Blow Wind, Blow

Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Season 2, Episode 6, "Red Wind" (1986)
Directed by Martin Lavut, Written by Jaron Summers

"Red Wind" is a seriously moody last episode for a seriously moody series. Something about the way the Santa Ana wind is blowing through feels oddly like an epic end for a routine detective story. It's rare for a detective story to get all philosophical about forces of nature, but here it is.

It was the kind of wind that makes things happen...crazy things...It was a night when you didn't know your friends and strangers look familiar. A night like this, the smartest thing to do is nothing...stay home...

And that's when Marlowe heads out on the street because trouble is his business, after all. Marlowe witnesses a shooting in a nearly empty bar and that brings out the cops--the familiar Lt. Yberra (Frank Pellegrino) who is junior partner to a dirty cop straight out of L.A. Confidential named Lt. Copernik (Maury Chaykin). Chaykin is brilliant as the clearly bad cop. He looks at a newspaper headline (Lindy Claims Luftwaffe Best) and says that Lindbergh has got things right. Nothing worse than a California Nazi sympathizer cop.
As you can imagine, he has a lot to say about Yberra and tacos.
The crux of the mystery involves the lovely Lola Barsley (Linda Griffiths) and a necklace.

Lola Barsley was up to her beautiful eyes in something.

Marlowe plays a game of chess with her as interrogation foreplay. Lola Barsley had class...maybe too much class?

Lola was the kind who would think twice before giving you the time of day--then she'd probably lie about it.

He sure knows a lot about Lola having just met her, and yet he's so right. And this is yet another political story with a big talking politician Frank Barsley (R.H. Thomson) whose idea of history is grand, very grand.

Barsley: A mistress is simply a...possession, like this house or my car or my wife. Anyone interferes with my rights of ownership...things happen.
Marlowe: You're even more charming in person than you are on radio.

He's a real charmer, alright. He ends up plugging his own wife in a shootout with Marlowe that lands him in his own grave, too. Poor Lola, she was in love with an aviator who gave her a string of pearls once.

And Lola just wanted her pearls back. She never knew they were fake. At least she died believing her fantasy, not knowing that her brave handsome flyer was just another cheap two-timer.

And that's the way the series ends...with Marlowe on the pier at Malibu tossing fake pearls into the ocean. Some folks get to believe in fantasies, and some get to know the seedy truth beneath it all. Pretty damn cynical way to look at the world, but then, that's the way it goes sometimes.
I can't say that this series lifts up my spirits, but it sure is some good storytelling. And sometimes it's a good idea to get a glimpse into the darkness that's underneath the surface. Sometimes it's a good idea to know the pearls are fake and that the aviator was just a bum, that the cop is a little dirty and that even the good cop can't do much more than blackmail the bad cop--which is an imperfect solution as far as these things go, and the politicians--well, we know they're up to no good no matter how the wind blows.