The Biz's Night-vision Goggles¶

The Biz's Night-vision Goggles are Dick Baxter's night-vision monocular, a PVS-7. State police find it in the bushes outside the Smith Hotel, and it feeds the surveillance scandal that makes the Biz "the most hated cop in America".


Type	Item (equipment)
Aliases	night vision headset; PVS-7 monocular
Owner	Dick "The Biz" Baxter (played by Ezra)
Value	Roughly $4,500, according to Ezra
Found by	Georgia State Police
First appearance	Appalachia 06

Description¶

The goggles are a night-vision headset or monocular. In the Walkers 01 epilogue, Ezra names the model as a PVS-7 and puts its price at roughly $4,500, "pretty nice used car money" in the nineties. The Biz says that the last time he saw them they were in a case in the trunk of his car. (Walkers 01)

History¶

The cold open¶

Appalachia 06 opens with a slow zoom on the Smith Hotel: caution tape stretched around the bushes outside, and tired state police officers taking prints and swabs. One of them emerges from the bushes holding a night-vision headset and orders, "Bag it and tag it, the Secret Service fellows I want to take a look at that." Later in the episode, Andre has to remind the players what the scene showed. Dante recalls thinking that the goggles "could belong to anybody". (Appalachia 06)

The surveillance scandal¶

In the following episodes, the team hides from the press because FBI agents are suspected of spying on Bill Clinton. In Appalachia 07, a contact with a friend at the state police reports that investigators recovered something with prints that match an FBI agent, after a tip-off from the Secret Service. In Appalachia 08, the players piece together that goggles found in a bush were used to spy on Clinton, and a reporter asks Andrew on live TV about "the Bill Clinton wiretap". See the Clinton Surveillance Scandal. (Appalachia 07, Appalachia 08)

The mines¶

In Appalachia 09, the Biz complains that he cannot find his night-vision goggles, which would be useful in a mine. When the party divides the gold, he says he has "a new pair of night vision goggles to buy". (Appalachia 09)

The epilogue¶

On Late Night with David Letterman in Walkers 01, the Biz is introduced as "the most hated cop in America". Asked about the goggles, he says, "Well, I'd like them back," and that they are "really expensive". He confirms they were his and not the FBI's, and that he owns them for "spying on people". Letterman notes that the state police say they found the goggles in a rose bush and asks how they got there. Letterman also says that Jan Martense, "the illegal gold miner for the food company", had been surveilling Clinton. The Biz offers two possibilities: they were lost during his own surveillance work, or they were stolen from his car trunk. (Walkers 01)

Unresolved¶

The episodes never show how the goggles ended up in the hotel bushes, or whether Jan Martense had anything to do with their disappearance.

Trivia¶

The cold open of Appalachia 06 was meant as a clue, but the players focused on the officer's way of drinking coffee instead. (Appalachia 06)