S01E04 – "Exit Prentiss Carr"
Original air date: October 4, 1974
Director: Alexander Grasshoff; Writers: John Thomas James (story); Juanita Bartlett (teleplay)

If you don't think too hard about this show, it is sort of OK, but as it goes along, there is crucial information omitted, with a big revealing outburst near the end of the show, similar to the end of the pilot episode, where loose ends are tied up (sort of).

At the beginning, Rockford goes to the Bay City Motel to check up on Prentice Carr, the husband of Janet (Corinne Michaels [Camacho]), one of Rockford's girl friends who he hasn't seen for four years. The Carrs have been having marital problems for some time. Bay City, a fictional town, is about 45 minutes away from the Carrs' home in Pasadena.

When Rockford knocks on Prentiss's motel room door, there is no response, so he enters the room, which is not locked. He finds Prentiss dead on the floor, a chair knocked over, and a gun under one of the room curtains. Rockford goes to the local police station, pretending that he never went into the room, where he suggests Sergeant Larsen (Mills Watson) should investigate, because there is something fishy going on. Larson has a major "why should we bother" attitude since it doesn't look like there is anything that is worth checking out. But Larson finally leaves with another cop, Earl Furlong (Warren Kemmerling).

When the two cops return later, they tell Rockford they found Carr dead from an apparent suicide with the gun in his hand, no sign of a struggle and a shot in the stomach (Rockford finds this detail very unusual). They had to get the manager to let them into the room, which was locked. Rockford has difficulty not saying too much.

Going to see Janet, Rockford wonders why she hasn't been home in the last while, because not only the cops tried to contact her with no luck, but so did he. Janet tells Rockford her husband "seemed very disturbed about something" when she spoke to him earlier. Rockford tells Janet to watch what she says if cops show up to talk to her.

When he goes back to the police station the next day, Rockford tells the Bay City chief of police, Austen Bailey (Stephen McNally), that he was in the room, contrary to what he said earlier, and basically accuses the two cops of obstructing justice by tampering with evidence in a capital crime, based on what he saw in the room earlier. However, Bailey doesn't trust Rockford because he has known the two men for 18 and 12 years, whereas he never met Rockford before. This encounter does not endear Rockford to the two cops, who tail him on his way out of town. They pull him over and tell him not to bother coming back there.

Rockford goes to see Janet again. She finally tells him that the reason she was not at home was because she was out with some guy, who she was thinking having an affair with (but she didn't do anything). Rockford is fed up with her, but she comes to his trailer later with a credit card receipt for some Bay City liquor store sale which her husband made that might help Rockford with the case.

Rockford goes to see Prentiss's boss Eric Saunders (Wallace Rooney) at the insurance company where he worked as the controller for many years. Saunders says that Prentiss was an exemplary employee and all-around great guy and that his "suicide" was a shock.

Using information from the credit card, Rockford follows a delivery driver from the liquor store to the house of Nancy Hellman, suggesting Nancy was Prentice's mistress. Rockford is sitting in his car outside her place at night waiting for her to show up when he gets a visit from the two cops who told him to get lost earlier. Their interaction is not nice.

The next day, Rockford borrows a clunker car from a security guard at the West End County Club who he knows and follows Nancy, who goes to some oceanside pier to meet with Saunders. He sees Saunders hand Nancy a package, most likely containing money. After this, when he follows Nancy away from the pier, some guy follows both of them, but this guy, who is Terry Warde in the credits (played by William Jordan), gets away from Rockford when the latter's borrowed car craps out.

When Rockford meets Janet again, he tells her that the liquor store receipt "did pay off," because it led him to Hellman and then to Saunders, without establishing some specific connection between the two (i.e., Hellman worked at the insurance company). He says that he had followed Hellman and found out she was a secretary "at Bay City." Rockford further says that Nancy, who was her husband's mistress, was blackmailing Saunders, based on the passage of money which he saw earlier. Rockford borrows his father's truck and goes to Nancy's place, where he finds the house is open, and Nancy is dead. But there is a picture of Warde on Nancy's dresser.

Rockford leaves Nancy's, but Warde is the crowd of spectators outside, and he follows Rockford into Bay City, specifically a lumber yard where Warde fires several shots at him and Rockford eventually subdues Warde with the intention of taking him to the cops.

At this point we get a whole bunch of explanation -- talk about bad writing! Despite Warde thinking he is making a deal, they are going to the cops, where everything is resolved (i.e., Saunders is busted), and the two cops -- who the chief chews out for the way they treated Rockford -- are almost apologetic.

The show ends with Rockford meeting Janet in a restaurant. She says she is going to Tahiti, using money which her late husband left her, but there is a suggestion that before this happens, she and Rockford will "do it."

I DON'T GET IT...

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