Two Hundred A Day - Episode 127: The Battle of Canoga Park

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

Nathan and Eppy don fireproof outfits for the explosive S4E3 The Battle of Canoga Park. Jim's stolen gun is used to murder a man he doesn't even know! While figuring out how to prove he didn't do it, he uncovers a paramilitary militia. From grenades to truckloads of dynamite, this romp of an episode manages to keep the stakes high without undercutting the fun of viewing, and gives us a strong dose of Every Character's a Character. A fun one! 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. Nathan's con game RPG Kickstarter is still running! Check out The Big Store (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ndpaoletta/the-big-store-a-con-game-ttrpg) Here's the Rockford File Filming Locations blog post with the fun Chalco,s sign (https://rockfordfilesfilminglocations.blogspot.com/2012/03/the-rockford-files-episode-battle-of.html) 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/) * David Nixon, 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

It's Betty from up the street. I'm phoning all the neighbors because Spotty is loose. If you see him, call me. Oh, don't wear musk cologne. Leopards have a thing about that. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Poeta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. And we are coming to you today with a, dare I say, explosive episode. Season four, episode three, The Battle of Canoga Park. Indeed.

This was a committee-selected episode, I believe. This was a bit of a committee selection. I think I threw a couple options out for you, and the committee considered and came back with this as the top ranked choice. I'll tell you why I chose this out of those options. Which is, I went to see my in-laws on Friday and I didn't know when I was coming back on Saturday. So I thought, this one will probably be the easiest to do when I get back. Yep, that seems fair.

It's pretty breezy. So I thought this one will probably be the easiest to do when I get back. Yep, that seems fair. It's pretty breezy. Yeah. I think my pitch for it was, I remember this one being pretty fun. Yeah. You remember correctly. It was pretty fun. Yeah.

One quick aside. As you're listening to this episode, it is likely, though I'm not 100% sure, that my Kickstarter for a new game will also be running. I could not have made that game without watching so much Rockford Files. Yes. It is called The Big Store. It is a con game tabletop RPG where you play the cons running a game. So you are the gyms and the angels. And sometimes a roped-in Rocky.

the gyms and the angels. And sometimes they're roped in Rocky. And sometimes they're roped in Rockies running a game on, you know, and the Richie Brocklemans, etc. Yeah. Running a game on some mark who has a bunch of money that they don't need

and also probably is a bad person and needs comeuppance. Yeah, so it's a role-playing game where you play the cons, you build your own con game, but it's very, it's structured by the way that we see these cons unfold in episodes like never send a boy king to do a man's job or there's one in every port. So, yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes. There will be a link on my website at NDP design dot com.

If you are listening to this after that Kickstarter is over, it will be available for you know the general public once it comes out in a couple months but of course uh the support from kickstarter guides me in how elaborate i can make the production and you know keeps keeps me going as a independent um creator in uh in this economy in this economy in this economy check it out yeah epi's played the game and i've enjoyed it he thinks it's okay my endorsement of this is check it out no don't check it out this isn't for you this is something you shouldn't look at i don't want to give this up to you i see this one is uh yeah pretty pretty fun. As we say, I feel like there's something I was going to say and now I lost it. Anyway, this episode coming early in season four, I kept on transposing the numbers and I got I was like, why can I not find this episode? And I'm looking in season three for episode four, but is in fact season four, episode three.

I have to say the transposing numbers reminds me this is a one. I got this in one. I just I opened that deck of DVDs, pulled something out, and it was even staring right at the title when I pulled it out. That felt good. It was meant to be. This one is written by Juanita Bartlett. We'll get to it when we get to it. But there's some fun narrative sleight of hand, at least in the first part of this episode uh that that i really appreciated um and it is directed by ivan dixon who we most recently

talked about on our just a couple of guys episode because he directed that he's one of he's actually one of the more prolific rockford directors that we have somehow managed to accidentally avoid not that we've avoided him but he's he's done nine episodes of The Rockford Files. And including this one, we have four of them still to talk about. That's a little wild. So the proportion's a little off there. We'll do a little fuller talk about him, I think, in a later episode. But he was on hogan's heroes

he was an actor as well as a director and he was a very active person in in the like hollywood black community black creative community um and was instrumental in improving uh opportunities for black directors and and stuff like that so he's a pretty notable figure in like hollywood in addition to being i think a more than competent director the episodes he's done include things that we fondly remember yeah we were just going over the ones that we had done uh before we started recording and uh you know it's it's hard to as you recall an old episode it's hard to recall you can recall fun moments you know or maybe a performance, it's hard to recall. You can recall fun moments, you know, maybe a performance, but it's hard to recall like what it is that brings an episode together. Is it

the writing? Is it the direction or whatever? But we were actually recalling specific shots that we enjoyed in some of these. So we can assume he has some hand in that. Yeah, for sure. So Ivan Dixon also has like a pretty strong Garner association. He did some work on Nichols, which is, you know, the getting the band together, the creative getting the band together prior to Rockford Files.

He also did stuff on Brett Maverick and yeah, it seems like an interesting, an interesting fellow. All all right i don't really have anything else to say about this episode uh at least that doesn't that makes any sense without the context of what it's actually about so perhaps we should get right into our pretty exciting preview montage some things that i pulled out of this first of all the just an amazing exchange between uh rocky and and jim uh beth is there as well but he's like jimmy never killed nobody jimmy's gun did already i'm like yeah all right good uh we know the stakes we know uh what's gonna happen here uh beth rocky

dennis deal come on i know we haven. We haven't seen Deal in a minute. I think the first shot of the preview montage is Tom Atkins and his mustache. And I was like, Deal! Deal. Yeah, Lieutenant Deal, we haven't talked about him in a while, and you've joined us recently. Lieutenant Chapman and Lieutenant Deal are the two police lieutenants that hate Jim. So it's fun to see see and in slightly different ways. Yeah.

So it's nice to have a Deal appearance to break up some of that stuff. Chapman is more of a, like, I don't want to use this terminology, but he's more of a status drop kind of person, right? Like, whenever Chapman is angry at Rockford, you're going to get – Chapman's going to get his comeuppance. Whenever Deal is angry with him, it's a little bit more like, well, yeah, of course, because Deal's got stuff to deal with. Yeah. No pun intended. I don't know. There's just something about, like, you live to see Chapman be foiled. Whereas with the deal thing, it's more of like, oh, no, this guy's going to be a problem for Rod.

Yeah. The way I think about it is that Chapman is sweatier. Like, Chapman is a sweatier antagonist. Yes. He is more personally offended by Jim's existence. Yes. While deal is more like, he's a little more institutional where he's like yeah the kind of thing you do shouldn't be allowed yeah um at least that's that's my uh uh takeaway

from not having actually seen an episode with either of them in quite a while but they both also have episodes where they need jim's help and i feel like it works like it makes a little more sense for deal and i think it's one of the movies maybe where he needs jim's help and I feel like it works like it makes a little more sense for deal and I think it's one of the movies maybe where he needs Jim's help yeah I think so and then when Chapman needs Jim's help Chapman like has to come crawling to him on his knees kind of and it's so it's very rewarding to watch but it's also illustrative of their uh their different relationships oh it I think because we're still talking about the opening montage, we haven't talked about

maybe the most important bit of the opening montage, which is the trailer blowing up and Jim coming running out of it in just his PJ pants and the trailer blowing up behind him. Look forward to that. This episode might have the most, like might have Jim

in the most danger for his life per capita of any of the episodes that we've watched that don't involve Anthony Boy, at least. Hmm. That's interesting because there's another possibly correlated metric here, which is I think this episode has more vans per capita. So we might have a theory here. OK, OK. Well, you can start plotting those out on your graph and calculator while we get into this episode. There's also some exciting car action.

