Gearjammers, Part 2

This review of the latter half of this episode is the only part I've seen, but thanks to the very long recap by James Garner before part 2 began, I was able to get the gist of most of the entire episode. Even without seeing the first half, this is still a very solid story revolving around Rocky witnessing a crooked meeting between a dispatcher and a hood, played solidly by Scott Brady, a great Rockford foil. Luckily, I was able to see clips of the first part, and got to catch the famous J-Turn from the Firebird, and also saw the poor car get blown up, which is rather sad, but it'll come back again. There's another reason I really enjoyed this segment, and that's because it was mostly shot outdoors, and had some great atmosphere on sunny California days; cool shots were on the freeway and a trucking yard, which had both Rocky and Jim driving together at times. They had several fine scenes together, and the chemistry between the actors is special, and it's easy to want to share a beer with them. Throw in many good scenes with Dennis as well, and we have a winner. Regarding the outcome, Jim deduces the tractors, rather than the trailers, is what was being stolen and somehow Rocky poked his nose where it didn't belong, but he more than made up for it by driving that rig in a father and son tag team to run down a hood in a larger truck, which also led to the arrest of Brady's character. I'm not a huge fan of the first two seasons of the Rockford Files, but this one is terrific.

I've seen these episodes several times and I can still never quite figure out what the bad guys want to accomplish in this, but Rocky explains it rather quickly toward the end.

Most of this is set down by the harbor where big rigs would be transporting materials that have arrived in port. And it also shows that Dennis Becker apparently works in a precinct for the LAPD that spans the entire city.

Picking up from where we left off in part one, this episode begins with both James Garner and Noah Beery, Jr. nearly being blown up when someone puts a bomb in the Firebird. Of course the Firebird is totaled. But trying to kill both Rocky and himself and demolishing his beloved car is too much for anyone to handle. Rockford is officially on the warpath.

It's all about several truck hijackings of disparate items and the trucks themselves are not recovered. Until the very last minute the collective intelligence of Jim Rockford, Rocky, and Sergeant Dennis Becker can't figure it out, but it has something to do with a particular trucking company and its president Scott Brady.

The gimmick is quite a clever one and the ironic thing is that if the bad guys weren't so paranoid about Rocky seeing a meeting he shouldn't have seen they might have got away with it. Make that probably got away with it. Because Beery would have thought nothing of what he saw.

You have to see this one just to see what was trying to be pulled off.