Two Hundred A Day - Episode 135: Find Me If You Can

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Nathan and Eppy join Jim for one of his most unique challenges in S1E8 Find Me If You Can. His client has hired Jim to find... her. While the money is good, the mystery surrounding why Barbara (Joan Van Arc) is trying to stay un-discoverable concerns Jim, and his search for answers takes him to the mob boss of Denver, played by Paul Michael Glaser. Jim needs to navigate some complicated emotions and truly dangerous people in this noir-flavored early season episode. It's a lot of fun! 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 * Bill Anderson * Brian Perrera * Eric Antener * Jordan Bockelman * 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 Suffel's comic Sherlock Holmes & the Wonderland Conundrum (http://whatchareadingpress.com) * Paul Townend 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/) * Robert Lindsey, Nathan Black, 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

This is the blood bank. If you don't have malaria, hepatitis, or TB, we'd like to have a pint of your blood. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidiah Ravishaw. And we are coming to you today with a bit of a, I was about to say a bit of a throwback. That doesn't make sense in the context of the show. Yeah, well it's not a 90s movie. We're coming to you today with a season one episode, and it has been quite a while, I think, since we've done season one.

So there was a discernible shift in in yeah, tone and style of the show. Coming back to this one after some of the ones we've done recently. Our random access viewing that we've been doing has done interesting things with my brain for how I categorize the different seasons. Like, I don't have a good chronological order in my head, but each season has a certain feel to it. Like, the middle seasons is a little hard for me to tell,

but there's a clear spectrum from season one to the six. Six, yeah. You think I'd know by now. I feel like one is very palpable. I feel like two and three, well. Those are like, I think if somebody were to ask me like, what is, I'm just gonna watch one Rockford Files season Mm-hmm, what should it be and I'd be like what let me find out where gear jammers

starts And I'll set you down there. Yeah, two and three. I feel like kind of blend either like chase comes on before season three So there is that so it's like two and three kind of feel the same in some ways Three and four kind of feel the same in some ways. Three and four kind of feel the same in some ways. And then I. Yeah, in a different way, like I wouldn't say that two and four feel the same, but three kind of bridges them. And then I think five is like you can tell when it's a season five episode. Yeah. And then six basically feels like season five, but there's less of them.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Didn't have as much time to get its own character. Season five and season six, I would I would say wild. Yeah, they were they're wild and not like like they're definitely shows that have gone off rails. That's not what I'm talking about. There's just like a there's it's just a different flavor to it. Yeah. But I think season one, there's, it's just a different flavor to it. But I think

season one, one thing that I really enjoy about it is that season one is showing its roots. Yes. Like it really very much is like, if not taking directly from, you know, like there's in thin air or whatever the Yeah, the slight of hand, which is the infant air that adaptation. Yeah. Yeah, if they're not direct adaptations It's clear homages or or just like this is the genre of the like noir crime Yeah

Detective but obviously, you know punctured with the with this and Malibu and with Jim and with humor and all that stuff Yeah for sure. Yeah, I suppose I should mention that that this is in fact season one episode eight find me if you can Yeah, so not only season one but early in season one Yeah, I think that's a good a good observation that the the roots of the show Genre wise are most apparent here and then as you know to extend the metaphor of the show genre wise are most apparent here and then as you know to extend the metaphor as the show grows you know you start it's it branches you see more above ground the roots are still there but like it's it's yeah not it's apparent yeah yeah also season one is the only season that has the Roy

Huggins stories right because he leaves as an active contributor after the first season. So this one in fact is a Huggins script or John Thomas James as his nom de plume, nom de tv, nom de vision. Nom de plume, the plume is the feather right the pen the quill so Nanda what's French for typewriter? I believe it's something like the typewriter because typewriter, right John Thomas James with the teleplay by Juanita Bartlett. Yeah, he's so I again

I think we haven't really done a Roy Huggins one in a while. His deal was basically that he would come up with an idea for a story. He would generally break it by like driving around and thinking about it, and then have a dictation about like, here's the story. And then he would give it to someone to actually write,

to do the teleplay. Yeah. But a lot of his concepts are very like, here's a German of an idea. And then I built this entire story off of this germ. Non-dedictive phone. Ah, non-dedictive phone. This one in particular, I'll just throw it out now since I'm talking about Huggins. The storyline here is very similar to that. In particular, I'll just throw it out now since I'm talking about Huggins.

The storyline here is very similar to that. So this is from the Ed Robertson book. The storyline of this episode is very similar to that of Girl on the Run, which was a Roy Huggins short story that he wrote, that he later adapted in 1956 as the basis for the pilot of the TV series 77 Sunset Strip. Ah, there was in an interview with Huggins. It says that he was not intentionally and he did recycle stories, but he was not intentionally recycling this story. It's more just the background to it was similar.

So it may have been subconscious, but he was not deliberately re reusing it for Rockford. We'll give the basis of it after we get into it because that kind of gives away the fun premise. But yeah, anyway. As we say, we'll get to that when we get to that. This is the first appearance chronologically, but last on our viewing for director Lawrence Doaney.

We can celebrate him for a few minutes. I didn't really find out much like backstory more than you can or info about him more than you can kind of infer from his credits. I believe that this is because he's one of one of our directors who started directing in like the 50s. Yeah. In the late 50s. And he died in 1982. So I think there's been a couple other of these creators on the show where it's like, well, they kind of died before the internet

and fandom arose in tandem, if you will. So there's just not like a lot of arc, like, I don't know, there's just not information without going into some kind of really deep dive that I'm not prepared to do. Nobody sat down and interviewed him in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as a as a career retrospective or something like this wasn't kind of on the radar. So unless it's out there somewhere, I just didn't find it. He's got some classic hits here. I was just looking through them. And oh, yeah. So the 12 episodes on his on his roster here. I think these are in order

Yeah, I wrote these down in order of Chronologically, so find me if you can which we're doing now the profit and loss to parter with Ned Beatty That was I think really liked the four pound brick, which is an early Dennis Focus episode. That was the one that Lee Brackett wrote, right? Yes, yeah. The Farnsworth Stratagem, one of our all-time faves. The Great Blue Lake Land and Development Company, which is the one where Jim ends up in the desert where there's this development that's supposed to be happening. Yes. Is that the one where he's like tries to put his money in? The bank is closed, so he stores it as safe in the development company. And that's what gets it involved in it. Yeah. Yeah, because he's carrying a check on behalf of something. Yeah, it goes south from there it has the the like con man who's

not angel yes yes and it has the dramatic helicopter chase at the end as I'm remembering pastoria prime pic which was another gym out of his element early episode that we did you missed one I? After the great blue lake and land dwell... isn't chicken little is a little chicken? Oh, did I just not write it down? Oh my... What? What? Turn the podcast around. Yeah, yeah, you did. Oh yeah, no, I I sure did. I just didn't write it down on my list. I apologize. Wow. Yeah, wow. We here at 200 a day would like to apologize. And you know what more do we have to say about that uh, Pastoria Prime pick,

Joey Blue Eyes which I really liked uh, the gangster one, Where's Houston? Which we did recently enough for me to remember. I don't remember it. Oh no, I'm thinking of a family hour. Where's Houston is the one where Houston is a woman whose dad is killed I think and it has like an like an oil empire Yes There's a very dramatic heart-to-heart like by their pool where Jim is talking to her about like Because she's like or maybe it's not that her dad died whatever She's in charge of the she's had to act like a man, right? To like get through life and then they have a,

they talk about it. Anyway, I remember that part. Yeah, the title just didn't stand out to me, I think is what it is. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's where the title is a bit of a joke because it's about like an oil company from Texas and then her name is Houston.

Anyway, Drought at Indian Head River, which is where Angel gets conned into land deal. Yes. Lots of land deals. Yeah. Lots of land deals. And then piecework, which is the one we did for our last episode. All right. Yeah, they're all like a lot of good apps. And this one in particular, I feel like has like a lot of camera work going on, possibly because it's a little light on like dialogue and plot.

Right. Yeah. Not in a not in a bad way. It's just that it's a very snappy episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'm also but like it's a wide range. Like that's a lot of different kinds of episodes that got, I guess, a reliable hand in to to keep control of the camera. I feel like every time we do a director that has more than two or three episodes, it's

like, oh, there's a lot of good ones there. Yeah. It's a testament to guess what? There's a lot of good episodes of The Rocker Files. Yeah, it's that. And it's also I mean, I don't I'm not saying that the other ones like obviously, if you if someone does a good job directing, you ask them back. I'm not saying that everyone who only did one episode did a bad job,

because you can't always come back and do something. But it was just like, anytime you see that somebody's done a lot of Rock Profiles episodes, they're probably worth paying attention to. I'm predisposed to be like, they're probably good at their job. Yeah, exactly. Before we get into our preview montage, just a quick shout out to patron Michael who sent us a care package of Rockford related ephemera. We talked about that more extensively on Plus Expenses.

