The actual first Gunsmoke series starred William Conrad on radio as Matt Dillon, and it was significantly darker in theme than the TV series. It is no accident then that the lead of this two-part episode was a historical background narrated by Conrad. It seems clear this was an overt effort to link the dark nature of this episode to the original radio show. It was effective at setting the tone for what was to come.
This series doesn't so much have a happy ending as it has a hopeful one. What it does show is the complex narrative of people living in a very hostile country where death happens frequently, and where morality has a very tenuous hold.
While all the historic realities of the American southwest cannot be told in a single two-hour episode, this one came close to the mark on many: the savage nature of renegade bands of violent Comanche, the role of Comancheros, and the reality that slavery existed in a lawless form decades after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in late 1865. All of this is effectively rendered, and in a manner sufficiently dark to convey the harsh reality of how it happened.
Where the rule of law fails, man can devolve into a savage animal. That is the core theme of this episode. Rage can eat a man's soul until murder, rape, torture, and trafficking become weapons of war, or a crass methods of profit. It is a poignant reminder to people, who enjoy secure civility, to withhold modern judgments until first comprehending the historic reality of people who lived in alien times.
Loss of culture can motivate the use of barbarity in retaliation. Deception can become a rational avenue to secure one's escape from enslavement into prostitution. Greed can consume one's soul to the point where selling people becomes a way of life. Stabbing someone in the back becomes a necessary effort to survive. And, even shooting a woman in the back becomes the last act of a man utterly devoid of human meaning.
Even the lonely existence of a single US Marshal roaming the savage territory of what would have been southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona territories is shown in one of the more realistic presentations of the series.
We are also given witness to how people who live in civilization can have that taken away in a swift act of criminality. Good people can be violently trapped in a place where survival becomes the only law, and where they have to resort to the unthinkable. We are sharply reminded that rule of law only exists in places where people band together to respect the law and ensure it is defended from evil.
Ultimately, in his effort to defend the rule of law, Dillon's main objective fails even as it became agonizingly close to total success. He is left with a genuinely positive and promising outcome, but one that doesn't come close to wiping away the tragic reality of human savagery, tragedy, and waste.
This series doesn't so much have a happy ending as it has a hopeful one. What it does show is the complex narrative of people living in a very hostile country where death happens frequently, and where morality has a very tenuous hold.
While all the historic realities of the American southwest cannot be told in a single two-hour episode, this one came close to the mark on many: the savage nature of renegade bands of violent Comanche, the role of Comancheros, and the reality that slavery existed in a lawless form decades after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in late 1865. All of this is effectively rendered, and in a manner sufficiently dark to convey the harsh reality of how it happened.
Where the rule of law fails, man can devolve into a savage animal. That is the core theme of this episode. Rage can eat a man's soul until murder, rape, torture, and trafficking become weapons of war, or a crass methods of profit. It is a poignant reminder to people, who enjoy secure civility, to withhold modern judgments until first comprehending the historic reality of people who lived in alien times.
Loss of culture can motivate the use of barbarity in retaliation. Deception can become a rational avenue to secure one's escape from enslavement into prostitution. Greed can consume one's soul to the point where selling people becomes a way of life. Stabbing someone in the back becomes a necessary effort to survive. And, even shooting a woman in the back becomes the last act of a man utterly devoid of human meaning.
Even the lonely existence of a single US Marshal roaming the savage territory of what would have been southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona territories is shown in one of the more realistic presentations of the series.
We are also given witness to how people who live in civilization can have that taken away in a swift act of criminality. Good people can be violently trapped in a place where survival becomes the only law, and where they have to resort to the unthinkable. We are sharply reminded that rule of law only exists in places where people band together to respect the law and ensure it is defended from evil.
Ultimately, in his effort to defend the rule of law, Dillon's main objective fails even as it became agonizingly close to total success. He is left with a genuinely positive and promising outcome, but one that doesn't come close to wiping away the tragic reality of human savagery, tragedy, and waste.
