The Rockford Files (season 3)

The third season of The Rockford Files originally aired Fridays at 9:00-10:00 pm on NBC from September 24, 1976 to April 1, 1977.

The Rockford Files
Season 3
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	22
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	September 24, 1976 – April 1, 1977
Season chronology

Episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
46	1	"The Fourth Man"	William Wiard	Juanita Bartlett	September 24, 1976
Rockford’s friend, airline booking agent Lori Jenivan (Sharon Gless), is convinced that respectable seeming coin dealer Timson Farrell (John McMartin) wants to kill her. Rockford gets both Angel (Stuart Margolin) and Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) on the case to no effect, and what could be the motive? With Michael Bell.
47	2	"The Oracle Wore a Cashmere Suit"	Russ Mayberry	David Chase	October 1, 1976
Unscrupulous Roman Clementi (Robert Webber), who bills himself as a psychic investigator, tells the police Rockford knows more about a missing record company executive than he has told. It gets Rockford in trouble with the police and also with the drug dealers the executive owed money to. With Robert Walden, Pepe Serna, James Hong and Bonnie Bartlett.
48	3	"The Family Hour"	William Wiard	Gordon Dawson	October 8, 1976
Rockford and his dad, Rocky, bond with a child (Kim Richards) whose father is on the run from violent narcotics dealers who operate with apparent impunity. With Burt Young, Ken Swofford and Paul Koslo.
49	4	"Feeding Frenzy"	Russ Mayberry	Story by : Lester Wm. Berke & Donald L. Gold Teleplay by : Stephen J. Cannell	October 15, 1976
The father (Eddie Firestone) of Sandy, a former flame of Rockford, asks Jim to return the half-million dollars the father stole three years ago. It gets Jim in legal trouble with a police captain still interested in the case, and gets Sandy (Susan Howard) kidnapped by thugs wanting the money. With Luke Askew, William Edward Phipps, George Wyner, Pepper Martin and Richard LePore.
50	5	"Drought at Indianhead River"	Lawrence Doheny	Stephen J. Cannell	November 5, 1976
Rockford gets wind that some mobsters are planning to kill Angel some time soon, and when he tracks Angel down to warn him finds him living the high life in a penthouse apartment. The mobsters are more determined than ever, and have decided to kill Rockford too. With Robert Loggia and Vincent Baggetta.
51	6	"Coulter City Wildcat"	Russ Mayberry	Don Carlos Dunaway	November 12, 1976
Rocky wins an oil rights lottery, but a couple of thugs assault him to force him to sign over the rights to them. With Dennis Burkley, John Anderson and Jerry Hardin.
52	7	"So Help Me God"	Jeannot Szwarc	Juanita Bartlett	November 19, 1976
Rockford receives a subpoena to appear before a Grand Jury investigating the disappearance of Frank Sorvino. This episode exposes the unfairness of the Grand Jury system. Specifically Once you answer any question, you can no longer take the 5th amendment. If you refuse to testify (after the first question) you can be imprisoned for the duration of the Grand Jury. Even if you invoke the 5th amendment properly, the prosecutor can still apply for "immunity" from the 5th amendment and subpoena you again and require you to testify. Jim was asked about a telephone conversation he supposedly had with Frank Sorvino the day he disappeared, but Jim testified that the conversation never took place. But the Feds have a deposition from Sorvino's secretary saying she dialed the number and Jim answered, and Frank talked to him. The second time Jim invokes the 5th correctly and the prosecutor, Gary Bevins (William Daniels), dismisses Rockford and says he will apply for immunity from the 5th. Jim makes an angry speech attacking Bevins personally for violating his rights and having more contempt for the law than anyone Jim did time with. (Bevins told the Grand Jury that Jim had a record, but wouldn't acknowledge the fact that he received a full pardon.) Jim was cited for contempt and ends up back in the slammer. Angel visits Jim there with a photograph of the camera shy Frank Sorvino for which he charges $50, and Jim recognizes Sorvino as his client George Capmann, and all becomes clear. Jim is viciously attacked in prison by Sorvino's goons to stop him testifying and ends up in hospital. All charges are dropped and Jim testifies to what he now knows, which is probably enough to indict Sorvino, but Gary Bevins is ungrateful. Rockford is dismissed, but the foreman allows him to make a final statement in which he quotes from an article he read in prison to the effect that any injustice, no matter how small, hurts all of us. When Bevins doesn't get the point, Jim reveals that the article was quoting him. A printed statement appears on the screen to the effect that the laws regarding Grand Juries allow the injustices portrayed here to occur.
