Two Hundred A Day - Episode 92: South by Southeast

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

Nathan and Eppy join Jim in an unexpected trip across the border in S4E18 South by Southeast. Due to a mistaken postal address, Jim is taken for a CIA operative and whisked away for a high-stakes meeting with a rich socialite, who he quickly discovers is in trouble herself. Despite a serious class divide, we watch romance blossom while Jim does his best to keep her from danger. This fun character study of an episode uses the North by Northwest homage framing to get things going, so if seeing Jim get out of his element is something you enjoy, this is one to check out for sure! We mention the James Garner Animal Rescue Fund in this one. Check that out and consider making a donation at jgarf.org (https://www.jgarf.org). We have another podcast: Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday) at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem (https://twitter.com/richardhatem) * Brian Perrera (https://twitter.com/thermoware) * Eric Antener (https://twitter.com/antener) * Bill Anderson (https://twitter.com/billand88) * Chuck from whatchareading.com (http://whatchareading.com) * Paul Townend, who recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Jay Thompson, Matthew Lee, Kip Holley, Dael Norwood, Dave P, and Dave Otterson! 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 * Spoileralerts.org (http://spoileralerts.org) for the adding machine audio clip * Freesound.org (https://www.freesound.org/) for other audio clips

Bill Skelly with ICO. I'd like to interest you in some new private detection equipment, including the 440A telephonic bug. We'll demonstrate it in a friend's home for one full week at no charge. I think you could use a different take anyways. Oh, thanks. A little more energy. Welcome to 200 A Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Palletta. And I i'm epidiarabishaw and before we get into this week's episode we have some blinking lights or i suppose a blinking light on our uh answering answering machine

so we're just going to check that real quick and see what listeners have to say about our recent episodes we had a couple comments come in about our recent episode. We had a couple comments come in about our recent episode 89 on Caledonia. It's worth a fortune. First, we had listener Sandra email us with some very pertinent corrections. Yes. Well, a global note.

So this is coming from the perspective of someone who was in college when the show originally aired and she wanted us to know that the majority of the sartorial choices and clothing worn is indeed just what people wore. Which I think we kind of

theorized on our Q&A about clothing just because it's pretty difficult to find any kind of costume department documentation or anything. I don't even know really how to go about that for TV shows of this era.

But yeah, so that's a global note to us. Yes, it's good to know that the world was once that way. Oh, it's a beautiful thing. And also a specific correction that the article of clothing that Jim pulls out of the couch. So first of all, I didn't notice it because I guess my head was down during that shot and taking notes.

You told us that it was perhaps tighty whities. Yeah. Well, at least it appeared to be something he was trying to hide or should have been embarrassed about in some. Well, I don't even know about embarrassed, but yeah, it like. Epidae, you suggested it was a pair of tighty whities. No no it was a 70s era bra jim wasn't a slob he was a ladies man and i think that it fits in perfectly with the trying to hide in the sense of you know he's talking to uh this client who is a woman and he finds a another woman's undergarment in his couch that makes sense uh sand Sandra goes on to say,

there are situations Jim is in that may seem inappropriate now, but were considered commonplace at the time. Men were more macho without that being a bad thing. Women were free to enjoy men without worrying about pregnancy. Bell bottoms were in, bras were out. And I think we've talked about that a little bit more in previous episodes where there was a more especially in the early seasons when jim has more like in this episode here is the love like the client is also the love interest yeah yeah and how some of those relationships are very casual i think is it charlie harris at large this is going way back but there's one where the woman who plays dr pulaski on star Trek is in the episode.

We can make that happen. We can find out which one that is. You've given me enough to work with. And she brings Jim in to her orbit in a way that is very kind of swinging 70s. Yeah. I remember we talked about it then. But yeah, I think it's just something

that we kind of haven't seen in recent episodes as much. So haven't really delved into it but it is good to be reminded uh as always that it was a different time you're right charlie harris at large well done thank you i guess i should have just checked that episode first and then if that weren't the case move on but yeah but you know what i'm what i'm am i am i off off base here no no i think you're yeah i think uh um yeah uh i was alive at the time of the airing of the show but i was so tiny i would not have uh caught any of the like i would have been five when today's episode it first aired yeah you you were not actively watching nighttime TV. And getting references to women's undergarments or casual relationships in that manner.

So yeah, I think that's a great course correction or a great reminder at the very least. Reminder, yeah. Reminder at the very least. Reminder, yeah. Also in reference to episode 89, patron Brian at Thermaware on Twitter clued us in that the car carrier gambit was taken from a 1972 movie, What's Up Doc, which I had not heard of. I just watched. Oh, really?

Yeah, because of that tweet. It's a lot of fun it's a kind of a screwball comedy um with uh barbara streisand and uh i cannot think of well madeline khan is in it uh so that's great um try to think of some of the other i'm really bad with names of people anyways there are four or five people who all have a uh piece of luggage that looks identical and of course one of them is filled with jewels one of them has like spy documents in them and one of them is just filled with rocks and they get all switched up and there's just lots of antics going on it's a lot of fun uh and there is definitely a moment where they drive up onto the uh the the trucks that

carry cars around um to there's actually a really fun chase in it it's this huge like it's in san francisco right yeah yeah so you it has that feel of like you know those chases where it's just the all right so again i'm going to show my age here these are chases that are probably the inspiration for the well this one very clearly is a reference to to looney tunes and i i think it even ends with the looney tunes logo my memory's not the best i only saw it last week but i also saw who framed roger rabbit within the past couple of weeks so i'm getting a little some things confused here but anyways the point is um i just remember all these cartoons from when i was a kid that were just these giant chases.

Like Catch the Pigeon and Penelope Pit Stop and Wacky Races. And maybe they're all the same cartoon. I don't know. But there's just like this whole genre that is a bunch of people all in cars or some sort of vehicle going in the same direction. And we just see the the wacky hijinks of how each of them gets picked off one by one a lot of fun was it streaming somewhere oh yes uh oh it was on hbo max all right if you are a hbo maxer maybe check it out um brian sen uh you know included a screenshot in the tweet which we have have retweeted from at 200 pod.

So it certainly looks like a, yeah, certainly an homage to something like that. Yeah, it looks great. I'm glad that you watched it. So we had something to talk about. I'll put it on the list. Final note about Caledonia. It's worth a fortune. A patron in front of the show, Sam, left a yeah left a fun note on our patreon post about it besides the much more prominent and recognizable sid haig the photographer taking shots of the sheriff was a blink and you miss it very early

role for unlikely 70s 80s tough guy actor robert ginty oh I took a look. I think the only Robert Ginty vehicle I've seen was the one that was on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Makes sense. But yeah, there's a lot of those Blink and You Miss It debuts or early roles. Sam also mentions Robert

Hayes in the Deep Blue Sleep episode. But yeah, Sam's always good for those polls. so thanks, Sam. Yeah, yeah. Finally, on a different note, we had an email from listener Eli about the episode Sleight of Hand, which is in Season 1.

The thrust of the email is talking about how it's one where the plot stuff doesn't really hold together as you're watching and kind of thinking about it. So it made me think of two things. One was we have actually done sleight of hand, but it was our episode three. Yeah.

So I don't recall exactly what we said about it. But one distinguishing feature of that episode is that it was based on a novel. 1954's Thin Air by Howard Brown. Yes. And so it concerns the disappearance of Jim's, I think he's his fiancée is how it's framed. I can't remember. Or fiancée. But like serious.

An important character we've never seen before. Yeah. But like serious romantic we've never seen before. Yeah. But like serious, um, um, romantic partner, uh, just like disappears. And then he goes on the hunt to find out what happened. And, you know, one could go back and listen to episode three and see what we thought about it, which was recorded five years ago. Right. I just, right.