So if you have not listened to Plus Expenses, you can check out the Patreon to get access to it where we go through all the cool stuff that that he sent us. One of the unlooped for benefits of doing this show is all the cool stuff that people have sent us. Yeah. So just wanted to publicly acknowledge that, you know, we appreciate it. Yeah. Honestly, it's a fun way to make my friends jealous of the fact they have a podcast it's like the only what am I trying to say it's the only way to show off yeah people listen to our show you

can have all the numbers in the world like all the downloads or whatever but like yeah we got these like cool bootleg CD collections We got jackets got artwork framed photos and yeah So thanks to everyone who does not that we're not asking people to send us stuff No, it's not why we're here. But the fact that people have done it. It's very cool. So yeah I just want to say thank you when it does come up when we started this I I don't know about you, but I had zero Rockford Files memorabilia. I didn't even have DVDs. We were watching it on a streaming service.

Mm-hmm. And now I have the whole round of the Rockford Files on DVD, including the movies. I've got mugs, t-shirts, sweaters, jackets. I'm wearing my Paradise Cove Beach Cafe Malibu hoodie right now. Which features, not the hoodie, but the Beach Cafe features in this episode. True. But yeah, it's fun. That all said, we should get into our very straightforward review montage.

We got some good things to look forward to. We've got, who do you want me to find? Me? So just right off the bat, the twist is that someone's going to hire Rockford to find themself. There's a nice car trick. He does the little blocking the tunnel by telling the guy that there's an accident on

the other side. It's a moment that works great on the screen and is incredibly awkward to describe. Yeah, I was talking to friends about it. Not only that, but we're on our way to losing the context for that. Because that whole exchange is predicated on the lack of cell phones. Right. And the willingness of strangers to help you. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot. There's a lot going on there. It's a really good exchange between him and Rocky in total when we get to it. But like the line about two inches to the right and you would have lost your eye.

And he's like, yeah, but two inches to the left, it would have missed me completely. That's probability for you. And this is another thing that I think season one has more of but we get Jim the practical side of Jim in dialogue right? Like he gets the she's like what kind of man are you? He's like careful I'm a careful man. I don't want to get killed. And the the hint of gunplay which you want to know before you get into the episode. 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 Files spreadsheet, patrons receive exclusive episode previews every month and plus expenses, our bonus podcast where

we talk about media, work, and our lives. In addition, every episode we say thank you to our Gumshoe patrons. Brian Bernsen has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Facebook.com slash Brian Rockford files. Chuck Suphel's one-shot comic Sherlock Holmes and the Wonderland Conundrum is available at WhatchaReadingPress.com. Find Dale Norwood's book, Trading Freedom! How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold. It's about fast ships, cheap drugs, and American political economy, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic and what it means to be human at the Journey of an Asteep podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Townend also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, Serial Killers of Color, at Fruit LoopsPod.com. Shane Liebling has all of your online dice rolling needs covered at his website, Roll4Your.Party. And check out Jay Adan's amazing miniature painting skills over at JayAdan.com. Thank you to Andrea Apignani, Tom Clancy, Pumpkin Jamba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley, Dale Church, Colleen Kelly, David Nixon, Nathan Black, Robert Lindsay, and Jay Thompson. And finally, special appreciation for our detective little patrons.

Joe Greathead, Michael Zalisco, Eric N. Tenner, 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 $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 on a high note, which is unfortunately uh i i really thought this was going to come back and i'll say i'll say when that was later but we start our episode focused on a very good boy or girl a very good doggo on the beach wandering up to jim's trailer while there's freeze frames for credits over uh part of the sequence uh so this dog just kind of comes up to the trailer, runs past it

and goes past a cab that's pulling up on the street. Cab pulling up on the street, you say. This is, again, early in the show and the things like both the spatial location. Yeah. And also the location for shooting, I think, has not been locked down yet. So this particular version, he's across the street from storefronts of some kind. There's like an art store and something else. And that threw me for a second because I was like, Oh, did he move the trailer? And then I realized, no, no, the parking lot area looks about the same as it always does. But yeah, it's not in the same kind of relationship to other buildings that we're used to. But the point is that this dog runs past a cab and we have a zoom in on who we know from our preview montage to be the client for the episode. This is Joan Van Ark, the actress.

We've seen her in Resurrection in Black and White where she was Susan the reporter. Right, yes. So this is our episode 73. I remember talking about how she has really good chemistry with Garner and that was kind of like one of the highlights of that episode. So I was excited to see her. Her final appearance is yet to come in our ordering so we're not done with her yet. And she's a I mean she's all over TV but she's a soap opera star. Knott's Landing and then later Young and the Restless for a while.

So a pleasure to see her because I have fond memories of her last appearance. This episode is very familiar to me and I think she's one of the reasons why I was like, have we seen this one before? I mean, I have seen them. I've seen them all before, but like it felt recent enough to have been part of the podcast but she was and the other guy in this scene was you mean jim you mean jim rockford yeah well we go into the trailer which again is the season one trailer where it just like looks unfinished to me but yeah you know it just hasn't been lived in yet yeah lived into the to the to what we get used to in later seasons The important thing here is that Jim is on the phone to his bank because he's trying to straighten out an account issue In an extremely relatable fashion. He wants them to not cash a check until the next day

That was it. It's a great sweet talk. Yeah. Yeah, there's a check He thought he was gonna have money from whatever or something. He doesn't have it yet He's supposed to have it first thing in the morning. They'll go in his account and then can you cash the check? Yeah, he's talking to a teller. It's like he just drop it behind a file drawer or something I'm not asking you to do anything dishonest just like wait like 16 hours and then everything will be fine If I bounce that check he's like it, it's going to ruin my credit rating. And he frowns.

Everybody has a credit rating. The teller being like, what credit rating? Sounds like he gets an agreement. He hangs up the phone as there's a knock on the door. And this woman comes in, says that her name is Florence Baker. She wants to talk business. She saw his ad in the Yellow Pages. You know, we get all the good stuff right off the bat.

You know, I'm happy to talk as long as my price... I think he says as long as my price doesn't drive you away. I charge $200 a day plus expenses. She's a little shocked by that. She's like, two, but agrees to it. So she, as outlined in the preview montage, she wants to hire Jim to find her. Yes. Roy Huggins is quoted as saying, the story began simply with that idea. Somebody comes up to Rockford and says,

I want to know if I can be found. I won't tell you a thing about me, but I want to know whether I can be found. That's good. It's a strong premise. It's a great premise. Jim is right out of the bat with questions. What I love about it is that, of course, he's got questions. Why? I mean, he even says, this is a weird request. I don't think a couple of questions are out of line. But also, it's also clear that that's against the rules of the game, right? Like, if I were to pay Jim to find me, the last thing I would do would be answer any questions, right? That's not a good test.

She has $600 that she's going to give Jim to basically have him work till that runs out. Yeah. He could really use $600 right now, so that seems yes, you know, it's a Why not context for us to have? Jim wants to know who's looking for her and That she seems nervous wants to know why she seems so nervous These are the questions that she thinks are not out of line. I need help and I'm willing to pay for it What more does it take to get on your client list?

are not out of line. I need help and I'm willing to pay for it. What more does it take to get on your client list? Fair enough. I appreciate that she gives them a couple of tips, since as she says, your time is my money. This is a great, great Rockford Files line. Yeah, I didn't give you my real name. I'm not driving a car, so you can't check my license plate. Right.

You can't talk to the taxi driver. He won't tell you anything like, you know the taxi driver. He won't tell you anything. Like, you know, I gave him money not to tell you anything. I'm going to take some cabs, maybe some buses. I don't want your job to be difficult. I want it to be impossible. Yeah. Jim replies. Well, in that case, I think we both need a drink. And we have a slow zoom to the empty glass in front of her

while he gets an ice bucket. Yeah. So in that moment, like, all right bucket. Yeah, so in that moment like alright I mean, I guess like it feels like a Out of character I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, but we learned very soon that there is a good Yes, so we go from that kind of zoom into the glass to downtown Jim Talking to his good friend to downtown Jim talking to his good friend, Dennis Becker, who was happy to do this favor for him because there are no forms to fill out.

And so the favor was Jim brought a set of her prints for him to run and thus the glass now makes sense. That's where he got her fingerprints. So love that setup reveal. Yeah, that's good visual storytelling, right? Like we're not it's it's not explained or anything like that. It's just yeah, good stuff. And I think this is one of the Huggins slash first season qualities.

