Just by Accident

When a demolition derby driver wants to quit his side business, he's murdered...and his 'accident' appears to be just that...an accident. However, the dead guy's mother hires Rockford to find out more about the death and what was really happening with her son. This leads to a giant insurance fraud case...one which is not only clever but deadly.

This is one of the better episodes of season one because it is very different...and seemingly plausible. An interesting case and an episode where Rockford manages to have TWO vehicles destroyed.

This episode is much better than the previous one, even though it once again revolves around an accident eventually turning into murder. Jim is hired by yet another older woman needing the truth about her deceased son, as she doesn't believe his death was an accident; as we get to see, he was clearly murdered by having his car pushed off a cliff, because he refused to partake in insurance scams anymore. The head of the crooked insurance company has a funny was of pronouncing "Rockford", as it comes out as "Rockfoot", and that made me laugh whenever I heard it. This episode is also notable for a new cop friend for Rockford, as Dennis is nowhere to be found; he's played by a likable David Spielberg(Tom), who also starred as the same role in another episode and actually enlists Jim's requests and eventually gets the criminals, as they were attempting to "Malachi crunch" Rockford on a race car track. Watch for a few 70's familiar faces in Gordon Jump and Fritzi Burr, who have funny cameos to lighten the mood. Perhaps the only aspect of the show which wasn't realistic is after Jim is kidnapped and the Firebird is pushed over the cliff(with Jim in it), he winds up at the hospital with only a small bandage on his head and his wrist taped up; by all accounts, Rockford should be a dead man with a crash that big, but I digress. I'm not a huge fan of very early episodes, but this was very entertaining and had some funny lines, a cool construction site with outdoor elevator, the Firebird, and was a big improvement over the previous show, and I would easily recommend this episode to any fan.

Jim Rockford's client is Neva Patterson who thinks there's something not quite right with the death of her son in a car crash. Her son was a stock car driver and drove in demolition derbies and that just doesn't quite sit with her.

Mother in fact does know best. It was a visit to the girlfriend of the late victim Joey Aresco where he finds some driver's licenses under different names all belonging to the victim with his smiling face as the photograph.

Girlfriend E.J. Peaker is on the scam though and tells the boss. Another of the stock car drivers Steven Keats is the killer of Aresco and he nearly does in James Garner.

What the scam I won't reveal, but it's a neat one and could have gone on for quite some time.

The famous Rockford Firebird gets pretty banged up, but it's back for the next episode.

The scam is a beauty, worthy of Angel Martin.