Two Hundred A Day - Episode 125: Say Goodbye to Jennifer

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Nathan and Eppy join Jim as he travels to the morgue, the dentist and Seattle in S1E18 Say Goodbye to Jennifer. Hector Elizondo guest stars as Mitch, a Korean War buddy of Jim. It looks like the woman he's infatuated with, Jennifer, died in a car accident, and Jim has little patience for Mitch's insistence that she's alive. But once a mobster starts threatening him for sniffing around, he takes up Mitch's offer to look for Jennifer in Seattle - and then things get really intense. This noir-inspired episode is atypical in style, and also stands out as a tight story with great performances! Here's Shannon McMaster's blog post: Who Pardoned Rockford (https://grumbleflap.shannonmcmaster.com/2023/09/25/who-pardoned-rockford/)? Here's The Frasier Files Podcast (https://the-frasier-files.simplecast.com) 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

This is Mrs. Lindis. Three times this month I come to clean and it always looks like people been fighting in there. Furniture broke, things tipped over, I'm sorry, but I quit. 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 coming to you after an impromptu month off of the show. We generally have done that in the winter, but just how things kind of fell out this year. Things got a little chaotic at the end of August.

There was some COVID. There were some vacations. A little vacation. Yeah. And everyone's okay now, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think everyone is.

So it was just much easier for us to just take the month off and deal with our own stuff and come back strong for the fall. Yeah, so we need to remember how to do the show. I also am in the last stages of a, as far as I know, non-COVID related cold. So I may be a little sounding not great um or sniffly i apologize for that so here we are i have not been doing my vocal exercises so i might be a little out of practice for this episode we are going we are going back to season one episode 18 say goodbye to jennifer but before we talk about the episode epi noticed the blinking light on our answering machine has been going this entire month while we've been out of the office. So we should go

ahead and see what's sitting on that. Okay, so the bit, the answering machine bit is usually somebody contacting us directly about something Rockford Files related or podcast related. Listener feedback. Yeah, listener feedback. In this case, this is from a listener, but it wasn't directed exactly at us, but it was put within my... A listener questioned on social media and then wrote up a blog post. And this question I want to present

to you, Nathan, because I think it's a fascinating rockford files question and this question is who pardoned jim rockford it is a great question i'm familiar with the question because uh shannon is a patron and posted this okay so this we both brought the same. Yes, on the Patreon. So there's a community page on the Patreon, something like that. Member posts. I think that's going away soon. I saw something in an email from Patreon that's basically like, no one uses these, so we're taking them away. Oh, don't Google.

Don't pull the Google. I could be wrong about that. But yes, Shannon did post this in the member post area of our Patreon as well. Is this exactly what you were going to bring? Yes. Okay, great. This is I thought there might be like a gift of the Magi thing going on here. But let's talk about this because this is this is fascinating.

In the show notes, we'll put a link to Shannon's blog post where he goes into depth about his decision about this. But so the question is, like, who is the governor that pardons Jim Rockford? Like, they don't specifically mention in the show that any of us involved in this conversation have managed to, you know, listeners, if you if if it does come up at some point, something definitive, please share with us. But there's this timeline, right? We know that Jim was convicted. And then we know that Jim has a parole or had a parole officer at some point. So he was probably on parole at some point. But then he was pardoned.

And then somewhere in all that, either before, probably before, but maybe after, he went to Korea and served in the military. And then there's also all the stuff that Jim would have had to have done to become a PI to kind of establish himself in the way he's established when the series starts. So we have this history here for Jim, and we look at like who amongst the governors of california during that time are likely and i guess the thing one of the things that makes this most intriguing is that ronald reagan was was uh the governor from what is it uh 67 to 75 right so that would have gone right up to when's the first episode of the Rockford Files? It debuts in 74. In the fall of 74. Yeah. So if the pardon was recent enough within the seven years, then

it could be Ronald Reagan, which is weird. Obviously, Ronald Reagan was the Republican governor. Republicans are not known for being lenient on, I shouldn't say criminals, people who've been put in jail. And also funny because Gardner and Reagan, I think they both, like this whole thing that came out about the last actor strike was when Reagan was president of the Actors Union, which, again, feels ironic because Reagan did all this work against the unions. But Gardner was the secretary or something like that. Like he was high up and he's involved. Probably likely that Gardner was like, we're going on strike. Anyways, so there's you know, they knew each other,

obviously. They probably, they clearly didn't agree politically. I don't think Jim would have agreed with Reagan. Sorry, Jim Rockford, not James Gardner, but Jim Rockford would, although like Rocky might have voted for Reagan. That feels like a very rocky thing. I feel like that does feel like a rocky thing to do. Yeah. Anyways, but there are other governors in here. Shannon's favorite is Pat Brown, which was the Democrat from 59 to 67. There are some long shots in there, including Goodwin Knight from 53 to 59, which like maybe before he went to korea like i said we'll put the link here it's a great blog post it's not terribly long but it's full of good information to think about like where does he how does this all sit and it ends and i think this is like the fun bit jim's not a real he's fictional right there could be this fictional governor of california that could right could

have done it like i i don't know if there were any fictional there's definitely fictional like football players like there's fictional celebrities that appear throughout the rockford files there's occasional cameo there was uh dick buckus had a cameo right in one uh in one episode that's the only one that comes to mind of a playing-themself cameo. Yeah, the show's actually pretty circumspect about... I mean, it references real-life things, like the trucker strike from Jam Jammers. We talked about that. And the first movie in the 90s

was almost like a whole verse from we didn't start the fire right like here's all the things going on so it's certainly situated in like our actual world but in terms of personalities yeah i think circumspect in the way of we just don't need to deal with this It just doesn't need to be part of the show of like who the actual governor is right now. Like even like the police commissioner or something. You never hear that person's name. Like you meet a captain or a precinct, you know, you know, the leader or something.

But they don't refer to like, they don't refer to presidents by name. Yeah. That kind of stuff. Probably for this reason. A, it doesn't matter. And B, it's set in our real world, but they are fictional characters. So that's one way of keeping those things discreet.

I've been listening recently to a podcast called The Fraser Files, which is by a friend of mine for sure. I feel like he's a friend of the Frazier files, which is by friend, friend of friend of mine for sure. I'm, I feel like he's a friend of the show. Um, uh, Steven Winchell, who was my co-creator on the one more thing game. Uh, he's a big Frazier head.

Uh, so the Frazier files is a, a deep dive into the continuity of the character of Frazier through the character of this, like disaffected, uh, kind of midlife crisis um professor his marriage is over and he's on the down we you hear all his biographical details

about him as he's talking about the show or whatever but anyway the thrust of the show is like if we treat everything we see on tv as canonical what is the life of fraser and like going through it from kind of beat to beat and he hits these points where he's like okay so here i have to make a call because the writers of the show clearly didn't either didn't care or like yeah one writer wrote this one and one writer wrote that one and no one ever tracks this stuff was frazier born in whatever 53 or 55 yeah it's it's stated it could be either of them. I'm choosing this one because it's more interesting.

And it also gets into like, you know, this character appears as himself. So does that mean that in the world of Frasier, this real person, you know, because there's cameos on Cheers and stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, this person exists. But if this person exists in the world of Frasier, why doesn't this happen? And then, you know, the character doing the podcast is like, see, this is the problem with TV. You can't trust any of the combination of the fictional and the non-fictional, like,

you know, I know it, someone wrote it all, but still, why do you bring in the real people then? Like all that stuff. Um, it's a bugaboo for that character in this kind of comedic take on looking at a, at a show seriously, uh, which is neither here nor there. It's just theaboo for that character in this kind of comedic take on looking at a show, seriously. Which is neither here nor there. It's just that Rockford Files manages to do a good job and running around that question. I think there's a loop with Cheers, Sam Malone, played by, oh man, Ted Danson. Ted Danson plays himself in like maybe a Golden Girls, but also like there's some connection where they get to Becker, where Ted Danson is the titular Becker, a doctor or something like that. That's somehow related to like Golden Palace, the spinoff from Golden Girls.

But anyways, the point is that Ted Danson would exist in the same universe as as dr becker and um sam malone sam malone yeah yeah which is great that's a lovely i think i think there is i don't know check the internet the internet knows all right well getting back to uh shannon's comment here um i i do like the the idea of of head canoning that Earl Warren, future justice, governor from 45 to 53, headcanoning that a pre-Korea Rockford went to jail and then got a pardon. Which is kind of a fun thought just because we know that he got up to antics in Korea, right? Yeah. The same kinds of things that he went to prison for. Same kinds of things that he went to prison for.

I kind of feel like triangulating from the other people, his other ex-con buddies. I feel like it doesn't seem like they're that old. Yeah, yeah. I could be wrong. The work can be done on this. Two things I love about this question and the post that follows it. Like one, it just broke my brain for the morning when i thought reagan had to have been the governor uh but then two it just brings up some of the wonderful background to this character uh the antics he got up to in korea that come up

again uh korea it gave him a healthy distrust of authority, I feel like. I feel like that's a thing that has kind of come out of that. But also, like, yeah, he used to run, like, black market things going on there. Stole a tank once. Yeah, stole a tank once. And I have always assumed that he went into prison after he got out of Korea. But I don't think there's any text that tells me that that's the case. Well, maybe we'll keep our eagle eyes out going forward. Yeah. But I don't think there's any text that tells me that that's the case. Well, maybe we'll keep our keep our eagle eyes out going forward. Yeah. But then, like, you know, he's got the prison experience.

