Two Hundred A Day - Episode 138: New Life, Old Dragons

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

Nathan and Eppy close out Season Three with S3E18 New Life, Old Dragons. Jim is hired by a Vietnamese refugee to find her missing brother, but as he (reluctantly) pursues the case, it becomes clear that he doesn't know the whole story. When Rocky takes a beating, it turns personal, and Jim needs to figure out where the danger is coming from - the kidnappers, or his own client! Also, Rocky wants to paint Jim's trailer. It's an unusual episode in a lot of ways, and we discuss the assumptions we brought into our viewing, and how the episode subverts them. 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/) * Brian Cummins, Robert Lindsey, Nathan Black, 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

It's Pete. Hope you enjoyed using the cabin last week. Only next time, leave the trout in the refrigerator, huh? Not in the cupboard. 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 continuing on the final voyages of the SS Rockford. Yes. On its nine-year mission. Its nine-year mission.

How long have we been at this? Yeah, I think 2017. We can do math. Yeah, seven-year mission. Yeah, yep. Wow. Anyway, longer than the show ran. Six seasons.

Yeah. They start counting the movies. It starts to add up anyway. On its on its continuing. There we go. Continuing mission. But at this point, we're basically going essentially chronologically through the rest of the episodes that we haven't yet

done is basically where we're at. And so we finished our season one episodes. We finished season two a long time ago. Yeah. You can go find our season to wrap up We finished season two a long time ago. Yeah, you can go find our season two wrap up from like a couple of years ago. And so here we're coming to you today with season three episode 18 new life old dragons. Yeah, so well, OK, so let's a moment of honesty. Yeah, a couple opening statements for this episode.

We one of the reasons why we're coming to you now with this episode, I think, is that Nathan and I, I don't think either one of us like really remembered it. Yeah. But we had like some recollection of it. And I think back in our heads, we were we were like, this could have some racist material. Do we want to tackle that? Right.

It just never popped up as like, you're never excited to engage with that. In the show description or whatever, the episode synopsis is pretty straightforward. Jim is hired by a Vietnamese refugee to find her missing brother. And like, yes, I have seen this one before. And I kind of remember it a little bit, but not really. And yes, I was like, is this one?

Right. In that way, like when you're anything from the past, you're going to that deals with. Has this not aged well? Is this representative of this time in a way that we have ideally moved beyond? There are certain episodes of The Rockford Files where especially like there were aface for various ethnicities that aren't, you know, representative or have plot lines that are pretty minimalizing of other, you know, various ethnic backgrounds, etc. So like, I don't think it's an unreasonable fear. Right, right. Even though this show generally is pretty good about that kind of stuff.

Right. Even though this show generally is pretty good about that kind of stuff. And like The Rockefellers had another Polish wedding where we get to see Gabby and Gandhi just beat up an entire Nazi bar. Right. Yeah. Like, you know, so sometimes. Yeah. I guess the other thing on top of that is who Nathan and I are, which are, you know, two white dudes with a podcast. The last people that should be commenting on this stuff. That said, if you were feeling a growing sense of anxiety towards this episode, like I don't I don't want to say it's all good, but I was I was definitely more fearful of it than I had to be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. These were overblown concerns, I think. Yeah. And it's not like I got you. But I think this episode mindfully uses people's expectation of race as part of its plot. Yeah. So any any of the ways in which it portrays or character characterizes, but I was trying to say caricatures. Yes. Vietnamese people from this time is mindful, I think.

And like there may be a little bit of discussion about like how successful it is in those. But it is not casting someone in yellow face and giving them an accent just for laughs. Like, it's not not that I expected that, but in particular, but like as one end of the potential spectrum, this is on the other end. It does have people of at least regionally appropriate descent. I'm not sure if they're all Vietnamese actors, but like Vietnamese, you know, Indochina kind of area generally in those roles. It engages with the history because it's about something that comes out of the Vietnam War. So it engages with that history in an interesting way. So yeah, so this isn't even really, I mean, I guess like a content warning. It's not really even a warning

because I think it's not, I think it's worth watching. I'm not one to say whether it is a damaging portrayal of racial. Right. In its racial portrayal. But I was more worried than I had to be because it turns out, I think, if I hadn't been worried about it, it would have been fine. Yes. You know, just, I guess, a lot of, I don't know, himing and hawing up at the top just about our own neuroses about this stuff. Well, I mean, Nathan, I talked about this a little bit before the show. Maybe this is something that's worth showing is that like, my notes reflect my fears. As we're going through this, and I won't go over my journey. But I definitely went on a journey until the reveal and I was like,

oh, okay. All right. That was all on purpose. Yeah. And it's on me. Yeah. And how I felt about it, that's on me. Yeah. For sure. So, what do we normally talk about now? I guess we should talk about directors and whatnot. And whatnot. Yes. So this episode was directed by Geno Zwerck. I assume that is how you pronounce

that. A French director. This is the last of his three episodes of The Rockford Files. He also directed two into 556 Won't Go and So Help Me God. And then he also directed two of the 90s movies. So, you know, pretty steady hand. He did. I mean, he's a working director for a long time. He did a lot of night gallery and Kojak around this time. Oh, on the silver screen, he directed Jaws two and the Supergirl movie.

Yeah. OK. But he also this just, you know, kind of popped out to me because I think it got some awards, but he directed a 1980 movie called Somewhere in Time. Oh, yes. Chris Reeves. Yes. Yeah, it has Chris Reeves and it's written. It's a Richard Matheson script, which always interests me. He's a sci fi horror novelist who also did various screenplays, including I Am Legend. But he also wrote The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, which are fun movies.

Anyway, it's kind of like a sci fi time travel movie. Sorry, Christopher Reeve. Yes. I always pluralize this name by accident. Christopher Plummer is in it. George Wendt is in it in a scene that apparently was cut. That's I'm just William H. Macy, isn't it a young William H. Macy so anyway

one of those things where I started looking at like oh I would watch this movie a Chicago playwright uses self hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel believe that is Jane Seymour is the Right the actress. I yeah, I remember that movie. I believe that is Jane Seymour is the, uh, the actress. Right. Yeah, I remember that movie. I don't remember much about it. I do remember having watched it when I was younger. Um, it had time travel. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And then this one, so the writing credits are pretty wild. Uh, Teleplay by David Taylor, who wrote Dirty Money Black Light, and those are his only

Rockford credits. And then two story credits, Bernie Rollins and Leroy Robinson, both of whom have very few credits. And I was able to find almost nothing about. So I don't know where this episode came from, I guess is what I'm saying. Ed Robertson book is not enlightening. I don't know the season three. It has a collaboration of writers that do not appear elsewhere in the Rockford files. And I don't know. I feel like at this point, I could like come up with like some sort of music duo

named Bernie Rollins and Leroy Robinson and people would believe it. Yeah. Interesting. Leroy Robinson apparently did write or ghostwriter, co-write a book about the famous Amos cookie, Amos of the famous Amos cookies. And it's a book called The Face That Launched A Thousand Chips. Oh, that's exquisite. Chef kiss. I figured you would appreciate that factoid. That is amazing. Whatever he earned, he earned. Yeah, so that's all of that.

So it's kind of a, this is kind of a too-generous, if you will, episode. It kind of has a little bit of a, I'm not quite sure where it came from, but here it is. I got a little tidbit about Leroy Robinson and Bernie Rollins and that is Bernie Rollins wrote Leroy Robinson's biography on IMDB So they must have it must have been buds. They must have been buds

They must have collaborated together on things or something. Now I'm going to go check out Bernie. This is live investigations of IMDB files. That is our- Yes, one of our specialties. Did they swap? That'd be kind of awesome if they swapped, but I doubt it. All right, let's make a pact right now. I will write your IMDB biography if you write mine.

Okay, it's a deal. They really should have swapped because the mini-bio for Leroy is longer than I care to read on the air. Sure. I'm sure it's worth reading. Like I just, you know. And the mini-bio for Bernie Rollins is two sentences.

