. And he doesn't bust down the door with force. Yeah. Yeah. Like it is very menacing.

And like we're starting to get into this thing where she's reacting very level headed. Like she's scared. She's clearly scared, but she's making choices to counteract what may or may not be happening. And it's great. This is the opposite of the yelling at your screen for the person to do something.

I'm watching it. I'm like, what are your options? Okay. Could you put a chair under the door handle and then she gets a chair and very very quietly so that she doesn't alert the intruder that she's aware of him slides the chair underneath the door handle and then she goes to the window to see if she can get out that way right or so it's another sliding door because she's on the level that has the the pool

i guess so yeah this is a this sequence continues to have a why don't you just and then she does the thing that is yeah you know she's in a state of controlled panic yeah and you see how some of the things aren't going to work uh and some of the things um and it's not just because he's a mastermind who's managed to you know stop it from working it's it's just that naturally some of the things, and it's not just because he's a mastermind who's managed to stop it from working. It's just that naturally some of these things just don't work. You're just trying the things. Yeah. She knocks on the opposite door to her apartment.

Yeah. There's no answer. She's kind of furtively doing it so that he doesn't hear, right? Yeah. And then she goes down some stairs and hears her door open. And then now they're both aware that she's running from him at this point. So she no longer has to be as furtive. And she like knocks on another door that she's close to like more loudly.

And then he tries to see her from where he's standing. And she hides underneath like a, it was like an overhanging piece of like, like a tree or something. So there's like a really good staging of having these different high and low areas for her to hide in and for him to gain vantage points and try to find her yeah yeah he's got concerns yeah uh we don't know exactly what i mean we know what he's up to we don't know how and why and uh or yeah we don't know why and that actually like you said he didn't bust down

the door he did fire a gun though well that's in a minute because oh yeah yeah he at least reading back looking back on it he is making the play of keeping everything on the on the dl as possible yeah until it's not and then he abandons that pretense. Right. So yeah, she's kind of gotten as far as she can get with the creeping around. She finally makes a break for it and she runs into another shadowy figure, which of course is Jim who has come to, uh, to, to,

to, uh, to her aid. So she has this like sob of relief, which is loud. Yeah. He says something to her and that draws the attention of our prowler that's when he takes the shot yeah they dive to the side uh they're they're not shot but once the

gunshot goes off jim starts yelling like somebody to call the cops and we hear a car peel out as our assailant presumably is like all right i'm yeah that was my shot now i gotta get out of here once it escalates to like okay other people will know that this is happening that's when he takes off you count the number of people you have to take out in order for there to be no witnesses right right once it goes over a certain number it's like yeah yeah uh laurie is now that she is out of the immediate danger she's totally like coming apart at the seams breaking down which makes total sense having come down from the adrenaline and the and the fright she's crying she's saying he tried to kill her uh and it doesn't make any sense um jim i think asked like did you see like who was it did

you see who it was she didn't really see him and and she can't be sure but she thinks it was mr farrell i think so. I think so too. I think so too. I did appreciate how, and I think again, the Rockford Files was really good at this generally, how there's no false extension of that question. Right.

There's no, like, I don't know who it was. And we're all like, it's Mr. Farrell. And there's like another scene. Yeah.

I still don't know who it was. We're like, it's Mr. Farrell. Right. Like we don't have to be doing that for the entire episode because the episode is not about discovering the identity. It's about handling the problem.

Right. Yeah. I agree. Rocker files is generally pretty, pretty good at that. And I enjoy that. Downtown. Of course,

where, uh, Lori and Jim are talking to Dennis. There's been two attempts on her life, and if they can just find that bullet, and Dennis says they didn't find the bullet. I think two episodes in a row where the cops have not found a bullet. Though I guess in the last one it's because it was a blank.

But anyway. And Dennis wants to go home and get some sleep. Are you sore because I woke you up? You bet I'm sore. You know there's other guys in the same line of work, and some of them even work the night shift. So I guess Jim filed a police report and then called

Dennis. Yeah. So that he would get, you know, some personalized, I mean, probably because following the police report didn't result in anything because they have nothing to go on. So yeah, it's like, well, I'll call Dennis. I think there's even a line where Lori's like, like, I thought you were friends. Yeah. She said, I thought he was a friend.

And Jim's like, he is. He just needs his full eight hours. Which, relatable. Yeah. But Dennis can't do anything without a positive identification. And she thinks it was Mr. Farrell, but he's like, would you swear? Would you swear under

oath? And she's like, no, it was dark. I can't swear. He's like, well then, you know, oath and she's like oh no it was dark i can't swear he's like oh then you know i can't bring him in right well i don't want to tell you how to do your job but on an attempted murder i think you could start with an apb an apb on a man neither one of you can identify driving a car neither one of you can identify jim says he can pull him in for questioning just sweat him a little i thought you weren't going to tell me my job. Well, I changed my mind. But he says that Jim's given him, quote, solid smoke.

Ah, such a good... He's an upright citizen. He has no record, not even a parking ticket. He goes to Chamber of Commerce luncheons and takes out half-page ads in the newspaper. They, you know, accept that Dennis isn't able to do anything reluctantly.