But then, as Shannon points out, he's a pretty comfortable hero because not only is he out of prison now, but he's he didn't have to be reformed. He wasn't guilty in the first place. Right. So he was pardoned. Right. He didn't have to be reformed. He wasn't guilty in the first place. Right. So he was pardoned, right? We don't ever really find out what he went to prison for or what, like... I don't think... I think it's implied a couple times.

But yeah, you know, some kind of fraud beef. Yeah. And we know that he did run cons. Right, exactly. He has the skills. He's got the skills. He knows about them. And he's clearly done some he knows about them and he's clearly

done some with angel in the past like he's got a connection to like there's um a one in every port i think is yeah like a great one for for that history um and then it also kind of presents this great like origin story for the the pi part because and this again isn't text this is just something you could read into it where he was paroled right he has a parole officer we've met his former parole officer yes goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit like the a team uh but instead of escaping like the a team he gets paroled how does he prove his innocence right we don't know for certain but like this is this is a fun origin story of how he gets the the pi bite right like how he gets like bit by the pi bug i mean like he's he's like i'm enjoying this investigating

thing i can put these skills to a good use and i also don't have to be answerable to anybody yeah i think is also key for yeah for the character yeah no it's a a fun rabbit hole to go down thank you shannon for sending that through through social media and through the soon-to-be defunct member post area. And relevant to this episode. Yeah, yeah. Foreshadowing. We'll get to some Korea stuff in this episode. So that is also a good one.

There have been a couple other little pieces of feedback uh or or little kudos that we've received recently from listeners uh again it's kind of during our downtime so i did not really do a good job collating them but if you sent us something in the last you know since since early august yeah from whenever you hear this if you send us something since early august uh we did see it if you send us something since early August, uh, we did see it. We do appreciate it. I did not have it together to bring it,

um, into our, our answering machine for this episode, but, we hear you and thank you. Yeah. Thank you. As a,

as a creator upon this earth through this internet, it's always like, I don't think people until they're in the spot, realize just like the little notes keep you moving forward in ways that like, through this internet it's always like i don't think people until they're in the spot realize just like the little notes keep you moving forward in ways that like you know yeah i think we got like a five-star review with a nice with a nice comment so like that was really nice i poured that onto you behind the curtain here i you know i kind of am the the contact person for all of our stuff so whenever you submit something or send an email or whatever, I see

it and then I forward stuff to Epi as needed. Because I don't want to give you too much to have to worry about. But yeah, so you know, when we get a nice note, I do share that so that all of us here at 200ADayHQ get a

little nice momentum from those nice comments. So thank you all right all right we are getting back to it there's a tiny bit of connection with some of our recent episodes in that this is a episode with a woman's name in the title so that gets to go into the the pantheon of uh of episodes that we can't quite keep distinct in our minds because they all have women's names in the title this one I think I think will stand out though. Actually, I think this was, I was actually a little surprised with how, uh, how much was going on in this episode, but this was your pick. So, uh, Epi, why did you pick season one, episode 18, say goodbye to

Jennifer? Well, I, I followed, um, late stage 200 a day. We're running out of episodes to watch. We joked about like, I wanted to do a spooky one because tomorrow is October. Then I realized there's no Halloween episode of Rock for Files that I'm aware of. There's no real spooky ones, which is great. I mean, that's fine. You don't always have to have a spooky but there are some of the some darker ones and then i realized in my head that those were all season one so i went to season one yeah and so this had the spookiest title yeah in season one and then i opened up the imdb and uh i saw our good friends Hector Elizondo and Ken Swofford. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, why not?

Let's do it. Yeah, definitely show favorites. Hector Elizondo, we talked a lot about in his kind of starring episode, Breeze Turkey. Breeze Turkey, yeah. A good clean bust with sequel rights. That's it. No wonder we didn't remember that it's a good name it's just not one that trips off the tongue our episode 80 um yeah so this is his other uh rockford files appearance i think possibly a rap on ken five episodes we had he was in the

aaron ironwood school of success as fbi agent patrick he was in the family hour as dea agent al jolette he was in the queen of peru as the immortal Carl Ronco. Mm-hmm. Standout role for him. And then, of course, he was Captain John Howling Mad Smith in The Hawaiian Headache. Yeah, so this is his final appearance for us as well, though I think his first appearance? First appearance, yeah. He has one in every season but five, which is a shame. They should have stuck him in.

Yeah, he's a great character actor, and he has a fun character in this one, too. Yeah, this is a PI that he plays in this, and I thought clearly he's played this in a later Rockford Files episode that Rockford ends up having to deal with another PI. But he's in Seattle, he's not in LA. Yeah, exactly. He's out of town. This one is written by Story by Roy Huggins, credited as John Thomas James. This was his want. Teleplay

by Juanita Bartlett and Rudolph Borchert, who was involved with multiple teleplays. He did five episodes of the Rockford Files, it looks like. He did five episodes of Cold Trek as well. So he did this teleplay. He also,

uh, wrote good clean bus with sequel rights. Yeah. And, um, he also did the teleplay for the final, for the finale for deadlock and Parma directed by directed by Jackie Cooper. Yeah.

So this is the third of the five that he directed and we have done, this is the fourth of his that we've watched. So maybe our next episode could be finishing off the Jackie Cooper episodes. So he's interesting because he's also. He's also appeared in the show. Yeah. Yeah. We've done both of those. We did the other one recently, right?

Claire. Also, Jackie Cooper and Ken swafford both appear in a colombo from around this time the one where jackie cooper is the senator and he kills ken swafford who's his campaign manager yes that's a good one another one of my favorite jackie cooper appearances uh the directing in this one is really interesting it is yeah we're in season one and it's going to be oftentimes that we characterize this is they're finding their footing but i think it's more of i don't want to disparage either side of this coin here so we can say they're either finding their footing or the rockford files hasn't

calcified yet uh maybe hasn't solidified yet solidified yeah that's that's better um we'll get to it we get to it but um this one felt more like a noir yes then then the rockford files uh later stuff once the rockford files has a personality all of its own and the filming in it was delightfully experimental i think and again it feels a little bit like well we don't know exactly what this show is yet. So maybe it's this like this, the beginning. Well, let's do the opening montage. Then we can get into the beginning of it. So for my part, I was taking my notes. So I realized halfway through that I mistook something. But the first thing I see is a bald Hector Elizondo. Yes. Yes, I'm in. And then the second thing and then i look up from typing

that and i thought i saw a j turn so i was like second thing at j turn in retrospect i don't think it was a j turn it was just the car turning sideways um but still uh i had a really positive feeling for this one and then uh there was a mob threat i think i just met the godfather and some dramatic car action. Yeah. Same here. We got the she's the prime suspect in a murder case. A red flag for us fans. We know that, oh, no, Rockford doesn't want to take this because it's an open case. And of course, he's going to take it.

It could get dangerous. We get the mob boss, the mob boss, who is maybe a ghost. I don't know. He's very pale. I had him in my opening montage. I just wrote him down as Elric, the mob boss the mob boss who is maybe a ghost i don't know he's very pale i had him in my opening montage i just wrote him down as elric the mob boss and then uh i had car crashes there's car action in the opening montage it's clearer in the episode but yeah like the same thing that you just said we're the montage just gave us the sensation of car action i feel like also coming coming coming back from

a month you know a month off uh right of watching the rockford files i was like yes i'm ready yes yes i was excited to see what all goes on because i did not remember this one at all so it was nice it was fresh it felt very fresh i got so excited i mean we could talk about this but like the answering machine message in this episode, we don't normally comment on them, but this one is just perfect. The maid calling is like I clean once a month, and it always looks like people are fighting in there.

It was just like so good and just put us into it. 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 burnson 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 roll4hear dot party and check out J Don's amazing miniature painting skills at J Don.com.

In addition, thanks to Andre Apignani, Tom Clancy, pumpkin, jab, a peach bug, Dave P, Dave Otterson,

Kip, Holly, Dale church, and Colleen Kelly. And finally, special appreciation for our detective level patrons, Joe great head, Michael Zalisco, Eric antenna ator 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. But then when the episode starts, it does not feel like a Rockford Files. So it really has a lot of noir in this one. To the point where I was like, is this also like Sleight of Hand? Is this also based off of another thing?

