Two Hundred A Day - Episode 129: Three Day Affair with a Thirty Day Escrow

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

Nathan and Eppy join Jim as he faces off with a neurotic playboy, a real estate slimeball and Arabic culture clash in S5E7 Three Day Affair with a Thirty Day Escrow. Rousted out of bed by an angry Arabic patriarch to answer for a recent gig where Jim was looking for his daughter, Jim wants to get to the bottom of the situation. After tracking down his former client Sean, the two of them stumble over the body of the missing woman's husband, and things get weirder (and more dangerous) from there. We found this one chock full of Rockfordishness, but didn't love the trope-y inclusion of Middle Eastern culture as a source of othered menace. 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/) * Jay Thompson, 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

Rockford, Alice, Phil's Plumbing. We're still jammed up on a job so we won't be able to make your place. Use the bathroom at the restaurant one more night. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Poletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. And we are coming to you today with the next step in our journey through the directorial work of Ivan Dixon and also an accidental thematic pair with our last episode in terms of the antagonists that we will be dealing with at least. Oh, yes. Season 5, Episode 7, Three Day day affair with a 30 day escrow.

Classic, classic Rockford title. Yeah. So this is in season five. And like, this is a real season five title. Yeah. Like the season one titles are all like, you know, say farewell to Jennifer. And yeah, they're very like dark noir things and like later on they're like how do we juxtapose the most mundane crime with uh with something else again we're not quite through the whole body of work but we're almost there with ivan dixon and again this one has some fun directorial flourishes uh some interesting choices i think uh in terms of transition which we'll get to and we get to indulge in a helicopter which is nice oh yeah yeah i was like wait what helicopter oh right yes yes it is indulgent uh and this episode is written by david chase um

pretty chasey pretty chasey i guess i was thinking about it afterwards because it doesn't really have mob stuff. That's like one of my go-to like, oh, that's, it's a very David Chase episode. There's the mob, but it does have the central kind of like antagonist slash foil,

you know, episode character as opposed to serious character who has this like weird psychological turmoil right yeah you're talking about Sean right yeah Sean is a chasey foil of some sort yeah yes this one also has a

like low-key star studded cast may not low-key lots of guest stars of the era cast so it's kind of fun um we do have a top of the episode not even really content warning more content note i guess sure yeah the main villain in this is a arabic culture like i like uh i don't know if they even say exactly where they're from. They mentioned exactly once because I was looking for it.

I was like, are they even? Because I think we talked about this in the last episode as well. But I associate this very much with the 70s, this trope of the Middle Eastern kingdoms coming to America how that like creates strife but specifically they say that they're i think i forget where it is it's it's very brief in passing but they're from the arab democratic republic okay i mean i guess it's better than making up some like arabic sounding words for the name of the country but uh well it exists it doesn't exist oh uh it's not called that now it's the sawari i just wanted to make sure it's in the western sahara oh okay it's also known as the so so so raw so why we so i don't i'm not gonna or the western sah. So it is just south of Morocco. I mean, that is a Arab democratic Republic.

I don't know. It looks like it is a complicated situation. It's a partially recognized state. That's kind of a breakaway state from Morocco. Okay. Well, we're not, we're not equipped. We don't need to litigate this. Yeah.

Um, I, okay. So I take that back though. It does sound very generic. Um, just looking at the Wikipedia, apparently it was, it was a Spanish colony that became its own Republic in 1976, but is a disputed territory with Morocco.

All right. All right. So it's 1978. This could be a reference to the newly created Arab Democratic Republic. Or it could also not be. Yeah. I think the wording here is that, first of all, they don't seem to be using any Arabic actors to play Arabic characters in this. And second of all, it deals some some pretty touchy subjects uh and we personally are

not equipped to say whether it does that well or not yeah right like yeah it's very it's a very tv drama level of it it's not like it's not like an educational situation or trying to get into the weeds on the history or anything it's very much like there's even a line to that effect of like well that's your culture but you're here now right right so yeah you know i don't know well i mean like fundamentally we're just you and i are not going to be able to decide yeah yeah we're not in a position to say how well it treats this particular uh interpretation of a culture yeah this sort of topics. It does stick out. Like, maybe there's one, now again

just based on actors' names, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but there seems to be a low proportion of any of Middle Eastern actors being cast in these roles, and it's very TV drama othered kind of like accents and stuff like that.

So, it seems to me like something uh very of its time exactly that said that said there is a lot of real rockfordishness yes so that so that uh we get to look forward to a lot of real rockfordishness it does a thing that we we've seen i mean obviously other times in rockford files but like i really like seeing different parties with different interests and different goals all pulling at each other and how that affects the situation as as the audience we're usually almost entirely in rockford's court so we're just like he's the sun around which all of these things are revolving in their circles within circles kind of thing but uh in general i just you know uh i guess we'll get to it we get

to it but i like seeing how sean's concerns and what he does causes problems and yeah yeah totally and also i just edited i just edited uh episode, the recent episode we did with Lieutenant Deal, where we hadn't seen Deal for a while. And now we get to see, this is a real Chapman-y episode. So it was having that one fresh in my mind. It was kind of nice. I'm like, ooh, now we get Chapman. Then I realized we have an episode in between that I think has neither of them. it is not a back-to-back but uh yeah it's it's fun yeah that's my opening montage starts with checkman same so we should probably get right into that i guess my only other thing before we get into the preview montage is that this was an episode where i was doing my notes a little bit uh after some fairly full days so i wasn't in my full investigatory note frame of mind uh i was a little more in my all right let's get through this not in a negative way but like there's lots of conversation the david chase episode there's lots of talking and there's a lot of dense information carried in the dialogue so trying to keep track of that stuff there were

some things where i was just like who's that character what's their name and i just did not go back i try to make sure i know everyone's name so i can talk about it you know smoothly while we while we do the episode but in this case i think there's lots of little places where i'm like and i just didn't take a note about that so be aware um but yeah that all said preview montage obviously we both start off with chapman chapman uh fire good fire hose action great fire hose action uh there's a few good lines in there uh one that stands out as just like a good opening or preview montage line is i'm i am already dead because it just sets the tone there uh as far as or it sets the stakes in a good way uh a lot of this uh preview

montage is telling us exactly what we just told you about there's gonna there might be some things coming up we're hearing accents we're seeing uh lots of men in keffiyehs in various styles with facial hair. And that's basically it. I think I noted somewhere while we were doing it, there was a moment in the – this may be a first for 200 Today. But there's a moment while we're going through it where I was like, why wasn't this in the preview montage? Huh? This just feels like a good, we'll get to it.