Um, but, uh, I think one reason we picked it was because it was a something that was like not in the rockford formula and so we were interested in seeing what that looked like um it may not have been super successful i remember liking some of the framing like some of the actual direction was very nor because it's kind of a noir story noir pastiche kind of thing uh but yeah um but that is neither here nor there everyone's welcome to like or dislike any individual episode as much as they do or or don't uh yeah but the email brought up the uh idea of like talking about bad episodes um yeah show and i think i don't know we've we've discussed this off air a little bit but i think we're just not there are episodes that

we do and find more disappointing than we would have hoped or don't live up to a certain promise that they seem to have made. But I don't know if I'm really interested in like slamming episodes. Yeah. So it looks like, again, this episode was recorded five years ago. We've been at this, by December we'll be at this for five years. Yeah. ago we've been at this in this by december we'll be at this for five years um and uh the trajectory is such that we'll probably do all episodes so we're guaranteed to do the worst episode right like that's that's gonna happen um but i think part of uh what we want to do is to just find

what we can in each of the episodes i mean we certainly won't sugarcoat it things there are definitely some out there that aren't that great but like we're not yeah our our job here uh is to celebrate uh and to uh learn what lessons we can or at least the job we've the job we've given ourselves to be clear and as this goes on and on i think that we're more and more likely to just be doing that because of uh just it just seems that we need more of that in our lives. That's all. Yeah, I think that is well said. We don't mind hearing about it, though.

No, no, no. Like if you didn't care for an episode, by all means, do tell us. And I think the criticism that it doesn't seem like a good Rockford Files episode in the sense that it doesn't match the things you come to see the Rockford Files for. I think that's pretty, in my memory, I think that's pretty apt. It's kind of a downer. It doesn't really paint Jim as being a particularly great investigator, if I remember right. Yeah, the novel is not a rockford files right italian novel or anything like that they're they're shoehorning it in yeah they're they're using this other story

which is also interesting because so much of the writing for the show was written almost everything right like the part of the appeal of the show is the great writing and so basing a story on a different piece of writing that's a different narrative structure it suffered in translation i think we talked about that in that episode um but you know again five years ago yeah don't really do some things have happened yeah but yeah no there's certainly criticisms to be had of of certain episodes um and you know we'll make them more where we see them. But also, so far,

I don't think we've had any episode that gave us nothing to enjoy. So that's what we focus on generally. So that was what was on our answering machine from recent episodes. So thanks again for everyone who reached out.

As always, you can tweet at us, email us at 200adaypodcasts at gmail.com or join the Patreon at patreon.com slash 200aday and let us know what you think. All right. So, Epi, what episode are we talking about today? Today we're talking about South by Southeast, which is an episode that i chose for two very specific reasons number one uh i got the reference in the title i have seen uh the hitchcock movie north by northwest uh although it's been a long time since i've seen it and i i think aside from the title i don't think there's really any connection between the two i have also seen it i've seen it multiple times but not recently

there were two things there was one and a half things that i was like i thought that's a reference other than the title so i guess that brings us to two and a half things yeah yeah um and then i did actually pull up the plot synopsis just to look through and be like is there something really obvious that was like some kind of and i think there was uh one more reference that's very oblique if you really wanted to read it that way but i think it's more of a coincidence okay so we're up to three then yeah we're up to two and a half with a phantom half so okay three on a good day it's the the equalizer bar that keeps blinking at the very end that, that, uh, all right.

Um, yeah. So yeah. So South by Southeast, clearly a North by Northwest. Uh, I don't know. It's not a parody.

It's, it's really just a, it's not really an homage either. It's mostly just a reference. Yeah. I think they just wanted, they just, uh,

they were sending Jim to South America and they thought, Oh, this would be a funny title. I think that's, that that's the extent of it. Uh uh but the other reason why i chose it is because uh wonina bartlett she wrote it and uh we were just um just looking through which uh seasons could use a little extra love and uh season four seemed like it needed so here we are season four episode yeah season four episode 18 ah there we go yes this one comes right after dwarf in a helium hat which i say just because that means that it's the second episode aired in a row that is premised with jim being mistaken for somebody

else yeah because that one is the jim the Jim Rockfelt mistaken phone number transposition premise. And then this one, as we will get into, is premised on Jim getting someone else's mail and then being taken to be that person over his very strong objections. person um over his very strong objections um this episode is directed by william wired who we again are are smack in the middle of his directography i took a look i think we have 11 more episodes that he directed to get through but i was like you know what we mentioned him a lot i should you know we should say a little bit more about him i i cannot find a thing about this guy he was a prolific director uh he had i would say probably you know tragically died fairly young of cancer i think in his late 50s and uh there's just not not a lot out there so i'll keep trying to to look around by the time we get to the end of his run. But other than just directing a lot of TV.

Yeah, just a ton of it. Yeah, really, really not a lot more to say. So I guess that brings us right into what this episode wants to be all about and get into our preview montage. our preview montage uh yeah the two things that stood out to me um were uh just kind of the great joke that it opens on with jim going passport i'm not going anywhere and then cut to him clearly on a private jet looking around so uh we get right away what what we're going to be doing um and then uh there is just this mention of uh he at the end of it him having to go home uh because rocky's tired of feeding his cat yep and we're like wait a second yeah so uh and then and then who will find out is christine van deerling uh very

suggestively mentioning that she would like to meet his cat. It made me think like there's no other textual evidence of a cat. So I suspect that's just a line that he's offering. I don't think I'm going to go ahead and assume that there's a cat that's just been somehow unobtrusive throughout the entirety of the series.

And I think the context for that line delivery is does confirm your suspicions yeah uh because beth had a cat for a while yeah that but there was like an off-screen like it was a thing yes it was a whole thing it's a whole thing and in fact in dwarf and helium hat jim very well may end up with may have ended up with a dog. Oh, right. Which is an opportunity shout-out for JGARF, J-G-ARF.org, which is D.G. Garner's animal rescue fund in James Garner's memory. So if you are an animal fancier that wants to help out some animals for a good cause,

James Garner was a dog lover and his daughter runs this foundation for rescuing dogs uh and i believe other animals but yeah mostly dogs uh jgarf.org nice shout out well done it was a there's a good opportunity yeah um i would say notably this uh this preview montage does not involve a car chase. Yes. And I, and at first I was like, Oh, there isn't really a car chase in the episode, which is true, but there,

but there are like car things and there are some gun things. And I feel like most episodes would have one of those in the thing. So I think the preview montage is actually giving us a little bit of a look at, this is not an adventure story. This is a romance story based on what they've chosen to give us in a fairly brief preview montage i would agree with that we're going to take a quick break to say thank you to our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day thanks to you

we're a 100 listener supported show why become a patron for as little as one dollar an episode in addition to supporting the show and exclusive episode previews, our patrons get plus expenses, a bonus podcast where we casually chat about media we're enjoying and the things going on in our lives. We extend special thanks to our gumshoe-level patrons supporting this episode. Chuck from WhatchaReading.com, Paul Townend paul also recommends the podcast fruit loops serial killers of color at fruitloopspod.com shane liebling check out roll for your dot party for all of your online dice rolling needs jay adan check out his amazing miniature painting skills over at jayadan.com dale norwood dave p dave otterson kip holly matthew lee and jay thompson and finally And finally, we can't thank our detective-level patrons enough for their generous support of the show.