So we have that to look forward to. And a sassy housekeeper. We don't know if she's a housekeeper yet, but there's this like she's she's coded housekeeper. Yeah, yeah. And she's like in the preview montage, Jim's like, I got to find out what happened to my gun. And she's like's coded housekeeper yeah yeah as you like in the preview montage jim's like i gotta find out what happened to my gun and she's like well i took it of course and it's just like it takes jim my back i can't wait to see that i want to know what's gonna go on 200 a day is a 100 listener supported show thanks to our patrons in addition to our gratitude and

editing access to the 200 files file, patrons receive exclusive episode previews and plus expenses. Our bonus Just Chatting podcast about media, work, and life. An episode of that comes out before every episode of 200 Today. On top of that, every episode we say thanks to the gumshoe-level patrons supporting this episode. Brian Bernson has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Check out facebook.com slash brianrockfordfiles. Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic and what it means to be human at the Journey of an Aesthetic podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Paul Townend recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, Serial Killers of Color at fruitloopspod.com. Dale Norwood wrote a book, Find Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold. Published by the University of Chicago Press. Chuck from whatyourreading.com. Shane Liebling, you know his site RollForYour.Party has all of your online dice rolling needs. Jay Adan, who showcases amazing miniature painting skills

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Bill Anderson, and of course, 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. Well, we start our episode with our titles over some pretty imagery of LA at sunset. Yeah. And then we come to a man locking up at reedy's ready serve it's a gas station he's shutting down for the night and then in the darkness a mysterious figure in a white bucket hat appears and we follow him as he comes up to the little service station room opens the door lowers a gun and we see the guy get a look of horror on his face.

And he tries to push away, but he's already sitting down. Gunshot. Cut to shattering glass as Jim drops a glass in his sink. He goes, damn, things are not where Jim likes them. Because Rocky talked him into hiring a cleaner viola and she's been putting things where jim can't find them and uh rocky is defending this choice uh saying everything's a mess around here and you never have time to clean it up etc etc there's a good gag where jim pulls out his desk drawer and then pulls out a shirt because he's looking for his binoculars.

Yes. So he pulls out this shirt and Rocky, anybody who keeps dirty laundry and Jim cuts them off. I knew where to find it, didn't I? But he wants his binoculars because they're going to a to a ball game. So makes sense. But they're not where he where he puts them outside. We meet Viola, who is indeed the woman that we saw in the preview montage. She's getting dropped off and saying to pick her up at five.

There ain't much to this place. Dropped off from a van. The first of many. So Jim's been trying to find his binoculars, but they're right where she put them where they ought to be kept and i like this differentiation where jim jim wants things where he puts them and she puts them where they should go this quickly segues into rocky asking her how her boy's doing um apparently her son has been getting in some altercations recently he got beat up at a massage parlor parlor recently through no fault of his own through no fault of his own i like the attitude here where i don't know i feel like this is something i've seen in life where it's like older people you know catching up just kind

of shooting the breeze you know how's your kid how's your whatever but then it becomes this weird uh contest of not misery but like contest of like oh it's not it's not that good he don't feel like you know sitting around watching tv that boy never thinks about his health well anyway i'm glad he's better well he's not that much better yeah yeah it's like you you have to understand that i live in misery yes but i'm positive about it. I also, in this scene, enjoy the bit where she keeps rearranging things on Jim. Yeah, yeah. Like she's immediately putting things back

where she wants them instead of where Jim wants them. Jim and Rocky are leaving, presumably to go to this ball game. There's a little more banter outside and then a couple of black and whites with sirens blaring roll up. Cops jump full alert yelling to get his hands up and jim just looks at them and goes what is it about today cut the deal i want to hear about last night rockford it's a lot of good cuts and jokes in the cut in yeah this episode yeah jim of course is not has nothing to say

until his lawyer arrives. But Deal says he has Jim nailed on this one and he's going to push it for all it's worth. Deal leaves. Becker has been standing there, classic Becker, been standing there kind of in the background silently while one of his lieutenants yells at Jim.

And then we also see the very specific flavor of angry Becker where he's like, my boss is on me because he knows I'm friends with you. Right. You make my life miserable. You are making my life more difficult. Why aren't you just cooperating with this guy who wants to send you up for murder? Right.

But I think there's also, as we learned, there's also an undercurrent of like, and also, what did you do? Right. Yeah. Yeah. like and also what did you do right yeah yeah uh there's a little bit from the previous scene where uh when the cops show up viola she's constantly looking at jim as as if he's a disappointment of some sort right right right and we'll we'll learn we'll meet her leonard soon and that'll be a great contrast but uh it's the same sort of thing like everyone right now thinks jim's responsible for

something like there's bad things happening to jim and that's on jim yeah well and indeed with becker he's like uh what is this good good cop bad cop why are you you know why are you being like this am i your friend oh you're taking a long time to answer that you're my friend and where were you last night home doing what looking for my binoculars alone no i organized a search party of course i was alone dennis says that that's a lousy alibi and jim for what and that's when deal comes back in with beth as she has arrived to represent her client hooray he hasn't been informed of charges because he hasn't been arrested. Good work, Deal, trying to lean on him in advance. Beth has a good, I bet you didn't even read him his rights.

Deal wants an account of his whereabouts with a reliable witness. And we start getting him asking Jim questions and Beth's going, don't answer that. Don't answer that. She's a good lawyer. Yes. We finally get to what is his relationship with Robert Reedy? Don't answer that. I think Jim says like, who?

And Beth is like, say nothing, say nothing. Deal pulls out a gun in an evidence bag and it says, is this your gun? Don't answer that. And Deal says, well, I don't need him to answer that because, you that because we've traced it to Rockford and his fingerprints are all over it. And this is the gun that was used to murder Robert Reedy last night. I call that probable cause, Miss Danvaport. Book him. I will say, though, it's a little vague about this. You know, we traced this firearm to Jim. That could have been done in lots of ways. Yeah. I believe iconically it is an unregistered gun, right? Right.

I was thinking about that a little bit too. We're still first season. No, this is fourth season. That's right. Oh my God. Wait, how long have we been doing the podcast? No, I thought the same thing. There's, I don't remember when it's revealed that it's unregistered, but I think it's very

early on. There's a couple of times where it's like, I can't, you know's revealed that it's unregistered, but I think it's very early on. There's a couple of times where it's like, I can't, you know. Can't let anyone know. Or like if I'm brought in on this beef, even though I didn't do it, they can get me for having an unregistered firearm. Like there's that kind of like tension sometimes. Now, it could be all that tension occurs in seasons one through three. And he has off screen registered it at some point or, but yeah,

it doesn't matter. It was just as a, as a Rockford head, you know, like, wait a second. And I think if there's just maybe one line somewhere where it was like, you're going down for murder and an unregistered firearm,

right? Like that would be a little extra sauce, but yeah, there's neither here nor there. Because what's important is we go outside the courthouse where Rocky has posted five thousand dollars bail for Jim. How did you get the money? Yeah. He took out a second mortgage because this is one time he can say it ain't Jim's fault. Right. I just love the way Rocky's like, where Jim's like, where'd you get it? He goes, oh, I got it.

Don't don't ask. Yeah. Beth is saying that in this case, there is probable cause. Like by a reading of the actual law, this is in fact probable cause. Yeah. And that deal and the judge don't really have discretion here. Like they're just doing not. She doesn't say they're just doing their job but like she's making the point that we all know jim didn't do this but it is also

reasonable that he is being he was arraigned right so yeah it is reasonable that they're pursuing this because this is in fact legally probable cause so jim needs to prove that somehow the gun was stolen is really what what needs to happen here um jim starts saying that well viola had access that gun's been in my cookie jar for a long time um you know maybe her son lenny took it he's always getting into trouble and it's never his fault there's a there's a bit here that kind of like a thread tiny thread that runs throughout this where um when he brings up the binoculars i believe that uh previously i believe rocky is like well she didn't take him why would you why would you accuse her of taking it yeah she he's he defends viola uh whatever jim's like well she took my whatever

jim keeps being like she's been going through my stuff and moving it around and uh everyone's like how dare you accuse her of stealing right he's not doing that he's he constantly isn't doing that he just wants to know what what happened to things so that you know this yeah it keeps happening like this i think the thread of rocky jumping to viola's defense even in the face of possible issues is, is, is certainly there. We have a mention where, where Beth thinks there's definitely, it's definitely likely that he's going to be indicted unless they can do something.

So, you know, there's no good. So Jim wants to talk to Viola and he takes Rocky's keys at the Viola residence. Good. Their last name ever, Jim Knox and Lenny Answers.

