While I agree with the criticism of this particular episode, and how Rockford is basically reduced to a secondary character, I would recommend you give this one a chance, as the story is still fairly complex with some solid writing, and decent performances. Eugene and Mickey(Greg Antonacci and Gene Davis)make their 2nd appearance, although it was unrelated to a prior episode when they were very unlikable, and pestered poor Rocky; both Gilbert Green and Antony Ponzini give credible performances, and look for a scene or 2 from Simon Oakland(Night Stalker)and actress Robin Riker. Shortly after Rockford is being told by a fellow airplane passenger how nice Newark is, his watch, rental car, and luggage are stolen, and he's even mugged later in the episode. It's obvious to me that over the 6 seasons of this show, Newark is never looked upon nicely, and every hood the show produced seemed to originate from that city. Something that may or may not stand out is that this is the next to last episode of this great series, and it's filmed entirely on location, which was a letdown however. The 2 "hustlers" try everything in their limited power to be part of a crew, and have the worst luck. In this instance, they vow to help Mr. Lombard(Green)locate his kidnapped daughter Renee(Lisa Bowman), and to locate, although I don't recall why, a corpse which has been dead for a few days and kept in storage for proper burial, which the church won't allow; there's a good scene between Lombard and a Cardinal regarding the dead body, although I'm not sure why Lombard wants a proper burial for a rival gangster's(Tony Martine)cousin, but is turned down. Eugene and Mickey locate the body in Martine's storage room, and survive being shot at again, and the police come and save the day, and locate Renee in Martine's store, although I'm not quite sure why she was kidnapped to begin with. Lastly, a few tidbits worth mentioning is that Rockford has shorter hair; maybe since 1980 is around the corner, he decided to lose the 70's hair? I was quite surprised to hear Bruce Springsteen's name mentioned at the end when Mickey says he's going to see the concert with Renee in Boston. After a slow start, the episode picks up steam, and maybe James Garner was mailing it in, knowing that the end of the series was weeks away, as he didn't really do anything of consequence this time around, but it's not that obvious, just a random observation from this reviewer, and I do recommend for any fan of the series.
Review of Just a Coupla Guys