So clearly, yeah, and he was just like writer and director known for the Rockford files and this this and then he died in 2020. So fairly recently. So he clearly survived the right. And that's how that happened. Okay. It I have something perhaps to bring us a little bit up, which is we received a Some listener feedback on a recent episode that because I saw it I figured might as well throw it in now because I don't know how long it's gonna be till we do another Answering machine segment. However, we got an email through our website from listener Gary who says first time long time loved the podcast which I always like to hear so thank you Gary. That's great I just finished listening to your episode on in pursuit of Carol Thorne Which was two or three back as of this recording a little bit, but I actually remember that episode

So if you bring it up now Your comments about whether the newspaper Rockford is reading on the bus in the opening scene sent me to a baseball reference website which is in fact baseball dash reference comm and Looking at the schedule scores for 1974 There was a headline where it's like angels lose ten in a row and I think I wonder if that was real or if it's just Kind of a humorous, right? I don't know. It just kind of fits with the vibe of the show humorous. Right. I don't know. It just kind of fits with the vibe of the show for Jim to be reading a newspaper where the team is losing. So the episode aired

in November 1974 and from June 30th to July 10th that year the California Angels lost 11 games in a row so the newspaper could be real. Assuming Jim is reading that day's paper this reasonably places the start of the episode on July 11th the day after the Angels lost their 11th game. Good news for Angels fans, though I think Jim is a Dodgers fan, they ended the streak on July 12th with a win. Well, congratulations Angels. Well deserved. Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Gary. I appreciate that. You did the legwork so we didn't have to. But yeah, just a little grace note on that episode that I really appreciate.

That all said, we do have a brief but intense preview montage. Yes. All right. Well, my report mentioned a few of the episode. Pepper, this montage, the montage shows a few scenes in discussion with Mai, in which she's using some broken English. And so I was like, uh-oh. But however, we do end it with some classic angry Dennis and rocky endangerment. The cliffhanger on this montage would have weighed over the entire episode if it didn't come so early in the episode, which is good.

We get references to kidnapping, someone trying to kill Jim. We do have the shot of the guy who gets beat up towards the end, who has lots of blood and stuff on his face, and he says it was a couple Americans. And then, yeah, Rocky slumped over the desk. My note is, Rocky, oh no! Yes. 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 WhatchaReadadingpress.com. Find Dale Norwood's book, Trading Freedom! How Trade with China Defined Early America, Wherever Good Books Are Sold, is 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 Esthete Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Townend also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, Cereal Killers of Color, at Fruit Loops Pod dot 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 dot com. Thank you to Andrea Apignani, Tom Clancy, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley, Dale Church, Colleen Kelly, David Nixon, Nathan Black, Robert Lindsay, Jay Thompson, and Brian Cummins.

And finally, special appreciation for our detective little patrons. Joe Greathead, Michael Zalisco, Eric Antenner, Brian Pere airport, watching people get off the plane because I am, you know, because I'm like this. I'm like scrutinizing every person. I'm like, is that who we're here to see? Is that who we're going to see? I'm like looking at who the camera is kind of like focusing on. So I'm starting to take notes that I'm deleting them.

I was focusing way too much on some extraneous details in this opening scene for some reason. Yeah. Because it becomes very obvious. The music is a very jaunty rendition of the theme. I just want to like just put that out there. I was like, yeah. The camera finally finds who we know from the preview montage to be one of our goons.

Yeah. He has a face for gooning. Oh my God. Yeah. It turns out he's kind of the third our goons. Yeah, he has a face for gooning. Oh my god. Yeah, it turns out he's kind of the third string goon. Or no, I guess he's the second string goon. He is 100% of that guy. He's a that guy. Yeah, I think this is Charles Napier is the actor. Yeah. And he's he was actually in a lot of movies. Such a face. And he has such a face. So anyway, real good face on this guy. So I'm like, oh, here's what I'm supposed to be saying. We see him watch two Vietnamese guys talking, and then one walks away and he puts down his travel bag, which has his name on it in giant

letters. I think to establish to the audience that he's Vietnamese. His name is Pham Van Vinh. Vinh is his name, but the bag has his full name. It's like, yeah, Van Vinh. But it is telling us as viewers. Yeah, here's what to expect. We're going to we're going to hear this thing. I had notes about the bag.

In today's context it looks almost like it's a street wear. Yeah. Like just the style of the bag. Brand new and made specifically with his name printed on it which I thought was a little odd but maybe that's the way things were done. It also the way it it's handled is very like like like a Coke can in a Coke commercial where they make sure you see the brand. Yeah, the staging of this is pretty artificial to the point where I'm like, oh, he's pointing it at them?

Like signaling? But that's what I was like. I was like, is this meant to tell them? And also it also feels empty. I don't know why I'm complaining. I'm not complaining about this. It's just like I think because it looks close enough to like what a bowling bag. Yeah. Yeah. Would be I was when he picked it up again, I was expecting it psychologically. I was thinking, oh, this is going to be really heavy.

And it just looked like you just threw an empty bag at them. Anyways, go on. No more bag digressions. Please no more bag digressions. The artificialness I think is so that it reads to the audience. But yeah, it's a little wild. Anyway, our goon meets another goon. They see Vin. They head towards him. He sees them and then he throws the bag at them and runs away. So Yeah, we're reasoning that's like, oh he's signaling to them and then it's like, oh no and runs away. So yeah, we're originally like, oh, he's signaling to them. And then it's like, oh, no, that's not that's not in fact what this is at all. We cut to Rocky with paint swatches, a little book

of paint swatches telling Jim that all I'm saying is this place could use a new coat of paint. Introducing our B plot of the episode. Rocky wants to paint Jim's trailer. Sea foam green. Sea foam green. Jim doesn't want to paint it. He likes the way that it is. Thank you very much. And this conversation is interrupted by a knock on the door and a Vietnamese woman who has Jim's ad

from the phone book, like torn out, has has come to see Jim. Yeah, this is my she will be our main foil to Jim as the episode. The client client. Yeah, she's his client. What is established here is that my doesn't really speak English. So she has kind of broken, you know, individual monosyllabic sentence fragments with which he is communicating Rocky picks up on it a little faster than Jim does. Yeah. Yeah, Jim is giving her the old his old Client he po yeah, like he's got to get rid of a client. That's what Jim does go to the police. Yeah

He makes jokes the same way. He always makes jokes, but she doesn't get it. Right. She's not responding. She's no selling them. Yes, she's not selling them. And so Rocky is like, she doesn't understand you, Jim. Like you need to, you know, bring it in a little bit. Finally, you know, she's like my brother. You find he missing that kind of stuff. Jim says if he's missing, go to the police and he, you know, slows down how he's talking.

He's like, you go police like that kind of stuff. Rocky, however, jumps in. Have money. That's not the point. What do you mean, that's not the point for a fellow who can't afford to pay these men? He's the best there is. A two hundred dollars a day in expenses. I buy.

And she goes. I buy. And she goes, I buy and starts counting at $100 bills. I think it's insinuated here when we learn later, Rocky wants Jim to be working so that he can buy paint for the trailer. The trailer painting discussion kind of revolves around how much it's going to cost Jim. Yeah, because Rocky keeps saying, like, for the price of that, you could have bought two coats or two a gallon of paint or whatever. Yeah, or something like that. And so, yeah, that's going to be the ongoing.

And I love it. I 100% love it. Rocky is so focused in this episode. It's yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. She shakes her head whenever Jim says, if he's a missing person, she should go to the police. Her brother is a refugee. He was coming from Vietnam. She was there to meet his bus. He wasn't there. Sponsor didn't answer her call.

And just keeps pushing the money on him. You promise you find. And Jim reluctantly takes takes said money with a if you want to throw your money away, I'll give it my best shot. Gets the sponsor's name and address, Robert Coffee. So, yeah, that gives us going into our story. We go to Jim checking out the address and it's just an empty lot between two built two other like houses.

There's like a voiceover in this or is there's the cut? There's something where the numbers read out loud while we're looking at the number and I'm trying to remember how it I think it's just a voiceover her telling him the address. Yeah, and we just cut to him like looking at the house numbers painted on the car. Yeah. So you know, nothing there.

That's mysterious. And then we cut from there to Becker and Billings. Yes. I love when Billings is like at work in the full uniform. For some reason, it just always tickles me. I feel like I'm going to see a picture of this. I don't know what you're talking about. In our last episode, we had the pre Billings era of this. I don't know what you're talking about. In our last episode, we had the pre-Billings era of right Louis Delgado.

So it's nice to get back to mainline Billings Prime. Oh, so good. So good. Oh, man, that is just tailored to him down to like the tie tucked into the belt, tucked into his belt, is freshly pressed giant silver shield on the breast pocket.