He looks like someone who gets into trouble, and it's definitely not his fault. He has a shiner on his forehead, and he's holding a beer in the early afternoon. This is the only appearance of Leonard, but it's a... It's good. It's memorable. It's good.'s well well cast oh man you gotta check out uh elliot street is his name the guy who i guess viola's last name is winky uh plays leonard winky you gotta check out his picture on imdb it is as tom atkins had a son in fact it looks like Tom Atkins had a son with Dave Foley. I think it's really,

yeah. Oh, I characterize it. Um, but yeah, no, he's very well cast for this. I,

you know, it's, it's not, I was going to say, I really enjoyed the reveal of Leonard, but it's not a reveal. We all had built up a picture in our head of what Leonard was going to be like. And this actor is exactly that. Yeah.

And this is a wrap on on elliot yeah well lenny summons his mom viola comes out she wasn't sure if she was supposed to come this week uh well with him being hauled off by the cops and thrown in jail but she thinks she has a right to know why they hauled him off like that as she says jim basically explains and she tries to shut the door on him and he throws his foot in it i'm in a lot of trouble here and i need you to to help me i need to find out what happened to my gun and we have the cut from the preview montage yeah where she says i took it of course and he says you did so this is there's a a nice bit of filmic uh slight of hand that's

happening here we're we've watched the preview montage we were waiting for this conversation to happen yes it's happening now and we're like okay this is the we i am like okay this is the premise of the episode right this isn't a big mystery that he has to find his gun he's gonna find out you know he's just directly coming out and then other stuff is gonna happen but then we break that immediately where she says is that what you come out here thinking oh it ain't the first time something gets broke something turns up missing viola must have done it i never say boo to that i never say one single word folks is going to think what they want to think but i got no intention of letting you stand

there saying that me and leonard killed some man we never even heard of with a gun we never even seen that was that was just a line of hers to get under his skin yeah she did not in fact take his gun i just appreciated that as little because i was there i was like oh she did take his gun i'm just waiting i'm just waiting to see what happens and then uh no she took that rug out from under me immediately. So I appreciated that. It was fun. You're kind of waiting for her sort of haughty explanation. Yeah. For what? Like, you were just going to hurt yourself with it. Like, or something like that.

Or I don't hold with firearms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or something, you know. I think this happened just before this with Leonard, where, like, you should be resting. Okay, Leonard is clearly a ne'er-do-well. Yeah. And Jim, we know that Jim isn't a ne'er-do-well, though he really rides that line. But it's just fun to watch her fawn over Leonard.

Right, right. Do no wrong. Who's clearly doing nothing but wrong. Yeah. And then looking down at Jim like he's such a disappointment to his father. I'm just eating all this up but it also feeds a little bit into jim's theory of the case yeah which doesn't hold out but it's you watch him like a like a dog with a bone hold on to it for as long as he can though there

is a little bit of hint here because there's so it's a it's a double swerve i'm swerved and i'm swerved again because so viola says she never saw his gun and jim's like come on i keep it in my and then she cuts them off before you can say yes ask anyone who knows me i never ate a store-bought cookie in my whole life and then jim all strange you should say that because that's just where i keep my gun in with the store-bought cookies. And that's when she finally slams the door on him. But then I am like, aha. So she may not have taken the gun, but she knows something that she's not willing to tell Jim.

Yes. So maybe she did have something to do with it after all. So I think there's enough there for Jim to keep his little raccoon paws on the. Yes. Yeah, exactly. for jim to keep his his little raccoon paws on the yes yeah exactly on what he wants to be true which is viola took my gun and her her layabout son took it and used it to kill someone he it's his fault right that's that's where jim is trying to get to um also a probably credit to juanita bartlett here usually is but like what an amazing way to describe a character to have have them indignantly exclaim ask anyone who knows me i've never eaten a store-bought cookie in my life like you know all you need to know about viola from that statement yeah like this weird sense of pride in like, at like a very,

very particular morality. Like it's just, yeah. It's a good, this is a low key. Great script. Yeah. Yeah.

I would agree. I think the events of this episode are not, I mean, it's kind of weird. I mean, we'll get to it when we get to it. There's a lot of memorable stuff without it really having like a real mystery or a real question to it. It's more of a romp.

But a lot of these little things like that, that double, you know, that double swerve in the story just from this one scene. These lines that just tell you who this character is right off the bat. Even the casting of this guy, Leonard, you know like yeah they're just chef kiss you know firing on all cylinders kind of stuff we do this all the time but it's worth repeating like characters in the rockford files are characters almost to a one right like they yeah there's something about every single one of them but that said sometimes you get a line of goons and you're like, wait, are these are these the feds or the goons? And in this particular episode, that's not the case. Like, we actually go through quite a few of the.

Our antagonists. Yeah, our antagonists. And every single one of them, I'm like. Is a character. Is a character. And I'm like, what is it? What's got them all together? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The reveal is fun, too. Well, we cut from there to Becker answering the phone. Billings is giving him the stink eye for some reason. Yeah, the Billings-Becker thing in this scene is great. And I don't know what it is. We get a nice, rare Billings line. I got it, Billings. Okay, Sarge.

Nothing but E is in this joint jim's calling becker jim wants to know if there's an ongoing investigation into this murder or if he's it becker says a deal is trying to prove that there was a relationship between um jim and the reedy the guy who was murdered they got got the gun. Jim doesn't have an alibi, but that's still not enough. You know, what's the motive, right? So he's trying to prove that there's some relationship. And Dennis says, if he doesn't have one, he's going to be fine.

And Jim's like, I'm not going to be fine. I'm out $5,000 on bail. I might get indicted. I have plenty to worry about. And so Dennis does give him some of the details. It was an execution- very personal robbery wasn't a motive nothing was stolen and he tells jim what what station it was what the location of the crime and then he says stay out of it and jim says first i have to get out of it which is a good good jim line we now get get to see Jim doing his best to connect Lenny to these guys. Yes.

Because that's his, again, his operating theory, right? A lot of my notes are, why does Jim still hold on to this? But it does drive him enough through the case that he then gets like towards a truth. Yeah. And I don't know, I just really enjoyed that. I liked the idea that like just having a theory and, and working towards that is better than like being like, this theory doesn't work.

We got to come up with a new one. He's still learning as he's going through. And yeah, he's keeping enough of an open mind to kind of follow things where they go, but he's still trying to make what he thinks happened true. So Jim goes to Reedy's. It is, you know,

still, still open in operation. There's a couple of mechanics there. And one of them is cleaning a car and Jim, again, like everyone's a character. He's like, you know,

what do you want from me, pal kind of stuff until Jim drops that he, he, he does this whole like, you know, what do you want from me, pal? Kind of stuff until Jim drops that. He does his whole like, oh, yeah, this is a great location. Building up to the reveal that he that he's thinking about buying the place. He was talking to Mr. Reed about buying it. And now he's finally looking it over. And so that's when the guy's attitude changes. He's like, oh, you're going to buy the place.

Oh, can I show you around? Like, oh, someone're going to buy the place? Oh, can I kind of show you around? Like, oh, someone's going to keep me employed? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So again, small thing, but fun. There's a little bit where the mechanic is cleaning this pickup. And Jim glances in. He's like, he sees there's a gun rack in the pickup.

He's like, oh, you go hunting. And the mechanic says, oh, this isn't my car. This is Mr. Reedy's car. the mechanic shows him around a little bit and in the office jim picks up a framed photo of a army unit reedy was in the army in korea in the fifth army rct regimental combat team uh and the mechanic's like oh that's before my time that's korea jim clearly has some association with this he's like oh okay, that's before my time. That's Korea. Jim clearly has some association with this. He's like, oh, okay. And he's like, all right, time to leave.

As he's leaving, he says, well, I was supposed to meet Lenny here, but he's always running late. And the guy's like, Lenny? It's like Leonard, whatever his last name is. He's the friend that put me in touch with, with Reedy. Well, you don't know him? And he's like, no, I've never heard of the guy. And he says that Reedy didn't really have a lot of friends except for mr chalco who runs the motorcycle shop up the

street they were always going back and forth so jim you know gives him a you know waves him off with a with a couple uh you know just a couple lines about not gonna wait around all day see see about the purchase blah blah as he's leaving we see him and zoom in on the bumper sticker on the back of Reed's pickup, which is one of those big yellow ones with black text that says, they'll take away my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. Alright.