Eric Antenor, at Antenor on Twitter. Brian Pereira, at Thermaware. Bill Anderson, at BillAnd88. And of course, Richard Haddam, at Richard Haddam. We follow them, too too at 200pod. Help out the show by leaving a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts, tell a friend who you think would like it, and check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. So we start off our episode with an establishing shot of the

firebird outside the trailer, and we see Jimim going through his mail and he's gotten yet another piece of mail for terence halsey a person who does not live at his address uh this is immediately followed by a knock at the door and then a suited man coming in saying that he is uh agent so-and-so and he's come to take Jim to another agent to get started on this mission or project or endeavor. There's two things I want to note right away and one is the music. We've made

a promise to mention the music and there's some weird synth versions of the theme going on here. And throughout this is a good episode for... Some departures in the score department. And then the second thing is just this agent stepping, like, Rockford opens the door, the agent steps right in, and Rockford's like, would you like to come in? And that interaction is going to be, I think, the next 15 minutes. Right, right.

That is just that for the next 15 minutes, which is great. It's a lovely setup for it. So we have the title, South by Southeast is our first Northwest reference. And then here, I think we get our second solid reference, which is that Jim, he has an appointment with a prospective client, Northwestern Mutual. So he doesn't want to miss that appointment. But the agent insists that he come speak to the other agent. And Jim allows himself to be to be hustled out into the waiting car. So I think this whole introductory sequence is a series of like,

Jim probably could have just stopped this all in its tracks but because it is the premise of the episode we're just gonna go with it yeah he's a little he's a little bamboozled by it which is slightly out of character for jim but there's this thing like throughout it jim is saying things like you know i want to know what's happening doesn't mean i'm not going to cooperate because i know that you're the feds. Right, right. Yeah, there is a known downside to antagonizing feds. Yeah, yeah. But this is definitely a moment of like, just relax and let this happen to Jim. This is it.

This is what we need to get him somewhere. This is the story we're here to see. Yeah. Yeah. So the next stage takes place at this airport where Jim is basically handed from agent to agent who continues to act like he should know what they're all talking about. One takes him to get his picture taken real quick. There's been a sudden change in the plans. And Jim has all these questions.

He's like, first the picture, then the questions. So he gets his picture taken. First the picture, then the questions. So he gets his picture taken, but then this agent, he can't actually say what's changed because this whole project is under Agent Muir. And so Jim needs to talk to him. So Jim goes to ask another agent where that guy is. That's when he gets handed this passport. So they've taken his picture so they can falsify this passport for him, right?

And then the next agent says, like well they have to go out to the plane they're on a timetable and that agent kleinhoff can straighten everything out uh so jim is now fixated on this agent muir as like the guy in charge so he keeps asking to talk to him um he is as he's hustled to a plane he's handed a an envelope all his briefing materials are in the envelope uh and jim's like i'm not going until i see agent muir but he's out with the flu and is not actually in person at the at the site um but it's not necessary to talk to him because everything's arranged and your bags are on the plane and you're all ready to go mr halsey dun dun dun So we finally get to the point where Jim definitively says you have the wrong

guy. Yes. Yes. My name is James Rockford, James Scott Rockford. You guys have picked up the wrong man. It isn't possible. You reside at 29 Cove road,

Malibu, male Caucasian, approximately six foot two, six, one Brown on Brown. That makes you Terrence Halsey. That's what we have on our record. Jim has even reported the fact that he's been getting the wrong mail to the post office. There's a record that he's complained about not being this guy Halsey.

But Agent Muir is the only one who could verify it because he's the only one who's met Halsey in person, apparently. And he, again again is not present um so jim i think in a big mistake gives this guy his wallet with all of his ids and he's like here's all my ids that's that's the the point where i'm like okay this is this is just the this is just a comedy jim this is a comedy version of j of Jim here. Just letting him walk off with his wallet like that. And then him being asked to sit on the plane while that's happening. Yeah.

Almost any other episode Jim would have his dangerous, his spidey senses going off. Right, right, right. Like crazy. There's a version of this story where this is when he like pretends to get on the plane, but then uses getting onto the stairs as an opportunity to like sucker punch the guy and run away because he doesn't know if these guys are really feds or something. Right. But that's not what the story is. We do have a button on this where the agent who took his wallet is talking to another guy and they're like, should we call Langley to confirm this? How would we confirm it over the phone?

Because you'd have to see him to confirm it. No, we follow the scenario as written. Let them worry about it at the other end. And so Jim by now has gotten on the plane to wait. But then the doors close. They start taxiing and take off over his protests as he bangs on the cockpit door. This is like a little private plane. It's a jet, but it's not like a passenger.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a gag where the seatbelt sign starts flashing as he finally, as no one is responding to his yells. And we get our initial credits over footage of this plane taking off and flying through the air. So I guess guess so for those who have not seen north by northwest the again not the send up but kind of the model here the the reference here in that movie carrie grant so james garner in the role of carrie grant which is a good a good spot i think he makes a good carrie grant yeah yeah so so cary grant is due to a misunderstanding uh is thought to be

a u.s government spy who is involved with this some kind of of uh plot being run by i think the soviets it might be left unsaid exactly but i think in context it's you know the soviet union and then the hijinks ensue where he is then, since everyone is treating him as this government agent, he then has to start reacting as the agent to kind of find out what's actually going on and save his own skin. Right. And it turns from a mystery into a thriller,

kind of, as the movie goes on. And he ends up hanging out of Lincoln's nose, the famous shot famous shot at uh on matt rushmore spoilers uh but there's a couple specific things that i'll i'll note when we get to them but that's the when we've been saying this is a it's not just the title the kind of initial premise is also the north by northwest uh appreciation jim is mistaken for this federal agent he is then sucked into a situation that he has nothing to do with but then as we will get to he kind of has to just start dealing with it

because what else is he going to do obviously we've already stated that this doesn't seem entirely jim-like even though he he otherwise behaves very jim-like uh but i just really enjoyed the watching the step-by-step bamboozling of Jim, the, the, the, uh, getting him aboard this.

I think one of the things that, that really, uh, stands out to me, like what is that every cog in this machine is just doing their job. And they're just like, whatever, that's a problem for the next person.

Yeah. It's kind of a satire. It's kind of a satire. It's kind of a satirical framing of the, you know, intelligence apparatus. Right. And so like in the middle of it all, when Jim's like, I've even made a complaint to the post office, it seems like this incredibly naive thing. Like these, these all work for the, probably the CIA and they're not even talking to each other why would they be talking to the post office like what would

and I enjoyed that it was funny it was it was great seeing each step so in the same way where like I just said that Jim normal Jim spidey senses would be going off if he had handed his wallet over I

still as I was watching it, was like, good. Let's see where this is. Yeah, let's see what's going to happen next. They've taken his wallet. They've put him on the plane. This is a juicy situation for Jim to be in. On the plane, there is an agent Whitaker who appears to talk to Jim. This is where Jim, his delivery here is really really good where he says that he's not mad.

I'm sure everything will be straightened out at the end of the line. I don't want to take this out on you, but I gotta tell you, I want to take it out on somebody. Does it look like it's getting straightened out? I could get you a cup of coffee. Yeah. I don't need to take this out on you specifically, but I

need you to understand that an injustice is being done here right that is definitely a good line and one uh to just have in your back pocket next time you're dealing with like a bureaucracy or something where you're just like listen i know this is your job i'm not mad at you but i am mad right right uh whitaker repeats that it'll all be straightened out on the other end and Jim basically for lack of anything else to do opens the

envelope and goes through the briefing materials this is a good dialogue doing multiple things scene because it's both giving us the exposition about what we're about to get into but we also get to see Jim sparring with Whitaker and kind of like being mad,

but then kind of being like, okay, I guess if this is what I'm in resigning to getting resigned to this situation. Yeah. And also giving us some background on this character, Christine Von Deerling, who will be meeting.