Laurie thanks him. Jim says, don't thank him. He didn't do anything. And as they leave, Dennis goes, he got out of bed. Oh, that's good. Like I mentioned earlier, every moment that the core cast, not that there's anything wrong with the rest of the episode here, but every moment that the core cast is on screen is pure gold in this episode and uh that that's a just a wonderful rocky dennis or rocky rockford dennis exchange yeah and again it's kind of like if you're tuning in for the first time you know at the beginning of the season i think we're getting solid yeah oh this is a

recurring character this is they have this relationship and we and we'll see more of dennis also so yeah speaking of uh getting a sense of relationships uh our next scene is with jim laurie and rocky at the trailer where jim wants rocky and laurie to to lay low until it's all over he has this uh idea to bait out feral um as he clearly has come after Laurie multiple times. Rocky says, it sounds like police business. And Jim's like, I think so too. But Jim doesn't know if Farrell saw him or not. So he needs to cut himself in so that he makes himself a target. He doesn't want Laurie to be the target.

He's going to make himself the target. There's a line where he's like, you guys lay low. She says, what does that mean and rocky says oh he means you should just we'll just go you know stay at my place until it's all over like rocky knows how this goes with jim this whole exchange is yeah there's a there's a lot of that in this with rocky here so there's a line from the preview montage where laurie says i want to know what you're going to do. And Jim says, no, you really don't. Yes. And Rocky then follows up with, I don't like it. Rocky, you don't even know what I'm talking about. I don't have to. I don't like it. Yeah. And I love how Rocky is on to Jim because like Jim's like, okay, well, I have a couple

things to do. So you guys should go ahead and leave. And Rocky's like, we're in no rush. Yeah, we can wait. And Jim just gives him this look and gets his coat. And then he gets his gun out of the cookie jar. Check. Yes. So Rocky gets to say, see, I told you I don't like it. And then we get a good classic Jim Rockford. I'm not too crazy about it either, Rocky.

Yeah, that whole exchange is great. It shows off that Rocky knows, because in the earlier seasons there was this whole thing of rocky not paying it close enough attention to what jim does doesn't like what jim does wants jim to be a trucker but doesn't really understand what jim does and throughout this he's like oh what he means is we're going to my house and we're just going to hang low and just that thing where you know jim's like, you two should get going. And Rocky's like, you can tell Rocky knows he's going to go for the gun. Yeah, yeah.

And so Rocky's like, no, I think we'll stay right here. And he looks to her for support. And she gives Rocky. Right. She's like, yeah, I have nowhere to be. Yeah, I have nowhere to be. And then when he pulls the gun, it's so good. Because, like, I think his line before he grabs the gun is like, okay, Rocky.

Yeah. Like, you win. Rocky won the is like, okay, Rocky. Yeah. Like you win. Rocky won, won the battle of wills. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, yeah, it's great. The tacit acknowledgement that Rocky now is part of Jim's schemes. Yes.

Is fantastic. You know, we could do the legwork to see if there's an earlier part or if there's an earlier transition. legwork to see if there's an earlier part or if there's an earlier transition but yeah the the sense of rocky being kind of intentionally unaware or kept at a distance by jim so that he won't be in danger like that does happen but especially in the later i mean we never even questioned it in later episodes where you know or jim's like you go stay with rocky yeah well speaking of our main cast we go to jim and angel pulling up in front of a house in the firebird oh yeah angel has procured this rental house uh with no neighbors there's an empty lot on one side and an empty house on the other um jim keeps asking how much angel and much, Angel? And he keeps explaining what a good place it is,

exactly what you were looking for. I rented it from Willie. How much, Angel? And finally gets to $100 a day. $100 a day for that chicken shed? But Jim doesn't have time, or he'd rent one on his own. But he's going to remember. And when this whole on his own but he's going to remember and when this whole thing is over he's going to talk to willie and see how much of that hundred sticks

to your fingers and and he'll remember and there's a great angel trying to wave him off jimmy you don't have to talk to willie yeah angel is trying to uh you know, talk himself out of future consequences when Jim just pulls away, leaving Angel stranded as Angel yells after him, I don't have a car. And then there's a wonderful little bit of physical business where we see Angel kind of look both ways and then pocket the cash that Jim gave him. Yeah. look both ways and then pocket the cash that Jim gave him. Yeah. Just like the way that angel puts money in his pocket. Yeah.

Tells you so much about who angel is. Yeah. Yeah. But he's always looking for the other angel who's watching him. Right. Right. He's always on the lookout for that person that is going to do him like he would do anyone else. If we've never seen the show before. Oh angel guy he seems delightful yes exactly what a great dynamic he has he has

with jim hope we'll see more of him so jim is on the case he is going to the american coin company which as we shortly learn is mr farrell's what's his name timpson timpson farrell's uh business he's a rare coin guy yeah aficionado dealer yeah he's a dealer and rare coins so jim runs a bit of a scam we get to see a little bit of trade craft here this is good he puts on his wireframe glasses which are his i'm some kind of white collar worker glasses. My notes were like, oh, this is a glasses character. And he rolls up his sleeves as he's walking up to the to this mailman. So he sees a mailman.