The pen, the physical presence of Joe Santos can't be understood in this picture. So this is so so Becker's coming in to like the main office area. Billings is following him. Becker is angry because there's an inspection going on, a snap inspection. So he's telling Billings, why didn't you tell me there's an inspection? And he's walking in front of him and he's frowning. This was the best I could get because pretty much every other pause screen that I could get it's blurred because he's moving his head back and forth too much.

Yeah. So in this particular picture, he's just like a frowning gorilla. Nobody does put a pot like, oh, yeah, Joe Santos. Oh, it's a good buildings. I didn't know. I just passed the brass at the coffee machine. Oh, well, just a busy. I am busy. You look a lot busy without the coffee in your hand. Jim makes his entrance. He needs some help.

So he goes to see Becker. We see the brass in the background. They're like talking to someone at like another desk in the room. So Becker sits up in his chair, starts looking really official and very loudly asking like questions to establish that he's working. Right. Right. Yeah. Could you give me a description of the man? Like, I'm asking if I can use your crossover machine to look up his phone number. Yeah, he wants to see if the phone number he has might go with some other address.

Apparently, the cops have a crisscross. Yeah, look up. Which I don't know if that is real, but I like the idea of it. Becker loudly goes, You'll need to see Lieutenant Chapman on this. Please come with me, sir. And like, he's like, Chapman, what are you talking about? So it's very, very funny in the hall. This is also from the preview montage in a, I don't know,

unrepresentative moment. There's an inspection going on. I'll see you later. Hey, what am I? Lint on somebody's uniform? All I want to do is use the crisscross. Well, it's your neck. There's brass all over the place. First door on the right. Thank you, David. Yeah. Again, those moments where we see that Becker will hook him up are always appreciated.

Yeah, this one's fun. I love the pressures in this scene on Dennis and how Jim is... He's oblivious to it. It's just Becker seems to be behaving weird. Mm-hmm Yeah, no, it's a good comedic scene and I think it's you know shows these pressures that just allow him to instead of fighting Jim He's just like whatever just just do it and get out of here. Yeah. I don't want to be seen with you get out of here Mm-hmm. Yeah, I kind of thought this would be a bigger deal also for the episode, like the inspection or something. But it's mostly just for this comedic moment. Apparently, this crisscross machine works and Jim is able to get a lead. We go to the doctor's hospital of Southern California where he's in the kitchen.

He's looking for Mitch Donner. Yes, which is our which are our face guy. Yes, but as we learn eventually the Whatever the coffee that name was it was is an alias. So yeah, wait now so I got confused because Okay, so the alias is actually Associated with who he's gonna end up talking to yeah Yeah. So, okay, he's looking for coffee. He's looking for coffee. He asked this guy who apparently is like the head cook or whatever, like he's like apparently in charge. I don't know.

This is like a precursor to half the scenes in early, the early part of a Law and Order episode, where you have somebody in situ just dealing with a busy workplace and the detective just talking to him. And you're like, I assume he must be the important person to talk to because why else would our protagonist be talking to him? A little bit of this I actually end up reconstructing from later stuff that we learned. I had some trouble because I was unsure if I wasn't tracking who was who because of like face blindness stuff, or if I just didn't have the right information.

I don't know. These are ultimately minor concerns, but in terms of telling the story. Yeah, I mean, at this point, we're not entirely sure what's going on. And Jim's just pulling up the thread that he has. So the thread that he has is for whatever reason, his lead is leading him to look for someone named Mitch Donner, who's supposed to work in this kitchen. So he's talking to this guy. He's told that Donner didn't report to work this morning. They don't know where he is. And then he asked for, well, is there a Robert Coffey who works here, too? And the guy's talking to him, he's like, no, never heard of him.

We have a gag about not putting salt in the food because it's a hospital. Like one of the other cooks comes up to have him taste the thing. He's like, there's way too much salt in there. This is a hospital. No salt. And then Jim leaves and this cook gives a significant glance over his shoulder. He watches Jim leave and then goes to a phone. What we eventually learn is this is coffee. This is Robert

Coffee, but that is an alias. Right. The name that we'll hear more as we go on is Benson Kelly. So he he is played by Luke askew, which one of the great names in Hollywood. Yeah, it's great. It's great. And he must have must have been oh he's yeah He's a bad guy. Yeah, he's a bad guy, but like he must have been and I'm looking through his things he must have been something that mystery science theater did because I remember a Mystery science theater thing based on his joke based on his name, but he's got he's been in so many things Another good face. I don't remember exactly what character is which but he was in he's been in so many things another good face I don't remember exactly what character is which but he was in cool hand Luke and

his character was Moss Paul so I assume he's one of the you know bosses yeah but yeah he's a he's a that guy he's mostly and he's usually a heavy he's a very expressive face that can be very comedic or very threatening he was in another episode of the a lot of these are like two timers for episodes like he was in feeding frenzy i think is like a background character a lot of these goods were in like one other episode of the rocket files using. I think he's been in like several high tech helicopter. Things he was at least an air wolf. I'm The important one. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So the point here is that whatever's going on they're on to Jim. Mm-hmm Yes, this is reinforced immediately as we Go to the trailer see someone who is not Jim come out of the trailer see the firebird approaching

Yells Donner move it and then our goon. Yes our main goon a recognizable one Yes comes out yet. He's holding a gun and they jump into a car So this is our third string goon. I guess his name is Gary we get his name like once in the in the episode The actor's name is Charles Siebert and he was in a lot of stuff. Yeah, he was also in one other episode He was in the reincarnation of Angie. Ah, but no the guy who plays Donner Charles Napier I think he was the voice of the Hulk in the Incredible Hulk. Oh Like doing the growls and the roars. This is a credit a credit mystery, because I'm not quite sure what it means. He has 49 credits for the Incredible Hulk.

Wow. And his voice, comma uncredited for the Hulk. But it's distributed across four seasons. It's not in like every single episode. So they must have recorded something that like some growl or something he did. Uh huh. And they just reused it. Okay. You know what I mean?

Yeah, because it's not like the Hulkhead dialogue. He did play a couple characters in the Hulk. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's not like the Hulkhead dialogue. His other Rockford Files credit was that he was the sheriff in 5 into 56 Won't Go. Yes, yes. So that's probably the highest profile other gig from these goons. So yeah, bunch of bunch of that guys in this one. Anyway, that's neither here nor there as the rest of the scene is Jim seeing them run out of his trailer, attempting to pursue in the Firebird and we have a high-speed parking lot chase. Yes. Where unfortunately due to other cars being

involved Jim is not able to cut them off they get out of there and then Jim pulls a J turn to get from where he is in the parking lot back to the trailer. Yes. As fast as possible to see what happened. It is one of the most ostentatious parking jobs I've ever witnessed. But it's great. You got to love it. This is the first of two, I think, car chases. I think so.

And they're both in the vicinity of Jim's trailer. There's a thing in this that I don't think is intentional, but I do enjoy that exists, is that they keep subverting expectations. This looks like it's going to be this big log chase, or maybe it doesn't look like it's going to be a big long one, but like, it's a Rockford Files. He's squealing out in the firebird as they're trying to get away. You're expecting like a country road. I am. I'm expecting a country road chase.

And it does like somebody pulls out in front of him and brings it to to an end. There's a couple more jokes like that that feel like hey if you know the Rockford files wink wink yeah yeah which we'll get it get into when we get into and that follows this pattern of our main client is not who not entirely what she's presenting to Jim so. But yeah this is the button on this is Jim going in to his trailer He's right to be concerned because that's where we see Rocky slumped over the table again from the preview montage However, we cut I'm sure this is a commercial break and then we come back Thankfully the Rockies sitting up rejecting more ice from Jim And he says stop clucking over me. I'll be alright

This is the second episode we've done where... Cluck is used in passing. Yeah, there was the other one where he was like, it's a long drive, don't cluck it up. That one, I guess, is just about stop talking, but this one feels more like being a mother hen or something. It's good, it's very good. Again, a subversion, right? Like it's Rocky with the ice pack and Jim over top, which is like almost every other time it's Jim with the ice pack. Rocky didn't see who they were. He was looking at paint samples and they came in.