Right. There's not really a substantial entry about it in 30 years of the rockford files and on a brief look around i didn't find anything so roy huggins one of his things was like he would kind of break a story in his own head he'd like drive around and like record himself like talking out a story or whatever and then he would like give it to people to the staff to actually write and lot of the time, a lot of what he was thinking about was informed by either a story he'd done for another show that didn't end up the way he wanted it. Or like some kind of current event that he thought was interesting and he

could hang a story on that kind of stuff. So this feels a little bit to me, like maybe some, there was some, something in the news that he was like spinning out into a story or something. It could be, yeah. Again, on a brief look around, I didn't find any particular references and it's not credited as based on anything. But it does feel a little bit like it's either echoing or trying to capture something that already that's from somewhere else a little

bit uh that combined with the noir-esque framing and kind of direction yeah a particular flavor because yeah so this first shot is a down the barrel of the camera look at a very sweaty panicked man saying he can explain before he gets shot by whoever you know the perspective of the camera and he falls into a lamp which turns off and that cuts us to black and then we come back to a black and white film reel of who we soon learn to be mitch this fashion photographer played by hector alessandro and jennifer the titular jennifer um like staging her for the camera yeah yeah moving her around and laughing and kind of like clearly having a good time with their like work slash play as we hear jim

voiceover explaining the guy who got shot his name name's Ricky. There were two shots fired. One went into Ricky. The other one, either Jennifer basically either took the shot or took the other bullet. Right. Yeah. But she's disappeared. The cops are looking for her as a suspect in Ricky's murder.

And then we learned that he's in conversation with Mitch saying she can never kill anyone. She must've just been there and gotten scared and ran. And then we end with a, well, that's not what the cops think well they're not always right well they're not always wrong and then that's when we leave the visual of the black and white film to seeing jim in an amazing red shirt under his jacket coming into mitch's studio to talk to him like in to kind of start our episode off proper. And there's,

there's a bunch of things to like about this. Um, I like the killer point of view at the beginning. It's very horror movie kind of thing. It feels we, we get that. And the cut to, um,

Jim's voiceover with the black and white, those are two different styles that are, that they go well together and they feel like, uh uh like they're going to hook an audience yeah we're first season people might be at this point tuning in for the rockford files but people might just be going up and down the dial and you get this like there's an intrigue right away you're caught you're like what what is going on here what's happening you understand the stakes almost immediately uh it does a good job of like presenting the situation and establishing relationships in it uh by like having jim state the situation but the the footage is all about

the relationship uh between uh uh mitch and and jennifer and i like that i i think it's a a really fun way to do all this and also like i said it just it just feels more noir i i don't i i'm not gonna have a good yeah i don't have a better descriptor that's yeah yeah yeah there's there's also something about it where it's a mystery but it gets filled in soon enough that it doesn't leave you hanging. Cause I was kind of like, where is this conversation taking place? But then pretty quickly you've, you know, it, it, it becomes pretty clear that what, what's happened is that Mitch gave Jim this movie to watch because he wants Jim to get the sense of who Jennifer really was because she could never kill anyone. And seeing her in a picture doesn't tell you the whole thing you have to see her like more you know three-dimensionally yeah

but it's still like it's still presumably uh silent film right like there's there's this interesting stuff about mitch where he's trying to communicate what he knows and understands through this eye of a photographer or cinematographer. Yeah. And Jim is like, I'm a P.I. This is what I know. Yeah. That's a great tension between the two of them. Also, in this opening scene, we find out their relationship.

They were in Korea together. Yeah. It's a bit exposition-y. It's a bit, you know. A little forced. Yeah, it's a bit uh expositiony it's it's a bit little force yeah it's a little force just these first like two lines where it's like how do you know me for 20 years and forget i hate home movies yeah but this is the uh overall frame or not frame but here's a the thing that is important to have here and then we'll come up again later mitch still has that one that he made in korea and he's been

wanting jim to watch it ever since and jim doesn't like home movies and he's been saying no i don't want to watch it three times a year yeah but mitch dropped the movie off for jim to get the sense of of who jennifer really really is um jim doesn't deal in open cases she's a prime suspect in a murder case. He can't help. Bitch is really hung up on her. Jim wants to know, like, you've only known her for six months. Why are you, you know, why are you like this?

Yeah. He doesn't use the words like, well, I'm in love with her. But like, we get that feeling from how intense he is. But Jim says that, like, look, if the cops don't find her, but you get involved, they're going to bring you in as a suspect. Yeah. The guy, Ricky, who got killed was Jennifer's boyfriend. So seeing how you feel about her jealousy, prime motive for murder. So Jim is having a hard, I'm not taking this case.

Yeah. It's an open case. I don't deal with it. It's echoes of a little bit of echoes of the only rock and roll will never die, Anthony Boy's character. But we just recently did this episode. You can watch that and listen to it. And it'll come up with Rocky a little bit later. But Jim's got no tolerance for people's rose-colored glasses when they're in love with someone. But clearly

that doesn't apply to Jim. Yeah. We have a hard cut from there to night on the highway. Someone's in a car. For a second, I thought it was Jim, but then... Yeah. It's not. There's this whole little montage of

night driving on the highway, tires screeching, this car starts spinning out, it hits another car. There's an explosion of flames. And we have our title credits say goodbye to Jennifer over this burning car. And then the continuing credits run as we see the first responders. And we very specifically see two bodies with blankets on them being taken into the ambulance. None of these are anyone we've met so far, but it's very dramatic. The conversation scene he has with Hector

feels comfortable and very Rockford Files-y, but the way this crash was filmed, again, feels different from the Rockford Files. It feels... I saw a mention somewhere that it's mostly stock footage, so that's also probably part of why it has a different feel to it. This is one of the most prominent episodes we've had in a while of wild shifts in tone. Yeah.

Contained, I think, well, generally. But the total shifts, the magnitude of the shifts are very large. Yeah. So we go from that little montage to the city morgue. A man in a suit, Dr. Stewart, who we shortly learn is a dentist, has come to the morgue because... So he's talking to this, like, morgue technician, I guess. I don't know what the title, professional titles of morgue people are. But he heard from the news description of the crash that it might be a friend and also patient of his, Jennifer Ryburn.

So they were like, oh, maybe you can identify the body, right? Yeah. And he can't because it's burned beyond recognition. So they're going to have to look for dental records. I guess the other body, like the other passenger in the car, the driver, had picked this woman up as a hitchhiker never even learned her name and then she was doa and he died later from his injuries after giving this statement dr stewart's really shaken up uh the tech is like you know if you can go get her dental records now we can deal with this tonight and he's like uh this may be routine to you but jennifer

is my patient and of that in there is I'm going to be ill. All right. All right. Take it easy. Look, why don't you go home, get a good night's rest and come back and bring the charts in the morning? She's not going to go anywhere. I'd love this scene for the for what it becomes in later context. Right. He uh sweating it he's just on for me he was just on the line between suspicious or disturbed by the events right right right and he says he's nauseous like after he views the body he's like yeah he's like please like you

know this might be routine to you but like which makes sense Like we don't normally in our day to day life, knock on wood, we don't see lots of burned bodies. There's a lot in the scene that doesn't like you're like, maybe you're thinking, well, then why is he here? You know, he's a dentist. They'll do the dental. Yeah. It's a little bit of like, oh, well, that's awfully convenient. Yeah. And it's a little like, OK, it might be suspicious.

But in the end, there's enough plausible deniability for anything. It gives you some information, but it doesn't tell you the answer. I don't know it it does seem like huh this is a weird scene like what a strange thing to happen in the moment i was just like okay this is the this is getting us started on our story yeah it's just the premise of the episode like fine it didn't it didn't stand out to me my one of my comments was i hope my dentist gets this teared up yeah would i die it is a bit convenient that he is a dentist for this purpose and but anyway whatever it doesn't this is not a criticism this is just a reflection as we talk about it i'm like huh okay but it is by the law of narrative convenience it is what we need for our story well i mean there's there's a reason why no there is but yeah yeah

that reason is itself a little contrived. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. Moving on. Yeah. Finally, we get to the trailer. Yeah. And an interesting angle on the trailer. I thought we don't normally have a camera this close to the front door looking in, I guess, is the anyways, I just I remember when we got to the trailer, I was like, oh, we normally the camera set back more. I think we also are used to this the later season arrangement where there's a little more the rooms are divided off a little

bit more this is still very much like it's an open space and the front door we did the front door open that way i know yeah but anyways yeah jim is looking for something rocky comes in straight off with the with the with the line I'm leaving. Apparently his trucks on the fritz. Jim is theoretically working on it, but he's looking throughout the entire trailer. Cause he's, uh,

he came in to look for a cigarette and he's having trouble finding some, uh, the rare Rockford cigarette appearance, but he, he invites Rocky to stay to at least have a beer before he storms off and off and rocky accepts so we get our good sight sight of the beer and then rocky i guess is like well you know clearly you're distracted because you're still thinking about mitch you know jim has filled him in on the story and what is he he doing? Mooning after this woman. He's 40, 40 going on 14.

He says that Rocky never saw Jim. Yeah. You know, doing this. I think he says mooning around like this. And Rocky gives him a good look. It's good. But we learned that Mitch disappeared after the news of Jennifer's death. Like, so this body has been identified by the dental records as Jennifer Ryburn. She's good. But we learned that Mitch disappeared after the news of Jennifer's death.

So this body has been identified by the dental records as Jennifer Ryburn. She's dead. And Mitch disappeared. Jim's worried about him. I think we learned later it's been like four or five days, something like that. Yeah. But the phone rings. He answers the phone, and it's Mitch.