He waits for him to leave from the coin company storefront. Then he follows him. He has a little bit of fast talk here saying, you just made a pickup at Farrell's it's like yeah why you have a complaint a pickup right so i knew it she's lying she always lies she lies just to cover her mistakes i don't know why mr farrell keeps her around hey buddy this kind of dialogue you can have with your bartender now i just carry the mail yeah well i make out the bills you see i am mr farrell's accountant now there was a bill on my desk addressed to norbert mills i remember making it out because it was for a strike on an 1858 flying eagle now it's gone she says she didn't mail it but i know she did well i can't i can't bill him again

you can't bill a man like mr mills twice so you want me to look huh hey would you do that the mailman here being portrayed by Jim's brother, Jack Gardner. James Gardner's brother, Jack Gardner. It's fantastic. So Jack Gardner takes the letters out of his bag and he flips through them. And so we get to see various names and addresses until he stops on an address envelope envelope that has a los angeles address and picks a name howard philbin we have a little bit of a pause on this so we can read the name and we see it's the one that jim is like okay this is going to be my my next play and jim is like as

he's going through these he's specifically reading off the names like you get the the feel that like jim's looking for a good name to i think he's looking for the address now i'm thinking now that i'm like thinking back at it yeah because it's like someone in la so that he can run this next yeah this guy told me about you yeah this is a con to set up a con right right which i love and we immediately go go to Jim as his favorite alias, Jim Taggart, who's talking to Farrell in the coin store. He was recommended by Philbin, says, you're the best in town. And this is Jim's not full Oklahoma character, but his kind of like super friendly bumpkin character. Yeah.

He's friendly. He probably has money right and he's just not sophisticated enough to get the mark to think they can pull something over on him he bowls past social cues because he's like so oblivious or whatever yeah he talks up traveling you know mr philbin said you're just back from some trip. Mr. Farrell says that he does travel extensively for business. But Jim tries to get him engaged on like where he's been recently. And he just gets nothing. Keeps trying to change the subject and everything.

Which I think is significant. And we get the good contrast here. So this is the first time we're really seeing Farrell as a character. And we see he's very like, not proper, but he's like, farrell as a character and we see he's very like not proper but he's like uh he presents himself as someone who's worldly sophisticated yeah but doesn't necessarily have time for this kind of thing that uh taggart is trying to to get from him he says he wants a present for his nephew's boy something practical that'll hold his value and the interest of a you know interest of a boy uh and he's willing to go as high as fifty dollars farrell says that his clerk is more than capable

of helping him with the request and jim runs his like well philbin said that i should talk just to you yes uh you know i have to make a phone call i'll be right back so he sends a clerk out with some i don't know collectible coins or whatever for him to look at and we see farrell call this guy philbin to ask about taggart and gets of course the information that philbin does not know this man and did not recommend anyone to him as this was happening i had the revelation that this was jim's plan like i thought oh no he's gonna catch jim and then i was like no that's right jim's looking to get caught right right like he's he's putting himself in the crosshairs here uh

but it was fun that to have that dawn on me while it was happening i was like oh all right yeah yeah and it's nice that he still has to do the work to make the mark think that he's trying to do he's doing the work yeah yeah exactly the trick is he just does to do the work. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The trick is, he just does it. Unfortunately, the trick is just doing the work. Yeah, there's no trick. You just have to do it. When he returns, Jim is writing out a counter check, which I think, again, is a key part of this plan, right? Because he's just new in town. He just started his bank account. He doesn't have checks in his name yet. But don't you worry, there's money in the account. You can call the bank and says, no worries, I'm sure you'll be seeing me again. And Farrell says, I'm sure we will, Mr. Taggart. I should just state here,

as Jim's unofficial bookkeeper, he's probably out at least 150, probably two days. Anyways, I'm just saying, Jim's starting to go a little bit long on the money here right this is not an episode where jim's gonna make money that's what i'm saying he's uh he's just helping out a neighbor yeah farrell waits for him to leave and then kind of pokes his head out to see if he can see where jim went he doesn't see him on the sidewalk, goes back inside. And that's when there's this wonderful stage moment where Jim pops out from the next door front as there's like a synth sting. Yes. Oh, it's wonderful to see if the guy was trying to follow up on him. Right.

Then he does take off. And inside, Farrell wants his clerk to call the bank to check up on the on on Taggart's check. Talk to somebody in new accounts, which I think, you know, gives us the connection to this address for this rental house, right? Yes. This is the paper trail. Jim has then started a new account in a fake name with a fake address with at least $50 in it at a bank in order to get this con bail off, which is fantastic. We are going to take a little break in the middle of our episode here so that we can stretch, maybe get a beverage or a snack and talk about the other places that you can find us on the Internet. Epi, if our listeners want more Epi, where can they go to get maximum Epi? You can find me at my website, dig a thousand holes dot com.

That's dig one zero zero zero holes.com. Or you can get my sword and sorcery fiction and games at worlds without master.com. That's worlds, plural master singular. If you want to engage with me on the social medias, the best place to go right now is mastodon at Epidaia at dice.camp. Nathan, if they want to get Maximum Nathan, where do they have to go for that? I should have gone Maximum Nathan. Maximum Nathan can be found at my website, ndpdesign.com. That's the hub for all my stuff on the internet, including all my role-playing games, zines, and other podcasts. So if you're interested in pro wrestling detectives

or zines about pro wrestling, among other things, those are all at my website. It also has links to contact me in other ways. Currently, I'm still posting on Instagram at ndpeoletta. That's where I'm posting pictures of my dog. You can also find me at cohost, cohost.org slash ndpayoleta. That's where I'm posting pictures of my dog. You can also find me at cohost,

cohost.org slash ndp. That is a fun, small-scale social media site that I'm enjoying quite a lot. And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimbo Rockfish. It is time for the trap that Jim has laid to be sprung. Jim is waiting in his rental house,

