There is no easier way to show your main character’s abilities than to pair them with someone who thinks they have that ability but does not. Then you get to watch your main character’s competence paired with the other person’s lack thereof, and it highlights how good your main character is at what they do. It’s not a bad storytelling trope, as these things go. I would also imagine that private investigators routinely have clients who think the work is easier than it is and that any idiot can do it. Why shouldn’t they? Every other career does, too.
Jim is hired by Sandra Turkel (Sian Barbara Allen). Sandra doesn’t want a PI, because she’s sure she’s fully capable of doing the job herself. However, she thinks she’s going to come across people who don’t take her questioning well, so she wants a gorilla. Jim is less than thrilled. Still, he’s willing to be hired to help find a missing friend of Sandra’s. This is all seen in flashback; we have seen Jim and a couple of guys (probably Rudy Dias and Robert Sutton) dig up an empty coffin and get shot at, then fall into the grave. So we all know what’s coming.
This is the episode where we see how Jim manages to convince so many people to give him information. Quite simply, he has a mini printing press in his car, and he runs off any business cards that will come in handy. Sandra thinks this is disgusting, but she can’t deny that it’s extremely effective. He’s several different people over the course of this episode, and mostly, it works out for him. He gets the information he needs.
I’m glad Sandra’s not a long-term love interest for Jim. She may have grown on him, but she assuredly never grows on me. I find it deeply frustrating that she never seems to take in that he’s better at his job than she is—in fact, that it’s a skilled job that might actually take some learning in the first place. She got her job on the paper through nepotism. I’ve done some newspaper writing—it’s not my love, but I understand it at least. And look, the reason articles are structured the way they are is that it’s important that the people reading them get the relevant information before they stop reading; it also makes it possible to trim the article to fit space.
The mystery of this episode is never fully resolved. That’s fine; it doesn’t have to be. Jim gives conflicting suggestions to different people asking him, and in the end, he doesn’t know the answer himself. But after two weeks in the ICU, he’s not inclined to chase the case down any further than he already has. Who can blame him?
Take care of Rockford Files: shot at, falls in a grave, two weeks in the ICU. Also a fight on a train.