We'll get to it. But like, this is the first time I had a moment where I was like, huh, I would have done this. I would have done that a little differently. Yeah. I'm interested to hear what that is.

Now that you say it, there's like two or three things where I'm like, that could probably have been in the preview montage. So I'm interested to hear what one stood out to you. 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 spreadsheet, 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 a Day. 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.

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Joe Greathead, Michael Zalisco, Eric Antenor, Brian Pereira, Jordan Bockelman, not Brockleman, Bill Anderson, and of course, Richard Haddam. If you're interested in keeping us going for as little as $ dollar an episode check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. So we start our episode with our titles right over a again telling us what right what we're in for. I wasn't quite sure how to phrase this like a

like a Middle Eastern melody kind of thing. Yeah. Like the music is meant to invoke something middle Eastern, whether it's actually from the middle East, like everything else in this. And then there's the jazz blues guitar over top of it. Which I think is great. Like it's a really, like the transition is, is really nice.

Um, this is not an objectionable thing. I just thought it was like, okay, this, the episode is like, I don't know. Yeah. It's like the transition is really nice. This is not an objectionable thing. I just thought it was like, OK, this episode is like, I don't know. Yeah, it's like this is what this one's about. The music here is is my second favorite thing about this scene, which is saying a lot considering what my first favorite thing is. I can't wait to hear that, too. This scene is a great example of what in our business we might call a bang um a a narrative device to just to start things off with a proverbial bang to push our protagonist directly

into action and that is jim in his night robe being hustled out of a car by two goons into a hotel. So we're starting post-abduction. Yeah. Like, let's get all that out of the way. Get right to the good stuff. That's my favorite bit about this. Like, I think we first see him from like a little bit of a distance. And I'm like, is he wearing a bathrobe?

Like, what? It's just it's a beautiful moment of like yep this is jim in trouble i i feel like there has to have been an episode with a with with something that starts kind of in it's also you know kind of in media res right like kind of similar but i can't bring it to mind um it seems like something that would have happened by now so it's kind of fun right to see it like happen it's like oh okay obviously this is how an episode of the Rockford Pile starts. It could be any episode, but it happens to be this one. As we soon learn, it's three in the morning and he's been rousted out of bed at gunpoint at the behest of Talib, who is our patriarch of this family from.

Yeah, from from the middle East. Um, Talib is played by Gilbert green, our final Gilbert green appearance. He famously also played the elder Sylvan in requiem for a funny box. Ah, and he was also the, uh,

trying to leave the mob behind mob guy in just a couple of guys. Yes. So a premiere that character from the, yes, for our show, at least, uh, and in kind of a similar role here an older man who chews the scenery and has some kind of weird familial obligation that he feels

really bad about having to do yes but yes he is lying on a couch he is we have a little bit of mention of something that his doctor wants so i think we're we're meant to understand he's ill in some regard right this comes up at the end but it's just kind of given a brief yeah the mention here lying on the couch is not opulent disregard for anything he he needs to be laying down like he's he's he's in ill health but jim has been brought before him uh because he worked for a man named Sean Innes some weeks ago. There's a gag about not being able to pronounce Sean correctly, which is like, okay. There's a two-pronged approach.

The first approach is one. So there's a slimmer, younger man in like a Western style suit. There's some other kind of background goons and then there's one main larger older man in glasses in suit and keffiyeh and a gun and he's the main goon and i'm not you know he doesn't have any lines but uh he's very threatening which is uh comes up very soon but our the younger man starts counting out bills in front of jim and jim protests that he's he's just a small private pi and part of how he keeps his business you know going is his confidentiality uh right for client confidentiality so that's when they call in the

big the big goon who just launches himself out of a chair that was in another room like he was sitting in a chair in the dark waiting to get called in, which is kind of funny. And he, he rolls in, comes behind Jim and just gives him this like nerve pinch on his neck, which looks very uncomfortable. They have a bill that Jim wrote out for the three days of work he did for

Sean on a missing persons gig. This bill is for $715. Sounds like there were some expenses. Well, if he made that money, we don't know. This is just the bill. This isn't his acknowledging he got paid. I feel like if he had not gotten paid, he would have brought it up.

Yeah, that's true. That's very true. But Sean asked him to look for a woman named Kedra Aziz, who Sean claimed uh he had met while skiing and then they got together and then she took off and ripped him off of a bunch of stuff money and jewelry and and and stuff so that's why he hired jim to try and find her jim says that none of this is worth getting his neck broken over which seems fair there's a little important point there where they get offended that he's accusing her of stealing

right and and he's like i'm just reporting what i was told yeah right yeah he's like i'm just telling you what i was hired to do yeah um so sean thought she'd come back to LA. He looked around. He mentions like, you know, I talked to some people in the Arabic community. Couldn't find her. The only thing I found was that she might've taken a plane to Nice. And Talib goes, she never arrived in Nice. This must be settled. The concerns here are unstated. We don't really know why they're're concerned what their relationship to her is etc

i also have to point out my favorite part of all this which is the tennis video game oh yeah when rockford first comes in i had this game when i was a kid not on it so it's uh it's like pong ice hockey and tennis it's just two paddles that go back and forth and you bounce the ball. It's the most basic video game you can have at home. But it's like a table. It's like this full freestanding table version. Yeah, the version I had was probably from Sears and plugged into your TV. They either plug that exact same thing into a tv and then wired it up to this table

with little knobs on it or it also came but the table is like gold it's just this wonderful illustration of like these people are wealthy right and they're at a hotel this isn't like a house yeah they're like in hotel rooms yeah Yeah. Fancy hotel. But a fancy hotel. But you see this video game that like would run on a watch nowadays. Yeah, that is that is a good little bit of business. Well, our our threatening goon pulls his gun, starts escorting Jim to the door. And Jim, in a wonderful example of getting the drop on some goons who think that he's been cowed, suddenly turns, shoves him into the guy next to him while they're both stumbling over, spins, sucker punches the guy on the other side of him, runs out the door. My notes are good old fashioned Rockford drop.

It's just wonderful to see it executed so perfectly. He runs down the hall, quickly hauls out the fire hose and we immediately get the shot from the preview montage where he turns the hose on the guys following him and literally hoses them down to make his escape. Wonderful.