crouching behind the couch with his gun. We see a mysterious hand opening the door. I think the framing does not make us think this is feral. Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that this is... But we see the door opens and then Jim gets the drop on, of course, Angel. You wouldn't shoot me for a lousy hundred dollars would you i ought to shoot you on general principle why is he even there he figured that jim has some kind of game going and he wants in i love just sitting and thinking about angel walking home from where

jim left him right right and the whole way angel's thinking jim gave up that hundred dollars a little too easy right what's jim up to he's gonna get a return on that investment right like just the gears running right right yeah and him getting almost to his front door and then turning around and heading right back that does seem to be likely of what happened yeah i need to get in on this, whatever this is. He wants to be in, perhaps for a painless 2%. But he wants in, and Jim says, oh, you're in. So he tells Angel to go stay put behind

that couch over there. He resumes his stakeout. Angel realizes that Jim is sitting there with a gun. I think he has another minute to think about it. So he starts crawling away as if jim isn't going to see him where are you going i will leave you can't angel i'm expecting another visitor i don't want you to spook him jimmy i want to leave what are you doing sitting over

there holding a can you planning to shoot out is that what you're doing i don't like that kind of thing i don't either we're not gonna have a shootout angel it's gonna be a nice quiet citizen's arrest now if i'm right in a few minutes that door is gonna open mr farrell is gonna come through it and he's gonna trespass on my legally rented property huh knowing mr fairly be carrying the gun good yeah he's not gonna have a chance to use it you won't get hurt angel now trust me just trust me do i have a choice no then we see a shadow outside the window and of course it's the window directly over angel that gets slowly slid up and a leg comes in he lands in the house and that's when angel screams shoot him jimmy shoot him so good and we have a full series of shots exchanged which uh take out a lamp and other than that uh we see it is clearly feral

he empties his gun and manages to uh miss jim jim takes two shots i think yeah and uh in the confusion he then uh feral then runs off we see him jump into a blue car to make his escape jim goes to follow but his tires have been slashed yeah somebody thought this through somebody thought this through so per the 200 a day files files which is our uh spreadsheet of show details and ephemera that all patrons are invited to contribute to. One of our car correspondents did fill out the info for this episode. This is a PGC blue 7576 Lincoln Continental. I'm not sure if PGC stands for something or if that's just the color of blue or the model.

I don't know. Not car guys. It's a lincoln continental that uh uh our man farrell is driving and apparently somewhere i didn't notice i didn't i did not note it while watching and i have not gone back to see where it is but somewhere in this episode uh william ward's red jaguar makes an appearance oh so yeah there's a detail i think that's come up maybe a long time ago yeah there's a red jaguar uh that is yeah uh the director's car that manages to sneak into

some frames in some of these episodes see i actually remembered to check this time um this is a a wonderful action sequence obviously fraught with plenty of good angel material uh and good good good gym material too like there there is a thought i had i feel like this has come up recently i don't remember in which episode but there was a thought i had where i was like so this guy as we learned later you know he's clearly an assassin right like he's clearly some kind of killer uh and the way in which jim is able to avoid being killed by this guy makes jim seem like a badass yeah yeah yeah it's a little a little little over the top but i remember what i was gonna say i was just going to lament poor willie whose house has just gotten shot up like like, he's just renting it to Jim.

And Jim had every intention of pushing someone here. That's true. His legally rented property. And we have to wonder how legal that property is. You wonder if Angel even talked to Willie. Yeah, Willie might just be on vacation. Though they do specifically make a point of saying, here's the paperwork.

I think it's important for Jim to be able to go to the police and say, this man was trespassing. Right. That's the whole point of renting the place and not just having it be a random address. Classic Jim, like looking, just tighten down all the legal angles, the paperwork. Get the bureaucracy on his side. Yeah. Unfortunately, it does not really the bureaucracy on his side. Yeah. Unfortunately, it does not really work out in his favor.

No. Uh, we are now at the Western division, um, police station where Mr. Farrell wants to know what is this all about? So Jim, Lori,

Angel, and Dennis are there to, uh, talk to Farrell about these accusations. There's some banter where Jim is like, he tried to kill me. He tried to kill her and tried to kill me. And Dennis is like, I'll ask the questions.

Yes. But he asks about their encounter at the airport and Farrell explains that he's coming back from Miami Beach after a big deal didn't go through. He's been trying to hunt down this particular 1870 something coin yeah and he finally had a handshake deal but by the time he got there he'd been outbid by a competitor and there had to be some leak for it to happen so quickly and he kind of rolls his eyes at lori like implying like you have it out for me or something big on the rare coin trade uh yeah dennis wants

to get the facts before making his decision um laurie reiterates that like she you know she can't positively identify him again because it was dark jim says well i can positively identify him and i have angel as my witness it's like right angel and angel pulls classic angel see you got two eyewitnesses, Angel and me. Not exactly two. You see, when the lights came on, we'd been in the dark for so long, I kind of blinded me and I couldn't even see my hat. I swear somebody come in there, but who?

So he cannot back up Jim, or he is unwilling to back up Jim with this accusation. And so if that's all, Farrell would like to discuss the charges he'd like to bring against Mr. Rockford. So we go out to the parking lot where Angel is explaining to Jim that Jim's looking at this all wrong. That guy's a killer and I'm not going to make him mad at me. Right. Right.

