Two Hundred A Day - Episode 119: A Deadly Maze

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Nathan and Eppy join Jim as he reluctantly takes on a missing persons case for an unemotional client in S4E13 A Deadly Maze. The money is good, but the case is just weird, and even after Jim finds the client's wife, he can't let go of the feeling that something else is going on. This is an episode with a meaningful reveal, which made the overall very fun story a little less scintillating than it might be going in cold. Certainly recommended, it's an off-beat script with a fantastic proportion of Rockfordishness. Piña Colada! 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

Hey Jimmy, I tried to catch you before you left. Hey buddy, I was wrong. That rally in Mexico? That was yesterday. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Palletta. And I'm Epidaia Ravishaw.

And today we are finishing out our mini-cycle of the Juanita Bartlett X William Ward collab episodes with season four, episode 13, a deadly maze. Oh yeah. That's a good title. I dig that title. It does have a good title.

Yeah. This one, uh, this one, uh, uh, if you've listened to our previous couple episodes, this one is, you know, just, we're just connecting the dots, uh, one uh uh if you've listened to our previous couple episodes this one is you know just we're just connecting the dots uh on uh our our series here where we're uh we where we're

exploring the rest of the wardiverse um and finishing out william ward's contributions prolific contributions to the rockford filesiles. Yeah, he had directed something like 25 episodes. Something like that. We should probably have that number in mind by now. I remember last time because we have like 25 episodes left. And it was about that, yeah. 26 episodes, yeah. Which means he directed what, like a fifth of the episodes?

It feels like it, yeah. Something like that. You have calculators. You can figure it out. And by you, I mean Epi specifically. Everyone should have a favorite calculator. They should have more than one calculator, but one that they... Anyways, some of these episodes get double counted here,

but I'm looking at all episodes of the Rockford Files. Oh, God, they used to... I think it's like 127 or something like that is the way that is counted because some of them are two for syndication and one of them are one. Yeah. Oh, 119 is what the little gray number says if you go to the Rockford Files IMDP page. It's in tiny text next to the words episode guide.

22% roughly. Yeah. Not counting movies. He didn't do any of the movies. No, he did not do any of the movies. I think he died before the movies. I think we talked about that last time. I think he passed away in the late 80s, I think.

I think we talked about that last time. I think he passed away in the late 80s, I think. Yeah, so as previously stipulated, not a whole lot new to say about William Ward. And for this particular episode, didn't really have any particular background that came up when I was looking around for this particular script. There's one trivia I had hoped existed,

and that is some reason for the nose. Oh, well, there is. Okay. I mean, there is in the fiction, but I was wondering if that was to cover up a real-life thing or if that was just a quirk that they threw in the narrative. No, that is for a real-life thing. I think this is a, this is,

uh, this is actually just from the IMDb trivia. Um, but apparently, uh, Joe Santos had a nasal procedure that he had undergone and the bandages could not be removed for shooting. So they wrote it into the script. Oh,

it's a good write in. It is. We'll get to it when we get to it, but it's good. I kept expecting it to be bigger than what it was, but when it wasn't, I was like, oh,

okay, this is probably something real that they're working into the story somehow. Yeah. And I think we see that right in the, um, right in the preview montage. So I think we should probably just get right into it. Jump right into it.

Yeah. I do have one. Uh, it's not really a content warning. It's more an observation. This is a very non-vegan episode. Oh, yeah. That is true. That is very true.

Along multiple dimensions. So, yeah, opening montage. We get a great one-two punch with would you rather see your wife? And then like a cut to a blood-curdling scream. That's great. We see Dennis with his nose all bandaged up. And as I just noted, like, I will spend the whole episode wondering what to have until they start explaining it. I'm really appreciating the lines that they choose to put in the opening montage that create tension for the for as you watch the episode right like they can show you something that's going to happen and you're like

yeah that's exciting i can't wait to see that happen but there's this line here where he's like if that lab report comes back and says that there's human blood on that apron i go to the cops and that one that's just a line you like you you hear it walking by someone and you're like, I need to stay away from that person. But also, I absolutely need to know what's going on. Yeah. And we get some threatening goons. Good threatening goons. Yeah.

Yeah, that particular line is good because there's such a clear presentation of the bloody apron, as we will get to, that you're supposed to wonder that anyway. But because in the preview montage, it's like this is really important yeah um i will say there is something missing from the preview montage that ends up being missing from the episode and there's a point in the episode where i realize i'm making too much of this already i realized that it was missing from the uh preview montage and then i got a, oh, and that is there's no car chase in the preview montage. And I will point out the point in the episode where that happens, where there is no car chase. And I was I was a little sad. Yeah, I think I know where that spot is, but we'll find out.

As we say, we'll get to it when we get to it. Yeah. 200 Today 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 rollforyour.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 Thermoware, 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. Before getting into this episode, my question for you is how well did you remember this one? I couldn't remember exactly what was happening, but I had enough memories from this one that I literally checked our website to make sure we hadn't done it. Because I thought, it's possible that we did it.

I would be very surprised if we went this entire endeavor without accidentally doing an episode we already did. I mean, we're pretty good at keeping track. At some point. At some point, something slipped through the cracks whatever but but i did i i think i had inklings about what was going on underneath uh earlier than i would have if i had just seen it straight i think my i just asked because i think in kind of thinking about it as we're getting set up um the fact that i remembered it's fun that we're dancing around it as if it's a spoiler. I know, right?

Well, that's the thing, right? This episode is constructed around a reveal. Yes. And I think it does a good job of telegraphing, hey, there's something else going on here. It's not like it's a total mystery. It's not a big surprise that comes out of nowhere. It is kind of foreshadowed.

But the nature of the reveal is very strong and the fact that i remember kind of remembered what it was does mean that through the first half of the episode i was kind of just i was kind of waiting for it to get to the good part even though the first part is good yeah yeah no i know what you're saying like when if you're watching this one fresh i think you i think it's what am i trying to say pause now watch the episode enjoy the reveal yeah i think this one benefits from going in not i mean we already told you there's a reveal but that's also again telegraphed but like yeah yeah i think this one is more fun to watch cold yeah and then you're probably right. When you watch it the second time, there's a little bit of like, come on, let's get through the motions in the first maybe 15, 20 minutes of the episode.

Just the fact that I had that, I thought it was, well, it was notable that I had that takeaway of like, oh, this one actually is like less fun to watch the second time. Let's dig into this for a minute here i gotta i gotta adjust my seating arrangement because we're gonna dig in yeah he's getting his thinking pose folks yeah i get my thinking pose on so did you remember what the reveal was going to be yes like right off the okay yeah there was one nuance to it that i didn't really remember yeah and so when it went one way and i kind of thought it was going a different way that's when i was like oh i don't remember that part and i was like intrigued again yeah so um because i think that there is some stuff how they play towards the reveal is of

interest so if you already know the reveal yeah there's some craft in how it's yeah foreshadowed but it's not like a mystery where like you could deduct what's going to happen based on the information you're given as an audience member. Like, it's not that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in particular, this opening scene, which we'll get to in a moment here, I think has a neat little... Yes, well, as you say, we should go ahead and talk about this opening scene. Which is just starting off with our opening credits uh over the firebird arriving at a kind of creepy house at night um i did note the one particular name of johnny seven

because that is a good name yes and so i i was like so i immediately looked up i was like who's that and he's a character actor who's been in a million things yeah but i was like okay let's see which of these characters is johnny seven and i gotta say does not disappoint i i saw that name too and i thought of uh uh short circuit johnny five is the name of the robot in that film and i thought oh it's a sibling or whatever but yeah no johnny seven is it's a good it's it's a wrestling name yeah yeah i twigged onto that immediately. Anyway, we'll see him later. I love how this...