Something is going on. It's fun watching Jim fish for Leonard. Yes. I don't know, there's just something throughout this episode that he keeps, like, just throwing the name out and just seeing like what's going to happen. Who's going to say something? Who's going to react? Keeps coming up.

I feel like there's a fishing term that I should be using. Keeps coming up with a boot. Yeah, sure. That works. I don't know if that's a visual reference for the kids, but I feel like that was in cartoons. I mean, I could see Heathcliff doing that. An old boot. Well, Jim pursues this tip that he got.

He goes to talk to Mr. Chalko. We have a nice establishing shot where there's these two real burnout dudes checking out a motorcycle. They're kind of like hippies coded kind of yeah could be biker gang it's hard to tell could be they seem a little too goofy but who knows yeah um chalco follows jim into the the showroom um but he like keeps an eye on them and he has this whole thing where he's like you got to keep an eye on these guys they're not gonna buy anything but if you don't keep an eye on them they're gonna strip that thing down in five minutes he is a slightly older guy who has no time for all these young punks so this is um a characterization for chalco here and it's it's vital to the the case uh which is great and all that but i would point

out that like as they're walking away from them the kid kid that's on the bike, I say kid, the young adult, the whatever, the guy that's on the bike does steal the keys. He does. Yes. It's like, yeah, you do got to keep your eyes on them. I did think that the climax of the scene was going to be those guys just riding away on the motorcycle. Yeah. But I guess they just take it for later. Yeah. It is unresolved.

No, Choco ends up having bigger concerns as we yes so this guy is played by an actor named ted gearing who is really like i've definitely seen him in the rock refiles before and we have uh he has been in four episodes but this is not a rap on him because he is in fact in the he's in the first episode no he's in the pilot oh okay so we're not gonna wrap until the end yeah well i'll tell you what when we do that episode we'll make it all about him um however he was in gear jammers as johnny lasalvo who i think is he the union guy that got killed that sounds right yeah it's been while. Associating the face with that name. I'm like, I'm pretty sure he's a union guy. Yeah.

And then he was also in. So help me God. But I think as a character, warden foot trail. So I assume he was probably just in one of the scenes where Jim was in the court. Probably. Yeah.

Or like when, because they kept Jim in contempt. That one was that. So it might've been the warden involved in one of the, yeah. Jim Jim in contempt with that one. So it might have been the warden. He was involved in one of the, yeah, Jim going in or out of jail. This brings up an interesting question. Maybe we should ask our audience about this. If you were to guest star in like three episodes, three or four episodes of the Rockford Files, what are the three or four episodes you'd want? Because this guy hits some good ones.

Yeah, yeah. He hits some good ones yeah yeah like he he hit some good ones and this is probably his biggest role i mean maybe the johnny lasagna i mean we haven't seen that pilot yet maybe the one in gear jammers is also pretty big it's pivotal i guess like it's important to the story it is yeah jim's line here is that he's he's he's interested in buying the gas station, but he's also interested in cross-promotion. Yeah. He's a firm believer in classic tub-thumping publicity. The high-profile company gets the higher profits.

And Chalko's kind of like, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to propose here, but I'm listening because you said it could make me money. So he's like i'm proposing a publicity partnership we go in together to sponsor something like uh motocross uh and we put up a prize you do a year's free service and it kind of gives him the stink eye parts not included and he gives a big smile okay he's like and i have and i do a year's uh oil and you know oil and gas and then he then backs off before they can really talk further with like oh i'm i'm sorry i know you and reedy were good friends choco's like yeah they go way back he deserved better than getting blown away

by some punk kid jim's like well i have some other things i need to attend to but i'll get back you know i'll come back to you with the details once i've decided that i'm going to buy the place but as he's leaving he does so two things happen he drops lenny's name and choco again doesn't recognize it and then the mechanic uh yes right it's the character yeah the mechanic pete who has a hell of a mop of hair yeah Yeah. I thought it was a wig. It looks like a wig. And he sees Jim as Jim leaves. And then he turns to Chalco and goes, what are you doing talking to that guy?

And Chalco explains, oh, he's interested. He's going to buy the gas station, blah, blah, blah. Pete grabs the yellow pages, ruffles through them, and then slams it down. His name's Rockford. Does that mean anything to you? Better get on the phone fast. I have a screenshot to send you.

Oh. I need to clean up my screenshot so that I stop scrolling through all the ones I already sent you from previous episodes. Here we go. Yeah. Yes. Rockford Agency, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We got his state license. State license number.

Is he holding a cigarette in that picture? I think he might be. Oh, the 70s. But yeah, he says, you better get on the phone fast. The one who makes the messes are the one who cleans it up. That's how I feel about it. Chalko dials and says, red eye leader, this is red eye one uncle judah just picked up the christmas tree all right a couple things now um again probably one you know uh to blame here uh

some very beautiful things i really love choco's line in retrospect blown up by some punk kid well it's always some punk kid so this first of all is setting the tone for like what we need to understand about choco and his uh alignment with the group that he's hanging out with like he's got a political this is him showing his politics right but also as we know from the preview montage, we're going to get at least one explosion, maybe plural explosions. This whole bit, not to give too much away, like this is him saying, you know, it's always blown up by other people. We'll see who does the blowing up. We'll just see. We'll just see who's responsible for this.

It's not like there's a big reveal that we need to preserve or something but it's more like part of the fun of the episode is being like so what is what the hell is this people are these people's deal anyway yeah so i think preserving a little bit of that is uh is kind of part of what we're talking around here this guy being right on top of the idea that rockford is rockford first when i saw it was like is rockford famous like what's happening that this guy recognized rockford right away yeah but uh as we as we go along we're gonna find out there's a reason why he would they know who rockford is yeah but but i think importantly by name but yeah this guy recognized him by sight.

Or remembered the name, knew it was a PI, and then just went to look up to see if it was in fact him. Yeah, sure. I don't know. There's just something about this scene that's great because it just tosses up so much weirdness, especially with the phone call at the end. Right. Where you're like, oh, I know what we're in for now. The pacing is really good. And as we go through in the next scene,

Jim's kind of at the end of his, he's at the end of his leads. Like this is pretty much all he had to go on. He's followed his theory to the limit. To a dead end. And we're watching, we're like, where is, he's followed his theory to a dead end. What's going to happen next?

But like the timing of like, oh, they know who rockford is it's a big deal for some reason there's someone called red eye leader question mark like that's just in the right place for us to be like all right what's going to happen next yeah the momentum really picks up in a nice way so jim is at rocky's he's saying that no one's reacted to lenny's name uh he's starting to think there might not be a connection. And Rocky's like, why do you think there's a connection? I told you.

There's, you know, like he wouldn't do something like that or, you know, something in that line. But Jim says, but the more he looks, the deeper he gets. So it turns out that the Korean, the outfit in Korea that Reedy was in is the same one that Jim was in. Yes. And I'm like, huh? Because I don't know how Army regiment stuff works. But thankfully, Rocky clears this up by saying, Well, there's 3,000 men in the battalion.

That's close enough for a deal. I just hope he doesn't find out. He asks Rocky for a lift home. He has no leads and nothing to go on well they can't put you in jail for something you didn't do isn't that what you said just before i spent those fun filled years in quentin uh classic we cut to the trailer it's night and a red van what i remember a red van did i see that in the preview montage we We sure did. As I say in my notes, we see the white bucket hat driving. It's very nice

of the show to give us a nice big white piece of clothing to identify this person through all these night scenes. We see that Jim's asleep inside. There's some sneaking around music as we see this guy crawl up on the roof. And then he tosses the grenade through the top window right over Jim's bed.

