I think the "The Countess" episode is set apart a bit by its charged lines and characters. And I think it's very final ending, which this time is not about short-changed payments and expenses, which proves this--if nothing else does.
The most original character, apart from our man Jimbo, is Carl Brego (Dick Gautier). Carl has a way of filling the screen with his impressive physicality. I mean how many mobsters go bare-chested let alone while wearing very high-rise body pants. He kind of looks like a cross between a ballerina dancer and a west coast linebacker, or maybe like a bodybuilder version of Vince Edwards. Anyway, he puts on a good show and has great lines to boot. He says to the countess who is selling his blackmailing smarts a little short: "You keep this up, I'm just liable to plunge myself into analysis." He answers Rockford's intrusive inquiry before their beach showdown with "Have we met, sport."
Mike Ryder (Art Lund), the Countess' husband, and more than Carl's equal, exercises a similar kind of masculine presence. He's older and more mellow, in love with his wife, and serves as her faithful defender. But if he was supposed to back down in the scene in which Rockford suicidally accelerates his car, Ryder breaks the scrip--and outright shoots Rockford. Beth Davenport (Gretchen Corbett) is no pushover either. She states to Lieutenant Diel upon looking at Rocky's A. R. Report: "My name is Ms Davenport. You call me honey again and you'll hear about it from the Captain." And when Diel is later thinking plea deal, Rocky retorts: "C'mon Lieut. I didn't come down with yesterday's rain."
However, the endearing ending is the real winner in "The Countess." In the hospital where Rockford has survived and Mike not so fortunate, the Countess (Susan Strasberg) says to him: " You think everything's real but if you get close enough you see it's all made of plastic." She says that Mike is the only genuine article, but "he got hooked on a plastic countess. How do you deal with that?"
Rockford responds: "We're all scared to death. I guess that's the price we pay for living in a world where every price tag ends in.99. And they sell mortuary plots on billboards next to the freeway." He advises the Countess to see her act as one big practical joke and suggests laughter. "Is that what you do." "You bet."