Yes. This whole thing is about some meeting that's been arranged between the feds and Christine Van Dierling, who is this incredibly rich, famous socialite who has all these, not really scandals, but all these kind of gossip pieces that both of them know the references to these wacky things she's done because she can do anything she wants because she's so rich. Yeah.

because she can do anything she wants because she's so rich. He specifically refers to some jet setter who blew 30 grand on a flock of pink cockatoos. But Jim, of course, ends with saying that he's not going to get involved as soon as they land. He's hitching the first ride home. One of the things that that dialogue also does is it sets up the uh the class divide that's going to be not central but like kind of an important part of what's going on between jim and christine later on oh wait maybe even central i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say not central i'm gonna it's going to play an important role to what's what's going on it's not quite a joke in the cut because we have the this the last credits over more flying footage after this this uh dialogue but then they land on a pretty deserted yes airstrip this is i think

my half reference there's a great shot i think this is a this is just a great little sequence but they land jim gets off and then we kind of have like i'm kind of a longest long shot where we watch the plane turn around and go back down the airstrip before taking off again yeah it's so close to jim he like has to back away or he'll get hit by the wing and then the the engine draft kind of like blows him backwards a little bit uh so it's kind of half a reference in the sense that there's a iconic sequence in north by northwest where carrie grant's kind of half a reference in the sense that there's a iconic sequence in north by northwest where carrie grant's in he's dropped off in the middle of nowhere in indiana i think yeah somewhere in the uh it's just endless cornfields and then this crop

duster shows up and i don't remember exactly how it's framed but the crop duster has guys with guns in it and they start to they try to run down and kill carrie grant and he runs through these cornfields with this like crop duster chasing him and it's uh it's it's an iconic sequence for a lot of reasons how it's framed the music or lack of music the tension all that stuff but this like deserted airstrip with a plane bit um reminded me of that and so uh i think i feel like it's a bit of a half i would agree with that yeah i mean just having a plane makes me think of it so uh i i i also wrote my notes like i loved that it was the middle of nowhere i have the

words nice shot in it yeah the only thing i had there was like they didn't need to refuel like but yeah uh uh this is the part where i this and and like the very next bit now i'm like okay let's get to what's going on now let's let's yeah uh we've done the joke we've got him now uh where he just can't get away there's nothing he can Yeah, we have a beat and then a car arrives to pick up Jim. It contains two guys who speak nothing but Spanish. Yes. And Jim has trouble communicating with them because other than asking his name,

they speak no English and he has very, very poor Angelenoanish to try and put together um some questions he wants to find out where he is we get kind of a joke where when he finally gets together like donde esta uh one of the guys just goes off about the immediate area you know la norte let's see like he's like yeah he's talking about stuff like right there but jim wants to know what country he's in and yeah we do not get an answer to that for quite a while i guess essentially for lack of better op also they were well they call him mr halsey right but um yeah both because they're there for him and lack of other options he does end up going with them he says he is halsey at that point right well he tries to explain that he's not and they just stare at him and yeah so he's like okay yeah he has he has very few options um these guys are kind of caricatures uh i think this gets into

kind of a question of the episode which is like how i don't know is it is is this part racist right right welcome to the segment now um basically, most of why these two are here are to, the joke is that Jim doesn't understand the local lingo and whatnot. The joke is that Jim is just out of his depth, right? But the joke isn't entirely pointed at him because we as the audience jim has our sympathies and we're we're sitting here thinking why are they just you know just throwing out a bunch of spanish when he clearly doesn't understand spanish although he does try to communicate with them in spanish and that's what sort of triggers that to happen i yeah i don't i

we're not the ones to answer this question obviously sure sure but uh it definitely does seem to me that that that the most of the joke is on jim it's just like this is just a bad situation to be in uh because when they start speaking in spanish it's to each other and it's very conversational yeah it's like they're just kind of chatting yeah with the exception of when he asks in spanish where he is at and that's this joke where this guy mistakes it for like just doesn't understand jim's context i don't even know if they saw him come off the plane so he's just standing in the middle like we're gonna pick someone up at this airstrip here we don't know that he's from somewhere else or anything like that but um yeah so i i don't know

what i accomplished by anything i said there other than um i we're definitely in a day and age where we should be worried that something like that might be the case yeah i guess i'm i was on alert right i was like yeah yeah exactly is this gonna be is this gonna be be uncomfortable to watch? And I don't think it is overall. The focus of this is mostly on Jim and then the people who live in this westernized resort hotel. Yeah. For the most part. Where it becomes sort of stereotypical. There's a point later on where there's an engineered uh car accident which is the the part

where but that's being played for a distraction yeah yeah all right i guess we'll discuss it we'll just continue going yeah but yeah yeah this is where i started going like all right i'm just keeping an eye out yeah um they take jim to a ramshackle barn where another another guy comes out to meet them he has his hand behind his back in a very ominous manner and then one of the guys you know calls jim senior halsey and he pulls out the gun he's holding behind his back all right let's start with what you're doing here you're not terrence halsey yes on my recording it cuts to. I assume that's a cut to commercial on this dramatic moment. And we come back to hearing that it's a monumental mess.

So this guy, we get his name eventually. He's Sam Groyer, and he is the local CIA contact operative. I guess he's an operative. Like, he has an ID and stuff. So he's American, but he's an operative like he's a he has an id and stuff so he's like a he's american but he's he's technically undercover but everyone knows who he is as part of the joke with him also yeah there's a another he asks if the guys who put him on the plane if they even checked his id right and that's another kind of joke at jim's expense where it's like they checked my ids they didn't believe me um um but yeah this guy actually knows

who this guy who halsey is so jim obviously is not the right person but since he's there this is the only time they've been able to make contact with uh christine van deerling in it's been like a seven year operation or something and it was going to be halsey because he has a relationship with her they were even engaged to be Halsey because he has a relationship with her. They were even engaged to be married briefly before that fell apart. And she ended up getting married to John Van Deerling, who is her current husband. So she's the daughter of this famous business guy who owned all these industries and stuff. And she's inherited them all.

So she has the money. This guy, John, married her. And they suspect that he's icing out everyone that she used to be friends with and is surrounding her with his people and is kind of using her, right, for perhaps something nefarious. Indicated by the fact that she sold 50,000 shares of her father's aircraft company to an Arab country. Bella Aircraft isn't a tenth of her holiness. She's inherited electronics firms, plastics, an ethylene plant in South Carolina. You know what she means for the basic economy? Not to mention the strategic

defense of the United States. This could be some big international thing that we're trying to get ahead of. There's even a little like too big to fail kind of stuff going on with like he mentions the economy and just it's great that's a good system we got yeah that's good love it yeah so this is mostly exposition and filling in like here's why this is important yeah um this is the first moment. So my first sort of mystery, which I've not revealed to anyone yet, so it doesn't matter,

uh, is that I was wondering through the first part of this, how much of this is, uh, just mistaken identity? How much of this is a Shakespearean style plot hole? Like the, the thing that Shakespeare does where it's just super convenient mistaken identity so we can have the story that we want to do or uh if this is a giant setup and jim's the person they really need right right or really want and this is the moment where that resolves that and it's it's the former not the latter jim is the person they need but they don't know that right right it is the north by northwest setup yeah that is not that is not going to be uh uh punctured like that is just

what it is uh and there's a great back and forth where he's like i need your help pass like just nope he does make a slight appeal to like well christine is really the one who needs help right right and then he says that by tomorrow he can give jim everything he needs on everyone involved and all he has to do is talk to her and he's there anyway you know what do you say and we just end the scene on jim's resigned sigh well seems like he's gonna do what he's gonna do do. Yep. That's Jim's MO. Well, let's take a little break. We want to make sure that you know where you can follow all of our other projects and interests online.

