I cannot recall an episode of Gunsmoke that received as many varied reviews as this one. Some reviewers really despise the sadism of this John Meston script, and it is difficult to argue with some of their comments. The story is needlessly mean spirited.
Phoebe Strunk is the leader of a purely immoral clan of slow-witted men that apparently roams the countryside taking whatever they want and killing anyone that is victimized by their activities. Poor Annie Shields is the unfortunate recipient of the Strunk's attention. The episode is essentially a study of the Strunk's repeated psychological torture of Annie. (One can imagine there was physical torture, too, but that kind of thing wasn't portrayed on network television in 1962.)
That is pretty much the story here. Watching this episode reminds me of the controversial 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, or the brutal Lars von Trier film The House That Jack Built. The characters are psychopaths totally devoid of any morality. While this episode does not approach the brutality of either of those films, the darkness of the story is born of the same foundations.
It is also interesting to note that Meston would return to some of this same territory in Season 9 with the episode "No Hands."
Virginia Gregg was seemingly in every television show in the 1960s, and she is outstanding as the matriarch of this band of psychopaths. The trivia notes for this episode mention that Joan Freeman would play another brutally victimized character in the B-movie classic Panic In Year Zero, and John McLiam as Sam Kinney would play a similar role and meet a similar fate in the film In Cold Blood.
The Dodge City characters aren't involved much here. Matt is rightfully suspicious of the Strunks, and he solicits Quint Asper's help to check up on them while bringing the story to a predictable resolution.