We crossfade from that to Jim trying to hitchhike back home still in his night robe he has a great muttered like yeah i wouldn't have pulled over either lady like when yeah a car just like goes by him uh but a car does pull up and it is in fact a cop car jim starts saying he can explain he just wants to lift home and they turn on their lights and we just this is all from kind of like a medium shot so we can kind of see his body language he just like turns and just like resignedly puts his hands up on the on the he's like i know what's happening it's good it's a good good gag and we cut from there to becker jim in his robe and lieutenant chapman coming in chapman's office

we again recently spoke about the difference between deal and chapman chapman coming into chapman's office we again recently spoke about the difference between deal and chapman chapman is more personally affronted by jim's existence and uh we get to see that here um like it's 4 30 in the morning and now i have to deal with this joker so jim has given them the story you know i was abducted these people are asking about this woman maybe she's in danger uh dennis is trying to defend jim why would you make this up let's look at this rationally no no you look at it if you want to becca it means entering the world of gonzo logic now that's just some trip i don't want to take so good and then says that jim is just giving him the old woman in jeopardy routine.

And he thinks that Jim just got tossed out of some house in Bel Air. You know, isn't going to take Jim's complaint seriously. Ask Dennis how he gets suckered into these things. And before Dennis can reply, never mind. And just slams the door. Just doesn't want anything to do with it. Yeah, it's good Chapman stuff. Only topped by what happens with Chapman later.

We then go to Jim picking a lock underneath a very helpfully labeled nameplate that says Sean Innes. You know, he wants to find out what is going on, of course. He goes into this apartment. There's a couple of manuscripts that he flips through. Two titles. One of them is rimshot which is fine and the other one is see my grave is kept clean which is that's a good one i'm all in i'd read it sean in his so there's an interesting thing about this where um i feel like they're saying something about writers but i don't know what they're saying. Yeah, yeah. And maybe we'll get to that

as we learn more about Sean. Jim finds, I would call it a little black book, but it is a big black book. It is a big one. And we see him flipping through. There's all these entries of women's names and phone numbers and notes about likes to go to dinner or whatever, little reminder go to dinner or, you know, whatever, like little, little, uh, reminder notes. For example, uh, Cynthia Cubbins, the notes for her are Ford. So I'm guessing that's the type of car she drives. Virgo, vegetarian, like skiing, all lights out. That's all you need to know.

It's unclear whether these are notes for him or notes about her. I so I only wrote one of them down. But now I'm wondering because we know something after we've seen the show, we know part of what he's doing here. And I'm wondering if if some of these things like all lights out or something like that is a cue for something. Because honestly, when i first read it i thought he was just saying she's not a very smart person right like like there's no lights on oh i read that as she likes to have the lights off for oh yes activities you're probably much closer to the truth uh yeah, I'm going with you.

Your theory is far better than anything I've brought up. So we're going with that. But some of these could be, yeah, could be subjects of his hustle. Yeah, yeah. As we learn later. In addition to this, Jim finds there's a bunch of, like, pictures of women in this desk drawer as well. And then he finds a check, a payroll check that

has been made out to Sean Ennis from a Cy Margulies and Associates for three grand. Like, oof, it's a serious, serious paycheck. So we cut from there to a helicopter tour of mansions in Bel-Air. This is wonderful. This whole exchange, I really enjoyed. And it's interesting because the character is there for this whole exchange. And then later on, he's in it. And I think if this exchange had not been as long as it was, I wouldn't have remembered who he was at all like i think you know he's he's vital to the plot but he doesn't um i don't think he shows up again until they're all gathered at the end yeah so this is uh cy margulies um he is played by robert alda

the father of alan alda oh Oh, okay. I was wondering. Yeah, this is a long scene with lots of really good banter that I was like, I should be writing some of this down. And then it's really fun to watch, but most of it doesn't really matter. It's mostly like, you know, character dynamic stuff. The main thing is, is that this guy is overblown, right? dynamic stuff. The main thing is, is that this guy is overblown, right? There's no reason for him to be taking Jim in a helicopter to look at some. So Jim's undercover as Mr. Lamont. Jim's story here is that he's he is acting on behalf of an unnamed famous person to buy a fancy house. And Margulies and associates sells fancy houses that's that's

his business so the helicopter tour is kind of a let me impress this potential client with you know just the highest end service kind of thing yeah there's some name dropping there's a lot of name dropping and like he he talks about the construction of a house and jim replies with some facts and figures about who actually built it or whatever and this is great because he says you've researched the plot plans down at the department of building and safety i'm like yeah i bet he did i bet jim did exactly that that is a jim move but he says he likes an informed client and uh and that's why he likes to do the helicopter because it gives the big view before getting into the noise and specifics of a particular home and

jim has a really i thought the chopper might be an affectation good stuff we we go into the walking tour of this property where he says that he understands j's need for discretion, and he starts dropping the names of celebrities he's sold homes to. Very discreet. So Margulies is trying to ride this line where he wants to impress this person. He wants to impress this potential client with all the famous people he's dealt with. But he also wants to show, I don't know, it's a weird combination of like, he's thirsty, right? He wants the sale. And so he's thirsty right he wants this yeah

yeah and so he's he's trying to impress him with this name dropping and then what jim does is he starts implying there's an even bigger yeah you know a more important person that he's there on behalf of oh just an example just an example charo greg and sure when they were still together ringo star liza barbara all major major people have no offense mr margulies but there are Greg and Sherry when they were still together. Ringo Starr, Liza Barbara. All major, major people. No offense, Mr. Margulies, but there are names and there are names. Not really. I'm sorry, but I can't really tell you who I'm working for.