Epi, where can our listeners find you? You can Google Epidaya. I am the only one out there that I know of. You can go to dig1000holes holes dot com that's the number a thousand or you can go to worlds plural without master singular dot com and uh find my work there how about you nathan my internet home for all things ndp is at ndp design dot com you can find all of the links and information for all of my various games, including the Worldwide Wrestling role-playing game,

my zines, and podcast projects, of which perhaps there may be more than one. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter at ndpeoleta. As always, if you want more information about the podcast, go to 200aday.fireside.fm. And now back to the continuing adventures of jimbo rockfish we cut to a photo shoot so this is the engineered moment that has been set up for content is this public photo shoot where uh christine van der

ling is in public uh or in public spaces you know, taking photos and various, you know, fancy outfits and whatnot. She's played by Dory Kavanaugh, who was on a who was a soap opera person, I believe. She was on One Life to Live at this time. She was also in six episodes of a series called Dark Shadows, the Vampire Curse. So that's something to look up based on name alone. Anyway, she,

I think she does have a little bit of that, at least the way that she's styled. And you know, this whole, she basically spends the whole episode wearing this like one fancy, but fairly skimpy dress. Right. So the way that she's like made up and styled and her dress,

she definitely has kind of an kind of that uh golden age of hollywood air to her a little bit i think which is a bit in in service of uh north north by northwest ish feel uh because that's eva marie saint was in that and i don't i wouldn't say that they're you know look the same or anything but that kind of screen presence i feel like is being they're you know look the same or anything but that kind of screen presence i feel like is being echoed here in the casting yeah i might be reading that into it but that's fine i i think you're invited to read that yeah i don't think that's uh uh out of nowhere i was just uh looking her up and she very tragically passed away five years after this

episode from cancer yeah she has limited credits but i think it's just mostly because of that yeah so we we start off with her but then we go to jim we see him kind of enter uh enter stage left oh yes and immediately go to the taco stand that is in the square and uh it's a good gag he asked for two tacos and then as the guy starts preparing them he reaches into the pockets of his coat and then realizes he has no money and turns his pocket inside out and begs off oh sorry never mind um and does not get his tacos this was a moment uh written for the both of us i know you are like oh taco stand oh j Jim this is gonna happen meanwhile in my notes I literally wrote what's Rockford

going to pay for this is the payoff for him giving his wallet to the CIA guys this is paying that off it actually it actually works yeah and it's it's part of a motif that that's kind of fun that will play out in

a flirty way in the next during this next act. But yeah, I love I loved every moment of just that tiny little bit. Yeah, you just kind of see it. You see each moment just as it's about to happen. And yeah, very, very satisfying. Yeah. In the middle of the photo shoot, Christine kind of loses her her poise. Yeah.

She falls out of her like take pictures of me act uh someone hands her a glass of wine she's clearly uncomfortable she starts saying she doesn't want to do any more pictures and then the villain of our piece john van deerling arrives brushes off the hangers on by sending them to a spot a couple streets away where the margaritas are on me to give her the room to continue her shoot uh he has two goons that he specifically says to stay with her they are definitely goons yes they yeah well chosen john van deeling is played by don chastain i mean he's got a he's got a face on him he's got a face on him and he was in lots of stuff i did not find him very fun to watch personally he's not uh much of an on-screen

villain right yeah yeah most of what we get about him is going to come from conversations and implications. And so from the get-go, you don't like him. Right, right, yeah. And that's never going to change. I'm not sure if I don't like him because I'm not supposed to like him or if I don't like him because it feels like he walked on set and was reading his lines off a cue card to me. Right, right. I see what you're saying, yes.

But that might just be me. We're not supposed to like him, so it's not a big loss either way. But yeah. Just as the photo shoot's going to move to another location, there's a crash. And Jim's two Spanish-speaking buddies have crashed their car into Christine's trailer at the opposite end of the little square. So they're making a big commotion and attracting attention. little square so they're making a big commotion and attracting attention the goons go over there to be distracted as is the setup for this whole thing and that's when jim kind of sneaks in and gets christine's attention says that he's a friend of terrence halsey uh terrence has disappeared and

kind of drops a bunch of little details about the two of them yeah get her buy-in immediately it's a little bit of a con but then once they walk a little bit away from the square and the commotion but you said you were a friend well i have a tendency to exaggerate i'm just a messenger mrs van dearland i uh don't know any of the answers and i'm a little shaky about some of the questions all right goodbye don't you want to find out about halsey all right but if he isn't in plenty of trouble you are i i really dig this the style of con here that he's doing where he he starts off with really big lies that he that he can only offer like he offers up literally everything he knows about about uh what's his

name halsey and so he can't continue that because she knows halsey intimately uh but it's it's he starts revealing the truth but each time he does it he's pulling her a step away from like and into this it's it's just like before when i said you know i was trying to figure out if this was just like a series of coincidences that dropped this in jim's lap or if he he was chosen to do this and it turned out to be the series of coincidences but jim is still the right person for this right right and this is one of those moments right like an eye thrown into this situation could not have done what jim did i mean you are you're a seasoned private investigator well yeah that's true but um in that i know how to google someone's name

uh but i i'd also just the shout out to uh i'm in the credits it's jorge sanchez and jorge's assistant which are two buddies here for well first of all, for just enacting a Jim plan with aplomb. I think that they did a good job of, these characters do a good job of creating the distraction that Jim needs. There's another payoff coming, and I want to talk about that when we get to it. But at this moment, my notes are like, wait, these guys really know how to enact a Rockford plan. Right, right. Well done. They go to the same barn to talk to Sam, who she recognizes.

And she doesn't want to discuss anything with him. He thinks that she was forced to sell her shares and wants to know more about it i guess uh they kind of have a bit of a standoff and then our two guys uh jorge and jorge's assistant pull up in a panic and they're yelling and then the trailer that they crashed into is right behind them with the goons in it and the goons start and they all start shooting at each other yeah uh it's very chaotic um we hear someone yell is this what you want garoya and then he yells it's all a mistake and tells jim to get christine out of there and they run out the back while uh fire is being

exchanged in the front of the this barn all right so then my notes are uh maybe they're not so good at enacting a rockford plane but uh this is interesting i think because of of the relationship that the rockford files has to gun this is a shootout right which is actually kind of rare in the rockford files uh and it it doesn't feel as consequential as other shootouts do in the rockford files well it's not with anyone that we're invested in yeah um and it's mostly here this is actually a very like gameable moment or game teachable moment for game stuff where it's like you have this moment where it's kind of or everything's kind of static christine doesn't want to talk to goroia goroia doesn't really have any leverage over christine jim doesn't have any interest other than just being there and trying to get along so he can

get home eventually so yeah that's the static moment where it's like all right where is this going to go um no one has a strong interest in pushing anyone else's agenda anywhere but then guys with guns show up so that creates a new crisis that then has to be reacted to. And so Jim and Christine run and that, that gives us the propellant to get into the next part of the story. Yeah. So it's really, so it's in the service of the plot. It's not that it is the shootout.

Isn't really, it doesn't involve anyone that we care about. Right. Right. So I get what you're saying there. So yeah, this gets us to Jim and Christine walking down a deserted road and their first big conversation. I'll just hit some high points because it's the meat of this episode is the two of them talking.