There's a screen there. So it lands on the screen. This wakes up Jim. He sees it and he jumps out of his trailer right before it explodes. And we see the burning trailer as the van drives away. Now, I cannot describe the music here, but I encourage anyone who goes from our show to watching the episode to just take a moment and appreciate the music. That's all I'm going to say. We go to the morning where there's a crowd outside,

of course, cops poking around. And inside, Becker is telling Jim that he should consider himself lucky. Jim, if I wanted a skylight, I would have put one in. Jim's like bathrobe is all has like burn marks in it and stuff. It's so good. It's rough. We have good Becker Jim banter where, you know, we get around to, you know, you had a lousy night. You feel better or something like that. Yes.

No, we have a Bruce Tuttle appearance. Oh, we have not talked about this guy in quite a while. I feel like he was much more in the early in the early episodes, the early seasons. But he's the guy with the mustache that was like a big character in all these like season two and season three episodes. Yeah. He's this bomb squad officer with a mustache. And I was just, I saw him, I was like, is that Bruce? It's Bruce.

If you were here for some of our earlier episodes, I think he was in like every one. And I would, I'd always get very excited because he's just such a face. He does not have a picture on IMDb. It's not a wrap on Bruce yet. It's not a wrap on bruce yet it's not a wrap on bruce yet we still have new life old dragons yeah because he was in four pound brick i vaguely remember that pastoria prime pick that sounds right in hazard he was in just another polish wedding which for some reason that's the one i'm like i know he was in just another i think maybe he was like taking invitations at the wedding or something. Could be, yeah.

Something like that. Yeah. Nope, I'm right. Yeah, seasons one through four. So that's why we... He had a couple episodes of Ten Speed and Brown Shoe. Oh. I've seen that.

So that you don't have to. Yeah, sorry. That's fine. Anyway, rest in power to a real one. Anyway, this might be the most lines of any of his roles that i've seen him at least where he explains that uh oh yeah just a guess but uh i'd say surplus from korea korea there's only one difference between the grenades that they used in korean war and those that they used in NAMM. The fuse length was shortened from seven seconds to four.

You couldn't have got out of here in four seconds. It was a good dig on Jim because that's what everyone does this episode. No matter what. This man was almost bombed to death and there's literally no sympathy from anybody in this room. All right. So Jim tells Becker he was sniffing around Reedy's and he didn't think he turned anything up, but he must've made someone nervous.

And that's when Viola appears coming through the back part, like coming through the burned part of the trailer, which is kind of like, okay, I hope you don't expect me to clean this up. And Jim says he didn't expect her at all after the last conversation. And she says, I don't walk

off a job without giving notice i'm giving notice jim fine phone rings it's for becker there's banter with jim and viola uh where she's like maybe i'll vacuum i don't know and she very pointedly take like saves the picture the frame picture rocky that's been on jim's desk i think in the first scene she'd moved it off of his desk onto a shelf. She picks it up off the floor and moves it onto the shelf, but gives it a nice look like, oh, Rocky. I don't know. It's good business. There's a reading of this episode in which Rocky and Viola have a thing for each other.

Now, I'm not saying that that is textual. I'm not saying that it's subtextual, but you could read that. There's a bit of a read. Yeah, I agree with that. Becker is getting the report back about the, so Jim got the license plate number from the van. And so Becker ran it and it belongs to someone named Lee Ronstadt. Viola says she doesn't know that name and she would know if it was Lenny's friend. She knows all of Lenny's friends.

Jim is going to hitch along with dennis to check it out jim tries to tell him to stay out of it and he wants to see who throws what kind of guy throws a grenade down a ventilating shaft yeah fair yes there's a tiny clue that that i think viola lets out because she was running a little late because the van didn't show up. I noted that in passing. Didn't put it in my notes because I was like, I don't know if this actually is going to matter. Yeah. It turns out that it does matter.

But I would not have realized that it mattered because I completely forgot why it would have mattered. I only did it because I was like, there's a lot of band going around in this episode. But you're right. That is a little bit of a a it's not really a clue it's a little bit of a uh a little bit of consistency that makes this whole thing like we wouldn't have missed it if it wasn't there but that is there i'm appreciating it now again not trying to play too coy it's just that it's a fun discovery yeah we are going to take a little break in the middle of our episode here so that we can stretch, maybe get a beverage or a snack and talk about the other places that you can find us on the Internet. Epi, if our listeners want more Epi, where can they go to get maximum Epi?

You can find me at my website, dig a thousand holes dot com. That's dig one zero.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 um those are all at my website it also has links to contact me in other ways currently i'm still um posting on instagram at nd payoletta. That's where I'm posting pictures of my dog. You can also find me at cohost, cohost.org slash ndp.

That is a fun, small-scale social media site that I'm enjoying quite a lot. And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimbo Rockfish. So they go to visit Lee Ronstadt. Becker tells Jim to stain the car. Jim, of course, won't do it but he says that uh he'll keep his mouth shut before we get to that i'm sorry i'm sorry but there is what i think is a very good moment between jim and viola where uh jim's like i'm gonna get dressed now viola if you don't mind she's just like big deal yeah you think a little like i'm gonna look buddy and his response to that is just golden so i'm just i just wanted to point that out that was that was fun stuff

but yeah so uh they're gonna go in and talk becker tells jim to keep his mouth shut and jim goes would i interfere um they have billings cover them from the front and send another officer around to the back of this house there's this very dramatic zoom in shot of a lawn sprinkler on the front lawn and it gets them both wet as they go up to the door and i'm starting to kind of remember the rest of this episode so i was like why is there such a dramatic shot of the sprinkler is it like spraying nitroglycerin like yeah, yeah. Is it spraying gasoline? Why are we paying? They both make a deal about trying to get around it.

And yeah, my notes was, oh no, the sprinkler. But it's important. It's important. It's business that is important, but not in that way. A woman answers the door. Jim asks for Lee Ronstadt. And she has them come in because she's been on hold on the phone for 20 minutes. So she's calling into this radio show and it's the topic is the water shortage.

So it's like, OK, I see. Yeah. Finally, she gets she gets through. So in the background, Jim and Becker are just mugging while in the foreground. She's on the phone like they're rolling their eyes or giving each other looks like it's it's very good. But yeah, she answers and says, this is Lee Ronstadt. So you're not a first time caller, Lee. You know, you're not supposed to give your last name.

And she kind of winces, which is, again, a little funny because it's like, I don't know, this bad op sec. Right. Like, yeah, you know you're not supposed to give your last name and she kind of winces which is again a little funny because it's like i don't know it's bad opsec right like yeah yeah you know better but uh my note is she's a she's a drought denialist um there's no water shortage we have plenty of water we're selling it all to the arabs so we get we see that she is uh deep today she she would be full q anon right yeah yeah like that's exactly that's this person i can remember a time here in california when we grew tomatoes the size of cantaloupes and cantaloupes the size that's a pretty flaky fairy who'd sell our water well it's them bleeding hearts back in washington that's who trying to keep the whole world happy and the hell with the American people.

Well, I got my sprinklers going and I'm going to keep them going. And the hell with the Arabs. It's a little less funny, I think, to me, just because it's like, no, these people are like, there's a lot of these people now. Yeah, yeah. This is a cautionary tale that we did not follow. Exactly. Yeah. And of course, she doesn't turn down her radio.

So there's feedback. So she has to turn down her radio. Like all these little notes about kind of her nature. I legit had a moment when I realized that she was on the phone waiting to get on the air with the radio. Where I was like, oh, but you have to turn the radio down. Otherwise you get, and then it happened. And I don't know. I don't know if, I don't know if kids these days experience that.

I mean, I didn't call it to radio shows that often, but I knew, I knew not to have the radio on. Because you heard people do it and have them tell them to turn your radio down. Yeah. Oh, the other thing that is definitely, I feel more of this time is that the host is arguing with her like the host is right back is like i don't think that makes much sense lee you know why would anyone want to do that while today the radio show would be like the

right wing talk radio thing and it would be someone who's like pumping up this person and like agreeing with them and using it to launch into other tirades. And I'm like, Oh, this is a different kind of show. There is, there is a straight line from that show to that show, which is probably part of the problem. But yeah, like it used to be like, let's let these, uh, let's let these people spout off about whatever they want. We can even make fun of them. Right. Right. It's good. It's good radio. And,

and then that, that slope is literally slippery. Yeah. And you do end up, uh, you do end up with Fox news. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, back to the show. Um, as she talks, we see Jim and Becker kind of just like looking around. There's like a military, I don't know what the, like the symbology of like part of it is, but I recognize the folded flag. That's like a military.