So he bent over the desk. They jumped up from behind. Oh, such a rocky pastime. Jim goes has gone through the trailer. They don't seem to have taken anything, including like his camera, which is just sitting out. Yeah, but they, the TV. They looked through his closet and looked under his mattress. So they were looking for something in particular and clearly, you know, didn't find it. And he checks his desk drawer and he checked that there's an envelope there and has 400 bucks in it.

And they didn't even, they didn't take that either and that's when Rocky goes Hey, I thought you didn't have money to repaint the trailer How long have you had that squirreled away? Just knows else that they must have been looking for something specific. Yes Yeah, it's great. Um, and a good advanced on our B plot here The the attempt to paint our trailer. I mean, it is entirely consistent to me that Jim has just some cash squirreled away. Yeah.

Like just in case, right? We go from here to a very grim scene. Yes. The camera starts off showing us with Vin from the intro hanging by his wrists from like a ceiling, some kind of like I don't know shed or something. Yeah or a barn or yeah there's some it's some out building. Yeah so he's hanging by his wrist from something our two goons are there Donner is yelling at him in Vietnamese and holding a bamboo stick. Vin has has bruises and like some blood on his face. He's clearly gotten worked over.

He's barely conscious, just as a side. None of the Vietnamese is subtitled, which I think is, you know... Well, obviously intentional, but is effective, right? Yeah. What it's conveying is that these men probably were Vietnam soldiers, right? Yeah. If they're speaking Vietnamese, then that's probably what's happening. He does switch to English to say, you want to die here, which I think also was in the preview montage, but he is passing out and not giving them whatever they want to know. So our stakes here are escalating. Something serious obviously is going on.

Our next scene, Jim goes to see Mai. We have some dialogue here establishing that she lives in this house with this older white couple, Kathy and Leslie. Leslie Hartman. Yes, who I guess I forget what the term is. They not adopted, but like they brought Mai with them back. Sponsored her.

Sponsored her. Yeah. Yeah. So she lives with them. It's been two years. We get dialogue between Jim, Mai and Kathy and Kathy to kind of get all this establishment. She clearly is like, oh, a gentleman suitor. Which is a little funny because it's just such a willful misreading of the situation. Yeah, because she expresses concern about my being shy or not making friends.

Yeah, not making friends or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We meet Leslie. Another that guy. Another that guy. Yeah. He's what James Callahan is the actor. Yeah. He and he and Jim have a bit of jocular back and forth, establishing that he was he was in civilian construction in Vietnam. Yes. The construction corps. Not so, you know, not a soldier, but, you know, part of the army.

And he has a we put him up, they blow him up. Ha ha ha ha. What a whole line. But they leave Jim to talk to my he tells her about what happened to his dad and wants to know if there's something about her brother that she hasn't told him. Mike doesn't give him anything, you know, asking about her brother, if he's going to keep working on it. Kathy comes out with a tea tray to see my pushing another five hundred dollars on Jim and saying, you find him, you find him.

And he he gives another reluctant OK. And he leaves. We then follow Kathy to go talk to To Leslie she's worried about my that man was a detective and if she's in some kind of trouble They have you know, the two of them have a responsibility to help her and also where did she get $500? There's a mention here that the relocation program split up families Which is relevant. Leslie here is like a real bull for like of a better term.

He appears to be a very unpleasant man, because once it's just him and his wife, he like belittles her. He's mean to her. Yeah. Tells her to like, stop talking like he cuts her off and says, stop hovering. I can do what she wants. She's she saved up her money So what who cares? How about you leave me alone? Let me get back to my work Yeah, which looked like like he was hand assembling a tabletop role playing game. He like had some kind of paper cutter Yeah, I think he's supposed to be like an architect. Yeah, I was like doing something so I was like, huh?

Yeah, what what a weird little character trait to give to this side character Right, right. Like apparently this guy hates his wife. Yeah, I had like a You know seeing him and being like, oh, it's a that guy So this guy is clearly involved to by the end of the scene thinking that he wasn't and I don't know what made me think Yeah, I like I was not expecting to see these these two again. Yeah by the end of the scene thinking that he wasn't and I don't know what made me think that. Yeah, I was not expecting to see these two again. Yeah, yeah, I was like, oh. Part of the world's kind of stuff, but it was kind of an odd tone to strike.

Four characters that I'm probably not going to see again. I was wrong. Which as it turns out, yes. Jim is leaving his trailer the next day, but the door is blocked by paint cans and a ladder. Okay, so this is another one of those subverting expectations things because the amount of time we spend inside the trailer with Jim as he quietly gets ready to leave builds attention in me. I received an image. Oh, yes, yes. This is a handwritten note on the, I think the stuff outside.

So, yeah. It was taped to the paint cans. Yeah. So, it builds up this tension that I'm like, he is going to get assaulted as soon as he opens that door or someone's going to come through the door. And then he opens it and he is, he's assaulted as soon as he opens that door or someone's going to come through the door. And then he opens it and he is he's assaulted by like a ladder and some paint cans, like all the things you would need to paint his trailer.

And then there's this note attached to it. Yeah. Which which says went to pick up LJ. He's going to help. And I was like, LJ. Yeah. We'll talk about LJ in a minute. If you haven't joined us for an LJ episode, LJ is like Rocky's buddy who does handyman stuff. Yeah, I think I think he's mentioned off screen in more episodes than he's actually in. So Jim is like, wait a minute. And he goes back into the trailer, checks his envelope and there's only 100 bucks left.

And that's when the goons come in. I love it. I love it as as a Rockford files watcher I'm expecting the goons to come in then they it's a classic horror movie bait and switch where it's like oh no it turned Out it was a kitten that was making that noise and then the monsters right behind them It turns out it was paint cans and then the goons come in. So it's Donner and the other guy. Oh yeah. Gary. Gary, yeah. But Gary, we just want to answer a couple of questions and nobody gets hurt. I think Donner says that. Whatever. It doesn't matter.

Donner does say, keep stalling Rockford and you're going gonna end up in a wheelchair basketball team Very specific threat very specific threat Jim's like I'm happy to answer questions. What do you want to know? Hey, what is this all about? And then finally goes alright guys. Hey look and he holds up the hundred dollar bill He's still holding they look at it which gives him the the opportunity to shove both of them out of the way Go running out the front door. Thankfully, they moved the paint cans to come in. Yeah. Right. Otherwise he would have. Yeah. Yeah. Been stumbling out. Yeah. And outside, Rocky and LJ are just rolling up in Rocky's truck. So Jim runs to the truck, jumps in the passenger side, shoves LJ into the middle, yelling, go, go, go. And Rocky takes off and we get our second car chase.

Yeah. I just want to show some appreciation for the $100 bill trick, because that was exquisite. That just was like, hey, look at this. And like, first of all, you know, then God, it just feels like the oldest trick in the book. Like, hey, look at that or whatever. Hey, look behind you.

But because it's an actual hundred dollar bill. Yeah. They're like, wait, why is he waving a hundred dollars? Like, it's odd enough to bring your attention to what's going on. And it's great. But yeah, this is another kind of exciting little chase where Rocky ends up going out onto the beach. Yeah, which is fantastic. They do take a shot at some point.

Yeah, they do. You know, so there's some some danger here. But the goons can't follow him onto the beach. They try, but they end up getting stuck in the sand like a cyber truck, like a cyber truck. Somewhere in there, we hear LJ. Hey, I thought we were going to paint. Yeah, or LJ. I love how Rocky like no questions asked just starts going for it. He's very on top of things in this episode, which is great.

We're what? Season three? At this point, Rocky's like, OK, I get it. And we end our scene with a good, frustrated goon pounds on the on the hood of his car because he can't follow them. And we do end with some triumphant looks. Yeah, look at them. Everyone's happy. Yep. Jim, LJ and Rocky gotten away from the goons. So good. LJ is played by Al Stevenson.

He appears in four episodes of The Rockford Files. So this is his final appearance. And I think maybe the one where he has the most lines He appears in four episodes of The Rockford Files. So this is his final appearance and I think maybe the one where he has the most lines. Yeah, it could be. We previously saw him in Profit and Loss part two, Gear Jammers part one and Guilt. So this is a this is a rap on Al Stevenson. Yep. Yep. I feel like who is this kind of character in a lot of these TV shows? He was the bus driver in Critters to the main course.