Right. Both screen time wise and interest wise. Like that's the interesting part of this episode is just seeing them spar and then seeing them find some kind of understanding and seeing how that develops from the preview montage we know they eventually kiss so yeah there's not a lot of mystery here yeah so the the conversation kind of goes down the road of jim trying to find out what she's scared of why the feds want to talk to her she doesn't really want to talk about that um her feet hurt which which is a thing that a motif that we returned to a couple of times. There is an amazing, amazing line. Oh, yeah.

I know the line. Yeah. She tells Jim that she's not interested or whatever. And he can take that to his superiors. He says, I have no super superiors few peers and no superiors it's exquisite um but it's also gets right at the heart of their class conflict i think yeah which we'll kind of get more into uh he needles her with society gossip um like all the kind of things we already heard you know from earlier the silly things that she does and she says that oh you're one of those people that resents me because i don't make i don't make

money i just spend it yeah he asks her to be a little less rotten and our first kind of like connection between them is when she says oh is that what i'm being yep okay i'll work on it. And then they like share a smile. And then that is when a, uh, and a dirt covered bus appears and is rolling down this, uh, this road towards them. There's, she does get a good line in there.

I toil not and neither do I spin. And that just bugs the hell out of you. Doesn't it? Uh, and it's, it's, it's great. Cause she's not,

uh, I, I like her as a character like she's she's a fully realized character who doesn't come across as okay so i'm contrasting this in my head thanks to the she's having her feet hurt because of the shoes she's wearing right and this immediately makes me think of romancing the stone of of course, a film that came out later, uh, but has the,

this, a similar dynamic. You have this, this guy who's, uh, in this case, the one who, uh,

has been in the country that they're in for longer, but a rugged lower class individual, uh, and, uh, a woman who has worn the wrong shoes, uh, into the environment. And they have this whole exchange of back and forth the only reason why i'm bringing this up is that in this case she's not played

as ditzy at all yeah uh and it's not that the rockford files tends to do this in fact they it stands out when there's when when they do but like she just she is a good foil for rockford's like rockford again rockford has our sympathies at both as viewers but also like yeah she's rich she's super she's rich enough to ruin an economy so we're not like super on her side and yet she kind of gets these things in like hey i'm a human being too like like i've got concerns and troubles and yeah she's she's self-aware enough yeah yeah that she feels not like a caricature um and we see we'll see more of this but like yeah when when he kind of tries to get under get under her skin with like here's all the silly gossip things that i know you you do she knows that those are silly things. Yeah. Right. Like it's not like that's a surprise

to her. Yeah. And she's aware of her position in that kind of stuff. And and she's aware enough to know that people don't like her. Yes. I think we see this play out in contemporary society and politics where it's like really rich people will do these absurd things because they want people to like them right yeah like why don't you like me i'm rich right and it's like that's why we don't like you um her kind of being aware of that humanizes her i think and we'll kind of see that conflict continue to play out between them uh they flag down the bus and they don't have any money but she gives the driver one of her rings for the fair and which is a great moment because the driver just like shrugs it's like all right jim asks how much it costs and

she says that it's only money you know what does it does it matter? It's only money. It's a means of barter. Blue beads. And Jim will remember that the next time he refinances his trailer. Yes. So there's two things that happen here. Like one, this is there's a great line leading into this where Jim, before they get on there, is like, do you have any money? And she gives him a look. And he's like on you like uh which

plays back to the whole thing about the taco stand which i loved uh but also this in my notes is like wait a minute what happened to that cabbie they took a cab so this is like you know the fridge logic moment where like jim doesn't have money she clearly doesn't have money on her. They took a cab from the photo shoot to the hideout. And then the cab was still there when there was. And I can't remember if the cab car was just a car there that Jim got in and drove. Or if they took a cab. I don't remember. I don't remember.

I think they got in it. But like I can also see like this this is someone who works for a girl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it just had this moment of like, wait a minute,

hold on. How do you pay for the bus? How did you pay for the cab? Um, yeah. But then, so Jim explained, you know,

the, since he mentioned the trailer, he, you know, explains about that. And she says that that sounds freeing. Right. And so we get to that,

the balance right sure she's rich but he has freedom and mobility she has money i should say she has money and he has freedom of movement and that is something that each of them desires yes right that the other has um another kind of classic class dynamic issue jim explains that he can move it with a truck he explains what a truck is yes a semi uh but his dad's an ex-trucker so he goes borrow one yeah so this leads him to talking about their fathers um jim has a wonderful are you very close to your father very yes christine's father is in textbooks he He's this great man making money with one hand and giving it away with two is what Jim says must be pretty hard to live up to. And Christine says, you may have noticed I don't even try. And I guess that's, again, the self-awareness that I'm. Yeah, that that that resonated with me. They get off at the next stop, not realizing that it's not the end of the line.

It's still in the middle and it's still on a deserted stretch of road. But a guy with a chicken got off with them. And so they're going to follow the guy with the chicken. Maybe they'll find a restaurant. And Jim lifts his watch off his wrist and says, well, this one will be on me. Yeah. We cut to a restaurant where Jim's plate is almost empty. And we see him take his last couple bites on camera.

In fact, it's part of the text because Christine's like, wow, you were really hungry. She says that the food is better than the food at the resort. And they have some more banter. There's a moment where Jim tries to be funny. He's kind of like, oh, we've achieved a rapport. And he makes some remarks that she takes very seriously. In recovering from that, it turns into full-on flirting. Yes. She says that she better toughen up her skin if she's going to be around him.

And he takes her hand and tells her that her skin's fine as it is. Something along those lines. Just the right density jim asks her if she wants to go back and we have this long moment where she stares at him looks frightened and shakes her head just a little tiny bit and i think mouths something i'm not sure if we're supposed to understand what she's she does something with her lips where i'm like i'm not sure if she's saying like saying something or not i just wasn't present enough to pick it up but then after giving the tiny silent shake of her head she says i have to yeah she wants jim to come with her to explain everything to her husband to john uh and he asked why she's so

afraid of him and that puts her back up again and she's like fine do whatever you want but then as they leave the restaurant a uniformed police officer comes in. I forget if he asked her if she's Miss Van Deerling or him, if he's like Mr. Halsey or whatever. Yeah. And upon getting an affirmation, holds up a pair of handcuffs and Jim sighs and puts out his hands. And he has a long suffering smile as he is arrested. We cut to Jim saying that he didn't kidnap Christine, but this cop, he's a lieutenant, as we learned,

this lieutenant says he's going to get all of the stories and decide which one he believes. Jim tells him to call Sam Groyer and he'll explain. He makes this call and then has the exchange in Spanish on the phone and then, of course, hangs up and says, he's never heard of a jim rockford or terrence halsey and it was like well of course he would tell you that yes uh but it is to no avail as the van van deering's come in john wants to press charges jim says are you sure because i'll

counter sue classic uh yeah yeah beth in his corner for like assault with a deadly weapon or something uh those those two goons were on were on van dering's payroll but christine says that it was all a mistake and she can explain she takes full um uh responsibility and she'll explain everything so she says that the report of kidnapping was made in good faith but it's just because john didn't know what was happening jim or halsey i forget if they specify who he's supposed to be at that time told her about a man that was dealing in rare amethysts that he knew and she know how she feels about amethysts and so they went off on a lark to see this man uh but unfortunately they were interrupted by the goons

who thought that she had been kidnapped, etc., etc. So, like, the facts are all in there, but, like, the reasoning she fabricates when presented with, well, you know, his story didn't say anything about amethysts. She's like, well, he was covering for me because it would have been a strictly legal kind of situation. Yeah. Sure. Okay. It's the old illegal amethyst routine. Illegal Mexican amethyst routine illegal illegal mexican amethysts yeah that's uh

i think at some point they they do clarify that they're in mexico i don't actually remember where they could be wrong it just says south america in the preview or the uh yeah it could be left intentionally they they say the town that they're like they say a town's name at some point and i did look it up and there is a town of that name in mexico but it's like a tiny population too so i don't know if it's just a name pulled out of somewhere or or what it's kind of neither here nor there uh the the the point is that this uh this cop accepts her story and releases jim yeah his his his guys pick him up they have a lot of excited banter in spanish he tries to wave them off and they basically convince him through lots of excited yelling to come with

them to see to talk to uh sam one more time this is a good presentation of sam groya in a bathrobe this is important for a later bit in the scene he apologizes but he couldn't break his cover to the to the cop and jim's like everyone already knows who you are yeah yeah there's no cover like there's been an ongoing joke that every time he mentions it they're like oh that guy the cia guy yes uh but he still has to maintain it um he apologizes for the inconvenience he has a first class ticket to him back to la and a thousand dollars to make up for for the trouble. Jim says Christina is in trouble. She lied for him.