Oh, absolutely. I only wanted you to know. It's pretty good status stuff. Jim finally drops the name. Sean Innes says, like, you like you know my friend sean innis i think he works for you he's the one who put me onto this property because they're looking at a particular like mansion right that apparently is on the market for 3.5 mil it's a lot um margulies says uh he's a nice man i know him socially but he doesn't work for me and jim's like huh strange how i could have misunderstood that he i like this i saw a payroll you know a payroll check he he had it at a poker game yeah you know probably like he put his check out for the put or something like a real

real reach yeah he's like no there must be under you must be mistaken uh then there's more banter and jim finally drops uh that he likes the the place it's big enough for a security detail and the two children want to be in california especially caroline are we talking here about jacklyn kennedy on that yeah i didn't say that and you do well not to repeat anything you've heard here today absolutely it's like you said you've dealt with a very very famous it's no big deal absolutely i don't think i'd be speaking out of school if i said to you that those names i mentioned before just chicken liver i want to show business fame forget it i mean i think that you i mean she could trust me implicitly

I mean, she could trust me implicitly. We cut from there to Jim coming home and then a fist just dropping out of the frame onto the back of his neck. Now, I mean, we all know that that's in play when Jim comes home. But specifically, Jim had been abducted from home and fled from his abductees, abductors. Sorry, his abductors. Why is he returning home? Like, why doesn't he hang out at Rocky's or find some other knowing that he's heading home? I'm like, Jim, this is a bad idea. It turns out it's not a bad idea for the reasons I was suspicious of, but it's still a bad idea.

I think he's going home because otherwise how can we architect this particular flourish of confrontation? We now have a hell of a goon. Yes. Not only is he wearing a dirty jean jacket with a big patch that says Ludes. Apparently his name is Ludes and he is credited as Ludes. Ludes. In the credits. Oh my gosh.

He is, this guy is played by Richard Maul. The Dungeon Master of the classic 1980s film, The Dungeon Master. But most audiences in that day would remember him as Bull from Night Court. He was also the voice of Two-Face in the Batman the Animated Series. Yeah, he's been in a lot of things. Yeah, he's done a lot of voice work. This is a young, spry Richard Maul. I don't know.

He's great. This is an all-time goon. Ludes, all-time goon. So he gets to drop on Jim. He's probably, I mean, he's taller than James Garner. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's huge. Wait, let's check this, because IMDB will tell us that he's like seven feet tall or something like that. I'm over-exaggerating there, but like uh how tall is richard maul all right i'm coming up

with six foot eight yeah that's he was six feet tall by the age of 12 and garner's six three so you know yeah a big man six eight is enormous yes oh man so. So he's towering over Jim, which is wild. He pulls out a gun and says, hey, look at this. I found a 38 in your cookie jar. Jim hopes he didn't didn't spoil his appetite or something like that. Just very good. I like I like that he was in there long enough to find the 38 in the cookie jar. But probably he just was going for cookie he's

probably hungry um he wants to know why jim is looking for sean in this jim starts spinning out some story about some some client and he says i don't like how you're stalling and he throws him across the room uh which legitimately looks pretty sore like uh j Jim is like clutching his arm and it's like, okay, okay. You know, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what's going on.

And it seems like he's in pain, but so he gets thrown into like the chair that's kind of in the corner with the little book rack divider between that room and the, and the kitchen as he is stammering out some, you know, how he's going to tell everything he reaches underneath the chair to where a bottle of champagne has rolled under there when he when he fell into the the wall so he keeps babbling and then he comes up and he shoots that cork out right into the eye of lewds gotta keep a bottle of champagne on hand just in case just

in case a six foot eight lewds shows up all right so two things first of all i was like jim's done this before and then i was like am i remembering the 20 a day episode we did that starts with um uh the james bond like oh yes and he quirks a guy in the eye. I think you're absolutely right. So I'm definitely remembering that, but now I'm searching my notes. I really feel like I've seen Jim do this, but maybe I'm just remembering this episode

from the first time I saw it. Yeah, I don't know. So maybe if someone can do the legwork and remind me of an earlier episode where he does this maybe he like sprays like sprays champagne at someone or something like that seems very likely some some sort of carbonated beverage he absolutely isn't anyway it's great it's a great it's a great moment the choreography is is really good. He tackles, loods, gets the better of him with a gut punch. You know, gets a knee in his back and drives him down into a chair and has control.

He seems out of breath. And I really feel like this was a real like, you know, we're doing it in this take. Yes, it's it's good. The guy's like, I'm not going to tell you nothing. And so he starts saying the potential headlines here. You know, Malibu resident defends from home invasion. Eight foot picnic ham shot and killed while breaking and entering illegally. Such a good line.

He's like, OK, Sean sent him. He wants to know why. He wants to know why you're looking for him. He spills the location where Sean's hiding out this address in bel-air and jim's like okay you're going to be a guest the county for the night there's a wonderful final exchange i'll get you for this dude i swear man i promise with my last breath you're gonna wish you never see me because i'm gonna see a lawyer about this cork in the eye thing. And you're going to be looking at what hell of a personal injury suit.

So good. A great little variation of the typical threat. Yeah. It's not that he's going to get him or kill him or whatever. No. I'm going to get a lawyer for this cork in the eye thing. By this point, five he is he's gonna like jim's gonna lose money on this we just know that's how his luck goes with this kind of

stuff i'm sending you the screenshot that is the then the freeze frame that this scene ends on to to go to commercial so good so good oh which manages to get jim smiling as well as um staring eye oh it's so yeah as you said 100 all-time goon here richard mall yep oh man so this is the first of a couple times where a scene ends on a freeze frame to go to commercial yeah again is kind of weird uh yeah you can really feel the commercial breaks in this particular episode uh because of those free for yeah i don't know and i don't know what's up with that if that's like an editing thing like for some reason like there wasn't a clean break in the filming or something i don't know yeah because it's not in everyone it's just some of them it could even be like a um a prepare for dvd thing where the other ones got you know yeah maybe cut out but

i doubt it i i think it's just some some production thing maybe it's hard to hard to say well we come back from that commercial with uh jim going to this fancy house uh he passes some fancy cars got a fetching bag with him and when he rings the doorbell a woman all wrapped up in a in like a like a sheet answers she is not ready for the day yet he asks if sean is in he says that sean called him to bring him some books and things and like has the bag that's his little cover and he apologizes for getting her out of bed um and she says i noted this because i was like this is a weird thing to say but i guess this flows into the the ending of the scene she says there's

precious little reason to stay in bed around here yes i i wrote it down too because i was like like what does that even mean i thought they're trying to hint at the opposite right right but yeah we'll get to that yeah so we finally we finally meet Sean Innes. He's played by Richard Romanis, who has appeared in other David Chase stuff. He had a character in some of the Sopranos episodes. He was a voice in Wizards and in Heavy Metal. He was in one of the Rockford movies. He was in A Blessing in Disguise.