Again, classic Angel. He is not going to let a man who he thinks is, is willing to kill, give him any reason to come after him. You're looking at it like I'm a chicken and I just dumped you. You're on record with the police. He knows that you know about him and he's not going to make another attempt.

And Doom says, no, he's clean now. What is going to stop him? He's walking free. They see him walking across the parking lot. So he's walking free. What's to across the parking lot so he's walking free what's to stop him and angel goes you know what you're right later and he runs away so good it's a really good angel episode it just is we get all of all the good angel beats speaking of all the beats we then go to beth's greenery strewn apartment where Jim and Lori have come to Beth for some legal advice. So there's two things here. Text wise, plot wise, there's a great starting out exchange.

Defamation of character, resisting arrest. Why do you always come to me after the fact? Because that's when I know i'm in trouble right jim says uh i'm not worried about it he's not actually going to take me to court he doesn't want things that i'm stumbling over to come out you know as a court in a court case besides i can't cause him too much trouble if i'm dead and so beth responds did he threaten you that's terrific but no he did not actually directly threaten Jim or Lori. He's too slick for that.

We have a moment where Lori says, I just don't understand what's happening anymore. And Beth gives her a look and says, don't you think you should start? Jim has Lori go through the encounter at the airport again. And then she specifically says that he got mad when i mentioned detroit and he lied because i know he went to detroit because i booked it myself and so jim says well that must have something to do with detroit like the fact that he knows that you know he went to detroit that's what started this whole thing yeah so let's look at it from that angle there's not much else they can do uh jim thanks beth for the legal counsel and on the way out, uh, I think Lori says, thank you so much.

And he's, and Beth says, Jim always knows he's welcome. I hope we'll be seeing more of you very soon, Lori. Lori leaves first. Jim is going out the door when Beth grabs him. It's like, Jim, who is she? And that's when he says an old fishing buddy and gives beth a kiss and then leaves and and there's an exasperated sigh there's something there's a note that beth ends that on that's very like she's very unsatisfied with the answer yes so again in the in the 200 files files one of the

other notes that someone left is like beth is jealous like we see beth being jealous and and i think we see that in the scene but it's funny because i'm i was watching it i'm like taking notes and then i'm watching i'm taking notes and gretchen corbett's facial expressions in this scene are amazing i was rewinding so i could watch it again to make sure my eyes were on the screen because we get not just that she's like come on jim yeah you know. You know, like, who's this woman? And Laurie is a little Beth-esque. Yeah. Physically, like, kind of like.

She could be a Davenport. She could be a Davenport. Maybe that's why she ends up. Like a Darcy Davenport? Something like that. Yeah. So there's a little bit of that. But we get a sharp contrast here. And I have a question for you about this.

We have a sharp contrast in the scene between between Beth's competency and her very like, I'm seeing right to the heart of the matter and I'm going to make a decision. And Lori, who is being very passive and as time goes on, gets less and less confident and more and more dependent on Jim. And that's brought out by this exchange of like, I don't understand what's happening anymore. Well, don't you think you should yeah that's the crux of that and so it's not just jealousy but it's also a little bit of like like jim what are you like her yeah yeah like what do you see in this person um that uh i feel like comes through her like body language more than

anything else uh which is fantastic yeah it's it's a great scene for the three of them playing off of each other but it's definitely beth's show right like like uh gretchen's show right like she this whole scene she's just uh making a meal of it she only has this one scene in this episode and she makes 100 use of it yeah exactly um but my question for you is i think by the end of this episode i i wasn't a huge lori fan okay yeah um i felt like the character i was definitely on board like i was uh uh sympathetic obviously you know i was with her while she was like trying to save. There's a lot of tension. I'm scared for her. I'm glad she's okay.

All that stuff. But once Jim kind of takes over, I feel like as a character, she kind of becomes the... I don't know. There wasn't much character to her left, I guess, once Jim, like, starts taking action. So a thing happens, I think, where she becomes the client

that Jim wants. Right? right like because this happens all the time jim's like okay i've got a client i need you to behave a certain way and and they don't like that's just just right how it's gonna go down and uh yeah i think she becomes the client that jim wants uh and obviously as an audience we don don't want Jim to get what he wants out of a client. That's not that's not the fun of it. But yeah, I mean, I didn't think too much about it, but I think you're right. Looking back on it, the first half of the episode is her highlight, right? Like where she's trying to thwart this unknown figure and trying to make sense of it and trying to bring it,

you know, figure out what's what's happening. By the time we get to this part. Yeah, like it's more of Jim's game now. Although we're about to see her use her her expertise. Right. But like, yeah, yeah, she becomes more of a just a person to bounce the ideas off of kind of thing it strikes me because i so again i did not recognize the sharon glass um so i was looking her up after i finished my notes to be like okay let me do my kind of you know look into who these these people are and i'm like oh she's a very significant actress which is funny because one of my takeaways from this was kind of like i kind of didn't really like the actress right like the person who played

laurie i felt didn't really do a great job which now i'm like i don't know if that's an unfair reading and the character is just kind of written to be a little more passive than i'm accustomed to at this point right if it's just like know, it's an early career role, like whatever, you know, clearly she has more room to grow. Um, but this scene in particular really highlighted it for me where we have Beth,

who's so strong. Yes. And I'm kind of like, I'm on Beth's side on this one. Like really? Like, I mean, obviously Jim is,

Jim is doing his gym thing where he is. I'm going to take action to help you because you need help. Right. Like, it's not like he shouldn't help her he should but the kind of like aren't there more interesting people for you to be hanging out with right that's kind of i'm kind of on beth's side is all i'm yeah can't blame you for that so sometimes that's just how it goes uh but going to more memorable characters, we go to the zoo where Farrell is talking to another guy in a suit who technically we get his name way at the end. Richard Stahler, Stahler, something like that.