Well, I guess it's just after the Firebird arrives, but I love how this is all lit. Yeah, this is horror movie vibe. Yeah. It's horror movie... Like, very Exorcist. It was the implications I got. And that'll be important in a moment.

And this is also telegraphed by Jim looking uncomfortable as he references an address he's written down, finds the house, rings the bell. There's no answer, but the door's open and he walks in. There's no lights. There's sheets over the furniture. And he calls a name a couple times looking for a mr albach and i think i'm expecting you know something to happen or whatever get way late or yeah but it is simply that uh there's a light on in the basement and there's a call uh to to come join me down here and so we get a uh horror movie-esque descent of jim down

into a creepy basement where we see a man in a formal suit not formal like like a wedding but like a professional business yeah yeah um doing something to a water heater that's just sitting alone in the center of an entirely empty basement that juxtaposition of the suit and the creepy basement yeah makes that immediate image be like okay there's something like what is going on what what is happening here so this is mr albach so he's played by larry linville who who was a mash guy yeah he was major burns major burns yeah hold on let me just make sure yeah major freight i never remember which of the two because he he's the first of the foils um in mash yeah i i haven't watched enough mash to have any association with

him um so i was like oh people would know who this is but yeah yeah he's a good actor if you want someone that the audience is not going to like uh-huh uh which i really sounds like a backhanded compliment and i don't mean it like that at all like he just does these no he's a good heel yeah he's a good heel he's a good heel i should have just said that he's a good heel. I will say that he's a heel, but Burns is like a bumbling, overwrought heel where this guy is like cold and just distant and, you know, unemotional. I mean, he is. And this is a plot point that comes up immediately. He is unlikable. He is a person that you immediately go like, oh, I don't like this guy.

So he's extremely dry also, right? Yes. Very unemotive. Doesn't really change his facial expression very much. So, you know, it's a great foil for Jim, who is so emotive. Do you always hold business meetings in your basement? Does it bother you? Well, yes.

Would you like to go somewhere else? I guess not, since we're already here. Oh, this is one of my properties. Someone told me there was some sort of leak here. I didn't see anything. On a phone, you quoted your price as $200 a day plus expenses. That's acceptable. And there's a good humorous bit where he just turns on a light bulb that's hanging over him.

And it's like, is that better? Like one single light bulb. Again, the lighting is really great. Because it's like, it just adds this tiny little pool of illumination. It's good. It's good. It is very good. So he wants Jim to find his wife.

His wife has disappeared. And there's a good line. Buy a couple of light bulbs and call the police. That will solve both your problems jim is our surrogate here where he uh eventually says you don't seem very upset well i am very yeah yeah um i'm not a demonstrative man i don't show my emotions um he doesn't want to go to the police so So his wife, her name is Tracy. She has emotional problems and a pathological fear of the police and similar authority figures. So that's why he doesn't want to go to the cops to find her. Jim says he's turning down the job.

He doesn't do missing persons. Albach escalates to 250 a day. Yeah, this is a pattern we will see. This is the start of a pattern right albeck says that he noticed a car in the neighborhood a week ago and he thought maybe it was like casing places for robbery or something right took the license plate just in case and then the car disappeared the same day that tracy did so he tells jim all you have to do is run this plate go to the address and see if tracy there, which seems very...

This feels like a setup. Right. I know it's a setup. Yeah. But there's also, when he breaks down, like, just do these things. Yeah, yeah. At this point, I don't remember enough of the show to remember exactly what's happening.

And I, because of the lighting, I first expected Jim to come across a body in the basement and be framed for that. And then I was like, oh, a body in the basement and be framed for that and then i was like oh he's being sent somewhere to be framed for i keep expecting jim to be framed right is what what i'm like my going theory you know it's a it's a usual thing you do with a pi yeah so jim keeps turning down the job and then he but how he gets to the classic rockford two-step here but how uh all buck gets to him is he says, he asks if he's never done missing persons before. And he's like, well, I mean, I guess I have technically.

Yeah. He's like, let me guess, someone, a friend or someone who's young and vulnerable. I know that I'm not a likable man, but is that the only reason that you're turning me down? Here's a picture. He gives him a picture of them at their wedding in 1968. Yes. You know, Tracy is young. She's she's vulnerable.

She needs help. Right. And so Jim, you know, looking at this picture of this, you know, young, pretty woman. OK, you got me. Yeah. I like this exchange. He specifically says something like, I'm not a likable man is that your basis for refusing me jim says no and he's like be honest with yourself mr rockford and i do like

that that's part of jim's decision to go with it like he's like oh am i a bad person for turning this guy down and i like that it just has a nice um i think it rings true with our knowledge of jim right like we know that he's more of a i mean maybe sucker is the wrong word but he is more apt to leap to the defense of yeah a woman or a young person who seems to be in trouble rather than like a rich old guy right we have a match cut here where where Jim is looking at the photo in his trailer while talking to Dennis on the phone, trying to get him to run down the plate with a little, little bit of a lie here where he says that this,

this car sideswiped his car and he's, and then, you know, hightailed it out of there. And he just wants to track this guy down to get some, get some, some restitution. We see Dennis with the giant bandage all over his nose i'm uh so

excited to find out why that is where i am right now in this episode there's a bit of banter here where jim finally is like look you already ran down the plate so just tell me who it is yeah and so he gives jim the name max savachi but if it's a hit and run you have to report it jim you know me dennis i always go by the book by now rocky has arrived and jim has forgotten that he had plans he was going to go with rocky to go out on fannin's new boat rocky has a bottle of champagne in his truck just waiting for the occasion. For the christening, I'm guessing. I would assume so.

Yeah. I like Rocky here. He's like, you're not going to wear that about what Jim's wearing. But when you look at what Rocky's wearing. He's just wearing like a jacket and a hat. Like a jacket buttoned all the way up over whatever shirt he's wearing. It's a very, very, very Rocky thing to be like, we should dress up for this. And then just dress whatever shirt he's wearing it's a very uh a very very rocky thing to be like we should dress up for this and then just dress up like he's well those are his dress boat and boat and clothes yeah exactly rocky asked him why why took this job anyway it's a one-day job and it's

250 bucks i'm gonna be eating the balloon payments on this trailer this month. This episode has a great baseline Rockfordishness. Yeah. Quotient. If you're just going to pick this one out of a lineup, it has a lot of this stuff. And one of the things is, you know, about Jim's cash flow. And then Rocky just says, you'll just end up refinancing like you always do.

But Jim insists it's a one-day gig gig and they'll take the boat out again tomorrow. Yeah, if he needs an extra hand, he'll have it tomorrow. Jim goes to the address. Sure enough, the car with the requisite license plate is sitting outside. He rings the bell. There's a beat and then he hears some gasps and kind of quiet yells, and a woman yelling no. So he runs around to the back, goes up the back stairs, doesn't hear anything, hears the car start up out front, runs back out front, and it's a big blue sedan. Our 200 Files files did not have an entry for this one, i am unsure what the the model here is but uh the the

sedan is gone and um jim has has apparently lost his lost his quarry here he's taking a moment to like decide what to do next i guess and then looks at the trash cans that are outside the house and on the top of one of them is a blood-stained apron and he pulls it up and it says Sibachi Brothers Prime Meats. Yes. In a wonderful, next time we do shirts, maybe we'll do a bootleg Sibachi Brothers shirt. Oh, yeah. It looks good. Just a Prime Meats and then just like a bloodstained, a, just like a, like a bright red one.

Like it is in the, uh, TD blood stain kind of thing. That'd be great. This is, this is a, uh, again,

I'm not quite remembering what the trick is of this episode. And it, it feels, it, it feels planted to me. Yeah. Nothing about this whole situation feels natural. And I think that's very intentional.