Yes. Funeral. Right. Funeral flag. Yeah. You get the like triangle, like folded flag. And she has a big stack of Rifle World magazines. So we're like, OK, we're starting to put together the picture of this person.

She gets off the phone. she confirms who she is becker asks her if she has a red panel truck and she says she has a white panel truck not a red one and it's in the garage but it's not there now because she loaned it to her sister-in-law so that she could move this morning so they can't go see it um so basically every little question she has a bit of a answer for that covers ford yeah as i think right now the show is giving us a little bit of like is she isn't she like because sometimes it's like there's a car but it got stolen or it's the person who works for them used it or like whatever uh we get the mention of her son henry but he only took it once after she had to cost it cost her 300 to put the insides right and she's not never let him have the keys again. Kids have no respect

for property, Becker says. How old's the boy? 32. Now, this is she's probably lying about a lot of stuff. But also, she's probably using the truth all the time. As we meet him, we'll be like, yeah, no, that

happened. That's the thing, yeah. As they leave, Becker's like, okay, happened like that that that's the thing yeah as they leave becker's like okay thank you and she's like ask her and he's like we're going jim he's like do you have any grenades and becker like hustles them out what are you doing asking he says like asking a lady if she has grenades she probably probably has them on under her hairnet. This lady has grenades. There's nothing about this that doesn't read that she has grenades. I do appreciate the Chris Jericho reference. Ask him! Ask him!

So, outside they're arguing. Fundamentally, Becker thinks that she's just a crank and this isn't going to go anywhere he still doesn't think there's a necessary connection between the murder that jim is being brought up on and this attempt on his life um jim of course thinks there is a connection uh they're arguing uh becker basically is like sure she's weird she's a crank but admit it jim you're wrong she has nothing to do with the murder jim makes a vibe based argument her other car is in the driveway um and it has like a like an american like a like a patriotic bumper sticker like some kind of like you know pro america thing and jim's even like it's not even that's the same bumper sticker but he's like look reedy's

truck had a similar bumper sticker they kind of seem like they're the same kind of people they have to be connected jim's just like the vibes are rancid i know there's something going on and we're all like yes jim you're right the vibes are bad but but becker is like i need actual evidence and there is no actual evidence but yeah jim thinks these people are all connected in some way and if becker doesn't figure it out jim will so jim puts up rocky to call chalco with a script uh yeah rocky's like you're good at this sort of stuff sunny but i'm don't don't make me do this but rocky's good at this rocky does a great job jim doesn't want to call

him because he doesn't want chalco to recognize his voice but he wants to establish that chalco knows lee ronstadt that's the goal here so script for rocky is that he's from the newspaper right on target and then he says like you see it's kind of a play on words kind of a dual meaning he was referred to chalco by lee ronstadt as a potential like you might be interested in the magazine you know what can i put you on the subscriber list kind of thing he met her and her son henry at the stars and stripes forever meeting a couple weeks ago you know they're good people good americans um and chalco says well well, if Lee's interested, I guess I am too. And Jim gives like a, like a yes, like fist pump. We also see Rocky get into character a little bit as he does this.

And we see Jim smile at Rocky as he does it. It's, it's great. It's a very, it's well filmed in this moment. I was just going to ask, like, what what what proportion of this script do you think rocky improvised right because there's this moment at the very end after rocky's gotten what he's wanted what he wants i'm sorry jim's got what he wants the conversation is over the guy is about to hang up and rocky is like you make sure you tell me what you feel about this magazine after yeah like i want to hear from you how you how you

think we're doing like in a very like very rocky kind of uh thing and i'm like i think rocky improv that yeah i think so too i think he got into he got into his character we do end the scene with a shot of chalco looking thoughtful as he hangs up the phone a little more a little more suspicious now after he's been burnt by the pi yeah we go to night in the becker residence where the phone starts ringing and wait wakes becker up he rolls out of bed he answers it's jim dennis where have you been dennis says yeah i've been trying to call you where have you been? He says a deal found out about Jim and Reedy being in the same regiment in Korea. And we have a reprise

of the exchange from earlier, which is very, very funny. Dennis, there are 3,000 men in the battalion. That's close enough a deal. But Jim wants Becker to talk to Chalco. I know he knows Leader Ronstadt. Becker's like come on and jim

leans on their friendship you want me to be indicted becker agrees to go by first thing in the morning even though he doesn't buy it look these people he's like we ran all their names they're all clean in the computer they don't even live in the same area nothing connects these people jim says he'll meet them meet him there in the morning we cut to a blue van pulling up to a shack in the middle of a field and not just not a field like in the middle just like a pile of dirt like it's just a big dirt lot with nothing on it this is our third van yeah this is the white van the red van the red van this is a blue van blue van yeah red white and blue um we see the mechanic pete uh now in a like checker pattern shirt that is uh quite memorable yes i'm trying to think how would

you describe it it's like it's not when i say checker pattern I mean it's made of squares, and each square is a different plaid. So it's not really a checker pattern. Motley. Yes, he looks like a jester with his mop of hair, which is a funny juxtaposition because he's probably the most serious person in the crew here. So Pete is confronting Lee, and who we soon learn to be Henryry uh who is a bit of a dope i would say yeah is how he's presented here he's the one who is uh playing a game of fiasco right like this that's what's happening here absolutely chalco wants henry to get out of town and lee says chalco does what i say. I'm the director of ordinance. So we learn a lot.

We basically learn what happened in this conversation through this argument and exposition. It's Henry's fault they're in this mess. What, I should have let Reedy go to the feds? Pete says, well, after a couple of beers, he always talks like that. It didn't mean nothing. Lee says, that's all over now. Pete comes back that it's not.

He explains about the phone call. And that was probably someone who works for Rockford. So now Rockford can connect Chalco to you and me to both of you, etc. And then turns back to Henry. Why do you use a gun that belongs to a PI? I didn't know that. That's what you're supposed to know. So Reedy was also in this group.

This guy, Henry, thought that he was going to go to the feds about whatever. And this is still a question for me, at least. Somehow got Jim's gun. Didn't know who it belonged to necessarily. Used that to kill Reedy. And now they're all in this mess. Henry says he'll take care of Crawford. With another hand grenade?

What's the matter with a hand grenade? The cops can't trace it. It didn't do the job. That's what's wrong. You of rofford with another hand grenade what's the matter with a hand grenade the cops can't trace it didn't do the job that's what's wrong you missed you missed with the hand grenade yeah i won't miss next time that's when we see in so it's not only a van it's a pickup with a with like a cab cover or a bed cover i should say um it looks kind of like a van but it is uh in fact a looks kind of like a van, but it is, in fact, a different kind of vehicle that's slowly weaving through this unfinished, there's no road, it's just like dirt. So this truck is just bouncing through these ruts and everything.

Chalco is arriving in this overloaded pickup. Lee says, you boys will need to help him unload. He has my whole garage in there. We cut to a shot of boxes labeled high explosive just swaying back and forth. My notes, I think even before we see what's in the truck, is that this guy's not long for this world. Have you ever seen the movie Sorcerer? No, I haven't. I know, somehow.

We've had this entire relationship, but I've never watched Sorcerer. Sorcerer is not a sword and sorcery movie. It is a I don't know what the genre of movie is. It just follows like it's been a while since I've seen it. But like a handful of people who have to disappear from the world. They're criminals. They've done bad things and they can't stay where they are because the cops will get them or you know whatever they don't know each other but they all end up at this uh mining

operation in south america or oil oil well in south america uh and at some point this oil well catches on fire and the movie is about how they have to put that fire out and the only way they can do it is by blowing it up deprive it of its oxygen and all that so they have to get some dynamite that's out in the jungle that's just been sweating in the jungle and most of the movie is about this truck drive back with the dynamite in the truck going over like these roads that aren't roads they're just dirt paths it is one of the most tense gut-wrenching films anyways highly recommend it we see all of that slim down to the next few minutes indeed as we go out we have kind of a long shot where they're watching the truck and we zoom back in to see its front wheel hit a rock.