Jim does a lot more like detecting. Yes. In this early, you know, in these early episodes. This is a good episode for, yeah, seeing how he works. Yeah. More like tradecraft stuff. Yeah, tradecraft and seeing him think on his feet and have plans and all that. All that good stuff. And then relying on backup plans because the plans don't work. Becker passed the prints on to a buddy of his in the fingerprinting department, I guess.

It was a perfect set. We couldn't have done better if we booked her. However, before he gives any information, he extorts Jim's Laker tickets in exchange. I love that he sets up a playdate with Rocky in this. He's like, you know how long it's been since I've seen your old man? He's not only going to the Lakers, but he's making sure Jim can't. Right. He specifically wants to go to the Lakers game without Jim. So he'll take the two tickets so that he goes with Rocky.

So good. I'll take him out to dinner. It'll be on me. So good. There's like a certain confidence to Dennis here because he knows he's got something. Yeah. He's not letting Jim know that he knows that he's got something he's just like almost like saying you're gonna give me those Laker tickets and then Jim does. Yeah. Hey Dennis, you wouldn't boost an apple off of push guard. how come you're always hustling me? You're a friend

Yeah, yeah, this is Dennis does not have that simmering anger that I think he develops over time It's it's nice. It's kind of seeing like oh, yeah, they give me friends. You can extort each other because you're friends All right. So the information that he has and this is a good humorous beat we ran the prince no warrants She has no criminal record in the county of LA. And Jim's like, OK, give me those tickets back. I sent them over to my friend in Sacramento. Yeah. And she has no criminal record in the state of California. But, you know, we were able to check with the thumbprint database to get our driver's license.

So name, birthday, residence, etc. So it does give Jim something. So he does end up giving up those Likert tickets. Well, I guess this will happen in the next scene. But this is definitely a, you're not paying for the amount of time that he's working. You're paying for all the experience that he's bringing to the job situation, right? Or at least the contacts that he has established over the years and that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. We cut to Jim in a church.

There are a lot of like dramatic upshots of Jim in the first half of this episode. In the trailer, we established like with an upshot, we could see the ceiling over him, which we almost never see in the trailer. In this, we have this upshot at the front of the church and he's kind of like looming. It's kind of an interesting approach. She obviously called to meet and he sits behind her in the pews and he gives her back an envelope with $367. $200 for the day and his expenses are itemized. Yeah, I love it. That's what $33 in expenses? Yeah. I wonder if he charged her for the Laker tickets. It's hard to tell. He's like, what I love about this is that he's he has the $600 in hand. And I think it's a little bit of a point of pride that he's only taking what it took like he's like this is

such an easy job well and he's also trying to make a point of like i'm not gonna get strung along yeah it's not worth this additional money to me yeah so right she's like but you're not done yet he's like aha but i got your name so her name is barbara he has her address her date of birth a couple other details i think she's, how did you find that out? I'm not going to tell you. But she wants him to keep working. And he says, well, that's all I'm going to give me your money back. I found out this information about you.

And that's all I'm going to do unless you tell me what's going on. I can't tell you. That's the whole point. It wouldn't work if I told you. I won't work if you don't. Yeah. He wants to know why she's scared and because if she's scared, he wants to know if he should be scared too.

Yes. She offers him another $600 because he's found out who she is, but he hasn't found her yet. Again, the rules of the game here, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She gets to call these meetings, but once she leaves, he still needs to physically find where she is. At the beginning of this scene, he yells at her for calling him and telling him where to meet her and then not even waiting for a response.

Yeah, like, I'll tell you yes or no. Yeah. And then the wait this ends, which I think just a wonderful moment of facial acting, the eye roll in the church, the eye roll to the heavens when Jim accepts the envelope of just full of money. Everything about the scene is Jim saying, I don't like this. I don't want to be a part of it. I was like, I got to take the money.

It's a combination because it's the money, but it's also she gives him enough worry. Yeah, he's afraid for her. Yeah, she is scared. She can't tell him why. But if he walks away from her now, she's dead. And so that combined, I think, with the additional $600 gets him to stay stay on on track. There was a line here where she says that, like like I can't tell you that's the whole point It won't work if I tell you I don't know if that's true

Once we get through the reveal I was thinking about that while we were watching it while while I was watching it and I think it's more of a If he knows then someone can get something out of him, but no, that's not true because what she's not telling him is Maybe we'll revisit this point. Yeah later But oh, I think I think she's trying to avoid him going to the people that are looking for her Which is what he ends up doing. So yeah. Yeah But I guess there's a level of disclosure that would still do that. I don't know. Well, we can talk about it But I guess there's a level of disclosure that would still do that. I don't know.

We can talk about it. We go to the Firebird and we have our score kicking back in. This is when I realized a lot of this is without music, except for when we're on the road. When Jim hits the road, we get music. And then when he's like walking around and talking to people, it's all pretty much very naturalistic. But he's heading to Pacific Grove, which is I guess where he figured out that she was Where she grew up goes into the police station. He wants to know if there's a missing persons out on Barbara

I didn't write it down. Kellbaker? Kellbaker. Barbara Kellbaker. I mean, he must have said the name throughout the episode. He did. Yeah, I just did. It never clicked in my head. Barbara's just easier to write down. He must have said the name throughout the office. He did. Yeah, I just never clicked in my head barbers It's easier to write down

He gets a little bit of resistance. He's like look I'm not asking for secrets. I Don't I'm not trying to get anything confidential I just want to find out you know what I can about this and he does a great cold read on this cop that he's talking To yeah, I thought was gonna do P.I. get out of here thing. But it turns out that because he says like, I'm just trying to find out if Barbara's in trouble. And this cop says if she'd asked me a year ago, I could have told her that she was in trouble. This cop that Jim's talking to also grew up there, went to high school with her. Yeah. Mentions a him like never liked him.

up there went to high school with her. Yeah. Mentions a him like never liked him. Barbara followed him to Denver and he has too much money. If it was up to the cop, he would keep him out of the golf tournament. The pro am the pro am golf tournament in Monterey. So Jim, like basically acts like he knows what the guy is talking about. We are learning this, you know, this information with Jim. And then he finishes off with a what does this have to do with Mr. Yacconelli? Who's that? My client.

You're not working for Ralph Carell. Never heard of him. It's so good. Good. Cold read information gathering here. I looked up the this actor because he was very familiar to me. And I don't know why. I don't know why he's familiar to me. He's in a Colombo episode. He is, yeah. He's in Police Story? Are you a big Police Story fan? No, I don't know. But like I googled him because he doesn't have a photo on IMDB and like yeah,

he's just super familiar to me. So I have, I have to see him or he's reminded me of someone else. But like, like the first image that shows up of him is him from this episode. So maybe I'm just thinking of someone else that he looks like. Anyways, yeah, I love this scene. Again, we were just talking about how it's all trade, like this episode has a lot of good trade craft and this is it's fun because you realize that's what he's doing partway through it. Youhmm you're like what's good oh Jim's right Jim's just keeping this conversation going until he can get some

information and then he puts the button on it by getting him to reveal the name of who he thinks Jim's Jim's been hired by yeah he lets the guy think that Jim already knows the information that he is giving. Yeah, yeah. So Jim goes to Denver. Jim going out of town was not telegraphed in the preview montage. So, oh, OK. Jim has arrived at Corel Enterprises Inc. And he goes into there's a kind of receiving room

with a secretary type by the name of Wyatt manning the desk. He has been in this kind of role in another Rockford files. He has a very recognizable face. Jimmy Lydon. He was also in Joey Blue Eyes. Ah, so he doesn't work with our director. Twice, yeah.

Anyhow, Jim claims to be Jim Rockford from Oklahoma. He met Mr. Carell at the Pro-Am and he said if he was ever in Denver to look him up, Wyatt says, well, sorry, you don't have an appointment. That was a good banter. Don't you have to look that up in a little book? I happen to know Mr. Carell's schedule very well. So he's like, well, I don't think he'll take it well to know that I'm cooling my heels out here. And he doesn't even know I came to see him.

So Wyatt goes in to tell Mr. Carell, comes back out with Vinnie, who is exactly what you mentally picture when a goon named Vinnie comes out, and tells him to show Jim to the door. Mr. Carell didn't meet you in Monterey. He doesn't know who you are. Stomied on his first approach. Jim gives up. Jim gives up and that's the end of our episode. No, as he's leaving, he sees in the lobby that there's an elevator that goes directly to the penthouse suite.

So he makes a phone call from the public phone to the penthouse suite, claims to be building security. There's been a report of a gas leak. And there's a routine safety precaution to be building security. There's been a report of a gas leak and there's a routine safety precaution to evacuate the building. We cut to Correll, Wyatt and who we soon learned to be Correll, Wyatt and Vinny pacing down the hall to the elevator while Correll's spitting out orders about things to do while they're disrupted. The doors open.