We cut to Jim throwing the apron onto Dennis's desk, which is a very funny move because it is bloodstained. Dennis doesn't even look at him and just goes, get that off my desk. That's when Jim notices his nose and asks him about it. So he starts off with saying, well, he hit it on the dashboard of a squad car. Oh, what was it? A high speed chase? No, he went out to lunch with Chapman and he got so involved with talking about new regulations that he ran a red light. It's great.

And Jim is loving it. Jim couldn't be happier to hear that and dennis like you can't tell anybody jim wants to run the apron through the lab find out if it's animal blood or human blood dennis isn't going to run it until he knows what's going on uh and jim says fine i'll take it to a private lab and there's just this wonderful little judo reversal thing here where like yeah where jim says you know i want you to do this for me well i'm not going to do it until you until i know what's going on okay fine i'll go elsewhere well i want to know what's going on well i'll tell you what's going on as soon as you run it right yeah so yeah he uses uses dennis's need to be involved against him i i love a motif and this episode is filled with them this this uh using jim or dennis's curiosity against him is going to happen to jim a little later on and like it's like this

little pre-echo of like like a thing that's going to happen in the episode and i love that uh it also echoes out to the earlier thing where it's clear that dennis had run the plates out of curiosity uh but then didn't want to tell jim the info you know what i mean like it's a very like uh i don't know i just I'm just really enjoying the way the different parts of the episode mirror each other. When we get a little further down the line, we'll see where the same thing happens to Jim, where he wants to get out, but the curiosity just won't let him leave. We, of course, end the scene with Dennis handing the apron to Billings. Yes. Jim's like, to Billings. Yes. Jim's like, that Billings really is a nice guy, isn't he?

Yeah. Dennis, just done with him. Just done with him. It's very good. Our next scene is Jim reporting back to Aalbach, who is dressing him down for going to the police against his express instructions. But Jim says he didn't mention him or his wife well weren't there any questions none that i answered which is a good rockfordism yes they had this conversation at a certain point we cut to see that there's two yeah monitoring the conversation as it's being recorded so like they have headphones there's a

tape recorder and so it's like okay we you we get the very, the very heads up something is going on. This is the moment foretold of where I go and look through our back catalog to make sure we haven't done this episode yet. You know what it is? I think there's another, there's, I'm probably also confusing it with one that we have done where he was being spied on from the other room where he's dropped upon by like federal agents. I think there's been a couple where. Yeah. But so the the way that these guys are kind of dressed and presented, they do seem like some kind of fed. Yeah.

Yeah. Or whatever. Some kind of law enforcement situation. Of course, the question is, are they recording all by like, right. Who's who's,

who are they recording and why? All Bach wants to know why Jim's so worried. Basically. And it's like, he says, all you have is a butcher's apron and a house with nothing amiss. And he says, incidentally,

how did you get in there? And Jim's like, well, I picked the lock. And I was like, Oh, this will be important later it's it's not but it felt a little specific to like get jim to say like i picked the lock to get in your wife may be in very serious danger what does it take to activate your defrost cycle and just because he doesn't display emotions doesn't mean he doesn't have them and he asks is, is Jim afraid for Tracy or for himself?

This is Jim reiterates that you should go to the police. I can't. Do you want to see your wife dead or just a little upset? And so he's like, okay, do you want to know what the real problem is? And Jim's like, yes,

of course I want to know what the real problem is. Apparently a few months ago, Tracy was involved in an altercation with a cab driver. Blows were exchanged. They kept it out of the press, but couldn't keep it out of court. And if she's involved in something like that again, she could be committed. Being put in an institution, she wouldn't be able to handle that. It would kill her.

Albach is willing to go to $300 a day to stay on the case. And he holds out three crisp $100 bills. I'll leave it all in your hands. And Jim can't turn down the easy cash. But this is where from the preview montage, if there's human blood on that apron, he's going to go to the cops, whether Albach likes it or not. So one, OK, two, three things of note. We'll start with the least important one, which is the paintings in this room are exquisitely 70s. I love, I mean, just the fact that part of the painting

is the texture is great. Like there'll be like a stripe of color and it'll have like bumps in it and stuff. Anyways, lovely stuff. I don't have the art background to describe it in a way that uh just watch the episode um but okay so that was the the the next up is there's a point in this where um jim actually calls out all the questions that this guy is asking kim right right that that all bach has been asking jim and he says like what's with the 20 questions

or something like that that's when it clicks in my brain oh he's being we haven't gotten to the reveal so i won't reveal it yet but like uh that's when i remember what's happening because it's important that this guy's asking jim questions about what's going on right but more specifically he's asking jim questions about how he feels yeah yeah and that's the uh that's what yeah and that culminates with the like are you afraid for tracy or afraid for yourself right yeah there's a bit of tone and i think this is part of the not misdirect but part of the keeping now keep keeping an open question as to what's going on there's a bit of tone of him of all about kind of being like kind kind of challenging Jim to stay on the case, right? Like, are you scared?

Like, can you not handle it like that? Yeah. That is alongside the other reason for asking him all these questions. Yeah. And then the pattern continues where he's presenting more of the story and then offers more money. Right. And that's a, I'm writing it down as it's happening. I'm like, Jim, take that money.

Just keep going. Just take that money. Just keep going. Just take that money. It's also increasingly like, it's not that it's unbelievable, I guess, but it feels like an increasingly tenuous story. Yeah, yeah. The story is changing as it goes along, which is, I mean, not unusual for a Rockford Files or a mystery show. But at this point, Jim is probably like none of this is real i don't

i don't know what the real story is but i'm certainly at that stage i'm like something's wrong well and jim and we see this in the next scene or in the in two scenes i guess but jim he's at the stage where we see him a lot where the the reasons don't matter, but he's concerned about the material issue of is this woman safe or is she in danger? And it's a little immaterial about why he's involved at this point, but the fact that he's involved means he's going to stay involved.

Jim heads home where two goons are waiting for him. Max Savace himself and another goon who, in my notes notes i'm like this guy is an 80s old guy jobber wrestler yeah i'm trying to it's hard to put into words if you know you know but like the secondary goon who is never introduced and doesn't matter, but you know, Sivachi's backup, he looks like the guy where if you went to a wrestling show in the eighties and a guy came out and he looked like your uncle,

right. But then he gets in the ring and he's actually really a hard ass, like a real rough guy. That's what this guy looks like. Yeah. And, uh, Savici himself is,

uh, is no, uh, pushover either like this guy clearly looks yeah so this is one of one of the faces there's a lot of good faces uh this guy this is he's played by cliff carnell and this is our final the final appearance of mr carnell on our program we're closing closing the carnell cycle here this is the second of his three rockford files appearances this is our final viewing of him because we've seen his other two he was in so help me god and i as i think just like the gangster or whatever yeah you know someone kind

of tertiary but i i remember him specifically from just a couple of guys because he's the mobster in just a couple of guys who the couple of guys are trying to get in good with getting good with yeah he's he's one of those guys with a good face. Yeah, he's got a great face. Which is deployed well in this episode as well. He has a great threatening demeanor. And so, of course, he threatens Jim. Leave it alone. If you don't, buddy, you'll wind up just another sirloin hanging on a meat hook. Yes.