And then we cut back out to boom, huge truck explosion. Pretty early in the season to be wasting the whole season's budget on explosions. But why not? Why not? Why not? Next morning, Jim is staking out Chalcos. There's a close sign on the door. We see someone come up

like on a motorcycle like to come for service or something yeah he's like i can't believe the place is closed and he leaves and then some cops arrive it's not becker um it's a couple of other planes closed guys with pete who's opening up saying uh i don't know he's usually in at earlier in the morning um and then he's like fumbling with all these locks and they're like, how many locks he got on this thing? Just a call back to earlier when Chalco is like, you can't trust anyone. I have burglar alarms on my burglar alarms.

There's a great, I couldn't get a good screenshot of it because someone's head was always in the way. But in this scene, you can see that Chalco's cause it's like Chalco's cycles or whatever. Yeah. The word Chalco's cause it's like Chalcos cycles or whatever. Yeah. The word Chalcos is in, you know,

it's in like, like glittery vinyl letters on the glass door. Yeah. But the apostrophe instead of where the apostrophe goes is on the bottom where you would put a comma. Oh, but it, but it is an apostrophe.

Okay. And I was just like, huh, what an interesting choice i mean i'm i guess i mean the character has the name so they must have i'm sure it was an existing cycle shop yeah but like they had to put that name on the door yeah and it's just like it doesn't look bad no it's just such an idiosyncratic little thing that I was just like, huh. I did not note that. That's interesting. Yeah, the motorcycle shop is apparently still there. Burbank, Kawasaki and Burbank.

Okay. Oh, you got an answer. I'm sending you this. Well, I don't know I have an answer, but this has a screenshot from the earlier part of the episode where you can see the door. I don't know why this is so important to me. No, we got to have our our priorities here let's see here okay so it's still an auto sales place at the time it was a kawasaki motorcycle um shop and it was in burbank and they covered that all up because it's yeah why but there see yeah it does have the bicentennial

colors in a different piece of promo the only thing i I can think of is that it's a stencil that you had to assemble. And whoever put them all together just accidentally put the comma instead of the apostrophe. Or flipped it upside down. But the thing is, the apostrophe isn't upside down. Well, I guess it is. Because if you do an apostrophe, the round part would be. And they might have stenciled it on the inside. So they were doing it in reverse anyways.

Oh, maybe. And so they like, you know, because the human brain isn't really good at, you know, you can mess that up. And then they were like, whatever. It reads. Yeah. I don't know. It's one of those things where i'm like it i kind of like it that it's yeah it's wrong and i kind of like it anyway this is

yeah there's a it's a twist for us there's a post about this motorcycle shop on rockford files filming locations at blogspot.com so i will link to that in the show notes you can see the screenshot there um there's also some commentary about politics in the comments which maybe we'll touch on oh there was a car dealership in where i lived i can't remember the name of it but i remember uh there was something like they used a different spelling of the owner's name like an older spelling of the owner's name because it looked wrong and and that like would stick in your head more so if they were like jones but it was like with a g instead of a j yeah and so you'd be like gones and they pronounce it jones oh okay and then it just sticks then you yeah i i say that but now i can't remember the name of that car company so So I don't know if it actually works. But that was the theory.

Be that as it may, the point of this scene is that Jim, you know, sees that these cops are here, but Dennis isn't. He goes to the payphone, calls Dennis. Dennis had been trying to get in touch with him. Choco had an accident. He blew himself up. He was driving around Canoga Park with a truck full of dynamite. Jim wants to know exactly where it was. There was a bunch of undeveloped property.

Every step of the way, Dennis is like, there's nothing here. There's nothing here. This is the access road it's near, but there's nothing there. Yeah. Apparently his wife said they had property in Arrowhead and he was going to take the dynamite there to blow up tree stumps. But that's in the opposite direction of of canoga park and jim's like well that's not far from lee ronstadt dennis says he'll look into connections if there's any evidence and jim says thanks and we cut to the firebird pulling up behind the

remains of the burned out truck this is when we pan over to see Henry and a new member of our squad here, hanging out in the car, keeping an eye on what's going on. We'll talk about him in a minute. Gotta mention the synth. There's some real good synth going here. And there's a really great shot. I mean, this is just jim coming seeing the burned out truck there's like a little shack that's all like broken down and stuff jim goes over to look at that and then he leaves and these guys follow him so that's the the sum of the the content here but there's a good synth. And also, this is a great visual palette. Jim's wearing brown. And he's on a background that's in various shades of brown and brown green, including the firebird, which is gold. And it's just similar to how in Real Easy Red Dog, there's that amazing shot where they're all in blue on like a blue background this is a

wonderful tonal study of brown that i just sent you yes that's a good one so many browns so many browns the other thing is in the car henry is arguing with this guy whose name we never get but is credited as clamshell so it's a good one it's a good one arguing with clamshell henry's asking what they should do and then says red eye leader says that and clamshell goes you always call her that she's your mother yes she's director of ordinance um but henry doesn't want to lose him so they followed him clamshell i was like that is a familiar face. My notes are Brian James. Brian James. So, yeah, where did you recognize him from in particular?

I'll tell you that at some point I almost ran a game jam that was you take a tagline from a movie that Brian James is in. He was in 177 different roles according to IMDB. I didn't pull that off the top of my head obviously he was in one episode of incredible hulk yeah i think most recognizable to me i know which one's most recognizable to you the one most recognizable to me is he's the uh replicant that fails the voight-Kampff test in the beginning of Blade Runner. And that is typical of the roles that he plays. I feel like he's a really good, not your lead bad guy, but a good henchman. I, of course, recognize him from The Fifth Element. you know um i of course recognize him from the fifth element where he is a general who uh recruits bruce willis for a mission that is already what bruce willis wants to do um and is both general

monroe is the character uh he he's silly but in a very realistic way, which is kind of a counterpoint to the other to the unrealistic silliness and also the weird. The fifth element is one of my favorite movies of all time. It has the weirdest tone and he fits right into that. Anyway, I'm so glad that I clicked on him just to see because he's barely in this episode and he's he's he he's an all-time great is all i have to say he is a that guy like you you'll see the you know when you watch the episode you're like oh him who's that guy anyway they follow so here as clamshell he and henry follow uh jim jim goes to the hall of records he's looking at the property owners you gotta love a hall of records i love a hall of records i like how

specifically they're like well if you want the history you're gonna have to go to the you know get the type you go to the department of titles or whatever he's like no i just want the current owners so this property has been subdivided and sold in one and one and a half acre parcels and i guess he can't just give them the list so jim has this guy to start reading all of the names i mean we've seen this in other rockford files episodes where he can't copy things down at hall of records right like yeah like so he like coughs and tears the page out to cover it or something like that yeah yeah so uh in the car so clamshell is by far the most together of any of these guys yeah he's like he's at the hall of records because he's trying to find of any of these guys yeah he's like he's at the hall

of records because he's trying to find out who owns that land and he's like well uh we're covered there because lee's husband bought it and uh clamshell says which one she's had five it's like uh virgil and he rolls his eyes as we cut inside for the guy reading Ronstadt, Virgil and Lee. And Jim just darts away. I think the guy even gets another name in after that. He gets another one name out and he's like, oh, is that the one you wanted? And he's like, thanks, where's your phone? Jim calls

Dennis. Dennis is not there. Jim leaves. Henry wants to stop him. The other guy says, you have no right to make this decision. It's up to the Security Council. And Henry says, no if we do that he gets away and they follow so now we have a dramatic following chase you gotta love jim checking his mirrors like i just every time jim's like huh i've seen that car you're like all right good. This is mostly done in long shots and overheads where Jim kind of navigates out of the city streets and gets out on the highway. And then we see the chase speed up as these two goons are chasing him on the highway.

There are a couple of fun little bits with oncoming cars. There's a great shot where they go into a tunnel and they come out side by side like yeah kind of shooting to either side of the camera as they approach which is really fun um there was a weird gag with a guy on the side of the road and i can't remember what it was i was expecting it to come around again but it didn't um they henry tries to to force him off and at one point and he kind of goes up on the shoulder, but then manages to come back and outpace him again. So it's some good catch-up, fall-back kind of action. Once we get on the highway, there's no inside shots.