And he just goes, see you, Rock. And he heads out to go meet up with mitch and rocky yells after him hey what about my truck poor rocky poor truck we have uh jim and mitch walking around uh near the was it the chinese theater crumming chinese walking around we see we have an establishing shot of hollywood stars uh in the in the yeah a robert young star i don't know why it didn't i i looked it up to see if there's like a significance and doesn't seem to be just establishing so in the ed robertson book he says um yeah that particular scene begins with a close-up of the star of actor robert young who in 1975 was one of the biggest names in television.

He was the star of the top-rated Marcus Welby, M.D., which was a universal property. So, that's all. Something you could put in the commercial for the show to convince people that Robert Young would be in it, in a little bait-and-switch. James Garner and Stephen Cannell each have a star on the Walk of Fame. Oh, nice.

Anyway, I like this this walking around it has the same kind of energy as in the other episode where jim and hector walk around downtown like it's a very jaunty bantery kind of energy they have really they have really good chemistry they're good but mitch is buying jim a ticket to se. That's where Jennifer's family is from. That's where she's from. And he couldn't believe that she was dead. He went to Seattle. He saw her.

It's not a face he could mistake for anyone else. He saw her outside this building, lost her when she went in, hung around for four days, didn't see her again, and wants Jim to find her. Jim says, Mitchitch according to the coroner she's dead and mitch says i don't believe that she's dead check with the coroner prove that i'm wrong so we go to our good friend dennis becker talking to the coroner uh good uh in that previous scene there's a great line about him not introducing her to jim no in the time i had with her i didn't want to share especially with a talent scout like you old buddy listen i want you to know what you're gonna love her you're gonna like her it's probably hard being

jim's friend if you're in the dating age right yeah that can't that can't be easy on someone so we kind of get the rundown of how this works. The forensic dentist matches what they have from the body with the dental records, if they have them. And in this case, they did because her dentist brought them by. And she gives them, you know, here's the dental records. Here's our workup from the forensic dentist. And see, they're exactly the same. Perfect match. Perfect match.

Officially, we do have to wait for the coroner's inquest but unofficially there's no question that it's jennifer ryburn so becker comes out first off to tell jim has an official department car stop leaning he's angry he's angry because jim has asked him to do something that you know embarrassed him basically uh yeah or at least that wasn't good didn't go anywhere wasted his time dennis runs down that same information i think there's a line there where he's like 32 there's a cap on this one and a filling on this one and jim says well that doesn't mean anything if there's nothing to compare it to he's like well they do have something to compare it to and it's a perfect match it's his lunch hour and so jim is buying and jim takes a rain check yeah he's just like no and we end with a good uh just a minute what makes you think it wasn't jennifer ryburn

i never thought it wasn't whatever gave you that idea we uh now go to an establishing shot here of mitch pouring a drink and jim coming to see him if i didn't know that they that this show was like so written you know like how they're very sticklers for the script and everything this feels like a very improvisational yeah and it's so funny yeah mitch yo yo that's one of those things i've always wanted to say how are you pal what do you have it's a little early isn't it no it's got to be five o'clock somewhere that's something else i've always wanted to say it is both funny and revealing of their relationship and of the character of mitch in these like four lines it's so good jim breaks the news it's definitely

jennifer and mitch says no it's not she's in seattle yeah he has the plane ticket for jim and he has a thousand now and more if he needs it to go find. Yeah. This is, this thousand is going to be Jim's budget for the entire, the rest of the show. I've made a note of it. This is like one of the few times where Jim is probably ended up with a little extra cash at the end. And Mitch is obviously, I mean, I, I think in the, every time there's a fashion photographer in these 70 shows, they're always presented as being very successful and wealthy i don't know if that coding still exists part way through this episode we get an

exterior of jim or of mitch's house and i'm like what yeah it's like a mansion there's pillars there's pillars so anyway bitch is clearly doing fine for himself this thousand seems like it's no big thing his walls are covered in art uh a lot of it is his photography but like there's really interesting paintings and things like that so yeah definitely codes wealthy yeah he would go himself but that would be a question of luck but Jim's trained he does it for a living he has a better chance of success Jim says he won't go mitch takes a drink says all right and gets a suitcase i'm gonna do what you won't pal i'm gonna find jennifer jim tries to stop him and they kind of struggle over the suitcase ending with mitch giving him

kind of a push and he falls down yeah and when he turns to help jim up jim gives him this look where there's this moment of like is he gonna going to take a swing? Like, right. But he accepts the help and Jim offers a compromise. Wait a couple of days just to think everything over. You have all the facts, just a couple of days to think everything over. And if he still thinks he's right and he still thinks Jennifer is alive, Jim will go.

So once he just, you know, take a, take a couple of days, cool down, really think about this. And I think there's a sense here of like, because part of me is like, why wouldn't Jim just take the money and go and do an okay job? But his heart's not really in it because he is convinced this woman's dead. And I think part of it is like, well, because Mitch is Jim's actual friend, he's not going to take his money when he doesn't believe in yeah what it's for well if it was just

like a random client i think he'd be like sure i'll go look i can't promise you i'll find her right um i feel like this there's like a a counterpoint to this not a counterpoint but um we see the other side of jim when he starts dealing with uh uh floyd ross right yes yeah we're about to get to the greatest cut in cinematic history so we cut to oh my god okay i'm going to send you a screenshot oh yeah okay so you you do i thought this was the best cut yeah so we we got to the interior of the trailer. The bedenimed. Bedenimed. The bedenimed Rocky.

And in my notes, he's capital I, capital R, Impatient Rocky. Yeah. Jim comes in from fishing. He is full khaki. Oh, this. Yes. He doesn't see Rocky when he comes in, I guess. He goes right to the sink he takes this canvas bag and then he just starts pulling this comedically large fish

out of the bag so okay so the cut to this scene very specifically the camera starts on rocky's butt right like like it's rocky walking away from the camera from butt level and we're kind of following rocky throughout this scene and i'm i'm like what is happening here jim doesn't see rocky right he doesn't know that rocky's in his trailer and just rocky is fuming and he's like always always just outside of Jim's eye range while Jim's clearly had a lovely day fishing. And has the biggest fish I've ever seen on television. It's like the size of his torso. Yeah, it's just it's massive. It's so funny.

And then he sees Rocky as like, oh, I didn't know you were there. I didn't see the truck, Rocky. Oh, didn't see the truck, huh? He asked Jim how much his answering machine cost. Oh, he said, I've gotten the payments down to $17.50 a month. How many payments? What does it matter? Rocky's like, well, if you have this thing, why don't you use it?

And then he angrily hits play. well, if you have this thing, why don't you use it? And then he angrily hits play. And we hear a series of messages from Rocky from Harry's garage, waiting for Jim to come pick him up because Harry don't give loners. Jim's like, you just waited at Harry's stewing for three hours instead of just paying for a cab? I did pay for a cab. It was $10.

Jim says, not from harry's it wasn't it's great it's wonderful jim rocky interact the oscillating tonal shift waves are getting starting to get bigger right yeah yeah we have that kind of serious scene with mitch and then we come to this this is very funny it's also very like oh rocky you know yeah and then we're going to go to our next scene which is much more serious again uh so anyway to get there jim's like move so i can go through my mail like he's like i already went through it um it's just bills and someone's suing you because there's a letter from a law firm oh rocky's so happy about that because he's so angry

jim opens it and it is in fact a letter inquiring after his services so he goes to this law firm where he meets carl burrell who does not shake hands this all it needs is the Venetian blind visual effect to be from noir. It's a very intimidating man sitting behind a desk, giving Jim nothing to work with. I'm looking for the actor here. Thayer David. He was in Rocky, and other than that, I don't know what else he'd be recognized from. He's got a he's got some jowls some intimidating jowls he looks a little bit like whoever plays blofeld and the

yeah early bond movies but yeah he has the jowls uh he's very pale and he has really like big lips yeah and just white hair ste Steve Martin hair. Yes. I guess he was in two episodes of Kojak. And other than that, he's a real, this kind of character player. I guess he was in dark shadows. Clerk and Columbo.

Yes. Oh, that is that same guy. Okay. The credit is clerk. He plays a magician. Oh, uh,

that's the episode where, uh, with the guillotine. No, the one of the guillotines that the 90s one oh okay now this is the one where uh jack cassidy is a magician and he does a water tank illusion and during it kills his kills the boss kills his boss uh part of the plot of that one is that colombo goes to a magic shop to ask about magic tricks. And so this,

this guy there, David is the clerk. He's also a magician at the magic shop. And he's like, yeah, you assist me. I'd like to demonstrate this wonderful illusion. It's a good bit. He's delightfully intimidating here though yes he is very intimidating here he wants to know who jim works is working for that thinks that jennifer ryburn is still alive yeah jim says he can't help him he's not working for anyone but bro wants information and he's gonna get it yes and this is a really good like the the vibe of this guy is carried entirely by Jim's reaction. Yeah. If Jim, like, blew him off and just left, he wouldn't feel intimidating.