53	8	"Rattlers' Class of '63"	Meta Rosenberg	David Chase	November 26, 1976
Rockford is best man at Angel’s wedding, but Angel only got married because he needs his new wife (Elayne Heilveil) to defend him from her brothers, after he and an associate scammed them out of $20,000 using the Red Barn con. When the associate and one of the brothers turn up dead and Rockford is implicated in the con, Jim has no choice but to solve the case himself. With Avery Schreiber, James Wainwright, Stanley Brock, Gerald McRaney and John Durren.
54	9	"Return to the Thirty-Eighth Parallel"	Bruce Kessler	Walter Dallenbach	December 10, 1976
Unemployed old army buddy Brennan (Ned Beatty) urges a reluctant Rockford to accept a case searching for a woman’s missing sister, then talks Jim into allowing him to be Jim’s partner in the investigation. On the first day Brennan assaults a federal agent and gets Jim in trouble with the IRS. Their relationship gets increasingly strained as the case unfolds into actually being a search for a stolen Ming vase that a gangster (Paul Stevens) has also set his mind on getting. With Veronica Hamel and Norman Burton.
55	10	"Piece Work"	Lawrence Doheny	Juanita Bartlett	December 17, 1976
Rockford is hired to investigate an accident at a health club, but the place is a hangout for illegal arms dealers, and Murray Rosner (Michael Lerner), the pivotal figure in the buying and selling of the weapons, thinks Jim is a police officer and wants him out of the picture. With Ben Frank, Frank Maxwell, Jack Bannon, Simon Scott and Ned Wilson.
56	11	"The Trouble with Warren"	Christian I. Nyby II	Juanita Bartlett	December 24, 1976
Beth (Gretchen Corbett) coaxes a very reluctant Jim into helping her fired cousin, Warren Weeks (Ron Rifkin). He was having an affair with his boss’s wife, and the boss and another executive at the multinational corporation where they worked have been murdered. With Paul Jenkins, Joe Maross, Tom Bower, Anne Randall and John Dullaghan.
57	12	"There's One in Every Port"	Meta Rosenberg	Stephen J. Cannell	January 7, 1977
An old prison buddy (Howard Duff) and his daughter (Joan Van Ark) trick Rockford into inadvertently setting up a mob-run poker game to get robbed. To get the money back Rockford co-opts their next con, involving the sale of a yacht they do not own. But Rockford only has a few days, and mobsters and crooks do not respect international maritime law. With John Dehner, Steve Landesberg, Jack Riley, George Memmoli, Michael DeLano, Byron Morrow and John Mahon.
58	13	"Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, but Waterbury Will Bury You"	Jerry London	David Chase	January 14, 1977
Several independent private investigators (Cleavon Little, Simon Oakland and Val Bisoglio) are set up so that while on the job they do something for which their licences get revoked. Rockford takes up their cause. With James Karen, Anthony Costello and Robert Riesel.
59	14	"The Trees, the Bees and T.T. Flowers: Part 1"	Jerry London	Gordon Dawson	January 21, 1977
T.T. Flowers (Strother Martin) is an eccentric older friend of Rocky. Flowers is committed against his will to a psychiatric institution and given drugs to make him paranoid and delusional, so that his daughter Cathy (Karen Machon) and son-in-law Sherman (Alex Rocco) can take control of his ten acres of prime development property. Out of options and desperate, Rockford’s last resort is to break Flowers out of the institution. With Scott Brady and Richard Venture.