We see that Jim is tucked into the like front corner to obscure himself. He's a he's a Dark Souls. I mean, that's just the room, the video game Dark Souls. You walk into a room, there's always somebody tucked in that spot to attack you. And so he jumps out, attacks, I guess, Wyatt. He shoves him back and says, you know, occupied some some some witticism so that he ends up in the elevator alone with Ralph Carell. Carell is played by Paul Michael Glazer. Is it Glazer or Glasser?

That is a good question. I don't think I've actually heard it pronounced. Anyway, Starsky. Yeah. Starsky from Starsky and Hutch. I was checking out his IMDB and I didn't know that he also was a director. Oh. And in addition to TV, he directed the trio. How about this trio of movies? The Running Man, The Cutting Edge, and Kazam. That was his trio of major motion pictures.

Wow. Right? Who loves you and who do you love? That's range. Wow. The cutting edge. I've never seen the cutting edge. I kind of know about it as a bit of a meme. Running Man, obviously a Stone Cold classic in its own way. And then

Kazam subject to the Mandela effect of a movie. Remembering Shazam? Does this come up in your life? Yeah, yeah. This is people thinking it's... I can't think of his name. Sinbad. Yeah, yeah. thinking it's uh i can't think of his name uh simbad yeah yeah that there's a movie called shazam with sin bad but that never that doesn't exist even though i i feel like i remember it but that movie does not exist there is a movie called kazam with shack and that is this movie now running man running man's one of those that has like it takes place like two or three years ago

It was one where like back back when Twitter was I hesitate to say good but back when Twitter was was yeah Was what it was? It was in the year where people were posting the screenshot of Yeah, the title opening title. Yeah,. The year is 2019. Yes, and the food riots and blah blah blah. Yeah. And like, we were so on the edge. We didn't know. We didn't know. We were like, haha, look at this. Oh. The red screen. Yeah. Yeah, with like the blocky computer text. Yeah, it's good. Oh, it's 2017. Okay, so the running man takes place in 2019.

But the screen is by 2017, the world economy has collapsed, food, natural resources, and oil are in short supply. Yes. The police state, zyvin, deparate military zones, rules with an iron hand. Yep, so I guess that was 2017. Wow, wow.

Mm-hmm, that's all of seven years ago. Around when this couple of knuckleheads decided to start a Rocker. So that was when Twitter was good, because that's why we. Oh, my goodness gracious. OK. Wow. Twenty seventeen. All right. Anyway, back in the year 1974. So, Ralph Carell's character trait is how he dresses, which I think is a connection to our last episode, Peace Work, with our well-dressed informer protagonist. And he has a pocket watch that he pulls out of his waistcoat every so often which is another like a little

Affectation. Yeah, it's good stuff. Jim tells him he's looking for Barbara. He says on behalf of her mother She's gone missing There's like no reaction. Mm-hmm And then he replies that Jim's in way over his head pulls out his pocket watch You have 30 seconds to let me out of this elevator Jim makes a point of saying that he doesn't seem upset or surprised to hear Barber might be in trouble. I'm gonna give you exactly 30 seconds to let me out of here. 30 seconds from now. And if I don't?

I'm filing charges against you. For impersonating a maintenance man? For unlawful detention, harassment, and assault with intent to do bodily harm. You'll have to haul full of witnesses upstairs. There's a little bit of like, are you the kind of person that knows? Right. Yeah. How to do this or or what? And I think Jim establishes that he's dealing with, like, you know, some kind of operator.

Yeah, he's got a good line about it coming up. But yeah, Jim lets him out on his way out. He says you and Barbara must have had a beautiful relationship. Correll, I'll remember you. Count on it. Oh, it's good. It's good. Yeah, this is, you know, how like how a Colombo episode where you're like, oh, I cannot wait to see this sparring. That's what this did for me.

I was like, yeah, I want to see Jim go up against this guy. Not like in a fistfight, although, I mean, mean honestly would not be disappointed with that either, right? He has a confidence that is very like I don't know if you know what you're getting yourself into Jim Yeah, exactly and and there's a there's a What's the word I'm looking for here? He's different from say Our urban horticulturist from Chicken Little. He's holding something back. Instead of this scene turning into him having his goons grab Jim right away or anything like that, he's already got plans going. You can tell that he's like, he's going to use Jim. And that'll pan out in a little bit. But like so it just feels it both feels like a character that can do

massive violence to you, but also won't do it just because you've upset him. Right. He's going to keep his cool and he's going to try to accomplish what he needs to accomplish. And I like that it makes it a nice foil for Jim. Right. Like, yeah. Yeah. He's he's a discernible villain. Yeah. He kind of has a personality that is not quite like any of the other ones that I can recall. Anyway, this is just Jim in his in his disguise of the maintenance uniform facing off against Ralph Carell. Putting Ralph Carell's snappy dressing in stark contrast too.

Like, yeah, it's good stuff. The dressing bit, right? Like, last episode we did with Peace Work, we had this character who dressed well, and that was his whole thing, and he made the... That was his entire personality. But, like, it was an affectation that he used to declare a status higher than what he was.

This guy is dressing really well and it makes him stand out. But like I was expecting him to just be like a snob about something or something else. But that's not it at all. Yeah, he's just got a nice confidence to him. He is comfortably entrenched in that social status. Yeah. That our other character was trying to climb. We go from here to Jim's trailer. He's rummaging around as the phone rings.

Apparently, it's the fourth time that Barbara's called. But Jim, he's been in Denver. Oh, so, you know, when she originally hired him, he told her, told her you know for missing persons only if it's a closed case, right? Yeah, so here he says, you know, you lied to me if Ralph Carell is involved the police are involved He's family and we know from context. He's the mob. Mm-hmm Yeah, his line is I thought this is great. He's like he puts on a nice legitimate front, but he's family Yeah, you get that in the previous scenes Where Jim is trying to figure out who he is and what like that whole elevator bit?

It's like no this guy this guy's mobbed up She knew just what he'd turn up and he doesn't appreciate being used Especially when he's the only one who doesn't know what's going on But she says she still can't tell him and as long as the money lasts, he's working for her and she hangs up. So still very amorphous about what her deal is. She's got a great thing going here. Like this is why Jim was trying to hand her money back to her is that she has this hold over him is the money and she's she can hang up and he can't call her back. Unless he finds her.

Yeah, unless he finds it. Right. Yeah, that's just it. We go to seeing a slick black car pulling up outside the trailer. Then we see Jim walking across the parking lot with a bag of groceries. What could happen? Tension rises. Jim with a bag of groceries. Nothing could go wrong there. Two goons get out of the car, approach Jim, claim to be FBI. He says, is this about Barbara? They say, it is. Can we talk inside?

Jim being very agreeable, perhaps suspiciously agreeable. He hands his grocery bag to one of the goons, says, don't drop that, my dinner's in there. You set up a screenshot for me, I can tell, I can feel it. As that goon is holding the bag of groceries, Jim crouches down to unlock his door and then pops up, gives him the sucker punch, takes a gut punch from the first goon, and then there is a traditional meaty, smacky brawl. That is a good screenshot. Yeah, I scanned until I found the best version. Oh, that's so good.

For our audience, this is Jim at his door with his trailer behind him, which has covered him, rust. so good for audience. This is Jim at his door with this trailer. We got him. We just covered it rust Jim Come on. Well, we know his door has to get replaced, you know I'd say point in the next couple seasons from in another episode. So maybe this is Not getting up to that. It's a you've got two well-dressed men standing there and Jim with wide ties I should point out that's important. Yeah, that's important. And one of them is falling backwards with groceries in his hands. It's clear that Jim is just finishing the punch,

the follow through on the punch. And the look on Jim's face, so determined. Like he punched that actor, right? Like that's it. Well, I was scanning through it. I'm like, this is a perfectly placed, as I would say, a working punch. It's perfectly placed so that. Well, I was I was scanning through it. I'm like, this is a perfectly placed as I as I would say a working punch. It's perfectly placed so that as you because I'm going frame by frame

to find the best screenshot. And as his hand passes, the guy's a pro. So as his hand passes the guy's chin, he's moving exactly correctly to look like he got punched. But if you moved 90 degrees, I think you would see the air right between right? Yeah, yeah Good this episode, you know a lot of times we talk about like this episode is worth it for This character alone or that character whatever this episode is worth it for the sucker punch is alone There are a lot of good sucker punchers this episode didn't yeah

Just a moment about these goons because, because these are full professional goons here. The guy who got punched, the character's name is Broder, and he's played by an actor named Tony Epper. They're both uncredited in this episode. He's also an uncredited goon in Feeding Frenzy and Kill the Messenger. So we're finishing him. The other one, the one in the dark suit in that picture who claimed who was talking to Jim, the character's name is Howard. He's played by George Fisher. And this is also our last Rockford appearance for him. He was also in To Protect and Serve, and he was one of the Middle Eastern goons in Three Day Aff Affair with a 30-day escrow.

