402: Criminal Energy

Synopsis

The episode picks up where 401: Static Prevails left off. Billy wants no part of a break-in, so he drives to the diner, Pizza Dragons, where Ezra Denny is working the counter and Delilah Bevins is waiting tables, and he stays there drinking coffee. The others, Dr. Simeon, Major Bakersfield, Tallahassee Turner and Dom Druncard, pull up at about 6:30 in the morning outside the Pawn and Prawns, the pawn shop that issued the receipt found with the dead man. It sits at the edge of the merchant district, near the docks. Nobody in the group has any breaking and entering skills. They spend a long time arguing over bricks, hammers and the barred windows in the back, until they notice that only the front door is plain glass, and Simeon throws a paving stone through it.

Inside, the shop smells strongly of fish. Behind the counter are guns and a row of locked drawers, and the back room holds an icebox with a bucket of prawns and a desk with a ledger. Dom smashes open drawer after drawer, hurts his hand on his first fumble, and finally finds a fine wristwatch with a black leather band engraved "RG." The Major takes the ledger. With the clock at about 7:15 and the owner due to open soon, they leave. Tallahassee drives the getaway car, badly, and Dom wipes down the drawers and takes the brick with him.

At Pizza Dragons the group hands Billy the ledger, "allegedly found" somewhere, and tells him about the watch. Billy shares what he learned from the neighbor and the building: the radios played all the time, John Johnson was seen going into his apartment around nine the night before, and yet he looks days dead. Johnson is probably an alias, and the "RG" may be his real initials. Simeon sees a dark figure over his left shoulder as he opens the ledger, but it is gone when he turns, and no one else saw it. By spending Luck on a Library Use roll, he finds Johnson's entry for November 18, 1925: Johnson traded the watch, worth about ten thousand dollars in today's money and more than the radios he got for it. Billy plans to interview the pawn shop's owner and then the medical examiner, and the group decides to go with him. As they leave, a second boater stares in at them through the diner window. Simeon wants to talk to him, but the others pile into Billy's car and Tallahassee goes out alone. Asked about the ferryman, the man says that he is "here to take us for a ride," hugs him, pins his arms, and whispers that the boat man is here and is going to take him. Cold hands close around Tallahassee's throat, and everything goes black.

Funny Moments

An in-world radio program opens the episode, with a guest named Montgomery who lives in a box by the river, keeps asking whether anyone has "any steam," and explains that he was arrested with "Dirty Mike and the boys" in the mayor's car "with an old bottle of mustard and a poodle." The host cuts him off with "Okay, okay, never mind, that's quite enough."
As soon as Billy leaves for the diner, Tallahassee Turner announces, "Alright guys, Bill is gone, now's our chance to be bad."
When Billy asks Ezra Denny whether he has seen the others and promises not to get into trouble, Ezra deadpans that they definitely wouldn't, and the table adds, "Not those guys, they're straight as an arrow... salt of the earth."
The Keeper reveals the name of the pawn shop and says, "I love that name, that's my greatest name ever." The fishy smell, the bucket of prawns and the question "Do they have prawns by any chance?" become running gags.
Nobody has breaking and entering skills or lock picks. The group argues about hammers and bars on the back windows for several minutes before noticing that the front door is just glass: "We've just been standing here doing stupid crap this whole time."
Someone reminds the table that Dr. Simeon is "an upstanding psychologist" and asks whether he really wants to throw a brick through a window.
Dom Druncard fumbles his first try at a lock and smashes his own hand with the brick. A player adds that now he cannot play at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.
The table argues over whether the police took fingerprints in the 1920s ("No, they don't." "Yes, they do."). The "RG" on the watch is guessed as "Richard Gonson," then "Richard Gonads."
Tallahassee's first getaway drive is "driving erratically and too fast," and later Dom explains that he took only one watch so that it would look like they had come for a single item.
At the diner, the group hands over the ledger as "allegedly found," and says that they found the watch "on the sidewalk, mysteriously." Billy says, "Don't give me any details of anything illegal," and then announces that he has learned that he can drink five cups of coffee in an hour.
Reading "Pawn and Prawns" on the ledger, a player asks, "What kind of crossover market is there in people who want to buy prawns?" and says, "I heard you can get good prawns there. Let's go get our prawn on."
Billy tries to say that he must go to the university and goes through "the unibomber... the unibrow... the Unicef" before landing on the morgue.
After Simeon sees a dark figure behind him and asks whether anyone else saw it, the table points out that there are lots of people sitting in the booths.
While the group hunts for an "RG" to match the watch, the Keeper jokes that someone could turn and realize that their best friend is also an RG and shoot him, a Memento reference that sets off a debate about the film.

Notable Quotes

"I found what we're looking for, boys. A bucket full of prawns." —Dr. Simeon
"Alright guys, Bill is gone, now's our chance to be bad." —Tallahassee Turner
"Doing great, doing what I love." —Ezra Denny
"Don't give me any details of anything illegal, but did you guys learn anything?" —Billy McConnell
"He's only been dead for a couple hours and yet he looks days dead." —Billy McConnell
"To me this starts creeping into the supernatural." —Billy McConnell
"Did you guys see someone behind me?" —Dr. Simeon
"He's here to take us for a ride." —the second boater
"The boat man is here and he's gonna take you." —the second boater