Oh, nice. Anyway, he's a fun he's a fun peripheral character to the Rockford family. He gets referenced a lot like Rocky is always inviting LJ to thing. Yeah, we're like, we're going to go play poker with LJ tonight, like that kind of stuff. So definitely, like, I remember at one point when we discovered how few episodes he was actually in, being a little surprised by that because he loomed a little larger than than what his IMDB would suggest. It feels like he could have, there could be an episode that is kind of like LJ needs help.

Yeah. Yeah. LJ asks Rocky and Rocky doesn't want to like for some reason, Rocky doesn't want to tell Jim what's going on and like tries to get Jim to do stuff. I feel like there's something. Is this your is this your pitch for the draft episode? Is that what you're. Look, don't steal my ideas, okay? It's good. It's good. I like it.

Anyway, with this upswing in danger, I guess they go immediately back to Mai's house. Because we have Rocky and LJ sitting there. I don't mind painting, but I sure don't like nobody trying to shoot at me. Oh, nobody likes to get shot at. yeah, but I don't like it in particular It's so good, and he's like a really like gentle soft-spoken guy. So yes. Yeah, it's a good contrast I mean, I think my favorite bit about it is just that LJ again

Like like I said, he looms a little large but also Rocky and Jim have a pattern for this LJ provides a third- party look at how wild it is that they should just randomly get shot at on a day they were just going to paint the trailer, right? That just shouldn't happen. And yeah. He is the everyman. Yeah, exactly. Well, Jim explains what happened to Mai and asks if she knows who those goons were or

what's going on. And she finally says she doesn't know them, but she might know why. Explains again in mostly kind of pigeon English that her brother Vin worked at an American ranger camp in Vietnam. They were attacked by the Viet Cong. Many were killed, and they blamed Vinh, said he passed information. But she insists, no, he didn't do that.

He loves Americans, loves cowboy movies. She hasn't seen him for two years. And Rocky has a good line. I've known guys to keep a grudge a lot longer than Saigon to LA. And then she says that when she went to meet Vin at the bus Someone said that two guys chased him and so they chased him away. They might have caught him They might torture him and she says if you know find they kill Vin. So she's escalating the potential consequences here for Jim

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 Mastodon instance,

dice.camp, or on Co-host. Where can our listeners find you, Nathan? All of my games, zines, podcast projects, and other work are at NDPdesign.com. You can also find me at NDP on co-host and over on Instagram at NDPdesign.games. And of course, you can always find this show, 200 a Day, at 200aday.fireside.fm. And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimmy Rocco. Jim goes back to the hospital kitchen to follow up on that again.

He's talking to someone in a suit this time. Don't count on seeing Donner. He apparently quit. He said he had to go up in the mountains to find himself or something. Jim's like, oh, you're in charge? Who did I talk to the other day? That was Benson Kelly. He also quit the dialogue here. We get to finding out that Donner and Kelly

were friends since they were both in Vietnam together. Jim's like, Oh, like Army Rangers. He's like, No, they're potato soldiers. They were cooks in the quartermaster core. Kitchen Rangers. Maybe it's good. It's a good. Yeah, I like potato core. Kitchen Rangers, maybe. It's good. It's a good... Yeah, I like Potato Soldiers. That was a good... It's a fun little like rundown of like, no, they were, you know... So yeah, now is where I'm like, like there's a more interesting backstory here that we are now going to start learning, right?

Jim is on to it now. Jim is on to something and like, but there's a... All the questions are, does she think they're Rangers? Because that's what actually happened. But they're from, this is, are they a third so far unknown faction coming into it for whatever reason? Or does she deliberately mislead Jim about what's going on? Or does she not know what's going on? And thus is innocently

steering Jim into the situation like all of these are in play so it's starting to feel interesting I guess I guess up till now it's been a little linear yeah Jim's getting pushed around but you know that's that's how we start that's how Jim gets revved up he's like a little penny racer needs to get pushed around a little bit before he does nobody nobody's gonna know what a penny racer needs to get pushed around a little bit before he does nobody nobody's gonna know what a penny racer is that is Exactly. I know what which is a penny racer is yeah, so never mind Let's continue their little toy cars that if you pull them back and let them go that oh, yeah Yeah, I guess I just I haven't heard that term well

Sorry, that's that was a brand of them because there was a brand where you there was like a slot in the back where you could put a penny and that would cause them to pop a wheelie and go forward. Yeah, that's all. Toys. Toys from a very specific year. Just like one year. We return to Vin. We see that he is able to untie his hands. Whoever is watching him, one of the goons has fallen asleep. Fallen asleep. And he sneaks away. And then after he exits the frame, the other goons come in and they are like,

OK, let's go follow him. So he's clearly been been let go. I think this is when so here's where we see Kelly, the cook, join the other two goons and we see that he's kind of in charge and he like dispatches the two to follow Vin. Yes. Whatever they want to get out of him. Apparently he hasn't told them. So they're now going to put a tail on him. See what happens. And now we go to another highlight of the episode.

Casa Tacos. Jim is handing out tacos to Rocky and LJ while they reconvene. LJ looks really sad about his taco, but I think he's just sad about life. Yeah, definitely sad about how his day is going. Yeah, I don't think it's the taco in particular, though I thought maybe there was going to be a gag about how like, I don't even like tacos or something. But yeah, no, it's just it's just his day. Oh, yeah. Good. Good. Good taco shot.

This is another two, two in a row of good taco eating shots. For us at least, separated in time. Probably a couple seasons of course. LJ is saying that. You see we was gonna paint the trailer. Actually I got a couple hours. I get shot at, drove all over town. Okay LJ, I'll take you back to your shop.

I gotta pick up my car anyway. Oh, and I just hold on There's nobody going no place. We all agreed. We're gonna paint the trailer who all agree LJ is caught between two Rockford boys a rock and a rock if you will. Mm-hmm a Rockford and a rocky Jim we're gonna go return that paint and get a refund of my money And rocky but you have money. You have a client. Like one of the few times, Rocky's like, no, but you're working. It's good.

Yes. Jim says, my has one more chance to make sense. If she wants to stay his client, right? Like, I might have a client, but we're finished if she doesn't. He knows that something else is going on and she's just, she's the key. We go back to Vinh. We see him running up to a house, ringing the bell, talking to someone in Vietnamese. Our goons followed him. This could be where it is.

Could be. You get the back. Now, okay, there's something happening here that I haven't quite figured out. Vinh appears to be looking at a slip of paper for the address of the house. Yes That's what it looks like. So, okay, we saw him get his bag when he sneaked Snugger is jacket or something. Yeah something. Yeah, but I just it yeah, it's fine. It's Why didn't they search his pockets like that's the thing that like if they're going to torture him you would think they'd also go through his belongings,

and that might provide some kind of clue before digging through all of Rockford's trailer. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that this is a bad show or anything like that. It's just, it's a moment I'm like, huh, it's weird. It's just a little weird. It's here to establish that he is not, that he doesn't have anywhere else to go. Right. Like, yeah, the reason we're seeing him look at a piece of paper is so that we know that he's like he's on his own.

This is his only whatever he's going. But yeah, that's a good point. I was thinking, well, we do kind of learn as we go that these guys aren't super competent. Yeah, but they did toss Jim's trailer looking for, I guess, looking for money. This is all about money, right? So like they're looking for money. So like, did they think the money was at Rockford's trailer? Is that what they were looking for?

Yeah, it's a little confusing about who understands the mind of a potato soldier. That's true. That's a good point. Jim goes to see my my got a call from a friend of Vince from the refugee camp who has information. So they go to this friend's house and it is in fact the house we just saw. There is no answer to the bell. The doors open. They go in and we have the ominous music as we see a guy slumped in a chair. This is Noyan. He is beat up. He's who we saw in the preview montage, who was all beat up. Two men, Americans. They took Vin. Jim asked for a description. He's like, one was big

and the other was tall. And Jim's like, must be our guys. It's just like the barest amount of dialogue to connect those. The actor here is another one of the, another that guy. I'm sure I've seen him in a bunch of things. He's been a bunch of things. Clyde Kusatsu, he is Hawaiian. Yeah, just 316 things. He's been like the Japanese guy in a lot of World War II things. He's been in lots of these shows.