She's clearly still terrified. She needs protection. Sam will report it to Langley, but he's not that concerned. They have their fifth wedding anniversary party the next day, and he's going to get an invitation to go attend. So he'll check it out. And he's sure that nothing's going to get an invitation to go attend so he'll check it out and he's sure that nothing's going to happen to her before their anniversary party done done done he tells jim that jim's out of it and that's official and he flashes his badge which he pulls

out of his bathrobe pocket you guys carry those things in your bathrobe that's official yes this is of course a classic way to get jim to actually do the work you spend the whole time asking him to do it he won't and then you tell him you can't do it all right i'll do it um there's also another gag where he says that a thousand like a thousand dollars isn't yes isn't enough and he go and he opened so i guess sam's cover is that he like works in like like he he runs like an antique store or something like that. Something like that. There's a cash register there. Jim turns and opens the cash register and

it's empty except for a couple little coins. Of course. But yeah the next morning Jim is at the airport getting his ticket. He makes a call and we learn through his talk with the switchboard operator at the hotel that he's been trying to get

a hold of christine all day but she keeps on it keeps on being some reason why he can't talk to her and now they have instructions from mr van deerling not to send any calls to their room so he cannot talk to christine and he's specifically asks like whose instructions yeah and she uh says it's the seniors instructions which i think is that you can clearly see it in jim's face that that's what's got him yeah now he's he's doing it now he's he's like she's in danger her husband's doing something nefarious i need to go help um so we go to the hotel um where we shortly learn the manager walks up to Jim and we have a great con. It's an exquisite con. Jim's like, you know how easy it was for me to walk in here?

I just gave my name to the guy at the door and just walked in. Again, perhaps slightly inspired by the previous episode in theme. So Jim is claiming to be the, forget exactly what he says but um he works for elton john yes and he is uh responsible for scouting out the locations and making sure that everything's going to be in order for mr john's appearances because you know john isn't expected this evening certainly hope not it's a surprise as a manager of this hotel, you should have informed me. Elton doesn't have enough on his mind, but Elton and Van Dierlen are real tight, you know? Now, if Van Dierlen sees me, we blow the whole gag. He said I should clue in the missus. Is she down yet?

This particular con, I mean, it's fun. We've got the whole Elton John thing doing, but it also is well-crafted. It gives him reasons for. OK, it gives him some authority. It puts a time pressure on everything. It gives him reason for why he needs to hide from. What's his face? John.

John. Yes. And sometimes you see Jim in a con and you watch him backpedal the whole way through until he gets what he gets and then gets out of there this one feels more like a he's thought out a good one going in yeah it's this one it was was reverse engineered from what his needs were i think yeah yeah so he gets in he talks to the manager um he says that uh elton and van deerling are really close so he doesn't want to be seen by john because it's a surprise for john right from yeah christine so that's why he can't you know he needs to like go by the back way or whatever to go talk to christine

because uh the plane is supposed to land in 45 minutes and yes and he's coordinating with her for the big surprise or whatever a lot of security he's got to set up but yeah yeah so the manager is is uh bamboozled and takes takes him to see christine there's the final little bit so he's he introduced himself as ace something to the manager so they come into christine's room and she sees him and goes jim and he says i can't believe that you're always so formal everyone calls me Ace but she has to call me Jim which is clearly the formal way to say

James Scott Rockford James Scott Ace Rockford you know manager leaves Khan successful Christine looks terrible she has a headache and she says she has a burning sensation in her stomach but she hasn't she's been feeling bad for days she

complained of a headache earlier yeah at the photo shoot i think um so this has come up before um but she hasn't seen a doctor she's like it's just a headache i'm not that spoiled she asked for a pill and glass of water jim goes to get it and he looks at the pills asks her where they came from he says john got them from the local you know pharmacy yeah um he tastes one and then he's like i have to take you to a doctor it's never revealed what is happening it's clear at this point that it's poison yeah he names it at the end of the episode he says that he was feeding her yeah he says that john was feeding her yeah he says that john was feeding her arsenic oh that's right yes i did hear that and i thought to myself wait okay arsenic all

right yeah because jim tasted it jim knowing the flavor of arsenic i guess yeah all right if you're a pi you'd need to know these things i mean yeah it seems reasonable that if it doesn't look like an advil or whatever he might be be like, yeah, wait a second. What are these? Anyway, he wants to know. And so she refused. She's like, no, you can't take me to a doctor. Like, what is John threatening you with?

That's worth your life. So it is not spelled out all the way. But like, he's like, you're dying. Yes, this is this is communicated in a much better language. But essentially, she's like, the legend of my father was bought. He bought that with his money. In truth, he was a terrible man. He did all these terrible things to make all that money.

And she loved him anyway. So she doesn't want to see that facade be broken. She's told John about all of that. But then I guess recently she stopped caring as much if it all came out she doesn't want to live under that like legacy anymore it's kind of what it sounds like yeah i almost don't care now i almost don't care at all if it all comes out all those ugly details come right out does your husband know you feel that way i told him i don't think he believed me i'm afraid he did so we get the portrait of the motivation here being john van deerling seeing

the the gravy train running out if the truth comes out about her father if there's some litigation or something or they're shamed his lifestyle is in danger whether or not she was serious about it jim says that uh john took her seriously and so he picks her up in his arms and carries her out of the room to take her to a doctor saying they'll rewrite the textbooks he uh runs into john with a gaggle of their their hangers on in the hotel lobby and there's a you know a confrontation here uh where jim says it's an interesting medicine you've been giving her uh and tells his goons to step away or they're going to be cut in on an attempted murder charge uh it's in public and you know their friends are there and they're like what's wrong with christine yeah yeah and it comes down to he tells john you call an ambulance or i'm calling the police yeah

so we cut from there to jim walking up the steps to the hotel hand in hand with a well-looking christine recovered from her her her troubles so that's good yep there's a bit of dialogue where he says that she should have thrown the book at him uh this is where he says he was feeding you arsenic but she says it's better this way john's out of her life and she just doesn't want to deal with it anymore and they don't need to rewrite the textbooks because nothing has come out about her father or anything so you get the feeling that that john just kind of accepted like okay i'll just walk away you know we won't make a big deal out of everything. Yeah. And then we end our episode with quite the conversation.

So they're being flirtatious. Yes. You don't want me to come, do you? Oh, Christine, what I make in a day when I'm lucky enough to be working. You pay for a haircut. I could let it grow long and shaggy. I wouldn't like it that way. Wouldn't work, would it?