There's some banter back and forth of various butcher references. of various butcher references um and then jim starts coming back at him and the uh the the secondary goon pulls out a chain yes and that is when rocky comes out of the trailer just on time just on time and they they they play cool uh they they leave jim they on a threatening note jim is clearly upset he's he's heading in towards his trailer rocky hits him with a what's that guy's beef is that supposed to be funny or something huh hey what'd i say it is good so we get our escalation right there our next scene is a a chef kiss scene here oh it is it is one of the wonderful rocky jim uh interactions that could be in any episode it just happens to be in this one um rocky's made dinner it's fish i caught it i cooked it the least you can do is eat it it's a full plate we see a potato we see some kind of greens yeah some

kind of like rice or pasta side of some kind yeah uh as well as the fish or maybe that's the tartar sauce it could be the tartar sauce yeah because the tartar sauce becomes important right so rocky is eating his plate the other plate is there jim hasn't touched it because he's been trying to get in touch with all buck for three hours and it just keeps ringing. Hasn't been able to find him. We have our banter here where Jim wants to know, what would you do if your wife disappeared? And Rocky's like,

your mother never left the house, but she left a note telling me where she was going and when she'd be back. And what I was allowed to help myself to in the ice box. So good. But what if she didn't? But she always did. But what if

she didn't? Wouldn't you be upset? And of course, he would be upset. Jim is more concerned about Aubach's wife than he is. Rocky wants him to come eat his dinner. He made the tartar sauce special. But Jim, he just can't pin anything down about this case.

It's all very confused. He calls the house again. The line is busy. And so he's like, aha, he's home. It's like, okay, now you can eat something and try them again later. Jim is a victorious. Yeah, haha. And he picks up his fork and he goes oh wait no no and he puts down his fork

he's gonna go back i'm gonna go to his office and talk to him there he's gonna jim has some logic about like he i think he thinks he's been sitting there ignoring the phone yeah and then took it off the hook like he's like well now that i know he's there i can go confront him right right yeah right. Yeah, yeah. So as he heads out, Rocky ends on a, well, I'm going to leave the dishes for you. So this, okay, so let's talk about this. Like you said, this is pound for pound Rockfordishness. This is an exquisite.

Yeah, this one's a high level contender. Yeah. We get great rocky and jim interaction which we never don't get like whenever they're together it's perfect but like uh we get a wonderful glimpse into rocky's past with his wife and whatnot and uh it's funny he keeps going he's pacing back between the phone and the meal and so you just keep getting closer and closer to him to actually eating something but never actually eating something up up to the picking up the fork om was putting in his mouth and then putting it down no no i

gotta go over there this is okay this is like a tiny echo of the thing that happened with um uh dennis where like he manages to lure dennis in with his curiosity he he can't do anything until he finds out what what's going on here but also this is a setup for a three-part thing that i just love in this episode we're going to come back to this meal we'll be back at this meal yep two more times yep uh and i love it it. I just absolutely love it. It's well-crafted is what it is. It's written. And of course it's written. It's Juanita Bartlett.

She writes. I think it's interesting that we, and I'm sure this is just kind of, you know, luck of the draw kind of coincidence, but our last two episodes have given us specific looks at Jim's mom through Rocky's reminiscences. Yeah.

Like how she would never climb a telephone pole to be a telephone line worker or whatever. And she never left the house but to tell me where she was going. Like, you really start to get a picture of Mrs. Rockford, I suppose. Yeah. So Jim goes to the office. The door is ajar. It's dark. And he hears a woman's voice.

And so we see our introduction to Tracy, presumably, and it is confirmed soon. She's on the phone talking to someone. In the moment, I was like, okay, I kind of remember how this goes. This is part of the whole thing blah blah blah in retrospect her conversation here is actually relatively important because it's not part of i'm just realizing now that it's not part of the main narrative yeah um so i don't remember exactly but she's like talking to someone about how she's busy on a job or something. But or she's been busy, but she's back in town now. She mentions a specific bar and a name of a bartender.

And we see Jim eavesdropping on her. And this is important later. But then when she notices him, he she hangs up. He introduces himself, says he's a P.I. And her response is, oh, no, Eric hired you, right? He never lets up. He introduces himself, says he's a PI. And her response is, oh no, Eric hired you, right? He never lets up. So she, you know, isn't what Jim expected, obviously. She says that, you know, her husband, Eric, is insanely jealous. Emphasis on the insane. And he's been getting worse over time. He spies on her. There's been a half dozen stories and a half dozen pis jim asked her

about the conversation she was having she's like that's none of your business and then he says and then there's max savachi we cut to our guys listening on headphones so we're like oh this is all still you know part of something this is the same office in which he was eavesdropped on before yes and tracy says that Max has a temper. She's sorry he threatened Jim, but he's really very gentle. And this is a pretty good bit where he's like, Are we talking about the same Max Savacci? The butcher?

What kind of a snob are you? So he's a butcher. Would it make a difference if I was having an affair with an executive or an artist or a publisher? Max is a butcher. I like him. He's also a goon. You know what? Fair enough.

Good point. She wants Jim to leave her alone, tell Eric to leave her alone, and she means it. She leaves. Jim makes a call, gets another busy signal at the house, presumably. And then we hear a car coming to a stop i guess um jim looks out the window i'm okay there's a white car from the imdb trivia it is a 1978 pontiac trans am okay yeah and it has the full like trans am yeah Eagle logo, insignia, whatever on the hood, like the big one.

So it is a hell of a car. We're looking down from the window from Jin's perspective. And this is where I think both my note-taking vision and my general face blindness both failed me. My note, like it looked to me eric was grabbing her and putting her in this car and i was like that's so weird that's weird but it's it's not it's a new person yeah but i just totally didn't recognize that it was a new person uh so i got a little confused here it's it's it's cleared up very soon and i'm sure if you were actually watching this like a real person would be watching this it's obvious that it's we have a new character involved but uh yeah i was i was kind of like okay i don't i now i'm getting a little muddled about

who's doing what now my confusion with this scene this is the moment that i told you about from the preview montage and the lack of a chase because how do you have this car yeah and the firebird and you don't go head to head right like that was I saw that car I got super excited and then realized just remembered that there was no chase sequence in that opening montage and it's not that it ruined anything for me but the missed opportunity yeah like it's just there's a moment at the end where I'm where it's like that it ruined anything for me, but the missed opportunity. There's a moment at the end where it's like, oh, finally, there's going to be. Right.

It doesn't happen. We are back in the trailer. The phone is ringing and Jim says, just let it ring. He's getting his revenge by not answering the phone. Rocky is doing dishes, even though he said he'd leave them for Jim and says it's probably all back again. He's called three times and Jim says, don't bother. He takes the plastic wrap off of his plate of food that Rocky saved for him, takes a bite, compliments Rocky. Rocky's like, oh, it's cold.

It's like, well, fish, which is great. But then he finally breaks and does answer the phone. This is like this is a mirror of the previous one, right? Obviously, he's now eating the food and the phone, which was keeping him from the food. He's he's ignoring, but he can't keep that up. Right. He has to go to the phone. ignoring but he can't keep that up right he has to go to the phone yeah he can't not get some closure i think yeah yeah so it is indeed all buck uh he says that he saw tracy they went their separate ways she's the one that says he's the

cuckoo uh and she wants to be left alone how about we forget the whole thing all bucks like i want to i want to talk can we can we meet and talk about this in person? Jim's like, what, under a bridge? Like, that's, under a bridge at midnight? That would fit your sense of the dramatic. He offers him another $100. That's $400, twice your going daily rate. And Jim says, you can make it $800,

and I still wouldn't touch it. I don't handle domestic cases, and I don't deal with people who don't level with me. So he hangs up. Rocky tells him he's doing the right thing with a great Rocky dig. It's not really a backhanded

compliment, but it's kind of a disguised insult. I'll tell you something else too. Your business is bad enough without monkeying around with people like that got trouble in their head. Thanks, Rocky. Rocky is classically no help in this particular scene, which is great. Yeah.

So Jim kind of runs through like, oh, he's playing on my sympathy. See, he gave me this old wedding photo, not a current photo, you know, to get me interested. And Rocky, of course, responds with, oh, she's a cute little thing, isn't she? Yeah. But Jim doesn't care. He's out of it. If he's going to wonder about one thing, it would be finding the apron. That whole thing was too neat.

