Ketcham—you remember Ketcham, don’t you?—is the one who puts it all together. It is he who investigates the thoroughly shot up and burned out wreck of Dalton’s car and discovers Dalton isn’t in it. (Surprise!) It is he who finds the knife pulled out of Wade Garrett’s chest and driven through the gas pedal to force the empty car to ram Brad Wesley’s compound. It is he who issues the four goons in his charge their marching orders: “Find that prick!” It is he who puts the knife back in his empty hip sheathe, revealing to the audience that it was he who put the knife in Wade Garrett’s chest. These climactic beats of the Road House story are pounded out by one man and one man alone.
Of course, and as this series has detailed, no one knows who the fuck Ketcham is when they first watch this film. Or when they seventh watch this film. Christ, before I wrote 140,000 words about Road House in daily increments I’m not sure even I realized the pivotal role this asshole played in several major events—driving his monster truck, lurking in the background of the Bleeder speech, spying on Dalton and Elizabeth from his monster truck, kicking Dalton with the boot-knife, running over Strodenmire Ford with his monster truck, killing Wade Garrett, and now, at the last, serving as the focal-point character for Brad Wesley’s goons unsuccessful attempt to find and eliminate Dalton. He genuinely is an important goon in this movie.
You just have no reason to believe that unless you’ve picked apart all the minutiae, is the thing. Importance is one thing, but do you remember him the way you remember the other four guys in this scene—Morgan, Pat McGurn, Tinker, and O’Connor, aka Terry Funk, John Doe, the funny overweight one, and the Bleeder? Of course you don’t, and why would you? They’ve looked and acted memorably. Ketcham might as well be a mannequin performing his tasks. You don’t even get to see him drive the knife into Wade, which might cement him as Jimmy Junior, so to speak. He’s just a stuffed shirt with a boring look and no preexisting connections to the Double Deuce by which to remember him.
Yet he will be the central goon in the carnage to come. Find that prick? My friends, we’ve already found him.