I don't remember which role that was, but he was in that movie. Yeah, I can't say that I remember his voice. Oh, he was Weehawk in Wizards. Interesting. Yeah, this is his only Rockford Files appearance. He is lounging poolside. He has a bandage on his nose. Yes.

he has a bandage on his nose yes um they they both in kind of passing are calling for the maid angelina to like do things and so he's calling and he's saying he's speaking in spanish for angelina to something and he says that he wants waters and something agua and then jim comes up behind him and then just splashes pool water on him to get his attention. He jumps up and Jim ends up grabbing him by his necklace. Like he has like a gold chain necklace. So yes, it's a good look. He's very tan and fit. It is a good image where Jim is holding onto his gold chain around his neck in order to leading him around the, by the pool.

Yeah. He says, i just wanted to know why you were looking for me i wasn't trying to get in your space he says i'm sorry i sent lewds after you so i just like that's that's the guy's name apparently so plot wise sean wants to know why uh jim was looking for him it's a little confused because he's lying to jim in some regard at at least. Yeah. He's like, I also want to know what's going on with,

I think he calls it the Arab problem, which is that they happened to him first burst into his place. He describes how one of the guys balled up his fist and punched him right in the nose. But he managed to run out and get away from them. And he's holed up here with this, this woman's name is Miriam with Miriam. Jimim wants to know what's the deal you you know you hired me to find this woman kedra aziz clearly there's more to it what's going on he said that he met her at a tennis club

where she was the housekeeper they got close closer than he thought they would are you telling me that you fell in love with a housekeeper is that what you're trying to say uh love i mean i can't deal with that why the story about kidra ripping you off huh well as as as our feelings intensified she became frightened i guess the honesty got to be too much she took off and i was afraid that you wouldn't want to you wouldn't want to track her down, you know? I mean, if you knew that she took off on her own. And how right you were. Jim says that this is why he does not involve himself in domestic cases. We also observe as Angelina comes in with some groceries,

Sean kind of sweet talks her, asks her for some breakfast, and then Miriam comes in, she is now dressed, but then she comes in and dresses sean down for laying around ordering breakfast what do you think this is a hotel and just lays into him and then kicks him out you can't stay here pack your bags get out he tries to like plead he says he's not feeling well and she says after two nights of staying with you i'm not feeling well either we get the sense that this is not his this is not how he generally expects to be treated by women of his acquaintance jim comes in with a you can leave with me he again tries to beg off saying that he doesn't feel well and jim says i'm tired of being in trouble because of you you go pack or i'll unpack your nose.

It's a good line. We're going to see and hear more about Sean's various ailments throughout. It's a great character trait. He medicalizes everything. That and there's this clear through line with the astrology stuff with the way he talks. There's a line in there where he's like, I don't blame you for wanting to get to your anger you know like it's very uh new wavy he uses this language of um i guess now we'd say he uses like the language of therapy i think at the time like the language of like psychotherapy yeah where he's always describing things but never actually talking about them. Right. Yes.

And he's kind of self-aware about that. So it's like, I don't know. I feel like this is a kind of tension that I've seen where it's like, if I just talk about the thing, that's like dealing with it. Right. And again, we get more of this in the next couple of scenes,

but yeah, we, we get the picture that, you know, he's a womanizer he generally gets on well with women it was surprising to him that he got closer to this woman kedra than he usually does right also jim says something like like you fell in love with a housekeeper or something like that there's a little nuance here that i think makes more sense with later learning more about

sean later where it's like he, you know, he's generally hanging out with, with wealthy women. Yes. And so there's a little bit of like, that doesn't ring true to Jim. And it turns out it is awesome. It is not true,

but that little detail sticks out to me now, just after going through it, 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. playing games zines and other podcasts uh 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 ndpaoletta. 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. We go to them in the Firebird. Sean is explaining, he's explaining to Jim that this this thing with miriam she only kicked him out because of his physical depletion because of all of the trauma he's been through recently and he says it's never happened before and it's never going to happen again and i guess so now that makes sense with the with the line uh yeah there's no reason to stay in bed womp womp jim asks how many women with money he has on the hook and sean you make it sound so mechanical i answer basic human needs caring affection so again there's a lot here

where we kind of hear sean using this language of of this kind of like self-analysis language this is what i was talking about this chasey and neurotic uh foil There's a great line that he has where Jim is telling him that he's clearly afraid of what's happening and the stress of that might be affecting his, his performance. And he responds with emotion has never affected my performance, which that's just like, it's right to the character, right?

Like, yep, that's good. At some point in here, we learned that one just like, it's right to the character, right? Like, yep. That's good. At some point in here, we learned that one of the, uh, one of the Arabs that they've encountered is Kedra's brother. That was like in passing.

I, I noted it. And then I was like, I'm not quite sure which one they're talking about, but they're going to the place that she theoretically works, uh, as Sean says, and they pull up to the mansion that jim toured with uh

the margulies jim says and i love this so my coincidence meter is redlined and you got sweat on the top of your lip why did margulies deny you worked for him well well i oh i think it's all gonna come out the wash anyway and soon yes i don't need you to lie to me about this again let's just go in yeah which is fantastic this is also clearly not a tennis club so like you know go from there uh so they go into this this house there's some ominous framing and no score so we know that something is has has happened in here. There's like, there's like a broken spot on a door and then they open the door and it's broken because there's an arrow that is shot into the door from the backside. So that is there.

Uh, they go in, kind of look through the space and we see Sean see something. There's some feet on the ground behind a, uh, a table. They come around and there is a dead man on the floor uh some stuff falling on top of him there's another arrow that i think he's either holding or is on top of him jim checks there's blood on the back of his head we see a

shot of him seeing a framed picture of a woman presumably ked Kedra, on the table. And then Jim goes to call the police. There's a bit from the preview montage here where Sean says, that's just going to get us in deeper. Yeah. Was it accessory after effect? Jim was like, not reporting this is going to get us in deeper. While he's giving Becker the address on the phone, Sean picks up some kind of box, sneaks up behind him,

whacks him in the back of the head, and we freeze frame on that into our commercial. There was just a nice moment of acting when the, or voiceover, I don't know, when the, just before the body is found, when, I'm sorry, the body is found, but the camera hasn't found it. We get Sean. Oh yeah. His reaction is really good yeah it's very real it's just like oh i think it's particularly good for this character because this character has been putting on an act for us the whole time and this feels like a good like actual emotion moment uh we cut to or we come back from commercial to cops on the scene