It's almost like it was staged. Yep. And and here's a new insight for us. And you see these shoes so he says i was told that the picture was taken at their wedding in 1968 they weren't wearing shoes like this in 1968 uh so i assume this is a reference that you know contemporaneously would be would would be correct right um because i don't Or, or an insight into something about Jim, something very personal about Jim. Didn't take Jim for a shoe guy,

but who knows? Who knows? But yeah, so this is this episode comes out December 77. So, you know, they're basically saying like, yeah.

So like these are 10 years ago, they were not wearing these shoes. Like, okay. It seems fair. I was, I was actually thinking about this and thinking if I would have, I'm not a detective. I mean, like we should have that at the front of every episode. Uh, but I don't think I would have been able to nail footwear, but there are other things that like, if I was like 10 years ago i they wouldn't have done like that that's uh you know that's a thing that happened since this or whatever like yeah it's like yeah i think it it does not seem weird to me that jim would recognize things that are out of place right

that's kind of his job so i think if it's something that i knew something about right like let's see what year is it 2023 yeah so if you're going to show me a picture from 2013 and it looked like a camera phone picture not like a digital camera picture right i might pick up on that because those kinds of pictures look different right yeah um and that's something i kind of know about i there's a there's a commercial that plays on on hulu uh from time to time for there's a band and they have a music video the music video is very retro 80s but it's red it is mid aughts retro 80s right right and for some reason i can identify that just like right off the bat i'm like oh no this isn't this is somebody nostalgic for a nostalgia that occurred in the odds yeah

for the 80s so i can understand jim like seeing these shoes and going oh no no these don't you know yeah i just don't understand the shoe bit like the other details might have worked or whatever but yeah um well they needed something right like for this story like he needed something to twig onto in the picture it's great now because we're watching jim talk himself into this right like we're this is this is good rock furnishness as well but i just whenever this shows up in any kind of mystery fiction or something like that where the sleuth whether they're a detective or not is trying to get away from the case and then they're just like oh that one detail

like that sticks in my crying it's like the reverse colombo it's like it's not that colombo needs to has one more thing is that yeah colombo's going oh there's one there's just one thing that i have to figure out yes exactly yeah because we're now past the point of him being concerned about danger. Because she's clearly, well, the intention is that she's clearly fine. But then he saw her in this weird situation getting into a car where she didn't seem like she wanted to. Yeah. So he still has a question mark about, like, is she okay?

But clearly he isn't being leveled with and et cetera, et cetera. So I think there's the that combination of like he still is slightly concerned and he also was just like what is going on like why am i in this like why am i even involved and i think that's what really gets him me and we end the scene on rocky thought you said you was gonna leave it. I can't. I just can't. 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, dig1000holes.com. That's dig1000holes.com.

Or you can get my sword and sorcery fiction and games at worldswithoutmaster.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 epidia at dice dot 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 ndpayoletta. 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. So here's where him overhearing that conversation that Tracy was having on the phone has the payoff. Because he goes to the bar that he heard her talking about. Goes to the bartender whose name is George.

I'm going to mention the music. Because I don't know if it's like a Moog or a Hammond organ or whatever. But this is good music here. It stands out yeah i don't really have a good beat on like what this kind of bar is supposed to be right it's like there's like a couple women there that seem like they're kind of hippies but then the bar the bartender george played by Johnny Seven, is a total paisan. Yeah.

And the music is kind of neither here nor there. It just seems like they were having fun with it. Yeah, yeah. But Jim has this whole line. He orders a pina colada, or as he says, a pina colada. And George gives him a look. And then he goes, he's like, oh, you're not going to actually make it, are you? What are you, a comic or something?

This is a bar. You order a pina colada. I'm not going to make you a tuna fish surprise. Now, you want one or what? Tracy said, if I came in and asked you for a pina colada, blah, blah, blah. He's like, oh, you're a friend of Tracy. Tracy always likes a good gag. Place isn't the same without her.

And so Jim learns that Tracy's a friend of George, the bartender, a regular, but hasn't been there for about a month. Jim really wants to find her. He has, I think he says, I have a game I'm running, and if I'm going to lay down 500 clams, I want the best. So he has this read on like Tracy is involved in some, yeah, it's something like some underworld stuff, some con game stuff, something.

And that mentioned a 500, 500 clams keeps, keeps George interested. And I think being interested in Tracy's welfare is like, well, if you're, if you have a job for her, here's where her apartment is.

Jim goes to said apartment. And as he is looking at the mailboxes, we hear a woman scream. Jim runs to an apartment. A guy in a leather jacket pops out of the door. Jim grabs his arm and just gets a big punch across the jaw. He runs off. Jim goes into the apartment. And we have a foreground shot of a woman's body hanging off of the bed and Jim in the background.

And he goes up to check. And unfortunately, that is the last we will see of poor Tracy. Cut from there to the body being taken out by the police. The music, like after Jim gets decked, the music tells us everything about what happened. Yeah. That whole sequence is, I think, well done. I did have one question about the fancy drink, the pina colada situation.

Cause it was just something, there was something in that conversation where George reveals that Tracy likes fancy drinks of some sort or whatever. It just, it felt like Jim lucked into something there. And I made a note of it. I was like, I don't get,

all right, fine. We'll just let that one go or whatever but uh but i love how this real dire situation mirrors the the staged one we get before jim shows up hears a scream uh does the same thing tries to get in and uh in this case it's it's. It's not a staged one. So we get to have Jim and Dennis talk out the case. So this is where I'm like,

okay, so I guess the guy in the coat, the leather jacket, he's the guy that she got into the car with. Yeah. I'm like, okay, that makes more sense now.

Yeah. With it now. We still don't know who he is and how he relates to any of this, but yeah. They found her ID. Her name is Tracy, but with a different last name. The name on her ID is Tracy Marquette. Yeah. It's also the name in the IMDb.

Now that is the name of the character yes but i'm just saying if jim had checked i see yes um jim asks if he can look in the closet dennis says that his job now is to stay out of the way you know the police are on it now it's a it's a murder case but jim wants dennis to have some provocative questions to ask albach and so he looks in the closet and sure enough those white shoes were in there and he lays out for jim for for dennis i had this picture you know no one was wearing these shoes in 1968 like i said a provocative question jim goes to uh confront albach but the it's an empty office. It was a big store, my friends. It is all gone.

Paintings and everything. Jim calls Dennis to tell him that. Dennis is like, well, I'll follow up with the building manager, you know, see what I can find. And Jim is of the opinion that... That'll get you nowhere. Yeah, that'll get you nowhere.

You'll find out he paid in cash and gave no forwarding address. So in talking to Dennis, he says that apron was Steer's blood anyway. Right. But why plant it in the first place? Right? Like, this is still strange. Maybe there'll be some clues in the trash. Well, how big is the building?

Big. Which means there'll be a lot of coffee grounds and chewing gum and half-eaten lunches and tea bags dennis i think it's worth a try yeah i could see that let me know if you find anything hangs up with a look on his face like i really really enjoyed this because this is a uh listing things that they could have thrown away in the trash, examples of things they could have thrown away in the trash. And then Dennis listing examples of things that aren't clues that you would find in the trash, revealing that both Jim and Dennis have spent a lot of time going through trash. Yeah, yeah. This is a very job-specific detail for both of them.

And it's great. It just feels like a very real uh it makes it it makes the whole thing feel very lived in well we get to see some of jim's uh uh i don't know legwork uh where we go to the alley where there's uh open trash bags everywhere as he's clearly been methodically going through every trash can that was behind this office building. But then he does finally find something. It's a receipt made out to von Aalbach from Kresge's Lab Animals. Apparently, according to this receipt, adult white male rats are $2 each.