He is a younger man in the same line of work. He was in the Dog and Pony show. Okay, we did do that one. That's the one where there's the, the, the mobster who is in like an asylum. We've, we've done his other episodes.

So this is, we're finishing out our Michael bell, uh, appearances. Um, and this is his first appearance on the rock. Yeah. Anyway,

he's wearing like a three piece suit. Very fancy. Uh, so Farrell and this other guy, they're, they're talking about patterns, predictability is overrated. That's actually kind of important later. And they have some banter about Kansas City and New York.

So this other guy is from New York. Now he's in Kansas City. Says he kind of misses the action. Farrell says, you remind me of myself back a few years, of course. That's a compliment from the time i got my first job i heard about you you're tops in the field and i'm like these guys are assassins right yeah these guys are hit men uh yes uh you're building yourself a very nice reputation but farrell is reading him his rights which is a euphemism for saying that he has a contract on the guy that employs him.

Yeah, that employs him in Kansas City. I would hate for your career to get cut short. And Stahler says that he gets the message, but Farrell spells it out for him just so that they both know what he's talking about. And so the audience also knows what he's talking about. I'm going to kill him. You turn your eyes, play hero, and you're dead too. This is a fun scene because we see his duality, right? Like we've seen his kind of genteel businessman thing.

And then this scene, he has all the same traits traits but they're much more dangerous yes it's really it's interesting it's a it's a fun it's a good character it's a fun uh fun switch so lori and jim are trying to track down the manifests for farrell's flights to try and figure out why detroit in particular would be an issue it turns out that so they're at like i guess the reservation desk that she works at, whatever. I don't know. They're asking someone for records. And then the woman comes down and is like, he's not on any of these manifests.

Well, mysterious. She says that's impossible. She booked those flights herself. So they go to the library. It's in the books. To the library. And they're looking at newspaper microfilm. There was a weird fact in that previous scene where they said they only keep the records for about 27 hours or something like that.

Yeah. I was like, 27 hours? It's not 24 hours or 72 hours. Interesting. Maybe someone who is familiar with how airlines operated in the 70s could let us know know why that that would be the case and i might have misheard it that's possible too so jim's like okay something is happening where his tracks are being erased for where he was so let's look at where he was and see if there's anything yeah newspapers specifically he says uh that it's going to be on the front page because i think lori asked like you're only looking at the front page.

No one gets as nervous or desperate as Farrell for something hidden in the back pages. It's going to be front page stuff. Yeah. So Laurie remembers that the Detroit trip was over a holiday weekend, which makes it the 10th or the 11th. So they look at the 10th, he doesn't see anything. Looks at the 11th, doesn't see anything. And she's like, I'm sure. He's like, well, if he was there

on the 10th or 11th, it wouldn't be in the paper till the 11th or 12th. Yes. And sure enough, on the 12th, there's something where Jim's like, there it is. So we go to Jim and Lori talking to Dennis in some kind of outdoor food court. I just I just want to say at the library, I love that the show occasionally shows us how the sausage is made. that the show occasionally shows us how the sausage is made right like this is a fun bit of detective work that you just don't get in in uh you tend not to get in other detective shows where he's like yeah okay we'll go to the microfiche and we'll yeah we'll take a look at the newspapers

for those days and see if we can turn something up and the way that he talks about it i i appreciate is even i forget what the line is but it's kind of like these things are kind of a pain in the ass like yeah yeah yeah it's not like this is a fun technology this is yeah okay i guess we'll go to the microfilm which is or microfiche i'm not sure if there's a difference oh yeah but which i feel like is the sense that i've had about it all the way until you know i don't know i'm sure it still exists um yeah in places but my microfiche story is that when i was in high school one of my english classes we had a specific assignment that was to go to the library at the at unm at the university of new mexico has a library that had like a bunch of i think it had a lot of New York times archives,

which I guess you could just get as a library, but like in other newspapers, we had an assignment to go to the university library and look up specifically microfiche articles as an exercise. And like, this is a technology that exists. Yes. And this was probably shortly before that technology stopped existing it's the

information super highway yeah microfiche i mean at the time i mean now the new york times archives are online you can just yeah look them up but um at the time they weren't anyway and uh it's like a creative writing thing and but you had to base it off of a new york times archive from that was on microfiche from, I think before 1900 or something like that. So anyway, so I went to the library and went to the machine and did the little slidey things. And like,

it was, I appreciate that I was made to do it. Cause I don't know why I other, other one ever have done it, had that experience. But the way that he talks about it, I'm like, Oh yeah,

this is a fiddly kind of pain in the ass kind of thing because you had to i mean they showed it you had to focus in on it and it was yeah anyhow um what i want to talk about in this scene are a couple things first of all this is 1976 1977 season so this is the year 1976 so we are in solid bicentennial town. And so the cups that they're drinking out of have American flags on them. And I'm like, that has to be a bicentennial thing, which is fantastic. Number two is Lori's sunglasses are amazing. And those are my two things. Good notes. What they discovered was that the headline was about a man named Arnold Freeling, who was killed in Detroit on the 12th, one shot to the head unknown assailant uh before that in

another town that they knew that that lori remembered booking feral too there was a guy who was in a car that was run off the road and then he and his bodyguard were both shot um two days ago in miami beach there was another guy, multiple bullet wounds. These three men were all scheduled to appear before the Senate subcommittee on organized crime. And there's one more on the list. So what they're constructing for Dennis is that at the airport, he realized that Laurie knew where he'd been and when. So that's why he's trying to, as Jim says, take her off. And then he's tried to take Jim off too.