Yeah. And then he had a credited role as Lowball Pete in Drought at Indian Head River. So I assume he was one of the gangsters in that. Anyway, both of these guys are stunt guys. So in addition to their many, many uncredited TV appearances and roles such as this, they both have extensive stunt and stunt coordinator credits, including on some pretty, pretty big movies. So it's kind of interesting to just have this this pair, this pair of extremely good goons. Yeah, they're good. There's a great line Jim has for one of them later on. He's like, does this even talk?

Yeah, I think that's Broder. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Here, Jim is starting to get the better of the brawl with Howard and then Broder. So, Howard's wearing a dark suit and Broder's wearing a tan suit. That's another way to tell them apart. Broder manages to come to his feet and he pulls his pistol out and pistol whips Jim in the back of the head and that's what ends the fight, unfortunately for Jim. But we knew that was gonna happen because he was approaching, he had groceries in his hands. We have this kind of swimming, swimmy coming back to consciousness perspective shot from where Jim's kind of slumped over. First

seeing these two goons hovering over him again in a big dramatic upshot. And then we pull away to see Corell, of course, skimming a newspaper waiting for Jim to wake up. They're in like an attic or something. It's like a weird, weird location. Yeah. And this is when I think Jim looks up at, yeah, Broder, does that talker just hit? Yes. I think Jim looks up at, yeah, Broder, does that talk or just hit? So Jim has a big like bloody cut next to his eye, right? There's a shot in here later where it's a close up on the two goons, and they both also have big like bruises and cuts.

Yeah, so that's that's nice. I like that we get to see that Jim, you know, got some over. Yeah. Correll says that he hasn't dropped the hammer on anyone in quite a while, but I may do this one myself Because I jumped your friends. I didn't know they were with you. I just know that feds still wear narrow ties They said there were friends I'm like, I bet they're goons and Jim had the immediate read based on ties alone. The ongoing because this comes up in other episodes where the feds fashion or the cars that they choose follow behind what the mafia by a few years like like there's it's cyclical and you just keep going back and forth and you just you set to keep on top of which which sides using which. going back and forth and you just have to keep on top of which side is using which. Karell wants to know who hired Jim and Jim, under the threat of more punishment, ends up telling the truth, which I think is also calculated because he still wants to know what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah, so he's like, Barbara hired me to find her. She wants to know if she can be found. If I could come up with a lie, don't you think I would give it to you?" Yeah. Karel really seems to think about it and then goes, no, this makes sense. If you could find her, I could find her. Why would he want to find her? She stole 50 grand off of me. We have a little flash of temper.

Yeah. Yeah. This is good in retrospect later on, because this isn't why he's trying to find her. This is just a good later on, because this isn't why he's trying to find her. This is just a good... It's an excuse. Yeah. I mean, she did do this. This 50 grand is in the frame or whatever, but this is not why this is happening. Of course he wants to know where she is, and Jim, I haven't found her.

Don't you think I would tell you if I knew? Yeah, I can't give you information I don't know. got to do the whole number with you, huh Rockford, but after a little back and forth This is again, I think a memorable kind of bit for this character where he seems to like really think about things Yeah, and he has this kind of like restraint. Yeah, you don't know where she is. Do you? He tells the goons I'm done with them and Jim's like hey now that's just a figure of speech yeah yeah but yeah girl he's like there is this element just from these these two scenes this element of like proportionate response that he says to to be very thoughtful about he has something he's trying to accomplish and he won't be goaded into ruining that.

It's time for us to take our traditional intermission, as we all need a little break to head out to the lobby, take a little stretch, get a snack, a drink, reflect on what's come before, and anticipate what's to come in this episode of The Rockford Files. We also like to take this time to remind you of where else you can find us on the internet. Epi, where can our listeners find you? Well, you can find me at my website dig1000holes.com. That's 1000 the number. Or you can find me as Epidya on the Macedon instance dice.camp or on cohost. Where can our listeners find you, Nathan? All of my games, zines, podcasts, projects, and other work are at NDPdesign.com. You can also find me at NDP on cohost, and over on

Instagram at NDPdesign.games. And of course, you can always find this show, 200 a day dot fireside dot FM. And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimmy Rocco. We go to the trailer. Jim sees that Rocky is there, tells him to open up soon as the door opens. You see some spare ribs down there. So he still has a big bloody cut on his face. Rocky's looking at it and Jim's just ignoring

it asking about his dinner that fell on the ground. Hey, did you see any spare ribs around here? Seem that was all over the place. You didn't eat them. I just threw them out. Rocky, that's $4.25. This is where I really thought that we were going to see the dog again stealing the spare ribs. Yeah, yeah. But no, curses. That was denied to me. Even with inflation, $4.25 seems cheap.

Well, no, it wouldn't be because it's uncooked. It's not that he bought a meal. He just bought spare ribs That's what it's like 20 bucks worth of spare ribs. Yeah. Yeah I mean, I have never bought spare ribs my entire life So I don't know how much it cost but I I did buy two burritos last night It was roughly four dollars and 25 cents in 1974 money If I had invested the four dollars and twenty five cents in 1974,

I would have been able to afford the two burritos I bought last night. Though as Jim's accountant, you get you do have some good insights into his cash flow situation here. I kind of feel like, well, I got all this cash in hand. I'm going to I'm going to lose him on spare ribs. All right. So this scene with Rocky. That's good. There's a rich text in this scene. Yeah, that is good here, but also I think blooms in context of. Yeah, especially season one. Rocky is more disapproving of his job and specifically trying

to get him to drive big rigs. Right. Like, I feel like he drops the big rig thing. I don't know. I couldn't tell you what season. By season three, Rocky has been getting brought into Jim's operations. Kind of enjoys doing it. Yeah, it's kind of let go of other than the occasional like you keep putting yourself into trouble, you know. Yeah. But here. So it stood out to me because it's been so long since we've seen it. But it's totally consistent with season one

Yeah, exactly. So first of all that they go inside Jim tells Rocky don't you know, don't start on me This isn't as bad as it looks and he says I like what I do Generally this excluded but generally he likes what he does. He doesn't want to push a rig So don't wave a want ad in my face. Yeah Right off the bat with the don't give me that right now, which clearly is why Rocky is there. Yeah. Yeah. But Rocky decides to try a different tack.

And instead of just criticizing him off the bat, starts talking about his friend who is also a retired trucker who is getting bored in retirement and wants to open a hardware wrist store and Rocky's like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to take his offer. He was clearly going to tell Jim, hey, you should do this. But since Jim started off, he's like, I guess I'll pretend like this is something I'm thinking about. Rocky's tact here is wonderful because Jim comes in defensive and then Rocky just ignores it forcing Jim to force the hand on it. Like Jim wants the fight about it.

Like there's a thing going on inside Jim where he's like I don't want Rocky to badger me about this anymore but also it's worse if he ignores it. He keeps showing rocky other injuries on his head and asking him like how does this look and rock is like probably a stitch like just getting nothing like yeah it's great so I think that gets the gym he's like so he finally turns to rocky as he's leaving and says what's wrong with you what's the matter with you rocky the two gorillas beat me into the ground and all you can talk about is hardware.

Because I am tired of talking to you. You don't listen to nothing I say anyway. Look at your face. Look at that eye. Two inches to the right and you'd be missing that eye. Ah yeah, but look at it this way. Two inches to the left, you'd either miss me completely. I guess if you only ever watched this episode, it would be a little jarring. Mm-hmm. It'd be a little like, what's up with him?

Uh... Who is this guy? Yeah, but I think in context of season one, you're seeing Rocky slowly try different gambits to try and express to Jim how much he's worried about him. The second half of the scene after Rocky leaves is the phone ringing and again, a bit of like a trade craft thing.

He answers it, we're only hearing his side, but he's immediately like, don't say anything. Take down this number, call me there. He hangs up, goes over to the restaurant, we just go to the interior. So we can assume this is the sand castle, but you know, again, it's a it's a location that you know We see in various forms over the course of the show the phone is ringing Jim waves off the bus boy or whatever

Because he's like, oh that's for me. So yeah, so Barbara was calling him But Jim says that his phone might be bugged Ralph is a busy man Yeah, hence the runaround so he tells her that he got picked up talked to Ralph now thatged, Ralph is a busy man. Yeah. Hence the run around. So he tells her that he got picked up, talked to Ralph. Now that she knows Ralph is looking for her, that's all she needed. Mm-hmm. She's sorry that Jim got hurt, she never meant that. Tells him to keep the rest of the money, he won't be hearing from her again.