Too many blue beads. There's a natural need in a television show to bring things back to stasis at the end. Maybe you don't know the order they're being aired in or or whatever but this actually felt quite natural like the the there's a monumental gulf between the two of them because like he has this line what i make on a day if i'm working that day you pay for a haircut you have 200 haircuts and i'm hoping to make 200 a day on the days that i i can find work right um that there's just too much between the two of that that they just won't be able to resolve like there's there's clearly an attraction between them but yeah and he has this great line like if he ever

hits the mother load he'll look her up um but yeah it's it's all kind of bittersweet this is kind of an exploration of the class divide right we got the picture of john van deerling as a uh gold digger right like he married her for her money and then when like the money spigot was going to get turned off he was willing to kill her right uh and that's bad he's a villain um but that also implies that he probably did not have money of his own yeah so we contrast that with jim where he's saying even though i don't have money and being with you would mean i could live a different lifestyle like i'm not willing to just live off your wealth right it's a working class pride it's a i work for what i earn even if it's hard even if i don't get as much as i feel like i should what i do get it's because i worked for it and that's important um

and it would be too much of a change it's like he would have to be a different person for this to work and if he was a different person then she wouldn't be attracted to him. The only way he could do anything like, OK, I feel like this is reflected in she offers the ring to get them on the bus. And as they're heading to the restaurant, I think she has like another ring or another piece of jewelry that she takes off. And he's like, no, no, I'll get it with my watch. And like, that is the last moment. I mean, aside from saving her life, that Rockford can offer her anything that she couldn't just out and out buy. Right, right. And I think that's probably part of it too.

Like it's just, you know, she'll visit his trailer, but she won't stay at his trailer. Right. And I think this is a, you know, this is a lived reality, I think, for a lot of people where it's like when you're in a relationship with someone, if there's a big imbalance, whatever it is, if it's, you know, income or I don't know, job or lifestyle or where you live or like that kind of stuff, that can be a really hard thing to manage, even if it seems like it shouldn't matter. Yeah. It matters.

Right. There's. Yeah. So this i think that all rolls in i guess this is all to say this is a very effective for me conversation where it's like sure there is the tv thing of like well they're not really going to get together because she's not going to be in other episodes right but in service of getting to that goal their whole conversation here seems like it makes sense given how they've been interacting so far. Like, sure, they connect. They're attracted to each other. He's literally saved her life.

But that isn't what a relationship can be built on when there's such a gulf between them of like their lifestyle. And yeah, they have this very serious kiss. We've seen a lot of rockford kind of yeah sweet kisses i think in recent episodes this is like a real they really get in there um the dental kiss the last kind of note on that is that he says look me up next time you're in la or give or something like that he's like oh well maybe i'll come you know may i'll come soon and he just looks at her and there's a beat and she's like you don't want me to come to you and he's kind of like yeah it wouldn't work like it's just like here's a fantasy like and we're we're saying the nice things at the

end yeah but now like camp is over we're going home yes this isn't going to be maintained in the future and then they have this big kiss and then she laughs and gives them a kiss on the cheek. And then we end with them smiling at each other. Yeah. Having come to an understanding, if nothing else. And that is South by Southeast, a title I have said correctly each and every time, which I did not expect to do. So the other, the Phantom half reference that I was thinking of is that i'd forgotten this until

i looked up the synopsis but there's a plot point in north by northwest where there's an auction and uh carrie grant ends up like disrupting the auction and and stuff but the auction is for a like a like an indigenous mexican statue oh so you think there's like microfilm concealed in it that doesn't feel like it's strong enough to be a reference reference like right why needed barlet sat down i was like well there was that mexican statue so we'll set it in latin america so it's a phantom half reference where it's like oh there's a little bit of a connection there yeah maybe but yeah so there we go it was a bit of a romp uh most of the episode like it's it's a i don't think it was

at odds with itself uh it's a murder plot but you don't know that until the last 10 minutes of the the episode right like like yeah and uh that's fine i think because most of it is just this kind of fun rockford tossed out of his element and then meeting this this woman and their interactions with each other like the the plot the thing with that involves the cia that that the reason it's necessary because it's a rockford files episode but it's not what we're actually watching in this episode yeah does that make sense the strength of this episode to me is is the jim christine story yeah yeah and it kind of has to be set somewhere where jim isn't comfortable i think to be to have the resonance that it does so in that way getting jim out of la is kind of part of that but yeah the the plot beats are kind of there to support seeing that

story unfold uh there's not really a mystery yeah uh there's not even really that much tension i don't think um the conversation at the end is where jim's like i have to go back to la rocky's tired of feeling cats right because we mentioned that at the beginning um which has a little bit of added resonance there because he's he invokes rocky yeah yeah that's important since they've connected over the issue of their dads and everything so yeah i want to throw that out there in case anyone was waiting on tenderhooks wondering wondering where the cat reference went right so i hadn't really remembered this episode i'd remembered kind of the premise of like he gets on a plane and goes to mexico or whatever wherever he is but i didn't really remember anything else about it i think going forward what i will remember is the jim christine story yeah i

yeah i agree kind of everything else around it is kind of like i don't know it's not the focus and thus i'm not super memorable uh yeah i it was a very fun episode to watch i felt um but like i said that opening sequence getting him onto onto the plane and out of the country was just. Yeah, that's fine. I was cackling with. Well, I wasn't literally cackling. I don't want to. I don't want to create a.

But like there's a part of me that just loves to see Jim in trouble. And it just was just eating it up. I was just like, yeah, more, more of that. The IMDb reviews on this one are pretty mixed. Some people do not like this episode, which I understand. It's a departure. Yeah, it's definitely a departure. And also it's a bit of a like, if you don't buy into Jim going along with the agents.

Yeah. It's kind of like, that is a big plot hole that Jim would even do that kind of thing. And I'm like, I get that. Yeah. You know, if you bounce off of that the rest of the episode is probably not you're probably already rolling your eyes right so it's kind of like you're not going to be invested in the rest of it um a couple of them mentioned that it is perhaps a i couldn't find anything else to back this up on my initial

searches maybe someone who has all the production schedules in a spreadsheet somewhere could could look at it but there's some mention of like this was a near the end of the season episode to shoot so it's a bit of a budget episode like oh interesting none of the other main cast characters are in it uh it's not in a lot of there's only a couple locations you know it's a very tight couple of characters that we're following um but i mean they do have the plane i don't know how expensive planes are because they right those were it wasn't all stock footage those were like shots of the plane yeah uh but it does kind of have that feel of like if we get jim out of la then we have these like two locations in these three sets and this

one guest star yeah and that's pretty much the whole episode so i kind of buy that it might have been a story written towards a budget kind of thing right right but again i could find no corroboration of that uh other than these imdb reviews so i don't know yeah i guess overall liked watching it a nice departure uh not a mystery movie yeah not a mystery story not a satisfying mystery to delve into uh but it is it is a good character yeah it's a little character a little character study within the frame of this homage to to a great movie so um and i will say one of the best rockford line a rockford line to put in the canon. I have no superiors, a few peers, and no superiors. It's just great. I think every word of that is important,

specifically that he says, and no superiors, not but no superiors. Right, yeah. Because I feel like those are two different things. Yeah, yeah. Some peers and no superiors. Yeah, because the context for it is superior as in a boss, but there's definitely the implications there that are great. Yeah, it's very good. Well, good pick. Thanks, Epi. Well, you're quite welcome.

I'll take responsibility for a good Rockford Files episode. And yeah, maybe we'll search out a more mystery E1 for our next one. Or maybe not. We or maybe not we'll see we'll see what comes up as we have such a uh delineated process for selecting these yeah but you can rest assured that we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the rockford files