Yes. There's a moment here. I don't know if this is text, right? But he sees it, and I feel like he looks around and just makes this decision that I'm done with trash. No, I think so. Yeah. I think part of his body language here was also kind of like,

well, I'm not cleaning this up. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, I'm going to get out of here before someone like,

you know, tries to get me to put all this trash back in the bins. This, this lead is, is is a any port in the storm the only thing he's found is all bucks name on a receipt to some other place and he's like i'm following it that's it i've done i'm out of this trash business i'm moving on so yeah so this is where i think the the knowledge of how this all goes yeah this bleeds bleeds any tension out of where this is go you know like yeah yeah yeah since since we know how this is going to end up this is kind of like watching him go through the the paces to get to where we need to go i was trying to remember how this struck me the first time I watched it. This is the first place where it's kind of like you could start putting some pieces together, some clues together, some of the foreshadowing stuff together.

Because it's like lab rats and he's been having this very, he has this very clinical personality. The asking of the questions about his, like, how he feels about things. I think so um the what through me and i actually rewound and paused several times which i didn't need to because it was just going to show me in the next scene i kept trying to connect the butchers to the to the the uh lab animal uh thing and it just there's no connection's no connection. Like it's not a thing. But I was like, wait, how is this? He already knows the name of the butchers.

It didn't, didn't it get revealed just moments ago that that is not a real butcher shop or something like that? Like all of their leads are dried up. I couldn't remember, but anyways. No, because they're a real butcher. It's just that the apron didn't have any evidence of crime. It was just a butcher's apron with steer's blood on it.

Oh, yeah. I kept trying to think, like, is this the receipt for the steer? I kept trying to figure out how it connected to what had already happened without realizing. This is a new thing. Yeah, yeah. This takes us in a new direction. This is a new thing. Yeah. Yeah.

This takes us in a new direction. Well, Jim goes to Kresge's lab animals, which has a great sign for the storefront. He talks to Kresge himself, who is played by another good face. This guy, this is Jack Collins.

And yeah, again, this is our last of three episodes where we have seen him. Second for him, third for us. He was in Just Another Polish Wedding, where I think he was one of the musicians, I think. He's got two listings for it. I think he's, maybe he had two, maybe he's under an alias. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Oh. got two listings for it i think he's maybe he had two i mean he's under an alias like he oh maybe

yeah oh because i think he's a guy who like has what has like an alias then they track him down and he's an actually different yeah yeah musician and then he was in never send a boy king to do a man's job and i'm pretty sure he was one of the crew like one of the con men yes crew i think yes he has a very con crew look about him so that's great he's been in some high water mark episodes yes here he is um a little defensive about his wares he's uh so jim's like i'm here from uh dr von albach's office about these rats he's like they were in perfect help when they leave here. No returns, no refunds. And he's like, no, no, no. Well, he's not there from the office. He's like,

I'm here because I was talking to Dr. Von Albach or whatever. Jim's line is that they're old friends. I didn't even know he had doctor in front of his name these days. They ran into him and they were reminiscing and he was going to Albach was going to give him his address to meet him later. But then they just kept on talking and he just forgot about it. he was going to, uh, Albach was going to give him his address to, to meet him later.

But then they just, they just kept on talking and he just forgot about it. He was going to write it down on this receipt. And so he never, he never got around to it. And so the only way that he can meet his friend is if, uh, Kresge can,

can tell him where he, where it is. He says, well, we don't deliver someone from his department, picks them up. He's a visiting professor of behavioral sciences at pepperdine like pavlos dogs white rats in a maze kind of thing well that's an oversimplification but yeah and jim's just like yeah yeah i think at this

point jim knows what's what's well no well, no, he doesn't actually, he doesn't know exactly. Yeah. But you know, he's, he's, he's been conned. Right. And he's been conned by apparently a behavioral sciences professor who works at a university.

So like, it's not like a con man con or, you know, it's, it's, there's something, still something to discover. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, I also wanted, I made a it's, it's, there's something, still something to discover. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I also wanted, I made a note here that, uh, it's clear that they want this reveal to be a surprise because they do take care not to foreshadow it in the opening montage. Like oftentimes opening montage won't really care about what it reveals because it's just trying to get you interested in upcoming events and i felt that this one kind of carefully like there are lines in here that could have ended up in an opening montage that didn't yeah like uh like pavlov's dogs yeah rats in a maze kind of stuff like that is a preview montage kind of line. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, it is,

this episode is constructed for this to be a, like, Oh, that's what's going on. We still have a question about the details. Cause like Jim, we still don't know why Jim and what the con or whatever, whatever the situation was, but now like,

okay, so this guy's lying about who he is probably lying about that woman being his wife. Cause we know she has a different last name and stuff how is this how does this all come together yeah what what's the score here so jim is staking out uh pepperdine the uh lab the behavioral sciences lab or whatever he sees all buck paying off savachi and his goon in the parking lot, which is awfully convenient. Yeah.

You know, sure enough, we see him giving him some money. We're in the last 15 minutes of the episode, I think. Yeah, there's still a lot to get through, actually, in the last, like, 15 minutes of this episode. And then he already set something up. He sees Albuquerque in that he goes to his car, brings out a rabbit in a cage, goes up the steps and talks to a student who clearly had already talked to. Professor Albuquerque is here now or Dr. Albuquerque is here now. So here's where his lab is and gives him the directions. Easy story. And then we see Jim discover what's going on.

The door to the lab is open. Our two guys who we saw listening to this recording multiple times are in white coats. So now we know they're doctors. Yes. Universal sign. We hear Jim's voice from that recording being played. And we see Albach looking over like a voice print readout printout thing the sign on the door says this is the voice stress evaluation lab

jim eavesdrops as they go over the voice print subject at this point appears both confused and frightened now it is of the utmost importance when this juncture of fear and confusion is reached to maintain a satisfactory emotional posture or sep this is for you too mr postner sorry doctor subject must be given emotional reassurance followed by monetary reinforcement i cannot stress enough the importance here er then mr yes any questions? And Jin steps in on I got a lot of questions. Aalbak is clearly surprised to see him, but also

not a demonstrative man. So he just starts off with, now keep in mind you were well paid for being a research subject. Jim is at his limit. You can see it. It's a good reveal uh

in just how ready he is well he has a line in a moment where he's like tell me what's going on or do you want me to stuff you in one of those computers yeah you he's barely holding that back right like he's yeah yeah not only has he been lied to he's been used for some experiment that he wasn't even partied to yeah uh which is clearly unethical um and also he's like oh it's part of the experiment like to you know bring the heat down on me with savachi or whatever it's like savachi was instructed to use non-critical physical persuasion i do like that that one lab assistant breaking in and saying, I was there when he was instructed that way.

As if that changes any of the things that happen. Jim tells him that Tracy is dead. It's a little unclear whether he knows that already or not. I think it's supposed to be news to him. I think it is, yeah. He's not a demonstrable man. Right. Tracy Marquette is dead

um and i think that leads into jim with saying now do you want to tell me what's going on or you want me to stuff you in one of those computers yeah we you know have a commercial break there and we cut back to all back saying this is terrible murder totally invalidates the entire experiment yes uh She was hired for this whole thing, no other connection to her. So the deal is, he has a $200,000 grant from the Department of Labor

to work on the study for the government. Loyalty and incidents of task completion for monetary reinforcement by self-employed high-risk day workers. That's my study. And I'm the self-employed high-risk day workers. That's my study. And I'm the self-employed high-risk day worker. One of them.

