Saturday, September 5th, 2009
10.00 The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files. Episode 4. "The Countess"
A very good script and one that contains classic elements of the Private Eye genre: beautiful society woman hires lowly pi to protect her from blackmail that would ruin her marriage and our hero finds himself suspect number one in the murder of the blackmailer. Did the beautiful woman set him?
But, while the plot may lifted from a hundred private eye cliches, the story told is not. In fact, this episode demonstrates a key strength of The Rockford Files and why Jim Rockford is not like all the other private eyes we see on TV and in movies and books. Jim is heroic and noble for the first third of the stories, but as soon as the heat starts coming down on him personally he makes it clear to his client that - if he has to - he will reveal her sordid blackmail story to the police.
And Jim means it.
And he's right.
In fact, he's just behaving like a real person would.
Plot-wise this is a nice tale with a few twists and turns. The identity of the real killer is obvious, but so what?
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