We don't see any faces or anything. It's all just exterior. I think the story is kind of that Jim is looking for an opportunity, and there's a couple times where the goons kind of of almost get him but he's he's able to get out but then that opportunity comes when they rush past a speed trap and so now there's a cop following them uh the stakes are higher they both kind of go off onto the shoulder again kind of like jim's letting them push him off but then he goes up onto high ground and the goon car can't match it and falls down into a ditch. And that's the end of the chase. Not over an edge and exploding, which is important because that you almost would expect

this episode. But yeah. And we end the scene where Jim triumphantly is standing over the car and goes, mom should never have let you have the car i got him cut to deal overseeing a sweep of kenoga park yeah as the cops are picking up the ordinance and the crew is all there in handcuffs deal is facing off with lee um asking her like where stuff is how much there is etc there's some business where where he then starts asking Henry. Henry starts answering and he's like, you only have to tell him your name, nothing else, just your name. That's international law.

He's like, where do you think you are? Becker says that Henry already told them about their paramilitary operation and stockpiling ordnance is against the law. We got a right to bear arms. It's in the Constitution. Well, it's not spelled out in the Constitution. That doesn't mean hand grenades and bazookas and automatic weapons i will say i i love the you you only have to give me your name it's international law we're allowed to have guns that's in the constitution like whose law are you under it's some real sovereign citizen stuff

where yeah yeah you really get to pick and choose she says like why are you like you're not even involved and jim says i'm involved he tried to frame me for murder and henry says well not on purpose it just kind of turned out that way they're going to blow up all the dynamite and they're taking the weaponry for for evidence and we end the scene with uh lee very nobly lifting her chin and going we were prepared and jim who were you expecting and then becker gets to give a little hand signal to uh explode you know to explode the dynamite and we freeze frame on the big explosion in the middle of canoga park yeah because they didn't get enough of that i know one more explosion more we cut to the trailer where Rocky echoes. Who were they expecting? Yes.

Jim saying the enemy. Who knows? They're all certifiable bananas. Viola appears. She has an apology to make. So what happened was she was going to go rinse out the cookie jar and she found the gun and she thought that was strange or whatever. So she mentioned it to the van driver, which I totally that henry was the van driver for this van service i missed it too so that's how he knew about the gun and then he stole it because it was something that wouldn't be traced to him and

it just happened to be jim's and now we all know what happened but yes again that detail where the van didn't come around on the day of the explosion that makes sense because henry was off not doing his job he was up late blowing up blowing up places yep so uh if you're so inclined i suppose you could say in a way that i had something to do with the fix you got yourself in. That's an apology? That's it. Rocky's like, just let it be. The cops dropped all the charges. Everything's fine.

And Jim's like, it's not fine. I'm out five grand. Viola says she'll clean house until it's paid off. She always pays her debts. And we get like a horrified look on Jim's face. Yeah. No, no, that's not necessary. No, it's settled.

But since she apologized to Jim, it's only right that he apologizes to Leonard. And she opens the door. And we end our episode of Viola calling Leonard out the door with this horrified look on Jim's face as this isn't what he wanted. This isn't what he wanted at all. The end. Yeah.

Lots of fun. Bit of a romp. Yeah. I love an episode that leaves Jim down five grand. But look, he's getting made up and made service. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I guess we'll have to see if his trailer looks demonstrably cleaner over the rest of the series.

I mean, I guess he gets the trailer fixed from insurance one assumes probably not mentioned who knows how long um insurance companies will hold jim's policy considering front doors alone would cost them he gets to the point where he doesn't even make those claims right yeah yeah but uh yeah fun episode yeah i enjoyed it yeah yeah it's a little off kilter with the whole like jim is involved just in the most tangential manner uh yeah and there's also no real like i mean i mean there's a murder obviously but there's no race against the clock which isn't a lot of these where like something is going to happen unless jim can solve it well i mean he is on the hook for that he is on the hook for the murder so he is trying to clear his

own name but it's kind of like yeah but the attitude of the show i think transitions from focusing on that to focusing on like what is their deal yeah the the premise of the episode is to just putting him on hook for the murder is not to put pressure on him throughout the episode, but to get him moving in towards the investigation. Yeah. Yeah. Because what is it? There's like partway through. He's like, I know. Oh, no, it's not that he's no longer on the hook. It's just that he knows it's not Leonard. But he's like, things are weird. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I need to figure out what's going on. things are weird yeah yeah like i need to figure out what's going on his investigation has not borne anything that will get him off the hook but he also is finding out these weird connections and so he keeps pursuing them i think there's a little bit of of it where like if this was a chapman if it was chapman instead of deal there would still be this element of like but it was still your gun rockford like i can still get you on a technicality or something because it's deal it's like oh that's what's going on all right well let's claim all the ordinance let's get these

this militia off the streets you imagine that things are not going to go well for them because the dude committed a murder and they had all this unlawful ordinance and you know there's probably a conspiracy charge that could be like it is going to be pretty serious for these guys um so jim is probably in the clear uh but yeah definitely of had a fun fun to watch it had that aspect where i was like oh i kind of remembered this and then it would fall into place and i'm like oh that's what that is like because i didn't remember exactly i remembered the explosion like there's some kind of ordinance thing there's an explosion there's some militia thing but like i didn't really remember how that all fell out i think it's a very on point depiction of this paranoid

yes you know there's this kind of this this strain of like paranoid right-wing thinking that as we were saying has achieved new heights in the QAnon era. And I appreciate that it is being framed in this episode as not great. Again, this keeps some comment sections on the Internet not happy with this particular episode because it has all these liberal talking points, etc., which I don't think we need to we all litigate the second amendment as part of this show jim and james garner fall on this he's uh sorry sorry that your show made by a progressive is progressive yeah sorry sorry about that yeah um but yeah in my memory it was

a fun one and i will have to say coming out the other side. Yeah, that's a fun one. Yeah, it's a fun one. TM, TM, lots of good humorous twists. Uh, lots of, uh, you know, I,

I love it that everyone in this episode until the very end thinks that Jim is somehow responsible for his own troubles. Yeah. Even though we, as the audience are like, it's not, how can he be responsible? He didn't do anything.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, the thing that drags him into it is just that he owns this gun. like, it's not. How can he be responsible? He didn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, the thing that drags him into it is just that he owns this gun. That's it. Yeah. It's just coincidence. Yeah. The driver of all great tales.

And I think, like you said, the the characters. This is a really good episode for like every character is a character. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like every one of that militia is different from every other one of that militia and that's that's fun it's you know like you could ask why is why introduce clamshell right because you could have had uh pete do it or whatever but i have no problem with clamshell

being in it obviously clamshell almost seems like like he takes it he doesn't take it that seriously but he also is really invested like from his interactions with henry henry's doing everything because he thinks his mom wants him to right yeah yeah uh whether he's right or not he wants to be the hero yeah while clamshell seems like like he believes in the cause but not in the like he doesn't care about all the like kayfabe right he's like what why do i have to deal with these guys yeah yeah yeah he absolutely is like oh america is under threat from these bleeding heart liberals and we need to stockpile munitions for the eventual invasion but he's like but like the director of ordinance like really like we're just a bunch of yeah like we're just we're just a bunch of, like we're just, we're just a couple of guys,

just a couple of guys with bombs. Anyway, that's my read on the, uh, just based on the, the characterization by, um, by Brian James.

All right. Well, yeah. Fun episode. Glad we finally got around to it. That's, that's how it's going to be for all of them here on out. We got around to it.

Finally got around to it. got around to it yep we are uh close enough to the end of the run where we now can plot out kind of what we're doing with right all of the rest of the episodes yeah which is interesting and a little a little scary but uh yeah they all seem like good episodes so i'm excited to get to all of them yeah i was at some point worried that we were putting off episodes we didn't want to see until the end but i think it's we got a good we got a good stretch ahead of us so that's fun um all right well with that all said we will of course be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files