Yeah. But he, like, gets up out of his chair and then he sits back down and he, like, leans back. He tries to diffuse the intensity. Like, it's so we get the feeling that he's feeling pretty, you know, he's feeling scared or at least feeling like there is an imminent threat, I guess. Yeah. But he knows that Jim's been sniffing around the coroner's office and wants to know if the stiff in there isn't Jennifer. And he'll take Jim off if he doesn't get the info. So Jim finally gives him a cover story.

of gives him a cover story he's hired by some some guy from indianapolis who fell in love with jennifer from a picture in a magazine and called him to check it out because he couldn't believe she was dead you know there's yo-yos everywhere it's a good cover there's a little bit of truth in it but also uh he just kind of he's like frolly gw frolly indianapolis like like he's got a name ready to the tip of his tongue yeah throw off yeah so burrell seems to accept this for now uh we learned that burrell is so intense about this because the guy who got killed ricky you see he says that jennifer killed ricky and ricky was family he didn't have no family so i took him in he was like my own like son. So I hope you've been straight with me, because if I find out different, I'm going to come after you with a pack of dogs. One of my favorite parts of the exchange is Burrell saying something like, I'm going to tell you something so you know I'm serious.

And Jim going, oh, I know you're serious. We don't have to do that, whatever that is. We go from there to Jim mitch a call saying he's going to take the trip to seattle because he thinks he should get out of town but there's someone new in the picture so don't talk to anybody about jennifer or about jim if anybody asks as far as mitch is concerned we don't know each other he's like do you understand mitch is like no i don't understand We'll understand that we don't know each other. 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.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. There's a bit here where I'm like, okay, good. Jim's on the case because he's met with resistance. He's always like, no, I don't want to take this case for whatever reason. And then somebody's like, you shouldn't take this case.

And he's like, okay, I'm taking this case. But actually, that's not what's happening here. And that's kind of interesting. Yeah, as we learn in our next scene. We're about to see the cookie jar. Yeah, it is night. There's a knock see the cookie jar. Yeah. It is night. There's a knock on the trailer door and that is never good. Again,

with the, this is a very open plan version of the trailer where the camera is still in like the living area and we can, I mean, it's zoomed in pretty far. So we, so we can see Jim get out of bed at the back of the trailer. Yeah.

Through multiple open doorways at some point i mean i'm i'm never gonna do this but at some point it would be fun to see like a like uh like an isometric map yeah of the trailer and as it changes over like episode to episode that we see it yeah it'd be like uh well like a hexaflexogram or whatever like it like expands and then like contracts and moves and like it spins and stuff. I can see that in my mind's eye. I feel like if we looked up Dr.

Who, we would see like the TARDIS. I know I've watched Star Trek vehicle, you know, like spaceships over the enterprise over the years, you know, like the different versions of it and, or different Godzilla sizes,

that kind of thing yeah for sure anyway a knock at night is never good so jim gets out of bed and gets his gun from the cookie jar i love to see it he checks and it is in fact it's mitch yay mitch yay mitch um he has money and a picture for jim i find this really endearing i don't know mitch is a yeah this character gets surprisingly deep in a very short amount of time in this episode for me um so he's like i stayed up all night and he took one of his pictures of jennifer from like six months ago whatever whenever the last shoot they had was and he airbrushed it so that it looks like she looks now from when he saw her in Seattle. Her face is a little different and she's lost a little weight.

First of all, as if that much difference is going to make it impossible to identify her. Yeah. Right? Like, there's that. But it's also like a big, like, glossy 8x10. You know, he clearly used all of his professional skills to to do it it's and he's so like you have to have this i don't know there's there's just something really endearing about it but also a little desperate obviously i'll tell you what's endearing about it why it sings to us in particular

this is a role player who's excited about role play and has spent the whole night drawing his character. Or the GM who's spent the entire night working on a single handout that the players will look at. Combat encounter terrain together painstakingly over the course of the day. Because you got some alone time. He's excited about seeing her again. And he doesn't know what to do with his energy. So he just puts it into this. And it's great. We know that. We felt that's true that's a you're not wrong uh unfortunately

jim is not sharing this excitement as he reiterates that jennifer is dead so why are you going to seattle because i have a plane ticket and it's 1300 miles from los angeles he says that he met carl burrell which sends mitch immediately into she never should have gotten mixed up with ricky and it's 1300 miles from Los Angeles. He says that he met Carl Burrell, which sends Mitch immediately into, she never should have gotten mixed up with Ricky. And Jim has this, this is a great Jim Rockford line. She never should have gotten tied up with Ricky Pond, but she told me about him, Mitch.

That is history. We're into current events. Yeah, it's a good one. So he tells Mitch about, you know, being threatened and the story he made up. And he specifically says, Burrell isn't going to be able to check that out till tomorrow. So I'm going to be on the first about, you know, being threatened and the story he made up. And he specifically says, Burrell isn't going to be able to check that out till tomorrow. So I'm going to be on the first flight, you know, out this morning. Jim, you never really planned to look for her, did you?

Jim just kind of gives him a look. Well, you're going to be in saddle anyway. You have the picture and here's a thousand dollars. I'm an eccentric. Humor me. And Jim's like, OK, fine. I'll look for her. Mitch wants Jim to call him before he leaves make sure that Jim's all right and then he leaves on finder Jim I'll give you a big bonus I'll buy you a hamburger and Jim not after you get my bill yeah a little bit of like

buddy buddy right at the end there I have a question here is Jim and this is an open question to the audience we don't have to answer this when jim tells them that she's dead and that he doesn't he's just trying to get out of town we could take that at face value or we could take that as jim trying to make sure he doesn't get his friend's hopes up right i could see jim being like i cannot get you excited about a result that i cannot guarantee because you're clearly overly excited about this result that um anyways that's i think is an open question in this uh um back and forth here because it didn't feel exactly right that jim was going to take his money

take his plane ticket and leave town and not do any work on this case. But that is what Jim said he was going to do. That's a good open question. My read is that he's being very straight with Mitch. Yeah. But which part of that is, I'm not going to tell you I'm going to do something that I might end up not doing, right? Because Jim doesn't know.

Maybe he's going to have to leave Seattle too, right? Like his concern is not getting whacked by Burrell. By the Elric godfather. Right. But once Mitch calls him on it, he's not going to lie and say, sure, I'll look for her. He says, no, I'm not. That's

not why I'm going. But the appeal to, you know, I'm an eccentric, humor me. Since you're going anyway, it's no longer you're going because I'm asking you to. Since you're going anyway, it's no longer going because I'm asking you to. Now you're taking advantage of my offer to do something you feel like you need to do. So like, cut me a break here, you know, at least do the other thing I asked. And once Jim says that, I'll look for her. I think as an audience member, I'm like, okay, he's going to look for her. He's not lying to Mitch about this, about making that effort.

He's not lying to Mitch about making that effort. We go to Jim with a suitcase. He calls Mitch's house. It rings. There's no answer. We start getting the ominous feeling. Jim is in the Firebird, roaring up to Mitch's place, which is where we get the first exterior shot,

and we're like, oh. Yeah. A hell of a place. I was like, is this a municipal building, or is this a house? There's no answer. he picks the lock which again this isn't gonna go this isn't gonna end well yeah we switch to a shot from inside where we see jim open the door into the main room where all the camera equipment's all knocked over so we see jim see that and uh the ominousness intensifies jim runs through the house yelling for mitch and then we see there's an armchair facing away from jim and mitch's arm

is just on the arm of the chair yeah so jim goes around to the front and we just see from his face oh good he's not gone well for mitch he does check his pulse but mitch is obviously dead and this is great facial garner acting here as all of this we see a play over his face we see him understand what happened see his grief immediately hit him and him barely holding it together as he raises the phone to call and ask for dennis yeah it's good it's a good scene uh and they take their time with it too i guess like they do a good job of like like letting you sit in the tragedy of it. Yeah.

Jarring shift in tone. We go from that to watching Becker cutting up his veal at the lunch that Jim has taken him out to. I say jarring more, again, in terms of the magnitude, not that the experience was particularly jarring. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, Jim is still in the other scene, right? Like what's kind of interesting about this is it's meant to be jarring. I mean, Dennis is eating veal.

Like he's supposed to be. We know that because he says this is the best veal in town. I got it. Did you send me anything? Oh, okay. That's what that nose was yeah that's a good dennis picture jim isn't eating uh dennis is enjoying this enormous lunch he in fact is eating enough for both of them as jim says but yeah we're getting the the balance here where for dennis this

is just another case yeah it's just another thing that jim's asking him to do for jim this is a personal tragedy so like we have to see those uh we see those two currents kind of running together here yeah becker says that they can't pick up burrell until they have something to go on jim explains they must have had jim's place staked out picked up mitch when he went to visit him tried to beat some answers out of him and he ended up dead denn Dennis, what if Jennifer Ryburn is alive before that can go any further? The waiter brings over the phone because Jim is getting a call that was originally called into his trailer where Rocky answered and redirected it to the restaurant, which is a lot of,

a lot of scaffolding to get to this, to this bit where it's a call from Dr. Stewart's office, the dentist that we've already met. Jim tries to wave it off like, oh, I'll call back. And Dennis is like, no, answer it. And Dennis ends up answering it for him. He's right here, Dr. Stewart's office for you.