and just a great outfit just a great outfit on becker oh yeah which i shared with you uh that man just never has anything but like the most beleaguered face it's perfect yeah so good, this opening bit about what department handles the arrow. Oh, it's so good. Okay, so Becker's there and then he's clearly been, you know, he's been on the scene and then Chapman arrives. And he sees the arrow and asks Becker, who handles this? Ballistics or forensics? And Becker says, well, I was just talking to to ballistics and you know they want someone to make a call about that yeah chairman's like uh um all right so we find out that the

victim this dead man is muhammad farood aziz a sheikh from the arab democratic republic republic and husband to kedra yes we then have two like fully uniformed guys come in uh asking who's in charge chapman sees them and goes deputy chief gorman so apparently the deputy chief has come on the scene in in full uniform uh there's a great moment where chapman's like deputy chief he's like ah lieutenant what's happened here and chapman kind of like stumbles through like well this man is dead uh becker can give you all the hard information yes and then becker just just like bullet points like boom boom boom this is all the things that happened which is uh i love it it's very good it's just lush chapman moment here all of it all of it he's he storms into the scene tries to throw his weight around doesn't know anything and then immediately gets status dropped by by becker being

the one who actually knows what's going on we get the detail that the weapon that killed disease was a glass swordfish figurine which i just lovely little little detail rock vertishness there so the situation is that the diseases have been going through a divorce and i think this was also mentioned by sy margulies when they did the tour he was like this yeah this is going on the market because the couple's getting a divorce or something like that there were no servants in the house uh yesterday um they don't know where the wife is he's been dead since at least midnight the deputy chief asks who found the body jim is there he starts talking thank you mr rocket i'll fill the chief in he's interested in this case primarily because of the uh doug let him finish

well the fact is i was working on a case involving the dead man's wife, Kedra Aziz. I was kidnapped. I reported it, but at the time it was just a big yuck. I got no action. Who yucked? And Jim nods at Chapman and then kind of slightly nods at Becker,

like they're on either side of him deputy chief gorman would like lieutenant chapman to put a full report in writing about the whole situation for him including why jim's report was never reported was never recorded chapman tries for just a short bit to like well you know you know, like explain something away. And he just wasn't having it. He's like, if you're going to do this, write it out for me, including including why you did not. Yeah, you did not take this serious report seriously. We go outside.

There's some bickering between Dennis and Chapman about what they're going to do next. Chapman says that his job is to solve homicides and he's going to break this case and nail Sean Innes. And Jim says, well, he ran away in my car, so don't nail him too hard. Yeah.

We go to Jim finding Sean right back at Miriam's. So not too bright. Our Sean, I feel comes up behind him at the pool again. I'm going to do something I've never done before. Usually I like to talk to a guy first, but with you, I'm going to wrap you right in the mouth. Now there, there, there, there. Now maybe I can talk to you without getting all riled up.

Sean apologizes. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't let the cops trace him he says he's at the end of his tether jim says that the cops think you killed aziz so you're gonna have to come clean about the affair you had with his wife and this gets us to i really am a fraud you know jim yeah and we get into more he wants to talk about the problems with his emotions uh but jim is more concerned with the problems outside his head. The deal is, and this is after, I'm going to level with you, Jim.

Right. Good sign. Yeah. When Cy Margulies wants a property to sell and the owners aren't motivated to sell, he'll create a climate of change because that's when people want to move. A job or something happens in their relationship. Sean goes in to seduce wives. And he has all attractive female real estate agents that work for him.

And they're the ones who go after husbands. Yeah. And he's like, and soon enough, it's in divorce court and the house is ready to sell, which is a hell of a grift. Yeah, it is. is woof he must be making lots so jim's like you know so everything went according to plan and he says this was actually atypical uh as he started you know he came here from the old country and he just let loose he started partying uh got up to his own his own affairs um but his wife was filling the traditional

role and wouldn't divorce him even though he was being unfaithful to her so that's why sy and sy wanted to sell that house so yes he sent in sean and then things went as planned except that sean started to love kedra and then so he told her the truth that Sean started to love Kedra. And then, so he told her the truth about why he was there, what he was doing. And that's when she took off. As she should. So she's the only one who can explain the situation and clear Sean, right?

So go put your pants on and let's find her. Sean wants to know how they're going to do that. Jim's been looking for her and hasn't found her so far. And he says, well, you've been lying to me so far. So tell me more about her. The truth. The only people she's really close to were the like the servants in the house. And she was particularly close to her maid.

And then Sean says something like, but she wouldn't. Yeah. People like that don't live with their maids. And Jim's like, people like that can't live without them. Yeah. That's some primo stuff there. So sure enough, they track down the maid or they go to the maid's house. And sure enough, Kedra is there.

Before they go in, we have the kind of emotional core of our episode with Jim and Sean. I mean, she's not going to deal with her anger and I'm not going to know how to deal with her inability to deal. And neither of us are going to really be dealing from feelings. Well, don't you skip all that minestrone. Tell me you're sorry as hell, and you feel like a slug. He's already pre-analyzing the whole thing. See, the problem is he loves her, and he can't get his mind around that,

because love is too big of a thing. Maybe you're not a slug, but I don't know. You use all those big buzzwords it's just a big cover for any kind of behavior but you punch somebody in the stomach and you can say that you're you're coming from your feelings or you're trying to connect with the now but there's still somebody laying on the sidewalk holding a big hurt so good uh cord gym moral just cutting to the matter yeah sure it matters how you feel but I'd walk hole in a big hurt. So good. Uh, cord, Jim, moral, just cutting to the matter. Yeah,

sure. It matters how you feel, but, but what really matters is what you do. Yeah. What happens? Yeah. She was a princess.

That's what attracted Sean to her. She, he's, he's, he's painting a portrait where like most of the women that he is with, you know, are, are also like kind of like party people.