Jim says that there's two sides to everything. Carrell says he stole $50,000. She comes back with, I didn't steal anything. I just reclaimed myself. She's sorry he's hurt. She's sorry about a lot of things. And then you're not somebody I want to say goodbye to and hangs up. We cut to Jim reacting to being hung up on and then we cut back to her to end the scene where she kind of like lets out a sob after she hangs up the phone. And then we have a brief tracking shot of Jim walking on the beach sadly at night smoking a cigarette. It's a down note for both of them. And it's a good quote to sample for our final episode. You're not somebody I want to say goodbye to. And then a sob.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll break down crying. Plot-wise here, like it's not like there's more that we're really going to, I mean, there is one more thing that we're going to learn, but- One more twist, yeah. But it's more about motivation than about like- Right. Content. So if we're taking her at her word, she knows that Ralph Carell is looking for her. Jim has not found her, so I guess she can infer that he isn't able to find her, but he is looking for her. And the whole point of hiring Jim, well, I guess it was twofold. It was to ensure that she can't be found, but also to kind of be a stocking horse to discover if Karel's looking for her. Yeah. Does that seem?

I think so, like, because their next move here is to flee the country. So in the next scene, Jim's in his trailer. He has a glass of milk and a little charcuterie plate, some sliced meats and some other items. The phone rings. They do. He does the run around with the Sandcastle phone again because it's Barbara. She needs him for something. She's close to the Mexican border but has to see him. So she'll reserve a room for him outside of San Diego and whatever you do make sure you're not

followed. Whatever you do, don't lead them to me. Yeah, so I guess my the read here is like, is she in love with Jim? Is that what we're supposed to be getting at this point? There's a thing about her character, right? Like, because we'll get some stuff at the end too, which makes it like pretty, her relationship with Ralph, she comes across as pretty independent, but I think she also strings Jim along with a lot of like, and he comments on it in a bit of like, I won't live without your help. Yeah, it's hard. At this point,

I'm like, is this some sort of guilt trip thing? Is she trying to get Jim to do something? Or yeah, like you said, is she falling in love with him or? In the moment, it's like you're just kind of watching to see what happens next, right? Yeah. But so it's the going back through it to kind of think through what's going on. And it's not in a way where I'm like, oh, this wasn't thought of. It's more like like there's enough going on with her character that I'm willing to buy a lot of different explanations.

I'm not sure that we ever get any of them, though. So it's a little bit of like having to infer. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess we'll get to that in a second, because before we get to that, we get our good our good semi chase, not chase with semi trucks, but small chase, small chase and chase. We we get our good on-the-road music. I think our most iconic rock-per-de-mute music of the episode is in this sequence. So Jim's supposed to go to San Diego. We have an establishing shot of Highway 1 North, which,

you know, is away from San Diego. Sure enough, he's being followed. We see our two goons following him. Jim sees them following him. Nice percussion in the music to let us know that something's going to happen. I noticed that there's a lot of camera movement in the sequence, like a lot of like the camera swinging around the car while we're watching Jim like, yeah, kind of stuff. It's very fluid and dynamic, yeah kind of stuff it's very fluid

and dynamic which is nice because it's actually pretty short Jim pulls off the highway takes like an access road or something that looks like it's going to go underneath it's not an aqueduct but it's a there's a little bridge that the highway goes over and underneath it's a concrete rectangle with a hole in it so this is the bit that we also get in the preview montage. Jim pulls through, there's a truck that's just sitting there. I backed up just to see if it was telegraphed. It really wasn't, but you can infer that Jim saw the truck

from the highway, and that's why he decided to turn there. It doesn't matter too much. It's just, when did Jim make his decision, right? Like, did he turn off, just to attempt to turn off, saw the truck and took that opportunity? Or did he see the truck as he was coming along the road and was like, I'm going to use that. If there was one like perspective shot of him looking over the highway rail and seeing a truck that would put it together. Yeah. Again, not really a criticism.

Like, you know, you can only show so much. But I did check because I wondered if it had been, you know, visually telegraphed. And I don't think it was. But anyway, there's a truck there. And so he does the hey, there's an accident. Can you go help? I'm going to call the, you know, call 911, go get an ambulance or something like that. The guy is like, sure.

It's in his truck, goes underneath right as the goon car is in pursuit. They can't get through. Hey, back that thing up. Jim takes an access road back to the highway and pulls a U on the highway. Yeah, head back south, you know, on the on where he's actually going down to San Diego. And he has a big smile on his face. Yeah, it's like, good.

Look at a little pleased with himself. It was good. But yeah, I was a good one Jim is settling up the bill at this restaurant that clearly he and Barbara just ate at and we were cruelly Kept from seeing what they were eating We'll get something later on we will we will He joins Barbara as they walk along. It's like a cliff over the sea. So she fills him in on the backstory on what is going on. She moved with Ralph until a couple of weeks ago. She saw Ralph kill a man, a man named Saul, Saul Mante. It was night. It was late. They were having an argument that woke her up.

She went downstairs to see what was happening and the door to the library they were in was open. She saw Ralph hit Saul with something and he just dropped. It was dark, she didn't turn on any lights. She's pretty sure that Ralph couldn't have seen her, but it was just a matter of time until he started wondering if she'd overheard anything. She couldn't just leave. So to get an excuse to leave, she started talking about getting married, giving him ultimatums and starting arguments to give herself an excuse to leave. Saul was from Chicago. He was trying to move in on Denver, but Denver belongs to Ralph. So that was the source of their altercation. So Jim Jim says what you did by hiring me is you told him that he has something to worry about So now he's not gonna stop looking for you You need to do what you should have done in the first place and give your story to the DA in Denver

And she says how will we get back to Denver without getting killed and Jim has a good we But of course she needs his help and he is going to end up helping her out. Okay, again coming back to it now. What is her plan? I mean, maybe she doesn't have a plan, but... You mean in hiring gym or...? So in hiring gym. So, okay.

So then she, when she left, it's unstated here, but we, you know, when she left, she also like took $50,000 because she was like right yeah I need this to live on while I figure out what to do. I'm on the run. I'm on the run. So she's worried she's being followed she doesn't want to be found so she hires Jim to make sure that she can't be found which again great premise with this kind of a second level of by hiring Jim to find out if she can be found, she's able to establish that Ralph is in fact looking for her. Yeah. So I guess the straightforward read of it is that she wants to be able to let her guard down.

She just wants to walk away. Yeah. So she's like, am I safe here? I'm gonna hire someone to find out if I'm safe here, but like to see if they can find me and if they can then I'll need to keep moving or whatever. I think, like I don't think it's a hundred percent like a rational decision that she's made. I think she's dealing with like constant anxiety or paranoia or whatever and thinks that this is a way to alleviate that. I think she's hoping that Jim doesn't find her and that's going to make her feel safe. Right. And not only does Jim find her, not only does actually doesn't

find him. He doesn't actually find her. It doesn't actually find her doesn't actually find her Um, but like, you know, it pushes it to a point where she has to do the right thing Right, which may have been what she's trying to do all along right like force herself into that spot Maybe yeah, I guess cuz so Jim still hasn't actually found her but she knows that Ralph is looking for her So if she runs for Mexico, but then she stops before she gets to Mexico because she needs Jim's. She says that she needs Jim and she needs to help her with something and she has she has to see him. One thought I had was like, oh does she need Jim to get her into Mexico? Like maybe there's something there. Possibly. Like maybe she doesn't have a passport or something, right? Like. Yeah.

Or she does or she does have a passport, but she doesn't want to use it because it has her. It'll be a paper trail, something like that. I'm like that I was kind of expecting. And that just doesn't come up in this conversation. Like the conversation is here's the backstory and then Jim being like, you know, you need to do the right thing. Yeah. There's no like, but what I want to do is this. Right.

So maybe she does want to be talked into it. I think so. I think she doesn't want to run to Mexico. Like that was an impulse, and then she's like, this isn't actually what I want to do. If she wanted to run to Mexico, she would have done it instead of hiring Jim to find her. Sure.

Right? Like, I think everything that's happening is her trying not to go her. Sure. Right? Like, I think everything that's happening is her trying not to go so far away. Right, because she doesn't go to like New York or something. She goes back to California where she grew up. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot in this where she's just, she's not committed to running away. And that's the whole point to bringing Jim on board, I guess, is to tell her it's okay for her Not to run away

Originally, she wants him to tell her that by saying no, I can't find you said nobody can But then he's he's like no you have to face this head-on We're gonna have to talk to the DA because that that guy he's someone who's ready to help you out Obviously, I'm not like oh this doesn't make sense. This is a Thing it's more like I'm coming around to her whole deal really is an expression of the turmoil that she's experiencing Yeah, and it's not like a plan Yeah, yeah She's not she's not the the planning type in this in this, even though she clearly has plans to keep her,

I've come by cab, I'm going to walk around. And then the other thing is just that I also think it's possible that we, I am investing in a character trait for a situation where the story needed these two to meet and talk to each other again. Right, right. And we're like, oh, how do we, why?

