At his heart, Jim really is trustworthy. He’s sneaky, conniving, cowardly, and devious, but once you are someone he promises something to, he’s trustworthy. Beth trusts him with the combination to her safe, and she absolutely can. He’ll never go into it without her permission, and he’ll never take anything out of it that she didn’t tell him he could. There’s a lot of other things I’m not sure I’d trust him with, but when you get to his core, you can trust him more than he can trust Rocky—Jim wouldn’t eat something out of my fridge without asking if it was okay.
Jim is supposed to be helping Rocky buy a semi, but Beth has ended up in jail for contempt of court. She’s defending a guy on tax evasion charges. She sends Jim to get the documents she needs to deal with the case; a couple of thugs beat him up and steal the files. Meanwhile, Beth’s poisoned while in jail. Another of her clients is murdered. Jim’s determined to keep Beth safe, and he’s sure the murder, her attempted murder, and the guys who beat him up are all connected.
You know, if Jim’s selfish, he comes by it honestly. Rocky’s got a subplot in this episode where he’s trying to buy a used semi from a guy up in Oxnard, and he interrupts Jim at every turn to badger him about the truck. There are a lot of episodes where we see Rocky as a good guy, but he still does things that he wants to and does them his way. We routinely see him eat food Jim was saving for himself—if there’s a steak in my fridge, I have plans for that steak. It’s not just hanging around in case I’m in the mood for steak later.
I’m glad Jim likes tacos. Good for him. But Dennis is right; tacos for breakfast are a bit much. They are the food he eats most often. He got a taco going through the Jack in the Box drive through—well, my partner’s a big fan of Jack in the Box tacos. A lot of people are. It’s still weird that he got a taco and fries. At least to me. I’m not sure we ever see him eat burgers. Hot dogs, yes. Steak, yes. Fish—well, he’s fishing at the beginning of the episode. But burgers? I’m not sure.
It’s honestly kind of naive of Beth to assume that a letter someone in a union gives her to hold in case of his death isn’t that kind of “in case of my death” letter. Like, this was the ’70s, for starters. Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared by this point. I’m not claiming all unions are mobbed up; I’m enormously pro-union. Still, anyone who gives you a letter to hold in case of their death, if you’re a lawyer, might be giving you That Kind Of Letter, and I’m surprised it doesn’t occur to Beth.
Take Care of Rockford Files: Beat up in a dark office. Car chase. Arrested. Fist fight. Held at gunpoint. Drives a car into a pool.
It’s two Campanella brothers for the price of one, Frank and Joe making their last appearance together (even though both continued to work for years).