Aura Lee, Farewell

Lindsay Wagner, an old friend of Jim Rockford's returns in this episode asking for some detective work in regard to the death of young Melissa Greene who worked for her. A brief prologue to the main story shows Greene getting into the car of Robert Webber who is a State Senator and then Webber getting into an accident.

Webber made several guest appearances on The Rockford Files and he's usually a tough guy, sometimes a bad guy. Here however the State Senator turns out to be as much a victim as Greene was.

Joe Santos as Dennis Becker helps Garner run down a few leads, plate numbers that lead to the eventual solving of what turns into two murders. The reasons are a bit murky though. But I do like the way Garner foils the villain in the end.

Aura Lee Benton was an employee at the boutique run by Rockford's friend Sara (Lindsay Wagner). After her mysterious death by heroin overdose Sara hires Rockford (James Garner) to look into it. The cops think it was accidental and so does Rockford until he finds tell-tale signs of malfeasance Sara tells Rockford that she hired Aura Lee in early June of that year (1974). The date becomes significant in the investigation into her death because of what she may have been doing on the 5th and the 6th of that month and whom she happened to be doing it with. She spent those days and nights with state senator Evan Murdoch (Robert Webber) - on one of which she witnessed him accidentally hit a homeless man who later died in hospital.

The Rockford Files was a very nearly Kafkaesque interpretation of a TV detective show. The main character had to lie, cheat and mooch favors just to tread water in his milieu. Even dogs hated Rockford - the poster boy for "Why me?".

Each task became increasingly more daunting as he matched wits with different factions including the government, the cops and the underworld. Rockford was beaten up quite regularly for his trouble. Series star James Garner did commercials for Polaroid in the 1970s. Given how mistreated his character was I have often thought it might have been more appropriate for him to have done ads for Timex.

Lindsay Wagner's appearance as Rockford's former client turned love interest Sara is notable given the fact that this is the 14th episode of season one and she had appeared as the same character in the first episode of season one. Her character would never be seen again and go down in history as one of the many clients who stiffed Rockford instead of as a recurring character along the lines of Gretchen Corbett.

Reprising her role it is thus surprising that Billy Mumy who portrayed her brother in the first episode of season one appears again here in an entirely different role. Robert Webber and countless other guest stars also appeared again in entirely different roles. My one major criticism of the show as its use of guest stars in entirely different roles in later episodes.

Lindsey Wagner returns as Sara Butler, the bikini store owner Rockford met earlier in season one in the episode "Backlash of the Hunter". This time, an employee of hers, Aura Lee has been found dead of a heroin overdose. Sara believes Aura Lee was murdered and hires Jim Rockford to prove it.

There's a lot of good stuff in this episode. We get the first of five appearances on the "Files" of Robert Webber, who always made a great foil for Garner. We have another rare appearance of Jim's printing press. And "Lost in Space" star Billy Mumy makes his second appearance on the show as a hippy painter. Oddly enough, his other appearance was in "Backlash of the Hunter" as Sara Butler's brother. Even though Lindsey Wagner's back, this time the two are not related. Melissa Greene plays Aura Lee and apparently this was her last professional appearance, after a short career in shows like "Kolchak: the Night Stalker" and (ironically) "The Six Million Dollar Man".

Somehow though this episode never really takes off. Jackie Cooper's direction seems particularly plodding and slow, which brings the whole episode down. The mystery isn't that great, and its pretty obvious who the killer is. There's also a pretty bad scene in which Rockford tries to pass himself off as a cop--using his real name and dressed in a big sweater, looking for all the world like anything BUT a cop. Kinda dumb for someone as savvy as Jim Rockford. It's a mistake they would not make later in the series. In many ways this episode is a lot more "Mannix" than it is "Rockford".