Because we have to see Jim kind of sheepishly follow up on the line that he's running with this dental office to get to see this doctor where he's claiming he's on vacation from Florida and bitten doing all of pit. And he wants to get his crown looked at, or he wants to get his bridge work looked at so he establishes that he's going to come by at 6 30 his meetings all day can he do it in the evening he'll come by at 6 30 he hangs up he uh he has an excellent reputation you hear

about him all the way back home in florida well you have to be inventive uh you know how hard it is to get an appointment but you do this all the time no not all the time dennis recognizing how jim operates but giving him a little bit of a of a rib because you know he's not supposed to do that he does ask to see jim's bridge work and jim says i have 32 like everybody else then we have a slow zoom in on jim's face yeah that triggers something he realizes something there's something there about 32 teeth there was a detail earlier when he talked to the um coroner you know 32 teeth something something and i didn't note it then uh but clearly this is there's something there where jim's like 32 teeth yeah dennis relays that from the coroner to to jim yeah uh in the scene where dennis has to uh is upset that

the it doesn't pan out but um this is an oddity in the rockford files we don't often see the the sudden realization yeah like this is there's a lot of shows out there that like this is a part of the formula right like a lot of detective shows where it's the oh that one piece that that puts it all together i feel like uh uh midsummer murders has a lot of that yeah yeah and that's not part of the rockford formula. It does happen sometimes. But I think part of that is just because a lot of times a Rockford mystery is not like what's going on. Although that does happen. But it's like, how does Rockford get everyone out of this trouble?

Right. So what is about to happen is this entire thing is going to hinge on something that Jim knows that we do not know and could have had no way of knowing. Yeah, exactly. So it has to be given to us expositionally. A lot of the time, that's not the kind of thing that the plot hinges on. It's either something that Jim, we've already seen and now Jim's putting together. Or Jim explains the situation for someone else and gives us all the little pieces that come together. So yeah, it is unusual.

that come together so yeah it is is unusual the other the only other moment like this that comes to mind is actually from i'm pretty sure it's from sleight of hand where jim's fixing the light bulb for rocky and is talking to rocky yeah there's like a beat and then the light bulb turns on over jim's head or maybe rocky's head i don't remember but there's a literally a light bulb over someone's head that turns on to indicate that some connection has been made. Yeah. You know, again, first season, very noir influenced.

Yeah. So, yeah. So we'll learn what he realized in a little bit. But yeah, there's clearly like, oh, he knows something. And so I was like, should I rewind and see what that detail was? And I was like, no, the show's going to tell us.

Yeah, yeah. It's fine. It wouldn't have helped anyway. We go to see two goons, two real good goons. Yeah. So Burrell has one scene and these two goons have this one scene. And between the three of them, I'm like. They are good goons.

They're good goons. But yeah, between just these brief appearances, I'm like, this criminal enterprise is one of the most threatening that we've seen. Yes. So these two goons have the dentist's office staked out. They've counted all the staff leaving. And they have a little bit of banter about whether they should go in, what, there's a patient in there. Well, you think there's a patient in there? I forget what he says, but he's like, what do you think, I'm a moron or something?

That guy's death was a mistake. I hit a lot of guys harder than that and they don't die on me. Well, Burrell doesn't like mistakes, so I'm going to handle this one. And then they go in, um, cut to Jim arriving at the doctor's office with a jaunty harmonica,

which slowly changes to mournful guitar. As Jim comes in and looks around the place looking for Dr. Stewart and there's no answer. And then from behind him, don't move, I'm going to kill you. And then the camera switches and shows us Dr. Stewart. He's all beat up. He has blood on his face and across his shirt and he's holding a gun. It is unexpected and pretty amazing. Also because he's really scrawny and jim's so big

yeah the framing is very um memorable i really enjoy how jim handles this scene like this is a good good moment it's not one of those goons that has a gun on him so he's not looking for that opportunity to open a car door on them or sucker punch him or something like that what he's he's not looking for that opportunity to open a car door on them or sucker punch him or something like that what he's he's got to talk this guy out of shooting him and uh the way he handles it is really good yeah he's very straightforward uh you know they asked steward asked who he is and he's like i'm jim rockford i had an appointment to come by at 6 30 i'm not gonna hurt you if you're worried about that call30. I'm not going to hurt you. If you're worried about that, call the police.

I won't try to stop you. Yeah. Yeah. I am a PI. I have ID. So he has his hands up, right? He's like, I have ID. It's in my pocket.

I can reach it with my left hand. And I was like, okay, get it slowly. So Jim hasn't seen him yet. So Jim hasn't seen how beat up he is also. But once he turns and give him the ID, he does kind of see. And once Stuart sees the ID, he relaxes and just like collapses into a chair. Yeah. I could have killed you.

Jim says, I know. That's not a question. So one read of this that I was kind of anticipating was after they're going to have a little bit of conversation and then and then Stuart goes back into his office for a second. And I really thought that we were going to like follow him and like see the goons on the floor. Right. Like he had taken them out. And this was his him from the struggle. Yeah.

I think what we end up learning is that they they beat him up and this is the aftermath and he's so frightened that he's yeah he he pulled the gun on jim but for a good three quarters of the scene i was like did this dentist just take out these two goons because i don't believe it he looks crazed yeah but no that is not what happened uh these two goons asked him a lot of questions asked him about Jennifer. Jim asked, did you tell them anything? And there's no reply to that. He tells Stuart to call the police.

And Stuart says, no, I'll handle it my way. Handle it your way. We'll get Jennifer killed. And Stuart says, Jennifer is dead. And this is where we get Jim's realization. He used to date a model, apparently. Yeah. And they got into some hell of an argument about her getting her back teeth pulled to get that gaunt look she got it and jennifer had it

too but the body in the morgue had 32 teeth um i can take this information to the police and you can talk to them stewart gives him a look and it's just like and kind of relaxes a little more and has this like dawning realization you You're here to help Jennifer out. Yeah. So the story is this doctor, this dentist, has known her since she arrived in LA. They became friends. After Ricky was murdered, she came to him terrified,

said she had to disappear and that wherever I could bury her to do it. So she got out of town. He heard about the accident on the freeway and it's a perfect opportunity anonymous girl yeah body burnt so after he went and saw the body he faked dental records to match the what he saw i guess um so that they would identify it as jennifer this explains everything about that early scene like why he there, why he was acting the way he was acting. Why he was like, I can't do it tonight.

Yeah, because he needs time to falsify the records. This man is going way out on a limb for Jennifer. Not the only man who's gone way out on a limb for Jennifer, as we've seen. But yes, as far as he knows, Jennifer is still alive, but I don't know where she is. And Jim says, I do.

So we have some, a bit of a triumphal sting, uh, over some stock footage of the plane taking off coming to see tack. Yeah. It's got this nice bass intro to travel music. Yeah. It was a fun musical moment in the Rockford files.

Jim wears an overcoat, arrives at the Puget Building, and then there's thunder and it starts to rain because Seattle. It's great seeing Jim in a warm coat. That's just not a thing. He's got a suit jacket on

most of the time, or a blazer, or whatever it's called. Yeah, sport coat. Sport coat. Sport coat's the answer. But this is the first time we've seen him in anything heavy. Warmer than that. most of the time or blazer or whatever it's called sport coat sport coat sport coat sport coat's the answer uh but this is the first time we've seen them in anything heavy warmer than that's true there's no winter in la so yeah and i think we we can see so this episode airs in uh january i think uh february there's christmas decorations yeah so there's christmas decorations and stuff in the windows which is nice yeah i just. I just think it's, you know, like, oh, it's in Seattle, it's starting to rain. Which is very funny to me as now a Pacific Northwesterner.

Yeah. Where it's been like drought conditions for like two years. We actually started getting a lot of rain right as the fall started, which was nice. But anyhow. Not New York rain. No. No flash floods. Yeah, not buried under six inches in one night yeah oof anyhow um jim goes to floyd ross private investigation so here we go this is

this is um scene right it's raining jim's got his you know coat turned up to the rain he's knocking on the window and it has the window graphic of the like eye yeah this feels so like a noir set yeah yeah if this was in black and white it would just yeah seamlessly fit into like postman always rings twice kind of esque yeah kind of thing or a double indem, probably more than than that. But anyway, it doesn't matter. Floyd Ross, private investigator is, as we have mentioned, Ken, our good friend, Ken Swofford, wearing, I note, the same costume as every other role he's been in. The wardrobe's got it ready for you. light blue button up shirt on unbuttoned at the collar and like khakis. Like that's what he wears pretty much in every episode I've seen him in. Um, he,

so Jim comes in on you buying or selling. I'm buying. Come on in. This was a misdirect for me. Jim takes off his coat and he's wearing a red turtleneck and his hair is kind of slicked down because of the rain. And he says, I picked you out of the phone book,

the discreet service at discrete price. How discreet. So I thought that Jim was going to run a con on this guy. Yeah. Like, I'm a fashion photographer. I'm looking for my model or something. Because, like, why else would he wear a turtleneck? But I think it's just he's supposed to be wearing it because it's cold.

Yeah. You don't normally see him in a coat and turtleneck. That's just what he wears. If he went to Wisconsin, that's what he'd wear. So, yes. Why me? Well, it's a discreet service at discreet prices. How discreet?