The study is complex, but in layman's terms, it's to test his loyalty to completing the task with nothing but monetary compensation. And so the example he gives for the government's interest is, for example, how much do you pay a police officer to go into a dangerous situation? It's important to the government to know how to motivate people it's a pretty sinister study when you think about it it's pretty sinister it's clearly unethical to do this kind of yeah so this the whole premise of this episode is very like exaggerated for tv i think in a good way like it's a fun premise yeah um but breaking down the logic behind it, it's like, this guy is a psychopath.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Tracy was just someone they hired. Uh, she did mention something about trouble with a boyfriend, but I wasn't listening.

I've learned that if you're in a conversation, you just make the right noises. Like, uh-huh. And, hmm. And Jim's like, uh-huh. Then people willim's like uh-huh then

people will think you're listening even when you're not so that's a fun bit but he stills like no police we can't go to the police it will jeopardize my grant if police are involved and then jim says well what about telling the department of labor that he was involved with the murder of a prostitute which i think has has been implied about Tracy in bits and pieces, but I think this is the only place where that's stated outright. Albach says that he'll do anything short of going to the cops to cooperate. And I think Jim says anything, and then we cut to George hauling him over the bar by his necktie.

I am so with George on this one. What are you doing taking people and treating them like chimpanzees? What kind of thing is that to do? George is speaking for all of us. Yes. In the previous scene, there's just a great moment of James Gardner acting. I think it's right after Albach says he'll have trouble explaining it or whatever. And James is like, try.

And he gives him this wink that is just one of the more sinister winks I've ever seen. Like, it's just, it's good. Anyways, sorry, go on.

Jim is suddenly as, as so often, as he so often is a suddenly thrust into the role of deescalating the situation. Yeah. He's trying to help now. Don't you want to find who killed Tracy? And he describes the guy that he saw and george

goes phil he wouldn't do that and all back says oh phil that that sounds like the name of the boyfriend she said she was having trouble with george says that he wasn't her boyfriend just a friend like we're all friends uh she set him up with the old guy who would send a limo for her um and they're like old guy yeah he's an old i guess he's supposed to be like an old like comedy yeah or something yeah but billy baines old guy in a wheelchair so now we get to our climax of the episode a big fancy house uh with all back in the gym walking up to the door he wants he wants to know now why don't you just call the police like you have a suspect i don't need to be involved his pursuit of the matter with no monetary incentive just doesn't make sense and jim says phil saw me i saw phil that should be something you can understand or

that should be incentive you understand something like that and then we see this guy phil seeing them from this upper window so we know yeah we know he knows they're there so they go in to talk to billy baines um who is played by jay pat o'malley that is another name another name face and voice yeah his known for credits are all of the 50s and 60s disney movies that yes that you may remember uh yeah like he was he did voices for alice in wonderland jungle jungle book 101 dalmatians he was in all kinds of tv um i feel like there's a certain generation where he would probably be a very recognizable face. Yeah.

He's clearly kind of, you know, on the older end here. Uh, he's a, uh, an avuncular gregarious guy. Yeah. You wanted to, someone to play a retired comedic actor from the fifties and sixties. He's exactly your man. Yeah. I'm looking through his, his, his uh his things now just so many so many he plays a colonel very often i guess he was in mod he was a recurring character in mod

anyway uh here he is indeed yeah this kind of uh you know come in youngins keep me entertained in my right in my old age so they want to talk to him about tracy he clearly doesn't know that tracy's dead from the beginning of this conversation um wants to know if they oh they're friends of tracy's have you seen her i haven't seen her in a month he says something like people judge the may september romance what is that phrase um may december may december yeah may december romance yeah it's like people judge the may december romance but uh you know it's something that worked for both of us or someone like that i know what she's doing she's just getting me to miss her i really would like to see her whatever she wants she can have

it just you know tell her i miss her and this is when jim kind of tries to gently yeah uh say like well tracy won't be coming back um and he's like well why not and jim's kind of beating around the bush and then all back just comes straight up with she's dead yeah as the unemotional one he he sees where he you know has this role to play or billy baines breaks down in tears he can't believe it it can't be true um and we've also learned through here that phil is like his driver and lives on the premises and it's kind of his like you know assistant or whatever his caretaker so it's like i knew you know and phil did it he's like no that's not possible jim goes to the phone i'm going to need to call the police and phil appears with a gun this is how it's going to go down he wants the he wants cash from the old man to get out of the country all back of

all people tries to talk him down you're under extreme stress and that's when mistakes are made and i kind of thought this was gonna there's a certain strain of drama where it's like now are this guy who we've hated this whole right episode is going to be the one to to bring this to a to a close he's he has the skills that we need right and he has that line but that's not actually what ends up solving the situation it almost escalates it yeah like it yeah yeah um yeah no no outs for this guy phil knows that there that there's cash squirreled away all over the house. You know, where's the cash, old man? He's like, there's some in that box.

Like, this is only a couple hundred. Where's more? There's some in the desk. You get it for me. So Alba is saying, I'm working on a government grant, and anything that happens to me could be prosecuted as a federal crime. That's when Billy turns around from the desk with his own gun and takes a shot it legitimately surprised me i wasn't expecting

that that was yeah me too me too uh it's so good um it doesn't hit anything but it does send phil diving jim jumps on him there's a brief scuffle they run outside and there's a moment where i thought he was gonna go run and get in the Trans Am. And I was like, yes. But no, Jim gives him the good old football tackle on the lawn, gives him his own punch across the jaw. And presumably justice is served. I would have loved to have seen a chase, but this episode isn't lacking. So it's fine. We have our final. Yes.

We have our final scene here with Jim and Dennis still bandaged, enjoying more of Rocky's fine cooking. He just wants them to eat. No jumping around, no telephones. They compliment Rocky on his cooking. What did you put in the sauce? A little dill? Oh, a little of this, a little of that. It really is great, Rocky. Nobody asks him what the other stuff is, and it clearly agitates. He really wants them to ask what his secret ingredient is.

He really wants to let them know. Dennis says, can you believe that Aalbach asked the police if he could get a multivarious personality test on Phil? Dennis lays out, you know, the background. He wanted Tracy to help him bilk the old man. She didn't want to go along with it. He roughed her up and it went too far. He's pleading accidental homicide, but they have a month like murder one or they're going with murder one. Rocky doesn't want to hear all this. Yeah.

Stressful business. they're going with murder one rocky doesn't want to hear all this yeah stressful uh uh business and yeah he keeps talking about his sauce i think he's like yeah you're right there was dill there's a knock at the door it's all buck he takes rocky's chair and jim's like hey we're trying to eat dinner here um but he's like i don't think the experiment needs to be a total loss i just want to ask you some true-false questions. And he asks the question, and Jim says, I have a true-false question for you. True or false? I like my front

teeth. And we freeze frame on Jim and Dennis as they glare daggers at Dr. Aalbach, interrupting their dinner. That's great. End end of episode it was good yeah so the the dinner bit at the end echoing the two other dinner bits earlier um this rocky i mean he does reveal that he used clarified butter that's the secret but it's it's and it's

just so well done how like nobody's asking exactly the right question of him. And he's he's been trying all episode to show off that tartar sauce. Right. Like that that goes all the way back to the first time he's serving the meal to Jim. He wants to be like, look what I did with the tartar sauce. And it's so great. I just love it. Makes me kind of want some tartar sauce, to be honest.