And he shoots like he's in practice. Yes. But not too much practice. Yeah. Dennis says, well, I mean, there's no hard evidence. There's nothing that could be proved. So we can't arrest him, but I can ask him, we can ask him some questions. So they go to Farrell's house to ask him said questions uh but he has

left about 15 minutes ago um there's a housekeeper who answers the door as they're walking up becker's like you know let me do the talking and then immediately jim jumps in does he have a desk calendar or anything we can check and there's this great grimace on becker becker's face like i can't we can't do that like i'm a cop i can't do that but the housekeeper says that he's a very private man and she can't help them uh they leave the house they have a little bit more banter uh where becker's like well we'll keep an eye on the on his house we'll keep an eye on the coin shop they have a wonderfully constructed tv moment i wonder where he went yeah maybe he went out to kill somebody the airport the airport

and then we have action synth as we transition into our next scene i thought that was a very funny moment uh i did too yeah it was well the the timing was yeah was really well done again good dennis moments the whole main cast but also that that trope comes from somewhere and this is like a good example of it right yeah we have jim in for whatever reason the framing of this maybe it's just because it was the first time he had a full body shot in this particular costume. But like my note here is Jim in many shades of brown is wandering around. Like his shoes, his pants, his jacket and his shirt are all slightly different browns. Yeah.

So he and Dennis are basically just wandering around the airport like maybe we will find him. Dennis says, well, if you left 15 minutes ago, like that's cutting it pretty close to get on a flight, right? And Jim says, well, he's not going to hang around. He's going to want to be in and out fast. This guy has a pattern, Dennis. This fits. So getting back to him saying you have to not leave a pattern, right? Like kind of implying that maybe he is getting a little sloppy or something, right?

Laurie did get a passenger manifest and he is on a flight to Chicago that leaves in five minutes. Jim wants her to page him. What am I supposed to say to him? Nothing. He's not going to answer, but he just wants to spook him. Basically, he wants to give him, rattle him is a better, I think that's what he says. Like there's, there's gotta be a chink in his armor we just got to make him nervous yeah we see feral hear the page so the you know announcement over the speakers and then we

see him see the other assassin who menacingly lifts his arms that have a raincoat draped over them he takes off running. Jim and Dennis see him running. They pursue. So then we get a bit of an action scene where Farrell is running from this other assassin. The other assassin is chasing Farrell. Jim and Dennis are way behind chasing Farrell, but both of them.

In my notes here, this is when it suddenly comes to mind that I have no idea why this episode is called the fourth man right and my first question is wait is this guy the fourth man because there's four men running that's not the case but i was like maybe i don't know right what's happening here farrell uh runs outside the terminal they're in kind of like uh the ground area yeah uh the other hitman yells at this in a very jim-esque move i

think yells at a guy who's like like riding around on one of those little carts like a baggage yeah like a baggage handler or something he shouts airport security stop that man and so the the guy obliges stops feral feral kind of pushes him so the the handler falls to the side feral standing against the wall as the other uh hitman comes up to him and he says but i read you your rights and then we just have this perfectly framed two shot of them staring each other and then the guy in the blue suit just shoots him in the stomach yeah it's It's a, it's a little shocking for a Rockford files, right? Like I wasn't expecting,

I was expecting some sort of confrontation at this point with everyone involved, but that is not the case. Yeah. And it's right in front of this grand crew guy. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah,

I think that's what I meant about how like this escalates a little more, maybe to give it more excitement as a season premiere. Yeah. No, this is a heck of a foot chase yeah it is you know my notes here the killer runs so jim and dennis see the shot also yeah so they run they they run up to the airport employee who's going he shot him he just shot him which is seems like a solid reaction like a very realistic reaction probably still considering thinking that this guy's airport security, right? Like, yeah. But he runs into a hangar and Jim and Dennis see him disappear into this airline hangar where there's a there is a plane there.

So there's gantries and there's stairs and there's a plane. And, you know, it's clearly darker than the outside. Yeah, I didn't. It's a good moment of like of like hold up he could lay an ambush in there right like that's yeah and we have some dialogue here now let's split up do you have a gun yeah yeah yeah oh that's good then you could cover me the back and forth like you don't know which way dennis is gonna go on that and uh he's like okay fine and then we have a great this is a great physical sequence where jim and dennis are leapfrogging keeping each other covered while they advance up towards this um the plane we see our gunman who has made it into the plane and is picking out of the door

dennis makes a break for it the gunman takes a shot hits dennis yeah we see him hit him in the i think it's very clear that it hits him in the leg yeah we see dennis go down and he yells nailed him jim and so jim takes a shot and our our our gunman is clearly hit and he does a classic falling forward out of the door, tumbling fall out of the plane. We don't see where he lands and Jim runs to Dennis's side and, you know, and clearly concerned is Grant and like,