How? Let's have her say she needs help. So we go from there to a door with the lettering Morgan Tallman, Assistant DA, County of Denver. And we have a humorous beat here where Jim is getting impatient. He has been waiting for two and a half hours He's talking to there's a secretary She's in another episode of the Rockefellers in addition to this role as miss Connor She is the receptionist in the family hour Oh, she's I think she's the the woman at the juvenile detention center. Right. When he's like going to bring, what's her name there? And then he's like, I can't leave her here.

Yeah, yeah. It's a rap on Adrienne Ricard. She gets to be extremely blase here as her characterization is. I hear lots of things like lots of people tell me lots of things. You'll see him when he's ready. I told him you're here, you know? One of the things I love about this scene is the juxtaposition between the mundane and like Jim's very extraordinary reason

for being there, right? Like also another thing I love about this scene is the clock on her desk. The face of the clock is glass so you can look completely through it. So you can see the hands moving with Jim in the background. Yeah. It's good stuff.

It is good. Jim's like, you don't understand. I have information about the murder of a top racketeer and I want to talk to the DA and she just gives him a look and he's like, I'll wait. He goes and sits down on the couch next to a couple other guys We cut to later that night as he is nodding off and then waking himself up when the door finally opens and our DA Morgan Tallman is leaving Jim intercepts him. I think Thomas has something like where does it all come from? He wants to get home he's been there since 7 a.m. I know who killed Saul Mante. So do I You do so does everybody in Denver his arrest made all the front pages here a couple of mornings ago

Who did you arrest? small-time hood Boyd Freeman You have the wrong man. What are you talking about? I'm a private investigator My client came to Denver specifically to see you. I've got her hidden away until we can arrange police protection. She was an eyewitness to Sal Mantis murder, and nobody named Boyd Freeman had anything to do with it. You have a witness.

That's right. I have a signed confession. We get a good, confused look on Jim's face, which is... It's a little rare in the Rockford files. Isn't that that it's not rare for Jim to be confused. It's just rare for Jim to be like, well, like totally wrong. Like he just he had it all mapped out. Yeah. And then this is like, oh, I have to reconsider my approach.

I mean, I guess I mean, it's never stated, but we'll get to the point where it's like this guy was probably like bribribed or leaned on or something to take the fall. There's an alternate episode where this is true and Barbara's story is false and Barbara has something else going on. Right. Yeah. And maybe in the end, it really is just to like steal money from Ralph and get away clean. That is also a plausible story that I was kind of expecting. Like maybe that's where this goes. One more twist at the end.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Jim is a little wrong-footed. He goes to the motel where they're staying. Barbara doesn't open the door. He goes in. There's an open suitcase. The lights are on.

She's not there. And then we see Jim pick up the broken deadbolt. And, you know, something has happened. We go to Correll, walking quickly with his men, and he has this great line. I was like, this has to be something. I don't think it is. I think it's just filling this time. Yeah. I don't want conversation. That guy couldn't wait to put on a price tag. Fine. I want what I paid for it's that simple yeah and I was like oh this has

to be like the guy he paid off or something yeah it doesn't come back I think it's just like this is how he operates yeah he says hey Vinnie throw me a piece he has a gun thrown to him as he's walking up the stairs so that bit stuck out to me and like it becomes important in the next scene or whatever, but it's unnecessary. Like he could just have a piece on him. He could. Or it's like, I'm with my guys, I don't need a piece, but I'm going to be by myself so

I do. Yeah, that could be. Yeah. I mean, again, he has this whole thing where he's like covering all angles, right? Yeah. He goes up to his room Mm-hmm starts changing it goes into his closet and then boom Rockford ambush this is a good rock for hiding around the corner like

Like a like a serial killer the second time he's done this Like echoing the elevator scene. It's great. Like you rarely see him this... I'm trying to think of the word. He's very physical in this episode in a way that he isn't as much, especially in later episodes. Like sure, the occasional punch or whatever, but here the screenshot I just sent is he grabs Ralph in a full Nelson chokehold. Yeah. And he's got this amazing threat with it. Like he's got him in the hold and he's like, you can't yell with a busted windpipe. You just kind of whistle.

Yeah. From here on out, what takes place is Jim and Ralph. In a deadly game of chicken. Yeah. and Ralph in a deadly game of chicken. Yeah, they're they lay threats on each other and they're trying to decide how far either one of them is going to go. It is great. Like I said early on, I wanted to see these two and I am not disappointed by what they what they deliver here at the end. So I sent you the screenshot. It's where he has the headlock.

I was, you know, paused on this screen to take the screenshot. Simone walks by the room, comes in. It was a little bit before her bedtime. She sees that I'm in here. She comes in and she goes, why is that dad killing that other dad? That's so good. You know what? This picture is exactly described by that phrase. You you you are.

I mean, we're looking for a title for the next podcast. I think why is that killing that other dad? It's so good. I just wanted to share that anyway. That dad does not, in fact, kill that other dad. Mm hmm. He does grab his piece, says, I won't hesitate to shoot you in the back before letting him go. There's this sense here where Jim hates this guy.

But in a way that I feel like we rarely see. Yeah. He just has this visceral like I would happily kill you which again is slightly more noir Yeah, less fourth season in Rockford the usual exchange of like the villain saying you wouldn't do it Right, but instead of him being like you wouldn't do it You're too good of a person. He's like you wouldn't do it because there's my guys are downstairs One shot from you. You got six guys up here make chop liver out of you. One shot. You don't have to work so hard, Correll. I've been looking for a reason to pump one into you. I'll handle your goons later.

So I think this might now mark the earliest utterance of the phrase goons. I think we're theorizing about that from the last episode where he said something about goons. But yeah, Ralph has a line, you won't shoot. You can't bluff if the other guy isn't scared. Yeah. And then again, with Carell's like, takes a moment to analyze the situation. Yeah. You kind of see that he's thinking through the options. And then he says, you do it, wouldn't you Jim yeah you bet what if I tell you that Barbara's okay Jim doesn't want to be told he wants to be shown mm-hmm what are we going out the way you got in no we're just gonna sit here

wait for your friends to go to sleep then we're just gonna walk out the front door and then Jim sits and he says you can stand right there just hell of a power play it's okay yeah then cut to a car leaving out the front gates of this fancy house. We see Jim in the passenger seat. We can only assume that Corell is driving. After a beat, we hear a engine turn on and another car. So my notice just pulls out.

It doesn't pull out of the same place. It was next to this driveway access area. So this other car slowly pulls out and follows Jim and Corell. And there's this kind of like low-key chase music as they slowly drive through Denver late at night. My notes are that the other car has a banjo player and a piano player. Because these are the instruments we get. We get to our climax here at the Correll Trucking Company. Jim keeps Correll covered as they go to a building with a sign for the employee entrance. Pounds on

the door, it's Correll let me in. One of the goons, Broder, lets him in. He opens the door, sees Karel, then sees Jim, like goes for his gun, and Karel says, he has a gun in my back. Like, yeah, yeah. Do what he says. So Jim takes his gun. Barbara's sitting there. She has bruises on her face.

And when she turns to see, to look at them and we, you know, see her face, Krell snaps at his goon. I told you not to touch her. There's something there. Yeah Yeah, Correll takes a step away from Jim says you think you have it all wrapped up But Howard's up there and he has a gun on Barbara So we and we see indeed Howard is up there He indeed has a gun Jim is standing next to Barbara Barbara's sitting on like a couch and there's like trucks in the background. He has a gun pointed at Correll. Correll and his goon are standing across from them. Near them has a gun. Howard is up on like a catwalk, has a gun pointing at Barbara. So yeah. Now what we've got here is a stand-off. I'm willing to play it out. So am I. I didn't get where I am by backing off the challenges. You can pump one

into me if you want. Only before you do. You better say goodbye to Barbara. And that's what gets Jim to acknowledge the situation, sigh, and turn over his gun. I know what a disappointment this must be. You always cover yourself? Always. That's an important line that will come back. Ralph tells Barbara that she should have come to him instead of the cops. They could have worked something out. Jim's like, what, just a little thing like murder? Ralph snaps a little bit. I'm gonna kill you myself. I'm really gonna enjoy it. But Jim just can't can't resist and who's gonna take care of Barbara

I think Jim has identified that there is some kind of real Feeling between yeah This guy does not did not want to kill Barbara like he did like he was willing to let her go if he didn't think she was going to Go to the DA go to the DA or anything like Like, let her go with 50 grand of his money. And so now, like, Jim is unarmed physically, but he's got this, he's like, well, maybe I've got this social angle. There's still a weak point here.