$150 a day. Expenses. All right, what do you charge? $125. I guess we could split the difference. Professional courtesy? I said sit down. That's professional courtesy. The going down that's professional courtesy the going rate

in seattle is 175 so you're already getting a deal buddy yeah it's very good it's a really fun negotiation and also a prelude to our next uh podcast 150 a day expenses, shrug expenses. This is implied in some other episodes too, but I love, I love this kind of implication that Jim views himself as a higher end investigator. He doesn't take certain kinds of cases. He charges apparently more than other people. Apparently the going rate in LA is maybe it's higher than Seattle,

but also like he, he views himself as like more uh premium than you're one of the mill uh floyd ross's of the of the world feels like floyd pegged him immediately like when he said buying or selling like he's like you're a pi yeah what you know what's going on here yeah that's true um Well, Jim has come to him because he wants him to find someone. You know, he's not in his area, so he needs some help. I know you are going to be tracking this from here on out, but they meet. They meet up, I guess, the next day at the Puget Building.

I guess Jim wanted to get a copy of the photo made. So it was a rush job from like a guy he knows. So it cost 25 bucks. Just a reminder, ballparkpark multiply it by five i think this has come up but has our rule of thumb changed since because of the last two years what are we we're at 75 right now well this is 74 no yeah 75 it's almost six dollars now it's five dollars and 70 cents 25 in 1975 is 142 in chain yeah so so five times but round up yeah yeah five times and round down which i think it used to be i mean by the time you're listening to this podcast multiply it by six so we we date our show to 2017. So yeah, when we started the show, this $25 was

114 in 2017 dollars. Yeah. And now it's 142. Yeah. So that shows you how the last couple of years have been. Yeah. And I mean, inflation is a broad, not to get too much into the the weeds here but it's a a broad measure clearly um some things inflate more than others yeah like getting a copy of a photo you wouldn't get a photo you get a photocopy yeah now and today money probably was a lot cheaper accounting for inflation than it would have been back then right like it still would have cost money to like get a photo redone based on a photo, but not this much. Like this is, this is, he's, he's, uh, he's pocketing some of this. Yeah.

I think we get that, uh, that, that feeling for sure. But yeah, so the deal is, so it's a big building. They used to take a copy of the photo. Ross is going to start at this level and go down. ross is gonna start at this level and go down jim's gonna start at this level and go up they're gonna just ask everyone who works there if they've seen her yeah and he gives them some some uh advice he's like make friends with the security guy it can't hurt and ross is like that's gonna take a little money like everything is is taking money from him yeah and we have a little montage of both of them asking around and not getting

any results. We do see, uh, Ross slipping the parking lot guy, some cash. So there are some, some bribes and some palms getting greased. Good,

good shoe leather with no return. No returns. Yeah. Yeah. So they, yeah, they come together that night. They didn't turn up anything.

She doesn't work in that building. She doesn't seem to do business there. So the line here is chances are it's a bank. I was maybe just because in our modern world, I'm like, what, what? I guess like there's a bank there. Yeah. I think there's a bank in the building. And maybe she's going there to deposit her paycheck.

Yeah. I think what the, what the thread that they're following is where Mitch may have seen her last. Right. They wouldn't know why she would be in that building. Maybe she worked in that building. But in the end, he's like, there's a bank in that building. It's probably the bank then. Yeah.

Like, of all the places. Just the way that the line was delivered, I was a little confused about, like, and now there's a bank but they mean in that building yeah there's great business here where while they talk where ross asks him if he wants some wants coffee he's like what does it cost anything it's like oh that's on the house yeah i want i want a cup the only mug he has has pencils in it so he empties the the pencils out of this mug to give jim cup of coffee. Oh, so good. And then we see, and he's given Jim his expense sheet and we see Jim like physically pained counting out cash.

Oh, it's very good. So Jim is probably working off the, the thousand dollars that Mitch gave him. It's unsure if Mitch gave him more than that. He, he keeps offering the thousand, but I think it's the same thousand. I don't think it's the same thousand until the second time.

Yeah. And then whether his ticket was separate or came out of it is also up in the air. Yeah. Because he offered him a ticket, but then he probably didn't take that first flight because, you know, he went to talk to Dennis and everything. So, yeah. Anyway, Jim's going to stake out the bank. Ross says, well, it's a two man job. You're going to need help.

Not 125 plus expenses. I don't. How are you going to stake it out? Five hours a day and eight on Fridays. Oh, bank hours. Well, most people get paid on the 1st and the 15th. So on the 15th, I'll be waiting. Yeah.

Work smart, work lazy. That's Yeah. Work smart, work lazy. That's right. Work smarter, not harder. We go to Jim staking out the building in a bright yellow two-door. And sure enough, we see Jennifer in quite the fashionable, swoopy jacket. So we see him kind of clock her

and then follow her as she drives out in a white station wagon and he follows her to simon says a general store he kind of uh hangs out outside the window to see what happens and apparently she works there she just goes in and goes behind the counter and you know that's yeah apparently what's going on the music here had me for just a moment going wait is jim falling in love with her it was like a little bit of a romantic hint to it but that is not no um we go to night where jim waits for her to leave uh follows her back to you know where she's gonna park for her uh wherever she lives there's this moment where the yellow car looked green in the lighting

and i was like did you switch cars like just i have the same just in case or something but uh it's just the lighting there's a nice bit here where her first line in the whole thing is okay bye and i thought for a brief moment it was just a great joke with the title but it's not like you know the the really bad dad joke that's like say goodbye jennifer bye jennifer you know like the or you know that oh i know yeah yeah oh yeah you know sorry yeah jim parks on her street and then comes up to her as she's going up her steps hello jennifer. He says he's a friend of Mitch. Mitch, how do you know Mitch from Korea? What outfit? So she kind of asks him

a question to verify, but she's willing to talk inside. So Jennifer, I suppose we probably should mention. Pamela Hensley? It's played by Pamela Hensley. Only Rockford follows appearance. Oh, that's why I recognize her.

I bet you would recognize her from, if nothing else, she was Princess Ardala. Is it Ardala? Yes. Ardala? Yeah. In Buck Rogers in the 25th century.

Yeah, when I was watching it, I was like, okay, I'm going to look her up because I know this woman. And yeah. Oh, and she was watching it, I was like, OK, I'm going to look her up because I know I know this woman. And yeah. Oh, and she was on Marcus Welby MD, as as previously mentioned in this episode. She's pretty iconic in that Buck Rogers. And she was apparently a model before she started acting.

Yeah. You know, well cast. She's very attractive. And that is what she is known for. Yeah. And she was in Rollerball. Yes. But this is, you know, for someone who we're just going to see at the very end of this episode.

Yeah. She has a hell of a role. Yeah. All right. So inside Jim and Jennifer finally talking. She knows that Mitch is trying to help, but he isn't helping. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to be found.

Jim tells her that Mitch is dead. Burrell had him worked over and her first response is, you know, Oh no. And then do you think he might've told them where she was? And then there's a beat and then Jim says, what do you think? And she says, no, he would never. She's sorry about Mitch. She's going to like another room. She's going to like, i think she's taking her shoes off or something i don't know she's going into another room which i only mentioned because jim so jim says mitch was in love with her and there's this great framing of this shot as she replies well that doesn't seem to be a particularly safe thing to be does it yeah she's kind of just slightly off center at the back you know kind of all the way upstage if you will. But she kind of turns and does like a full,

I don't know, a full face towards the camera to deliver the line. There's something about the framing that struck me. Yeah. Good stuff. Mitch is dead because Burrell's goons got too enthusiastic, but Ricky is dead because someone murdered him. He can't help her if he doesn't know the truth.

And she says that it was Burrell. He killed Ricky and he tried to kill Jennifer, but it was dark and she got away. Why would he do that? It's something to do with business. He found out that Ricky was double-crossing him and he felt betrayed. Jim says that he's going to charter a plane

to leave tonight. He'll phone ahead. The cops will take her into protective custody when they land. When she gives her statement against Burrell, she'll be safe. Here's Jim's quandary, right? He doesn't know who to trust here.

The Bob boss or the model. Because they have competing tales about what happened. Her response to Mitch being dead is not terribly heartbroken. But that can be understandable she's scared it's also not beyond the pale that mitch felt much more strongly about her than she felt about him yeah like that seems like a reasonable thing to be true uh so what jim's doing right now he's he's making a play to see how she reacts to something right to satisfy his curiosity about what actually happened there. Can he trust her? That kind of thing.

And here, I'm just along for the ride. I'm like, I don't know where this is going. I guess I'm just going to see how this plays out. Jim talks about having a private plane service or something like that. And I'm like, what? Yeah, he says he's going to charter a plane. And so when he says that she'll be safe, and she starts to kind of panic. And she's like, what? Yeah. He says he's going to charter a plane. Yeah. And so when he says that, you know, she'll be safe and she starts to kind of panic and she's like, I won't go back.

I can't go back. Bro will have me killed. And then she changes to I won't go back. Yeah. Jim picks up the phone. I'm going to call the charter service. And there's a beat. And she goes, will you force me to go?

