As CJ Wiley, the billiards professional nicknamed the “Greatest Money Player of the 20th Century,” once said, “High-stakes pool hustling is a dangerous game.”

Certainly, the film and television industry thinks so.

Ever since “Fast Eddie” Felson had his thumbs broken in The Hustler, it’s been a dark day for on-screen pool hustlers.  Johnny Doyle had his hand broken in Poolhall Junkies. Tim Patterson almost lost his life in the Ironside episode “Side Pocket.”  Jim Dooley did lose his life, due to an exploding eightball, in the Shotgun Slade episode “The Pool Shark.”  Tenderloin Tony was shot down in Shooting Gallery, and the hustler Calvin Tate took a bullet to the head in the CSI “Dead Rails” episode.

To this growing list of murdered fictional pool hustlers, we can add Patrick “The Rifle” Lennox, the hustler at the center of the “November 22” episode of Cold Case.

Cold Case – “November 22”

Cold Case was an American police procedural crime drama television series that ran for seven seasons on CBS in the aughts.  It’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production, which is why it feels similar to CSI. “November 22” is from the show’s sixth season and is streaming for free on Roku. The title comes from the day President Kennedy was killed, which is the same day our hustler The Rifle (Eion Bailey) was shot in the back in broad daylight but nobody noticed because their attention was on JFK.

As with each Cold Case episode, a piece of evidence appears that leads the Philadelphia Police Department to reopen a cold homicide investigation. In “November 22,” it’s a .32-caliber snub nose revolver with a spent cartridge, found inside the recently renovated Whitey’s Pool Hall, a venue once famous for “pool, gambling..and being the raid capital of Philly back in the day.” It’s a storied place, where pictures of Minnesota Fats and Wimpy Lassiter used to decorate the walls. 

It’s also where Lennox may have first tangled with the wrong people. Through flashbacks, we learn that the Rifle would “shoot fast and never miss,” and that while he could beat “all the yutzes in Mayberry,” he really wanted to tangle with the infamous Baltimore Red. According to legend, Red would “run 15 racks in Hoboken and then do it again in Skokie. Nobody knew who he was or where he was from;” only that playing him required $2000 a rack.

For all the Rifle’s bluster, he’s a flawed player who “can’t see his third shot.” But that changes when a stakehorse takes an interest in him, saying the Rifle had “the mortal nuts, a stick with no fear.” 

Complementing this cast of characters is Blondie, the Rifle’s “road agent” who would help hook the patsies. She explains to the police, “We saw life as one big choke on all life’s chickens. Patrick was top dog at the table…[but] the life of the hustle catches up with everyone sooner or later.”

Unfortunately, while all the pieces are present, the billiards never really gels within the episode. Patrick seems more like a cornball than a hustler (maybe that’s because I kept thinking he looked like Steve Guttenberg in Police Academy). The billiards lingo feels a bit forced (“the hustler will think I’m some ham-and-egger”). There are a couple of good pool shot montages, but it’s unforgivable that for the final eightball match against Baltimore Red, the balls are racked incorrectly. At least there is a satisfying trick shot at the end in which the Cold Case Squad Commander hits the cue through two balls, pocketing each into a side pocket, and then in the same shot, the force of the cue hits two additional touching balls, slamming each into a corner pocket.

Castle – “Clear and Present Danger”

Another hustler that meets a nasty demise – specifically, the puncturing of his inferior vena cava with a cue stick – is William Ferwick, the long-haired, air guitaring, MIT-educated, pool wiz, who plays on a table emblazoned with a Circle-A anarchy symbol.  He’s the victim at the center of the 2014 “Clear and Present Danger” episode of Castle.

A quick refresher: Castle was an American crime mystery comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC for eight seasons. It paired Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a best-selling mystery novelist, and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a homicide detective, as they solved unusual crimes in New York City.  “Clear and Present Danger” presents a particularly unusual murder, as it appears the killer is invisible or has paranormal powers. 

There is solid comedic and romantic chemistry between the two main characters, so the episode is enjoyable viewing, even if there’s very little billiards to watch. Aside from the opening scene, with Ferwick running the table as David Rolfe’s song “Payback” blares, billiards is only a backstory, as in “Will mostly hustled Wall Street tools for 10 bills a game,” or “The guy was a pool hustler who made a fortune every night at Chelsea Billiards.” 

But, what the episode lacks in billiards, it more than overcompensates with references to quantum cellular equations based on cephalopods, cloaking, underground gaming dens, Lord of the Rings, the camouflage of cuttlefish, and DARPA-like governmental think tanks. “Clear and Present Danger” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

********

* I have titled this blog post “Part I” to focus on the dangers of pool hustling as fictitiously portrayed on TV. In my next post, I’ll shift my attention to the more somber, non-fictitious examples of the dangers of pool, as captured in various reality shows.