Yeah, honestly. It reminds me, I mean, honestly, this takes me back to earlier episodes that we did. Like, think back five years ago or whenever we started this. And just like we talked about how well crafted a lot of this was and i really like the writing in this and how um they took their time to think like okay we're gonna need rocky in this scene to do these things but also let's give rocky a thing let's just give him something to do and this is what it is it's this meal it's this he wants to show off his tartar sauce to jim and and he's spending the whole episode trying to and um we get that like at several moments throughout the episode with different

characters, even just the little stuff about Dennis's nose, which is there for a reason. Like they have to explain it because the actor had to wear this, these bandages. It's just kind of great. It's just like a, yeah,

no, sometimes people break their nose and you walk around with a bandage for a bit yeah it's a very constructed episode like all the yeah all the motifs as you say the various um foreshadowing bits to explain the reveal you know it's all paced pretty well um you get the good uh jim has a foil like dr albach is a good foil for jim in a way where we don't see too often where it's just like the total that the real chilly yeah unemotional guy again unlike our last episode this is a unlikable guy who does not have a redemption arc i think we we dislike him just as much as at the end as we did at on our first meeting of him it's fun that his his villainy

is not sinister right or i mean no i take that back that's not what i mean but like uh he's kind of of the i think about this in star trek a lot, how every scientist main character in Star Trek is inobsessive. Right. That's what creates the drama. They're so obsessed with their work that they're willing to do anything. He's kind of in the obsessive doctor or the obsessive scientist mode. But he's chillily, if that's a word, obsessive. He's not emotionally involved.

Yeah, he's just going to keep going. But I think the thing about it that I like is that he's not conning Rockford to steal money from him. It's not personal. Yeah, he's paying Rockford. You know what I mean? It's not the usual reasons why Rockford might be. He's not setting him up, which is what I spent most of the episode waiting for. Not most.

Sorry. I spent the early parts of the episode waiting for him to be set up to take the fall for something. And that just isn't the case. Like every great heel, it makes sense to him, right? Yeah. What he's doing makes sense to him. He's justified. He's justified. He's justified.

It's just that what he's what he thinks is justified is horribly unethical. Yeah. And we get and we get glimpses of that, like in some ways played communically. Like when he's like we a murder nullifies this entire study. Right. Like that's that's what he's worried about is not that somebody has been killed, but that it would affect his work. Or at the end, the closest we see to him being excited is when he shows up in Rockford's trailer. It's like, I have a way to save the study.

Right, right, yeah. That's like the most emotion we see of the whole thing, yeah. And everyone should be on board for this. I'm going to like everything should stop and let's save this study real quick i think it's interesting that it's not even that it's not because of him that tracy gets killed right yeah in a subtle way this is a really good example this is like we used to talk about of a story where you have multiple stakeholders with different agendas and they just happen to intersect and jim's caught in the middle it's a venn diagram

story and like jim's in the center overlap but the two stories actually don't have anything to do with each other other than tracy and jim yeah yeah this his his obsessions only bring jim into tracy's orbit or tracy into jim's orbit that bring Jim into Tracy's orbit or Tracy into Jim's orbit. Right. Like there's no nothing about what he's doing puts her in danger or. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's not wrong that he has nothing to do with her death. He actually really doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. If anything, he because of his scheme is the only reason that anyone is there to pursue justice for her yeah to pursue justice for her uh which is not to excuse him of course but it's like that that's the drama right that that creates the actual story that that we have to tell here um and that's kind of a low-key

like low-key good writing like i didn't really even think of that until like going through it again um there's a whole other version of this episode where it's the uh billy baines story yeah and then it intersects with this weird doctor for some reason right like this entire narrative could be told from that angle and you know maybe jim would have to be involved differently. But the lived in world, right? Like all these things are going simultaneously and we're just seeing the intersection. Yeah. Through our, you know, our interest in Jim. In my notes, when we come across Billy Baines, I was like, it's a little late in the episode for a new character. For like a real, a real memorable side character character yeah it

worked but like i think it's exactly right like there's two big sort of stories happening here and one is the mystery of like what is this guy hiring jim for like what's going on and that mystery gets solved what's the con what's the skin yeah yeah uh that mystery gets solved. What's the con? What's the scam? Yeah. Yeah. That mystery gets solved just after the next mystery takes over, which is who killed this woman. Yeah. Again, they're not related except in that they share two characters. Yeah. Right. Like they don't even share three characters.

Yeah. Because George is pretty much in her story. Because that was the realization I think I had going back through it was that her conversation on the phone was not involved with her job for the doctor. That was her real life that she was checking it, whatever she was talking to George about something or whatever. Yeah. Again,

I don't remember the details, but it's important that she was having a, well, while I'm waiting for this guy to show up so I can give him my lines, I'm going to keep work. I'm doing to do my, the rest of my life. Yeah. And Jim just happened to hear the right thing to follow up.

And he still thinks that that is all still part of what the doctor is doing. But actually it's not, it's a little portal into the other story. Yes. The truth of the matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's good stuff.

I do. So, again, going back to kind of what I was saying at the beginning, the kind of narrative tension is kind of drained out of it for me by knowing. Yeah, what the reveal is. What the reveal is and knowing that he's, you know, it's all under false pretenses and the murder is not related. I was just going to say that that might be a product of the fact that the murder is not related i was just going to say that that might be a product of the fact that the murder is not related right like that that uh the mystery that leads up to the big reveal once that's revealed there's nothing like it and i don't mean that as a criticism of the the episode it just that like you've solved it well done on to the next thing on to the next but there's not like tension

there it's just kind of yeah yeah yeah uh so i i don't remember if on my first viewing if i had that feeling of deflation because i think you're still until the very end that's when it is clarified pretty much like until the scene with billy baines that's pretty much when it's clarified about just like what everything was yeah i think right yeah there's still a little bit of question or just a little bit of like so what is going on um yeah i mean i guess like most stories if you know the ending it's not as doesn't have as much tension but so many of these episodes we kind of remember them and then it still has that i don't know other word to say but it still has that tension and this one it kind of deflates a little bit for me and i'm like okay let's just let's see

what the actual script is from here on out because i don't remember the lines that they say so in that way i kind of it feels a little flat to me compared to some of the other episodes we've done recently uh as an overall piece but again there's these individual moments that are like all timers yeah yeah just really really good uh if we did a malibu yeah we did a malibu madness on like jim and rocky their whole thing yeah that might like the talking about the fish yeah fish meal would be definitely. Yeah, I agree.

So, you know, like all of these hard to, hard to, hard to rank. It's hard to do the power rankings, right? Right.

Depends on what you're talking about, but I was a little surprised at how I came out of it feeling like, okay, like I, I probably like some of the other ones we've done recently more than this one, but not for any particular reason. It's just the whole holistic thing. Right. Was a little flatter for flatter for me and again maybe just because i already knew how it was going

to go you didn't see a firebird v trans am real missed opportunity real missed opportunity the the the angle looking down on it i've had a firebird matchbox car. There's just something about the angle where you just see the whole, from the top down, just felt like owning that matchbox car again. It just felt really, I don't know. I enjoyed it, is what I'm saying. That was good. That was good. All right. Well, we have made our way through this deadly maze.

Yeah, and I guess we're just going to keep on with the waterverse. We finished the Bartlett collabs. So now we'll, we'll move on to the remaining episodes and their, their writers. See if, see if they have any other feeling to them, I guess.

Yeah. We'll see what we got like five. I think so. I think we have five. I'd have to look it up. Something like that. Something like that. Something like that. We'll get through it. Yeah. So, you know, if you

have any thoughts about the Wardiverse as we've been going through this, by the time this one comes out, I think there will have been a little time to see any responses to our call for info on this guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If there are

any, if anyone does have any insight or anything to point us to, maybe we'll do that in our next episode. But yeah, we're just going to keep on keeping on. It's the summer of Ward, is what it is. The summer of Ward, yes. Hot Ward summer. It's Hot Ward summer. Alright, well

we will be back next time in another sweaty summer Ward episode. But yes, we will be back next time in another, another, another sweaty summer ward episode. But yes, we will be back next time with another episode of the Rockford files. Pina Colada.