And they're all kind of they're all kind of in the same soup of sleazy la yeah uh tawdryness and that kedra she was different she was from a different from a different culture she was sheltered she seemed more and she doesn't say she was seemed innocent but like that's kind of like she was more of an innocent person so he acted he felt like he was acting more uh chivalrously these are all words he does not use but he says like we went to the zoo i spent an afternoon rowing in macarthur park like some cornball from east tree stump jim's like just be straight with her sean and he just goes ah it's hard fair enough no lies detected they try to get into the house the maid tries to close the door on sean but jim pushes in kedra sees sean turns her back on him jim encourages him go talk to her so he starts off with like the psychobabble

language he says something like i want you to take up your space get in touch your guts, and give me everything I have coming to me. And that's when she turns around and just starts slapping him, which is pretty good. Jim intervenes, sits them both down on the couch. The couch, exquisite. It's a plaid corduroy, or not. I had this couch when I was a kid. It is, this is the maid's couch. couch this is not we've seen a lot of like opulence people who have bows and arrows just hanging around in their den but this one this couch is very 70s and very just brown just a brown plaid you can just you can feel how scratchy it is anyways just wanted to put that out there is this what you wanted to have in the preview montage

this couch no i i'm trying to figure out where i i wrote that down i wish i could remember what it was was it opening the door and there was an arrow in it because that's what i thought you were that i think might have been it i may have missed that uh so i'm pretty sure that was not in the preview montage because i feel like i would remember uh yeah i don't know i don't know where i don't see it in my notes oh it's it's the i'll get you for this dude oh oh yeah having richard maul like in an armlock right and say i'll get you for this dude yeah that just felt like a good you're right although the arrow absolutely should have been as well all right so kedra says there's going to be no more trouble two days ago she talked to aziz and they they figured out between the two of them that they'd been tricked by Cy Margulies and Sean. He was so angry. And that's all she knows. Jim asks if that's her family staying at the hotel. She nods. So Talib is her dad and the younger guy is her brother. And then I guess the other guys are her uncles or something. And that's when the door bursts in.

Our goons enter, waving. Well, our heavy goon enters, waving his gun. And then her brother comes in. The family council is convening. They all have to be there. Psy was already picked up. Now everybody will go outside and get into the white car. All right.

All right. This next part. This next part. Oh, boy. Oh white car. All right. All right. This next part. This next part. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. What to say? Okay. So I guess the establishing shot is like a construction site.

So I guess they're in some building that's being built, like some storefront that's being built or something. It is set up kind of like a courtroom. There's like a table with all of her family sitting behind it there's presumably a quran or something sitting in the middle of it like on a book stand jim cy margulies and sean are sitting in chairs and then kedra is in like a chair in the middle, like facing the panel. I don't know, man. Yeah, so let's do the 2,000 feet aerial view or whatever. Yeah, so the family of Mohammed Aziz has demanded satisfaction for her infidelity. And so her family is convening this council

to determine whether she's guilty of that or not. They would like her to say that she is ill maybe mentally ill in some way this would be the excuse so that they don't have to this is an honor killing like this is this is what what the the story is about and uh she doesn't she definitely is like it's ridiculous that you're going to that you would consider going through with an honor killing uh they don't use the the words but like uh he was cheating on me so she refuses to play along in a way that would get her out of it right but also just refuses to play along which seems to be bad news for everyone involved.

We do get some Rockford moralizing in it, which normally I very much enjoy. And I don't necessarily disagree with him. But again, not in a position to say anything about this. But the one thing that holds true about this is that towards the end, they're like, OK, now we can't kill her here. We have to do the honor of taking her back to the home country to kill her or something like that. She must be dealt with in her home, not this foreign country. Yeah, exactly. And Jim's like, you mean not here in this country where they're going to haul you in for murder one.

Right. Right. Like he just he's like you're doing this very secretively we're you know and you're taking the witnesses with you you know you're not doing a right the right thing yeah so they shuffle them out and head towards the airport they go into the airplane right yeah yeah those are all the high points there's yeah they so they don't say like this is an honor killing but what they they say that the punishment is and that's in the preview montage the punishment is death and she says well then i'm already dead like yeah but that but that's in context of like sean don't

lie for me yeah i'm not gonna pretend that i didn't do the things i did she said that she loved sean right which is yeah okay sure um. I love the idea of Sean. Yeah. The other thing, so we do find out, you know, who actually killed Aziz. Right. Yes. Yes. Because, so, Cy Margulies is there. He tries to get out of it by saying, look, we're all businessmen. This could be the beginning of something. I have all these opportunities for great property, you know, which they're not really buying um so jim has the theory that in his professional opinion aziz was you know learn what happened was angry called sai over to have it out with him and was

planning to kill him with his with his archery apparently arrow yeah he's gonna kill him with his arrows but things didn't go his way there was an argument you know there's a fight and sai breaks and says you know i didn't mean to kill him there's no negotiating with him he was too angry and he says like and i grabbed the figurine and that swordfish figurine but that's not what they're there for so like we find like that satisfies our the narrative like so we actually know what happened yeah that mystery is solved we also get that her brother is not in like is not for this her brother is a more uh westernized yeah person so he he's he doesn't want this to happen although he's being dragged along with it yeah the situation

they end up voting and so it's like four to one and he's the one who votes against, um, Jim's moralizing is to the tune of families are supposed to support each other when they make mistakes. Um, and he, this is where he says, like,

I know this is your culture, but you're here now. Right. Um, so yeah, those are kind of all the, all the high points. yeah, it's, uh kind of all the all the high points. Yeah, it's it is the dramatic heart of the episode.

It's I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, man. We cut to the airport. Yes, they're they're they're all boarding the private plane here. We get a preview of how this is going to untangle. Right. Because the is it to leave? is that the his angina acts up yeah uh you know we mentioned early on he was laying down when he uh met with rockford at the very beginning of the episode uh he has to lay down again once they're on the private jet because he can't uh his his heart yeah he's having a fit. Yeah. Everyone's rushing. So everyone immediately focuses on him, right? Because he's like the patriarch.

They're getting him water for his pills and Jim sees a bottle of spray air freshener in the little kitchen nook. So when everyone's back is turned, he puts it in the microwave. Yes. Classic.