you know, goes to Dennis. It's like, you okay, buddy? We see why they're friends. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, I'm also panicking a little bit because i'm now realizing i don't think i've ever seen jim kill a person and i was like did jim just kill a person i don't know if i want to see jim kill a person you know what i mean like that's a well we will we will learn in our final scene here where we start off at the the pool at laurie's apartment building where they're having a celebratory grill uh dennis has his leg up on a sack of stack of pillows and is having jim get him some chips jim says you're getting a lot of mileage out of that dennis considering it's just a flesh wound but the doctor said he's supposed to stay off of it and it hurts so it's the least he could do but it could have been a lot worse uh lori and

rocky joined them rocky is wearing an incredible belt buckle with gmc the gmc logo i made the same note i was like what is going on i i maybe rocky's worn it before i don't know but it was it's you know rocky's gms it's uh so good what an artifact yes i like to think that that was that that was noah's that that was just like something he he was like i'm i'm wearing my gmc buckle today uh yes so there's a line here where dennis i don't think i don't remember if he says i should thank you but he's like you know everything's worked out great because of Jim. Dennis is like, you know, it's a big score for him with the department.

One assassin DOA and another alive and talking. So there we go. So Jim did not kill, kill the other guy. He apparently made it through and he's, and he's spilling all the beans. We have some good wrap up Q andA where Laurie and or Rocky say, I don't understand why this happened. Or why did this happen? Yes.

And Jim explains, Farrell wouldn't bring a gun through the airport. It's hard to bring a gun through those metal detectors. And he could just buy one wherever he's going. You know, he was going to Kansas City. And, you know, they explain about the reading his rights and whatever uh farrell used his um coin business as a cover for his work as a you know as a professional assassin jim says that the uh you know warning each other off um of hits it usually works there's a lot of live bodyguards and very little executive talent um but the this hit was on the fourth member of this group of mob guys that were going to testify you know before the senate

subcommittee so there's our fourth man yes lori wants to pay him for his trouble and rocky jumps in he won't think about it no no no no no you wouldn't take money from a neighbor which i think he says after jim says well it's not so much the time as the out-of-pocket expenses but rocky says jim would not take money from a neighbor he wouldn't even think about it laurie turns to the grill jim beckons rocky down and says that it better be a great steak freeze frame freeze frame and yes um yeah so that was the fun one we we end with no money but hope but he is getting a steak that we don't get it that we don't get to watch him eat so yeah you know we get all of our check boxes check check check uh yeah i can see this as a beginning of season three as being like a good, strong, like, let's get you what you want and show you what you're going to get if you're new to the show.

Like, I keep saying lots of good stuff with the core cast. Like, I agree with you about the character of Laurie sort of fading. She starts stronger than she ends I think yeah she just seems a little I don't know she just seems a little boring in a way I didn't expect I feel like she was set up to be

a little more I don't know I guess I was waiting waiting to get a little more of an edge from her in some direction and it just didn't really happen but that's a pretty minor it's not really even a complaint. It's like this episode has all of these things. Like it's like all of our core characters. Yeah.

Good villain. Interesting plot. Good twist. Uh, high, high octane ending. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot to appreciate. So, uh, you know, if we're doing a power ranking, you know, maybe, maybe Lori tips me one way or the other versus some other episode. But just taking it at face value, you know, it's a relatively minor criticism of a strong episode overall. Yeah, season three.

So, you know, we start off with this episode the next episode is the oracle war cashmere suit which i think is another genre sub-genre of episode that we i mean i really like it i think we both liked it the one after that is the family hour which we did recently so that's kind of like an offbeat like off off-formula episode. Yeah. And then after that is Feeding Frenzy, which is the one with the ice rink exchange. Oh, yes. So good. And then the one after that is Drought at Indian Head River, which is the one where Angel is the fall guy for the real estate deal.

Yeah, some classics. Yeah. And then the one after that is culture city wildcat. The one where Rocky accidentally or Rocky bids on the oil lease and yeah, it has to get conned into signing it off where they almost make hundreds of thousands of dollars, but then don't because of a bureaucratic paperwork thing. And then the one after that is so help me God. So like,

yeah, that's a good, good season. That's, that's a good good season that's that's seven episodes in a row where it's like yeah that's a good one that's also a good one yeah and then the one after that is one we haven't done yet i mean we haven't done all of them obviously there's a couple still that we still need to do in this season but scrolling down the season three episodes i'm like these are almost all bangers yeah but i feel like i have that feeling every season if i start scrolling down the episodes i'm like you start having good

memories all of them yeah uh so that's a good feeling it's like yep yep show the show is good yeah uh i don't really have anything else in particular i think this was a fun episode and i'm glad we got to check off you know lots of rock traditionists um yeah you know play some of the greatest hits yeah yeah you come in you're gonna you're gonna do war pigs you're gonna do paranoid you're gonna do iron man sorry i relate everything to black sabbath so and apparently a single black sabbath album album as I just listed. Yeah, greatest hits. Yeah, greatest hits. Yeah.

So we have one more Ward-Bartlett collab to do. So we're going to do that one next. Next, yeah. And then we will continue our Ward-a-thon after that. So looking forward to that.

Our Wayward way. Yes. We'll continue on our Wayward sons we will go forward through okay never mind i think you're onto something we'll go forward through his catalog there we go sure well however that came out we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files