Yeah, something I could put pressure on. Karell yells at everybody to go outside, tells his, one of his goons to go get their car. And then there's this moment with him and Barbara, where her a little more than him, but like they both have like tears in their eyes. Like, yes, a really poignant moment where he says, this isn't the way I wanted it. Why didn't you keep running? You can get a long way on 50 grand. Yeah. Yeah. He was willing to just let it go.

And then to him, now his hand has been forced. Right. So, yeah, again, just like another level of the more interesting than average mob villain. Right. Yeah. He's not just a pending death threat. A car suddenly shoots in from another direction. Someone yells, freeze police, as Jim gets a final sucker punch in the remaining goon behind him and grabs his gun. So he covers Ralph as Ralph draws on him.

And the two of them are pointing their guns at each other in another classic shootout position. Keep yourself covered, too. Jim has a slow like come and get it like hand. Yeah. Rock style. Yeah. The big hand come and get it like hand. Yeah. Rock style. Yeah. The big hand come and get it. It's very good. The Rockford.

Jim Rock Rockford is ready to rumble. The cops grab Ralph and again, just a little character thing. They like grab him and he shakes him off with this look of like, don't touch me. You know, which is not uncommon, but it really fits here. Yeah, it's his character.

Barbara asked where they came from. When Jim saw that she was gone, he called the DA and explained and told them to put a tail on him. And I'm like, oh, right. There's that other car. Like, I completely forgotten. Yeah, just like a minute ago. So that was the the Denver cops were tailing him. other car like I completely forgotten you know just like a minute ago so that was the the the Denver cops were tailing him and then she looks off camera

and goes what do they do to him you care yeah that I think would have been a fine place just to end the episode well so there's the thing this is the noir ending, right? It's bittersweet. It's sad because obviously she's upset about this, everything that's happened and how this has come about. But they're like, OK, so we have our noir ending. Now we have to have our Rockford ending.

And there's some good Rockford-ishness in this ending. But what I wanted to bring up is the moment in the DA's office when Jim looked surprised. As we go through this time, you know, this often happens to us while we discuss the episode, that could be Jim like, what? Or it could be Jim going, oh, now I see his plan. Because we see Jim go to her hotel room, but Jim is not expecting her to be there, I don't think. I think he knows if this guy sends someone to confess for his crime, the

DA has already got that, then no DA is going to get it. Like Jim can be tied up for a while at the DA's office and he can go and grab her. It's one of these things where this doesn't have to pan out this way. It doesn't have to be the way that what this episode is saying. But it fits nicely if these two are just playing this game of 3D chess, right? Like they're they're trying to guess at what each other because the ending bit where he's where Ralph talks to Jim and says, you keep yourself covered. Nice.

There's a begrudging respect. Yeah. OK, you've outplayed me. You did. I thought I had you, but it's good stuff. I'd buy that. There's no indication of how Ralph found out that they were there. Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't matter. He's clearly a pro. He's been on top of Jim the whole time. Right, yeah. So we don't need to see that in particular. But yes, that is the noir ending. And now we get the Rockefeller's ending, which starts with Jim and Barbara on the pier eating tacos. Yes. I'd have to maybe I'll get into the numbers closer to the end of our run.

But there's a I think there may be a higher density of tacos in the first season taco to episode in the first season than in later seasons. Yeah, I mean, he's always eating tacos, but I feel like he's eating tacos in pretty much every episode in the first season. Yeah. Anyway, they're together. She's saying that it feels good to be out and around people, not hiding. Jim can't let this go. How did you get mixed up with a guy like Ralph Carell? And she says, I don't know, I just fell in love with him. He was fun and exciting, a warm, gentle,

and then Jim finishes the sentence, killer. She says, I don't wanna talk about Ralph. There's an indication here, I mean, the whole time, there's been an indication of Jim being like, she needs my help. Right, yeah, yeah. The story he has in his head is like, now that she's free of this guy, she can be her own person. Yeah.

As Jim Rockford is wont to moralize in other episodes, like, you can make your own decisions, you don't need to be beholden to this man, especially a criminal like him, a killer like him. And that's kind of glossing over the emotional reality of like, they do actually seem to have been in love, I think, is what this show is telling us. So that's complicated. He gives Barbara his bill, all of his itemized expenses for their little vacation to Denver. Here we go. She balks. Money is a problem. Yeah. How do you go through 50 grand in two weeks?

It's not really her money. She's planning to return it. She only took it because she was so desperate. Plus... You're an honest man. You wouldn't want that kind of money. Jim? Would you? Yeah, I would. We have a freeze frame as she pats his arm with a smile as he looks off into the distance like, really? Great facials. It's good. End our episode on the note of, at least he already has the cash he gave her, right? Right, right. It's almost a grand, right?

It's $1,200 total because... $1,200, her yes the two six hundreds Yeah, minus 425 for the spare ribs right yeah and other expenses so yeah, it was a decent amount of money Yeah, I love it. I love that. They gave us the noir ending and then turned around they were like okay But you're here for tacos and Jim being not gonna be screwed out of his cash Yeah, so yeah enjoy enjoy Which is what we did. Yeah, then we did. Shout out to Starsky.

Yeah. Paul Michael Glazer. Ralph Carell is one of the more memorable mob bosses, I think. That's very cool. It's always a little incredible to me how much, like, how much character stuff can end up packed into these when even when they're not about, when they're not like character centric episodes

Yeah, this isn't like a portrait of Elizabeth. Wait. No, this isn't a portrait of a Barbara Ralph or Ralph But yeah, it's no the the the corral who saw the alligators. Yes We started this episode talking about just how strong the Rock Profiles were on making even incidental characters memorable, right? And yeah, I think they've done a really good job here. Yeah, I would watch the first season of the Rock Profiles based on this episode alone. And it's only 8 in, so that a good good forecast for the rest of it. Yes. I think we mentioned a little bit at the top or maybe before we started recording that it is maybe in comparison to other ones.

It felt very straightforward to watch like the story has some twists and turns, but the actual episode is is very linear. Not in a bad way, but it does feel like, OK, we talked about it. Like there's not a whole lot else I have to say about it, I don't think. Yeah, strong episode, tightly written. And, yeah, just fun. Just a fun one. A fun one. Not necessarily a romp. I'm not quite sure what defines what line this is on that romp is on the other side of. But yeah, it's definitely not on the wrong side but it is maybe because of the nourish the nor stuff and also just the the sense of jim has more of a sense of violence in this one that i think yes muted later um and so that makes it a little more raw i guess a little more yeah like

a noir the ambushes he set up the deadly ambushes yes yeah there's, but this is just a matter of like little tiny degrees on a pretty big spectrum I think, where we're really like dialed into like these kind of nuances. Yeah, I would tell someone to watch this episode. I would too. Specifically, I think I would make a pact with someone earlier in the week to watch this episode, then talk about it on a podcast. My only other thing that coming away from it is I feel like the premise is such a strong premise,

and I feel like, not like it didn't live up to it, but the whole like, I want you to find me. There's a promise in a premise like that that feels like it's the big twist, right? Where it's actually revealed quite early on why she wants him to find her right I'm trying to think of like a sort of an example the Maltese Falcon is got kind of like strange attractive woman shows up and and is like mr. Sam Spade I need you to find my friend I think is what no find

my sister I can't remember what the the. No, find my sister. I can't remember what the setup is at the very beginning. But like, and then it's, it just twists and turns all the way down. It's not really like this, but the vibe is similar to me as North by Northwest, where the start of that is people treating Cary Grant like a person that he isn't. Yeah. And then, you know then things just escalate from there. And you do find out eventually why. But the reveal of why is kind of subservient to the larger art.

Yeah, something like that. It is a very strong premise. It's very like, ooh, I want to see where this is going. And there are other stories spinning out from that premise that I think might be a little more because my brain is damaged from thinking about con game stuff. Like that would be a little more like layered in that onion way where one discovery is obscuring the truth in a different way. Yeah. What is she roping him into? Yeah. What is she up?

And that would probably center on her, her having an agenda about something in particular, while this story is more, I think you've made it persuasive case for it's really a story of someone who's like spinning out of control and just trying to find some way, find some way to pull things back together. Anyway, that's that that's down the road of an episode that this isn't. It's like a lot about an episode that this isn't. Yeah. Yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job about talking,

talking about the episode that this that was. Yes. Well, we are bidding goodbye to Laurence Doaney. We'll be moving on to our ever narrowing list. So we're actually going to be going through the rest of the season one episodes except for the first one. The first one. Yeah, so we'll be going through the rest of our season one episodes for our next couple episodes of the show and then we start getting into closing down some of our longest running contributors and then we go from there. Yeah. So if you really wanted to extrapolate from here you could go through our whole back catalog and see which season one

episodes we haven't done yet but until then I can I guess stay waiting by your podcast machine. Alright, so that is all to say that we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.