He does a lot of voice work, it looks like. Yeah. Yeah, he did voices for Avatar, The Last Air. He does a lot of voice work, it looks like. Yeah. Yeah, he did voices for Avatar the Last Airbender. Lot of work. Lot of work. He was in 14 episodes of the New Kids on the Block TV series. Oh, he was in Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

He was in a bunch of episodes of Kung Fu. You'll be shocked to hear. Yeah. He was in an episode of Square One Television. Nice. Yeah, a lot of my childhood really is what's happening here. Anyway, back to the Rockford fires. Mm hmm. Jim asked, what did they want to know? And he gives Maya glance and glut and my shakes her head.

Yes. Jim's like they had been they obviously wanted something else because they, you know, beat you up. So what was it? Jim sees Mai shaking her head, says, I'm going to call the cops. Kidnapping is a federal crime and Nguyen is a witness or an accessory. He says that Vin has something they want. Mai starts yelling at him in Vietnamese and he cuts her off with I don't want your money. Yes. So my paid or offered him a thousand dollars to do nothing more than describe the men to Jim to help Jim find them, but not to reveal what they want. And he says she's rich, but she doesn't want to tell you. Yes. Yeah. So now we're on to it. Hmm. Hmm. Jim heads out when he was talking to Rocky, he was like, I think I'm going to go see the Lakers or whatever.

I think Rocky says something like if you have money for Lakers tickets, you have money for the paint or something like that. Yeah. And so they leave the house and he's like, all right, I'm out. I'm late for the Lakers game. My follows him is asking him where he's going, telling him to stop. Her English is getting much more coherent. Jim calls her out on that. Crash Course and Belitz?

All right. I speak English. I also speak French. Ah, but Pigeon English. That's where you really shine. There was a reason for that. Sure, not understanding is very convenient when you don't want to answer questions. I understand greed, Mr.

Rockford. I didn't know if I could trust you. Now I think I can. Well, that's too bad, because now I don't trust you. So, yeah, so this is, I guess, the reveal that we're kind of talking about where it's like the show has been priming us to have the same set of assumptions about her that Jim does. Yes, yes. And now those expectations are getting subverted as we learn that she, you know, she speaks English fine. The story is independent of her, I guess, identity as a refugee.

Yes, it plays into a particular stereotype, but also it helps her to keep Jim from asking too many questions of her, right? Like this is a good situation for her. Yeah, yeah. And in particular, we're starting to get in like, cause there are open questions, like the question that Kathy, her sponsor asked, where does she get the money?

Why does this woman, this refugee have all of this money that she's just literally throwing at people? Like trying to get Jim to find her brother and whatnot. But also apparently creating some impediments to Jim finding out what's going on. Yes. Here's the truth. Vin was a driver for a colonel the Quartermaster Corps, who was involved with money smuggling during the war, because I guess the troops were supposed to use Vietnamese money or script, but there was a black market in American dollars going, you know, both ways through various conduits, including this guy.

The goons who have been chasing Vin, or capturing him, harassing Rockford, etc. were part of the quartermaster corps, as we've learned, potato soldiers, and were in on whatever the scheme was. We're in on it with this colonel. The colonel was killed. We learn later his jeep was blown up by a claymore. And Vin ended up with a briefcase with $50,000. Mai got it from him in the refugee camp and smuggled it to the US with her when she came two years ago. And so now they're trying to find out the location. They want to get the money from Vin because they don't know that she has it. Yeah, they're trying to figure out how he got it across. Right, right. And she says, it was a fortune. Do you understand? And Jim says, yeah, I understand.

Maybe the police will understand, too. She doesn't want him to go to the cops, of course. And he says, either we involve the police or you're in this alone. So we do, in fact, go to see our good friend, Dennis Becker. Yay. Give him the kidnapping report on VIN. But the gag here is that my just plays completely dumb, doesn't give Dennis anything, Jim keeps talking for her, and Jim's finally like, if you trust me, you can trust Dennis. And Mai says, not understand, not have, brother.

And Dennis is like, what am I supposed to do? Fill out a report on hearsay? And I'm supposed to take that to Lieutenant Chapman. And then what do you think is going to happen? I like how Lieutenant Chapman is like a specter over this episode, without actually seeing him. So but yeah, my continues to not want to get the police involved to the point of misrepresenting herself so that Dennis will not follow up on it.

So Jim leaves, my follows, apologizes, but she can't let him go to the police. The money is all they have. She's not even a permanent resident in the US. What is she supposed to do for money? Like, I think she's like, what am I supposed to scrub toilets? Right? Like she's in this place where her view is that the money is the security. Yeah. And Jim lays it out real clear. You can have your brother or you can have the money is the security? Yeah, and Jim lays it out real clear You can have your brother or you can have the money. You can't have both. Mm-hmm And so she says I want my brother safe. So I guess she makes that call I kind of feel like she has some plan maybe

Yeah, yeah, cuz she's she has throughout this this whole thing She's been I guess I get manipulating is the right term I didn't want to use it and in fact she does have a plan as we learn in the next year actually now that I'm looking at my notes Jim is waiting he was he's snoozing but he is it definitely waiting for something like this to happen Which is where his phone rings. It's Kelly and he says alright my has the money we have her brother Sounds like we have a trade. Jim places cards as we expect him to you know the guys like stay by your phone will call you change it just like oh stay where you know where I'll be so you can come and jump me no you call and leave your instructions on my phone machine and I'll check in every half hour.

I forget exactly what the exchange is but here... When you're dealing for half a million, what's a couple of years? You mean 50,000. She's got half a million, we got her brother. Let's not play games. You just stay close to home, get the bread together. And that's how Jim finds out that again he's been played. Exactly. So yeah, so I think here is where we can intuit her plan Which is I said we have fifty thousand so we'll give them fifty thousand get my brother back

I'm still you know profit on the deal, right? Yeah, so he calls my tells her to leave the money where it is He'll come by in the morning. They'll figure out they'll make the deal and they want all of it the whole five hundred thousand And then he hangs up. Yes. Dun, dun, dun. Jim, in fact, goes to see her in the morning with a briefcase. She's been keeping the cash in an elephant statue in her room. So she starts pulling it out of the statue, which is a fun little visual moment. Jim calls into his answering machine.

It is the height of the 70s technology. So to check your voicemail, you call the number and then he has a little box that plays a certain tone into the receiver and that is what activates the playback and it is ChefKiss. You have to wonder. Now, I guess there's no situation where this come. There was a time, right, early with voice activated things

on your phone and your TV and stuff like that where you could say, okay Google or Siri, blah, blah, blah, and it was actually activating people's internet home devices. They'd be watching a commercial for it and the person in the commercial would activate the home. Yeah, they say Alexa. And then that would turn on the... Yeah, I'm just creating in my head the scenario

in which Jim's tone happens to be the same tone for someone else who also happened to be on the phone, but they would have to have been on the phone with their machine at the time for it to receive it. So it probably never ever happened. But you know. But, you know, well, you could see if Jim knows that someone else has this maybe the same model of right. No, I just he does.

Or I meant somebody watching the Rockford files. Oh, because because this tone comes through loud and clear on the soundtrack. It's not like they're not subtle about it. They're like, like they just play it. And it it's yeah Jim's an early he's a he's a phone freaker he's making a distance calls with the Blue box or whatever to yeah play the tones like Captain Crunch. That was what the Captain Crunch Yeah, one of the big early phone freaks. That's what they call them. Yeah, cuz you could use

There's like a whistle that came. yeah that you could use to replicate the tones or something yeah anyway back when hacking was fun yeah right a time before I was born anyway surprise it's Leslie I'm just gonna say he hasn't got the there's no message yet but But while he's checking it, the perspective switches to just holding a gun. We just see a gun pointing at them. And yes, it's Leslie. Mr. Hartman. He knows all about where the money came from. He thought the kid was going to bring it over and it's been sitting there for years.

So Jim's like, I'm beginning to think that you weren't a construction or whatever. And yeah, turns out that he was Army CID. I guess that's I don't know, intelligence, Army intelligence attached to the Colonel, whatever, Benson Kelly money conduit. But after the colonel got blown up, Jim's like, and that's when you decided to cross the line. He knew that Vin had the money. Couldn't find him. It was pure chaos over there. He was supposed to be investigating this black market money thing. He decided he'd get in on it instead. Didn't know where the money was, but he convinced his wife to bring my stateside as an anchor to then get the money to come eventually. Jim's like, your own supplement to the GI bill.

