Exodus 21.22

The Season 14 finale is a fairly routine revenge story. Frank Reardon is a former lawman whose pregnant, Native American wife was murdered by a gang of contemptible men. Reardon is on a mission to kill everyone involved in his wife's death. Naturally, being a former law enforcement officer means he is a close friend of Matt Dillon. Doc Adams and Kitty Russell also consider Reardon a friend.

The revenge tale is popular in the Westerns genre, and it has been used a few times over the course of Gunsmoke's fourteen seasons to this point. The distinguishing factor in this story is Reardon's lust for vengeance and how it conflicts with his friendship with the Marshal.

When the men Reardon is chasing make their way to Dodge City, Reardon is close behind. Now Marshal Dillon and the people of Dodge become centerstage for the ongoing conflict.

One of the men Reardon is pursuing named Keith had been previously shot by Reardon, but managed to get away and survive. Doc Adams is treating his wound. The Marshal arrests the other two gang members after an altercation in the Dodge City streets.

When Reardon arrives, he asks Matt to release the prisoners to him, but Matt refuses and warns Reardon about attempting to carry out his vengeance in Dodge. The two old friends are both stubborn, and the situation looks to be headed for a showdown. Kitty manages to defuse the tension by giving Reardon a good, old-fashioned tongue lashing.

The wounded Keith watches Reardon from the window in Doc's office. He shoots Reardon in the back and claims it was an act of self-defense. When Festus Haggen locks Keith in the jail, he releases Cane and Lloyd, the two that were previously arrested, because Reardon refuses to make any kind of accusation against them.

If Cane and Lloyd were smart, they would leave Dodge as Marshal Dillon orders, but they aren't, and they don't. Their further actions will lead to the conclusion of the story.

The versatile Steve Ihnat returns for his fifth Gunsmoke appearance as Frank Reardon. Ihnat was great at playing this kind of rugged, weary character. He had done it previously in Season 12's "Noose of Gold," and he would do it again in Season 16's "Jenny." He often played villainous characters, but his performance here helps the viewer sympathize with his anger. At one point, even Doc ponders whether Ihnat's Reardon character deserves much criticism for his actions given the circumstances and the dastardly men that killed his wife and unborn child.

William Bramley is back in a Gunsmoke story again, this time as the treacherous Cane. Bramley made a career out of playing these types of incorrigible characters. Kaz Gara plays Keith in his only Gunsmoke appearance. Brandon Carroll portrays the third member of the gang Reardon is chasing as a man named Lloyd, who is the deserving recipient of a backhand from Marshal Dillon. Lane Bradford, another fairly regular Gunsmoke bad guy, is originally part of the gang, but he does not last long in this story.

This is another installment in the series that offers no big surprises but still manages to maintain the drama and entertain.

Unfortunately, I was watching the TV when this episode started. This would have been better as a radio show.

At first, I thought I was watching a man in a storage room cluttered with junk but then I realized it was his home, a one-room cabin with a dirt floor. There was a small fireplace, one small table with a chair turned backward facing the fireplace and what we would think of today as a mixing bowl and a pitcher. I did not see any plates or dishes in the cabin.

Between the front door and the fireplace there was a small end table with the Holy Bible on top, opened to Exodus; and beside this, which took me awhile to recognize, was an old-fashioned cradle with a toy for a baby.

After the kerosene lamp goes out the camera zooms in on the Bible and we read Exodus 21-24, which includes life for a life, eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth. Looked like moonlight on the page but there was no window near it.

Well, not long after we see these things, we hear the main "protagonist," Frank Reardon, describe how his wife had let in seven men, fed them, and let them warm themselves by the fireplace, until they scared her so badly that she ran from her home and died in the blizzard. Frank found her after he returned from Butte (Montana), where he had been away on business during the tragedy.

Frank also said his wife did not have to let them in, she could have kept the door bolted; but the door to the cabin had a doorknob and no lock. Was Frank that inobservant about his home, or was he making an alibi for himself - leaving a pregnant woman by herself with no security?

Frank is now 1,300 miles from his home in Montana, where he has chased the last three men on his quest for vengeance. The newspaper in Dodge City has published the story up to this point, so everyone there knows about Frank (Matt, Kitty, and Doc having been friends with Frank and his pregnant wife for years, somehow), and how he has killed men along the way.

Furthermore, we have been privy to the infighting between the remaining men, and as viewers we know how one of the seven men scared his wife: too much public display of affection.

Even if a man would do that in front of six other men, to a pregnant woman, in a 150-sq foot cabin, the image of eight adults in front of that little fireplace was challenging.

There was little space between the table and the fireplace. Were all eight people standing in a huddle together and moving in a circle taking turns warming up?

Did the seven men take the plates, glasses, flatware (and their napkins) when they left? Did they sign a guest registry when they entered, and was that how Frank knew there were seven men and their names?

Did the footprints in the dirt of the cabin floor provide this knowledge? After the blizzard cleared up, were there any tracks left to follow from Montana to Kansas? If Frank knew what happened to his wife, as he claimed to all along, why was it necessary for one of the remaining men to reveal to Frank what really happened at the end (and after "four men killed")?

If this were a radio show (or we listened to the actors without watching them on screen), we could edit the images in our minds to make more sense of the story. The acting was good.