And Jim, if I have to go back, she leaves, you know, in a huff to go and jim if i have to go back she leaves you know in a huff to go pack jim picks up the phone dials and he says whoever charter whoever i have an account with you people and i need a blah blah blah and i'm like jim has an account with a car charter service yeah what's happening here what's going on on the one hand no you don't but on the other hand i'm kind of like you know what i can see like some might just like some some deal where it's like he doesn't need it often but when he does yeah so he calls to schedule this and then he puts the phone down and we hear the other end of the phone and it's the dial dial the time yeah service so he has just done this for her benefit and i'm like okay so now he's trying to see what she's gonna do i get the feeling that he's just throwing this out there

just to see what how she's gonna jump so he peeks into her room and we see that she's getting a gun out of her drawer jim steps in and says jennifer like kind of in a tone of disappointed and she turns and shoots and there's this the the shot uh sound the the the effect is like really exaggerated it kind of echoes jennifer clearly meant to really stand out because she does in fact shoot jim jim does get shot in the leg and she runs out of the room yes it's not even like an echo it's like they just repeat it several times yeah not because she shot several times but for cinematic effect which i think makes sense because it's again jim doesn't get shot very much it's really uh stands out as a as a piece of the show. We keep with him as he does a quick tourniquet

on his leg and stumbles out of the apartment in time to see her driving away. So he's able to get into his car in time to pursue. I am now trying to remember. I think he does get shot in the right

leg. I'm thinking it's right, but I can't remember I think he does get shot in the right leg. I'm thinking it's right, but I can't remember. Or does he get shot in the left? I guess it doesn't matter because he's probably driving. He needs both feet. Yeah. I'm trying to think what would be worse to drive with when you need to clutch. Yeah.

Probably the clutching leg would be worse. I would think so. Hard to say. You can do gas pedal with just the just the one foot ankle movement you know yeah but who knows i don't know it's bad either way yeah but the chase is a good screechy chase it is real screechy yeah i mean i kind of just went like well it's real screechy there's lots of horns uh yeah and was there anything that stood out about it for you i was trying to think if it like mirrored maybe a little bit of the car wreck from the beginning but there's no reason for it to um there's a point where she stops and jim stops

and gets out and then gets she gets back in and he gets back in and they take off again which i like i you know i like when chases are a little bit like, are we doing this? No, not this way. It is a very down, I was going to say like down to earth chase. Like it's a very realistic chase. Like there's lots of traffic on the streets.

She's just, she's panicked. She's just kind of going where she can go. He's chasing her as best he can. And there's just like lots of near misses and haunts and stuff like that. She still has a gun. And that I think leads to maybe the important part of all this. So Jim manages to speed up and run her off the road into some construction.

There's some like sidewalk construction. Then he manages to run her into to stop her car. She gets out and starts taking shots at him with the gun so i think there's a little bit of like she panicked and didn't mean to shoot him or something but now she's like definitely shooting at him with yeah and screaming i'll kill you i will um jim is ducking behind the car i mean this is enough for me to go what is your plan jim like why are you here why are you doing any of this yeah this is your life not in a criticism of the show but as a like a criticism of jim's choices of the last out like there's a little bit of like now

that he's in this deep he can't let it go yeah he couldn't just let her leave yeah and just be like that's it and fine but uh he's mad i think uh and i think he's also invested in like doing it for mitch like finding out what actually happened kind of on that account there's a little bit of um hard love here because if he brings her into the police she's a murderer and wanted for murder but it's better if he brings her to the police than if uh burrell finds her sure yeah she's in a bad situation and there's no good way out and jim is going to do the tough love thing right like this is slightly better for you. Yeah. That said, she is shooting at him and screaming that she's going to kill him.

But Jim does count out, counts the shots. And after that, the fifth shot, you're out of bullets. There's one in the apartment and that was five. And she yells again, I can't go back to L.A. And Jim says, because you murdered Ricky. Yeah. And she says, no. And Jim, well, the ballistics will check that gun, see can't go back to L.A. And Jim says, because you murdered Ricky. Yeah. And she says no. And Jim, well, the ballistics will check that gun, see if it's the murder weapon.

It was an accident. I didn't mean to murder him. I was trying to frighten him. He was seeing somebody else. And he was going to leave me. He used people. Oh, and you wouldn't know anything about using people, would you? There's a doctor going to lose his license.

Mitch is dead. When I told you that, all you wanted to know was did he talk first you wanted to know if you were in trouble lady you put a high price on yourself this is some of the gym moralism right that yeah that we also see come in varying amounts over the course of the show it's also classic noir right like she's a femme fatale for better or for worse that's the trope that she's playing into here yeah we have the sirens rising as she continues she's she's now crying and kind of trying all these different tactics to get jim to help her yeah including mitch wanted you to help me can't you help me yeah Yeah. And he ends this with, uh, your lawyer can call me as a character witness. So we go from there.

Presumably justice is served. Um, and we end our episode back at Mitch's place where Becker also in an incredible red shirt. This is a good episode for men wearing red button-up shirts. This one is so bright. It's quite the look. Anyway, he's helping Jim pack some of Mitch's stuff.

It's his day off, but he owes Jim one. Between bringing in Jennifer and the two goons that killed Mitch, Becker's looking good at the department. He's up for accommodation. Jim tells Becker he can go he's jim's going to stay and finish up a couple things he's going to do something that he's put off for about 20 years and he sets up the projector and he puts in that home movie that mitch made in korea and we end our episode as jim watches this you know it's cheesy cheesy stuff two guys

off they're wearing hats so we can't we can't quite tell how old they are. They're they're throwing a checking a football around or whatever. And then we end our episode with a freeze frame on our young Jim and Mitch looking into the camera. Jim making a silly face, ironically, given how things have turned out for him and his uh buddy from korea yeah yay hey that was a good episode it was a good episode i i wouldn't say that i wasn't expecting like i mean i don't know i don't know what to expect they're all good episodes i was kind of expecting i was like a season one episode um it's probably fairly straightforward yeah yeah missing woman kind of thing and that is not what it was at all uh so that was a nice surprise it was about halfway through it and going

like okay this is moving along you know pretty pretty snappy and then like the second half is like has twice as much stuff in it as the first half in a good way in a good way uh so it felt it ended up feeling surprisingly complex from what i kind of thought i was getting into yeah it was like oh there's not much of a mystery here and then as you're watching it you're like well what about this part what about this part and then that gets tied up um a bit of a classic rockford Files. Let me chat with my friends at the end and just explain to the audience. But not entirely. I do like that there's certain points in the beginning that the end, you know, like I love the resolution of the dentist. Because that scene is weird.

You're like, what's going on here? And then, oh, right. He's been pressured in. Not pressured. not seduced somewhere between the two into uh doing this and he's not comfortable doing it but he's also going to do it and as jim points out that's it for his career right like this is he's gonna get in trouble for falsifying these dental records and that's clearly a breach of ethics and yeah yeah um yeah no it's good i uh kept me captivated i liked the the directing style um it definitely

felt more like a in oh sorry in the beginning it definitely felt more like a uh not mystery movie of the week but like it felt less like a now we're watching the rockford files and we're like huh so this is what they're doing with the rockford fights yeah um yeah there's a kind of a i think overall there's a bit of a grittiness to this one that isn't necessarily in all of them mainly because sometimes when there's more comedy it kind of you know yeah pulls over some of that stuff less of the swing yeah but like so big swings but again like in a good way like well handled yeah i think all the emotional beats land i think the performances are really good throughout yeah mitch is great burrell is great um yeah jennifer's

very very good uh floyd floyd's great again he's kind of just ken swappard like yeah something about like a lot of his characters are kind of the same person also which is he started out in seattle as his pi then he goes to the dea then he becomes an fbi agent it's like yeah that's kind of all the same guy um but i like that guy so yeah nothing wrong there. Good core cast bits, right? Like the Rocky Jim over the repair of the truck bit is good. The Jim and Dennis, Dennis like helping out with this case. But everything about it is how it either helps or inconvenience Dennis. Yeah, yeah. We get an enormous fish.

Yes. I feel like this is one of those that I'll next whenever we do a revisit of something that includes this one i'll be like oh yeah that one was really good yeah you know uh feels like a strong contender for for memorable episode over the long term so uh yeah so i feel like that was a good pick yay yay i did it you did it pick the right one you picked the right one good job epi hopefully the next one will also be the right one but yeah maybe we'll finish the Jackie Cooper episodes

maybe that might be a nice way to pick our next one or two because I don't know if there's I think we've done all the ones he was in there might be one more he was in and then there's certainly the one that he directed that we haven't seen which is another one with a woman's name in it so also fits this cycle sounds good alright well thanks for your patience as we took which is another one with a woman's name in it. So it also fits that cycle. Sounds good.

All right. Well, thanks for your patience as we took our impromptu month off. Uh, appreciate staying subscribed. We're, we're, we're close.

We will continue doing the show until we're all out of Rockford. So, you know, just stay with us. now, now that I'm up in the Seattle area, I guess my going rate is $175 a day. Yeah.

Instead of $200 for the day. But I think that all said. It's time to say goodbye to Jennifer. It is time to say goodbye to Jennifer. And we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.