60	15	"The Trees, the Bees and T.T. Flowers: Part 2"	Jerry London	Gordon Dawson	January 28, 1977
T.T. Flowers (Strother Martin) holds out on his property and threatens to shoot anyone who sets foot on it. A SWAT team is called in, but eventually cooler heads prevail. This so frustrates Jack Muellard (Scott Brady), the developer who desperately wants to take possession of the land, who had been the prime mover in getting Flowers institutionalized, that he resorts to murder and other acts of violence to secure his ends. With Alex Rocco and Karen Machon.
61	16	"The Becker Connection"	Reza Badiyi	Story by : Chas. Floyd Johnson and Ted Harris Teleplay by : Juanita Bartlett	February 11, 1977
When drug dealers steal confiscated heroin from a police property room and frame financially strapped Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) for the crime, Rockford enlists Angel’s help and together they look to clear his name. With Jack Carter, Bert Kramer, William Jordan, Pat Finley, Jack Kelly and James Sikking.
62	17	"Just Another Polish Wedding"	William Wiard	Stephen J. Cannell	February 18, 1977
Jim's ex-con buddy Gandolph Fitch (Isaac Hayes) is looking for a new line of work. Jim teams Fitch with the slick P.I. Marcus Aurelius 'Gabby' Hayes (Louis Gossett Jr.), who learns from Fitch that Rockford has been hired by the county to do a probate heir search for a man who has inherited a fortune. Hayes decides to take up the case, confident that he can beat Rockford to the man and then trick him out of a chunk of the inheritance. They do not know that the money is dirty and the mob is also after it. With Dennis Burkley, George Wyner, Pepper Martin, Walter Brooke, Jack Collins and Melendy Britt.
63	18	"New Life, Old Dragons"	Jeannot Szwarc	Story by : Bernard Rollins & Leroy Robinson Teleplay by : David C. Taylor	February 25, 1977
A Vietnamese woman (Irene Yah-Ling Sun) hires Rockford to find her missing brother, who, like her, came to America as a refugee. The case becomes one of abduction and assault and then murder, and there are all sort of military veterans from the Vietname War involved. With Charles Napier, Kathleen Nolan, James T. Callahan, Luke Askew, Clyde Kusatsu and Charles Siebert.
64	19	"To Protect and Serve: Part 1"	William Wiard	David Chase	March 11, 1977
Rockford is hired by east coast attorney Michael Kelly (Jon Cypher) to track down his fiancée, Patsy Fossler (Leslie Charleson). Unbeknownst to Rockford, two hired killers (George Loros and Luke Andreas) are after her too. Meanwhile a nosy police groupie, Lianne Sweeny (Joyce Van Patten), has attached herself to Denis Becker and is causing a strain on his relationships.
65	20	"To Protect and Serve: Part 2"	William Wiard	David Chase	March 18, 1977
Rockford hides Patsy Fossler (Leslie Charleson) with a friend (Lou Frizzell) aboard his fishing boat, and sells Michael Kelly (Jon Cypher) a story that convinces him to fly back east right away. However Lianne Sweeny (Joyce Van Patten) has learned the details of Fossler’s hideout, and the killers (George Loros and Luke Andreas) have no trouble getting the information out of her.
66	21	"Crack Back"	Reza Badiyi	Juanita Bartlett	March 25, 1977
Beth’s client is a star football player, David Woodhull (Howard McGillin), accused of murder. She hires Rockford to locate his alibi, a married woman, Doreen Carpenter (Sondra Blake). The trial of Woodhull proceeds while Jim is conducting his search, and at the same time Beth (Gretchen Corbett) is receiving increasingly disturbing telephone calls and gifts. With Joseph Mascolo and John Calvin.
67	22	"Dirty Money, Black Light"	Stuart Margolin	David C. Taylor	April 1, 1977
Rocky, on vacation in Hawaii, is sent twenty thousand dollars in cash, which Rockford has to deal with when he checks Rocky's mail for bills. The windfall forces Rockford to deal with Federal agents, marked money, organized hoods, a loan shark operation, and the moral failings of Angel Martin (Stuart Margolin). With John P. Ryan, Roger E. Mosley, Wesley Addy, Joshua Bryant, Martin Kove and Victor Argo.