He has them turn around and face the wall. Again, a bit of an intense scene here where he hits Jim in the back of the head. Right. My like turns around and alarm. He pushes her. She falls behind the open door so that we don't see him hit her. It's off screen. Yeah. Yeah.

This guy's a bad guy. This guy is a very bad guy. He's a very bad guy. Yeah. So he knocks them both out, takes the briefcase, goes to his front door, looks out the window. I think he hears a car door or something. He looks out the window and his wife he hears a car door or something, he looks out the window, and his wife is coming home. She was out shopping or whatever.

And there's suspenseful music. I wonder what this horrible person's going to do. We go back to Jim and Mai, they wake up eventually, they're all right, Jim checks his phone, there is a message, wharf, 9 a.m., be there. So that's in half an hour if Hartman was smart enough to figure this out he knows he can't spend government payroll money because that's where that the source of that cash was from the

payroll apparently he'll need to fence it so they go to his office to do some do some sleuthing look through all his stuff see if there's something that might that might be a clue as to who he's gonna fence them fence it with the some humor here where she's looking through his calendar he's like look through his calendar just read out the entries and they're like you know social engagements like a skipping that looks like it's for fun. Business arrangement but jim in fact looks at his address book and finds an entry for the Fontaine Brothers Pet Food Company. And because Jim is an expert... The Fontaine Brothers wouldn't know a doggy biscuit if it was stuck in their ear. Where's the phone? Oh, over there, but... Ugh, the Pet Food Company is just up front. They're one of the largest fences in town.

Now, to be fair to the Fontaine brothers, I too would not be able to like if you blindfolded me and stuck a doggy biscuit in my ear, I would not be able to identify what you stuck in my ear. But let's go on. If you were a pet food provider, maybe you'd be expected to know that. But yeah, Jim goes to the phone. And that is when he sees poor Cathy slumped down behind his drafting table with a bullet hole in her chest. Yeah. It's like, oh my God, he is a bad man. I did have this moment thinking, okay, if he's willing to kill his wife, why are Rockford

and Mai still alive? But also, he knocked Rockford and Mai out. He's probably not looking to kill people to cover his tracks. That's not a possibility at this point. He's going to disappear. So killing his wife was not like any plan. It's just the way to dispose of her. Right.

Yeah, exactly. There's some dialogue with Mai where she's like, but you wouldn't, you know, you're Mrs. Hartman and he's like, we can't even agree on agree on I think he says we can't even agree on when to make love Yeah Like he hates his wife. So he's a monster. Yeah, so I think this is an opportunity where he's like, well, I have the money I don't need her anymore. Yes. It's personal right? It's not about whatever his plan is or whatever Oh, yeah, he elevates very quickly to a top horrible villain of all time. This episode anyway, then we start to hear sirens.

Jim's like someone must have heard the shot. And we go to seeing the firebird leaving the cul-de-sac just as the lights roll up, because, you know, they don't want to be there. The only people in the house with a, you know, a dead woman that never, never goes well. This is only season three, I assume by season six. Any cop who sees a firebird, a firebird leaving, they just like rock for. Yeah. Maya is upset, obviously.

Miss Hartman was her friend. How could he do that to her? Establishing more that he's a monster. They're going to the exchange, though, but we don't have the money. Jim thinks there's a deal he can make, but he needs to drop Maya off first. There's something you can do for me. I'm like, aha, she's going to go get Dennis. That was my thought.

We'll see how that goes. Jim goes to the exchange. It's our goons. They have a van. They roll open the door so that we can see Vin is also in the van. Where's the money? And Jim, I don't have it. I don't know why just this delivery I really liked from Benson, whatever his name is, from from Lucas Q. At just a freaking minute, this is a ransom exchange.

This is the ransom exchange. This is a bit of a highlight in the episode of the Jim's plan in general and how he handles these guys, because this is this is exquisite. So what's happening right now is that Jim has come to them completely empty handed like he doesn't have any money. is going to be to recruit the people who are ransoming his client's brother into knocking over the fence, the fences, the guys that are going to like launder the money for this cold blooded killer and grab the killer. It's just great. It's just Jim's, all he has is like his sweet talking and he just plays it out perfectly.

Oh yeah, it's incredible. He plays these guys like a fiddle. It's amazing. So yes, his pitch here, he explains Hartman took the money, but we can get the money back, but we need Vin alive. Like we, he says something like, well, I was planning to do this anyway. Right. But it'll be easier with your help. And I can cut you in on it, because if we go knock over the fence, when they make the deal, we get the money from Hartman and we get the money, the clean money that the fence was going to exchange. Right. So they don't put dollars on it.

But it's like, you know, we could double our money, right? Yeah, but Jim can't do that by himself So if they work with him, they can be the muscle Donner cuz we've been sitting on this for four years I say we take the deal right now. We got squat which is True and tells Jim to get in the van Yeah, cuz one thing the show has done very well is establish that these guys are particularly good and they're desperate Yeah, this is the big score. They've been waiting for and yeah, they just keep seeing it slip out of their fingers All right. So we go we have an establishing shot of the Fontaine Brothers pet food cannery It's conveniently on the same wharf. I think which is

They wait they're getting impatient. Benson is willing to wait 20 more minutes before introducing. He calls Vin a banana and he's like, before introducing you in this banana to a couple of six foot holes. Donner's like, can we take these guys? And just like, well, one's kind of a small weasel guy. The other one's big, but mostly fat. We see Hartman pull up.

This is where Jim is like, oh, wait, wait, wait. Don't jump him now. Wait till he goes inside. We can get the clean money from the fence. Also. Yeah. Yeah. And OK, slick. You're leading the parade. So we have a bit of an action scene here where they sneak into this active pet food warehouse. We do see a meat grinder with, know pet food going through it and I'm like if this

was a different kind of yeah that would be Chekhov's meat grinder but right it is not that kind of show so we go with them you know the camera stays with them to find Hartman in a little office, counting out money from the briefcase. There's a couple of goods and suits. They definitely are mob. Yeah, like these guys are totally mob coded. There's an there's another heavy just kind of standing there. Jim throws an empty can to make a noise and this guy comes to investigate. And I will send you my final screenshot.

How I described this This dude in my notes is a heavy with pure uncle energy Yep He's a he's wearing a brown and Gray plaid shirt, I guess is what it is. Mm-hmm He's got a very disappointed dad look on his face. He's got a mustache. Nice mop of hair. Nice mop of hair.

The brown belt. His pants are tight enough that you can see the keys in his pocket. Yeah, let's let's yeah, let's focus on that. Just saying. If you go to the Patreon and check out the entry, which you don't need to be a patron to see, but if you go check out the entry for this episode to see the screenshots, you can see this man's tight pants and it is a hell of a look. I cannot express just how much his face is saying, what are these kids up to?

Not, I'm about to go. Like, why aren't those kids quiet down? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's good stuff. It's so, and then like in the background, you can see that the brothers presumably, and they're in like three piece suits with ties. And then like, this is their goon.

It is, it's so funny. So great casting there. I assume this might be the uncredited Bernie Dobbins is thug number two, maybe. Yeah, sure. Sure. I will pour one out for unfortunately, even though he is credited in here. I didn't see him. But Bruce Tuttle is is a is an officer at some point in this episode, but I did not note his appearance, unfortunately. Sorry, Bruce.

We missed one. Yeah. Anyway. Oh, man. I'm looking for pictures of Bernie E. Dobbins. Yeah. And it's not helping. I mean, he's a stuntman, mostly.

Yeah. All right. That's probably him, then, right? Probably mean, he's a stunt man, mostly. Yeah. All right. That's probably him, then, right? Probably. He's got a very stunt man look. Let's say it is. Yeah. He was a stunt cor- I mean, he was a stunt coordinator for a Murderers Row movies here.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Running Man, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Commando, Weird Science, First Blood, a lot. He was an uncredited thug in Magnum PI. I'll choose to believe this, this guy, based on. Yeah. There is no thug number one, it's just thug number two. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. That is wonderful.

Anyway, he comes to investigate the noise, Jim fades away around the stack of dog food cans. At some point, one of the kidnappers is like, these guys are monsters or mobsters. I couldn't tell which. I think he says monsters. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, like, what did you get us into?