We then have him murmuring a plan to sean when you hear a noise grab kedra head for the exit don't ask questions there's a great visual bit where they're all like the plane's taxiing we're hearing the chatter with the like ground control being like telling them don't you know they're waiting for another plane to take off or whatever there's this great visual moment where i think it's jim sean kedra and then her brother i think so yeah and size it's like kim kim sean sai kedra her brother and sean starts buckling his seatbelt jim nudges him and holds his hands apart like don't buckle your seatbelt yeah and then everyone else kind of looks and sees that and they all slowly disengage or don't buckle your seatbelt yeah and then everyone else kind of looks and sees that

and they all slowly disengage or don't buckle their seatbelts all one by one yeah the staging is really good we have dramatic shots of the air fresheners slowly revolving in the microwave um the camera then goes down the line the other way kind of doing kind of like close-ups of each of them as we're listening to the the chatter on the radio we pass jim and then microwave explodes sean starts yelling fire the curtain to that nook is in fact on fire now we have our confusing rush of action uh they all run to the front of the plane they are on a plane so the door is high yes at this moment i was like whoa didn't think this went through yeah kedra goes out first it's a little unclear i think sean pushes her yeah yeah or like throws her or something yeah and she clearly hurts her leg when she lands the others

everyone else jumps out we hear sirens uh our mainon, our heavy goon leans out, starts taking pot shots. And then her brother jumps up behind that goon, gives him the double axe handle to the back of the head. Yeah. He falls out. The brother runs back in and is with Halib, his father, as he starts gasping for air. And then the camera sticks with the two of them as he dies, I guess. Yeah, very conveniently.

As he conveniently expires. Yeah, hands the head of the family, the mantle of the head of the family over to the one person who didn't vote to kill Kendra. So that's good. And we see grief on his son's face like yes you know pretty uh it's not played for laughs no but it is a strong counterpoint to the

action of the scene oh yeah yeah and then it goes into triumphant music so it's like we have that moment and we go to the triumphant music as we see a side getting taken away in a cop car. Um, so it's Kedra and Sean standing outside that mansion. She's holding a cane cause I guess she hurt her leg and, and Jim is talking to them. Sean says,

it's ironic. So I talked to me about a logo for his company. Once a bow and arrow, what does that have to do with real estate? Nothing. Yeah. I don't know. That's very funny.

I like that exchange. And here we go. The pure, the pure Rockfordishness of our ending is very, very strong. Sean offers Jim a check. Jim tries to turn it down. Forget it. Let's just let it slip into history as long as we all still have our own teeth no please take it it's my money and you can see i

very well can afford it well what's the point in having teeth unless you can buy something nice to And we zoom in to see it, and it's for $125. And a great Jim disbelieving chuckle and rictus grin as he goes, I don't know what to say. Freeze frame. End of episode. I think there's a really good joke in that number. The number's great because it's less than how much you'd even charge for a day right right but the bill from earlier was 725 was that what it was that's three days of work and then expenses oh no sorry it's 715 oh never mind then if it was if it was 725 it would have been three days of work plus expenses so he would have gotten paid for just the expenses and that's it but he's getting paid ten dollars more that's his bonus yes yes

it's good i i mean i love a good i love a good let's rip off rockford joke uh and this one in particular just a good close-up with the check he did not make out all right yeah it's very good uh so yeah three day affair with 30 day escrow i guess the the name makes sense now uh i believe our story covers three days of storytelling yes and uh 30 day escrow being a real estate thing i don't know you've bought a house you know about escrow oh yeah i mean i don't yeah. You've bought a house. You know about escrow. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't. Yeah, that's where something. So your money's all put together and it just sits there waiting for the deal to go through. Yeah. So that everyone knows that the money is there. I don't think it particularly relates to anything other than real estate.

Yeah, it's real estate and it kind of fits the the uh feel of the the first part of it and uh it just has a nice poetry to it nice symmetry it was it was a fun episode i mean like obviously there we had our warnings and whatnot and i i would have preferred they didn't tackle the topic, but the scam, right. The, the, the real estate agent who is breaking up marriages,

wealthy targets to breaking the marriages so they could sell their, their properties over and over again is a very Rockford thing, right? Like, and, uh, this could have been done a number of different ways that all had the same like the sean getting mixed up with the wrong woman and then it all falling out you know like it

could be a mob situation or whatever but that aside i think like it was well shot well acted all-time great goon lewds yeah top of our goon rankings not not a whole lot of stuff for the core cast that's not you don't need that for a Rockford, but there's some good Dennis stuff. Good Chapman stuff. Yeah. We haven't seen Chapman in a while. So good Chapman and good Chapman being undercut,

which is always a delight. For a brief moment, I thought Cy Margulies was named Margolin. Uh-huh. Yeah. I thought it was like a... I'm pretty sure I probably accidentally said that at least once during the um yeah uh episode tribute to angel we didn't mention at the beginning but

i kind of appreciated not that i had anything to do with the episode but the uh the answering machine message was very rock pretty where the plumber can't come yet he's gonna so use the bathroom at the restaurant for another night um i just feel like that's probably a problem that comes up fairly often for jim yeah yeah uh yeah so like you said this does have a good um that good element of the competing interests and they're not really being a particular they're not being a solution that's going to make everyone happy yeah uh and we do end up with two deaths so there's that i don't i mean i guess so i think you captured it i was going to say i'm not really sure why uh talib had to die but i guess you you you said how you know it's kind of passing the patriarch mantle onto the westernized son.

And that's kind of the thematic meaning there. Then Kendra is no longer in danger. Right. Yeah. That ends it. That brings it to an end. Yeah. So that's kind of a, yeah, that's kind of a strong marker as opposed to like him having a change of heart or being like, why am I doing this?

My daughter matters more than this shame that our family bears or whatever. Which could have been fine if that's how it went, but it is not how it went. Yeah, one of those where it's like a lot of the moments are great. A lot of the rock tradition is stellar. The overall story is kind of not my favorite. So, you know, what are we going to do? This is our penultimate Ivan Dixon episode.

It is, yep. Oh wait, does he do he doesn't do any of the movies, right? No. We're rapping on him next time then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me double check because we have our list. So our next episode will be our rap on Ivan Dixon.

Um, yeah. So maybe we'll see if we have anything, anything to say in summary there, uh, like the helicopter in this one. That was fun. Yeah.

That was fun. Out of the blue, uh, and ostentatious. And I love that Jim comments on it. Yeah. Champagne cork in the eye, exploding air freshener in the microwave.

Great, great moments. Good stuff. All right. Well, I think that's a good. We've earned our 125. Yeah, we've I think we've earned our 125 for this one. It goes on, ends up

going to end up a little on the shorter side. Not only did I feel like I didn't take as many notes as I usually do. We also kind of have a of have a hard time out. So we need to finish up to make sure Epi can continue on with his day. Meh. Days.

Who needs them? It is what it is. You know, it's still the Rockford Files. Guess what? It's a good show, everybody. Yes. That's going to be our conclusion at the end of all this, right? It was good.

We enjoyed it. Yeah, that's what? Good show. Worth watching. Yeah. And because it is worth watching, we will, of course, be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.