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't even respond. Jim's just like, no, we're here now. This is happening. They take out our thug number two, unfortunately. Yeah. But it makes more noise. The other two guys, the guys in suits come running out.

Hartman splits. Jim follows Hartman. These two goons are smarter than our goons. They surprise them by coming around the other side of the stack of pet food cans. And one of them lifts his hand. I didn't take a screenshot, but lifts his hands to grab our guys and looks like he's taller than both of them lifts his hand. I didn't take a screenshot, but this was hands to grab our guys and looks like he's taller than both of them. Like he looks enormous.

And I don't know if it's just the camera. I mean, it is it is comedic. It's like, oh, you guys had no chance. It's pretty fantastic. Jim Chase's Hartman, he takes a shot at Jim. He manages to duck outside. We see we hear sirens as he runs into the parking lot and we get a good diving tackle from Jim right in front of the cops as they pull up. Perfect timing.

He hands the briefcase full of money directly to Becker. And Vin and Mai are reunited and we have the dialogue here where it's like, what took you so long? Well, you had your mic on me so I found the whole thing a little hard to believe at first. and Mai are reunited and we have the dialogue here. Yeah, well, I went too crazy about myself. We go to our final scene here. You know, justice is presumably served. We go to our final scene here where Jim is taking the paint back to Rocky's truck. Yes, he's dying, Rocky. He likes the trailer or the way it is.

Rocky is wearing overalls like I came to paint today. Right. Yes. And he's like, fine like I came to paint today. Right. And he's like, fine, I'll paint just the front door. And if you don't like it, we'll let it go with that. Vin and my arrive. They're in a car that's full of stuff. Jim's like, hey, I told you I'd help you move. And she's like, well, didn't have a lot of stuff. But they came by to say goodbye, say thank you. They're going to go start a new life. You know, they'll figure it out. Jim, in a bit of a paternalistic line,

you guys are going to be OK driving. It's like he knows all the signals or he knows all the signs. And it's like the dude was a professional driver like he's and mine's like, he's fine. Like, yeah, we're good. I think she gives him a peck on the cheek or something. And then she gets back in the car and they leave on Jim waving and on a be careful. Yeah.

And off they are to their new life. Jim turns to say something to Rocky and sees him lifting his hand with a paintbrush. You know, Dad. ROCKY! Freeze frame. End of episode. Yeah, finally got resolution on the paint. Finally. That's what I was waiting for. It was a fun episode.

Like I said, it did a lot of playing with expectations, which is great. I love Jim's plan at the end, like all the way through, including the, you know, that moment with the kidnappers are like, these guys are monsters. If they'd taken like two more beats to think about it, they'd realize that Jim never planned for them to succeed. Right. never planned for them to succeed. Right. They're a delay tactic for when the cops show up, right? Like he needs to get them as embroiled in whatever other things as they can so that when the cops do show up, they can get like Vin without any harm done to them, any additional

harm. There's two purposes. There's to get Vin safe, so he distracts them long enough to leave him alone. And also, I guess to manage to catch Hartman with the stolen money. Yeah. So that there's no question about what happened, you know, no question of evidence. Yeah. Who took it and whatnot. Yeah. It is interesting that there's no like, because quite often in a Rockford files, there's a finders fee and for half a million, that would be nice.

But also they always get, you know, screwed out of whatever money. Plus, this isn't like federal, like it's the army. It's probably different. You know, who knows? I don't know what that yeah, what the deal is with that kind of stuff. He did, you know, make a good chunk of change from my just throwing money. Seven hundred dollars. Yeah. But then Rocky spent three hundred dollars on paint.

So that's good. Fun episode. I think we had a I forget if it was in a comment or or an email or something at some point in the last six months. One of our patrons, I think Jordan Backelman, not Brockleman, mentioned that they'd rewatched this episode and found it to be like that it had aged a lot better than they had thought expected. Yeah, I don't remember exactly the context, but I did have that

in the back of my head while watching it. And I think that is, yeah, I don't know. Feel like I was overthinking it a little bit. Yeah, but I'm glad we're we're we're pushing through. We we what do we got now? We're just we got few episodes left of the actual show. So that was our last, you know, Zwerg appearance. We are getting to our last episodes.

Our next two episodes are episodes that we have recorded, but then for whatever reason, the recording didn't make it. So it has now been as long as possible to revisit them so that it doesn't feel like we're redoing work. Yeah. Those must have been in the first year or two, right? Like somewhere in there. Yeah. So, yeah, our next episode is from season 4 forced retirement notably it is the final Jimmy Joe Meeker appearance of the

of oh so we have that to look forward to yeah so one two three three episodes a movie and then first episode last episode episode pilot. Woof. Grows ever closer. Grows ever closer. But yeah, I was, you know, I guess pleasantly surprised to have an episode where I just had done a bad job of setting up my own expectations. So that's good. Mai, I think just because, I mean, we mentioned everyone else.

Mai, who I think is very good in this episode is played by Irene yelling son Who seems to be this kind of character in a lot of these shows around this time? She's in one episode of lots of things Including two episodes of the Incredible Hulk and two Magnum PIs and airwolf. Yeah, there you go Yeah, so she's got the credits. There is one trivia entry on her IMDB page which is off-screen. She's a black belt Judo expert. And I was like, I wish we'd seen that on screen. Yeah, that would have been fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking to see if I know. I mean, I obviously have seen her in the Hulk and probably her. Although that's been years and years and years. Yeah, it was kind of fun to have to have a question of like,

is this story going to get more complex? Like what what out of left field element is going to complicate the story? Yes. And then have it be one that I was not anticipating, because like as I think, as we both said, after we first meet the Hartmans, I'm like, I mean, we're never going to see them again. Yeah, they're just. And then when he showed like as soon as we see his face, I was like, oh, oh, no, oh, no.

Yeah. The logic falls into place really quickly. So it's like as they're saying, as they're explaining what his deal is, it's all like, oh, yeah, obviously, like that all makes total sense. So that's like kind of well done. Yeah, there are a couple for the sake of demonstrating something like with like him looking at his paper for finding the thing where it's like, or like him having his name in giant letters on his back. I guess a couple of things where I'm like, that feels a little overplayed for us. Maybe at the time it was felt that audiences would need those reminders of what his deal is. Yeah, they kind of make the story not make as much sense in those moments.

But overall, a fun episode. Yeah, fun episode by LJ. You're great. Maybe we'll get to make you in our last couple of episodes. But again, I think you have the most screen time of any episode in this one. So that was a nice little bonus. Still no idea how the writing of this one came together. But it worked out. Yeah.

I will say just because we've talked about it so much recently, I didn't notice it like while we were watching like oh my god Why isn't there any of this but now that we've done it? I'm like the difference between a like a candle Script even teleplay like the dialogue and a yeah one between our last couple episodes in this one Where I was like Huggins candle Huggins candle. Yeah three other guys the quality of that quality like good or bad,

but the, you know, just the kinds of words used. Yes. Yes. That kind of stuff, the diction and the pattern and all that stuff. This one's much more pedestrian. Yes. Other than we're going to introduce you to a couple of six foot holes. I think that's the only thing that

Yeah, it stands out to me for this one. So just a just a note that came to me as we're finishing out our consideration of new life old dragons and Bidding adieu to season three as our final Final season three. Well, I feel like on that note, I don't normally introduce the ending to these things. So how does that go? Now that I've been talking for a while, do you have any other thoughts or notes on this one? No, I agree.

I think that this is a good one. I really like Rockford's plans in this one. I just enjoy that sort of, OK, this is the way this is going to go. This is how we're going to play this one. I just enjoy like that sort of, uh, okay, this is the way this is going to go. This is how we're going to play this out. Um, yeah. And, uh, that's about it. A lot of, a lot of subverting expectations in a fun way. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The, the paint plot was great. It's perfect.

Perfect rocky, rocky, uh, plot. Yeah, exactly. I'll use Jim's money to buy paint to paint his trailer against his will. Yes. That's Joseph Rockford in a nutshell. I mean, we can we can assume it's because he cares about Rockford or Jim, but it's also because he needs a hobby. Right. Like that's the thing. This is the thing that Rocky can do. So, yeah. All right. Well, always nice to be pleasantly surprised. So that's great. Goodbye season three.

We'll see season four soon when we come back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.