Help Me, Kitty

So many whiners here reviewing! Thanks again "kfo" for another spoiler-filled "review"! (You might want to research the difference between a review and a synopsis).

I don't think I've ever seen Jack Elam actually ACT before this episode! He was really good, and not just crazy-eyed mugging in this one. Amanda Blake, as well, emotes in this one better than I can remember her ever doing. The actress playing the little pregnant girl was great, too; sad to see she didn't work much after this episode.

One more note: In another episode the trivia here said "Only time Miss Kitty and Matt embrace"... Well (tiny spoiler) they embrace here, too.

Slow show. Could haxe been more interesting had the Hope character not been SUCH A WINER! Just okay, gave Matt a day off and I didnt have to listen to Festus. Jack Elam is always a creepy delight.

Hope Farmer is a young, 18-year-old woman who finds herself in a tough situation. She left home for a man named Ed in the hopes she and Ed would marry, but Ed is not interested in marriage. To make matters worse, Hope is pregnant. When the couple arrive in Dodge City, Hope goes to Kitty Russell for help.

12 years earlier, Hope's mother worked for Kitty at the Long Branch Saloon. Hope was a little girl at the time, but Kitty remembers her and shows great compassion for Hope's situation. Kitty agrees to escort Hope to her mother.

Unfortunately, the stagecoach carrying Kitty and Hope is attacked by a pair of thieves. The stagecoach overturns and ejects Kitty, Hope, and a male passenger. The male passenger and the driver are both killed, and the bandits assume Kitty and Hope are dead. They take the contents of the stagecoach strongbox and the cash from Miss Kitty's handbag and ride off.

Miraculously, Kitty is not badly hurt. While Hope is injured, she is able to walk. Kitty and Hope set out looking for any help they can find. When they eventually arrive at a way station, they discover it is operated by Specter, who the viewer can see is one of the two thieves. Kitty didn't get a look at Specter after the accident, but she got a clear look at his partner, Furnas. When Furnas arrives at the way station, Kitty recognizes him and realizes Specter and Furnas are the thieves.

This situation establishes the primary plot point of the episode. Hope is injured, and she and Kitty are held prisoner at the way station with Specter and Furnas.

The clear point of this episode is to show how tough and resilient Kitty Russell could be. Amanda Blake was definitely capable of carrying an episode, as she proved numerous times over the run of Gunsmoke. If not for her strong performance in this story, the episode would have been a disaster.

Jack Elam was a versatile actor, and he is fine here as the slimy Specter character, but Betty Conner is stuck with a poorly written role as the seemingly helpless Hope. Joe Conley, who plays Carl, the stagecoach driver, was best known as Ike Godsey on The Waltons. (There are many connections between The Waltons and Gunsmoke, including writers, directors, and actors.)

This isn't one of the better Kathleen Hite scripts. There are plot elements that don't make much sense: What happened to Ed, Hope's male companion? He apparently did not even care enough to protest Hope leaving him. What was the point to the odd scene with Festus, Quint, and Carl? I guess it was supposed to inject humor, but it seems out of place. Why did the bandits just assume the women were dead? Kitty found a gun, why won't she use it? The plot also bogs down and plods along at times.

Miss Kitty and an injured, pregnant girl are imprisoned by a pair of murderous outlaws. Unbeknownst to the malefactors, Kitty is packing heat. It is readily apparent she could sneak up on the villains and gun them down, saving her own life and the young girl's in the process. But she doesn't. At least not initially. Kitty does everything she can to avoid having to kill.

My guess is that 90 percent of male viewers of this episode pulled their hair out wondering why the heck Kitty didn't just blaze away. She knew the score. She had just cause. And besides, some people simply need killing.

Ultimately, Kitty does gun down Jack Elam's character, affecting the escape of the two women. But the girl is traumatized to hysterics by the killing and even Kitty, who ends the episode sobbing into Matt Dillon's shoulder, is affected.

Perhaps this was Kathleen Hite's point in the episode. For women, killing doesn't come easy. It is, at most, the ultima ratio. Men, on the other hand, are far less likely to tie themselves into knots when something terrible has to be done. If it has to be done, you just do it.

Now this isn't a great episode. It's rather plodding for the first half, and the actress playing the pregnant girl is no great shakes. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile, particularly in this ludicrous age, as a reminder that men and women are different. Very, very different.

I used to give a silent cheer every time Kathleen Hite's name appeared on screen as writer; not so much any more. I'm fine with her introducing the feminine sensibility into the male-dominated Old West---Season 8's "The Way It Is" is excellent, and Season 7's "Long, Long Trail" is a total MASTERPIECE. But her output became way too Hit-and-"Miss" as the series progressed.

LOTS of holes in the plot..many already cited here by other commentators.

Yeah...what WAS that nonsense with "Ed" in the opening..his gratuitous fight with Quint..why?? Bad choice. ALSO-- are we seriously to believe that Matt would allow Kitty and Hope to travel on the coach --carrying a big load of cash--with NO "SHOTGUN" rider to protect them? Are you NUTS?

And, after the coach disaster, a writer of Hite's intelligence would have made sure that Kitty first check the ruined coach for anything they might be able to use in their long walk back to civilization, after first having made SOME effort to see if the coach's HORSES might have stopped running anywhere nearby.

There's just WAY TOO MUCH in this script that was tossed aside in order to set up the perilous journey of the two ladies, which is really a grind to watch. Incidentally, Hope's level of pain, etc makes it seem that she's about to deliver the baby at any moment...yet the costume department (conspiring with make-up and hair stylist) makes certain that actress Betty Conner looks svelte and shapely in her tight-fitting dress; this IS the mid '60's, you know.

I really don't like scripts of this sort-- where our favorite characters are stranded, captured, brutalized..while we stress out waiting for help to arrive. Hite had created a GREAT opportunity for a real human interest story..with Hope and Ed's failed relationship, her pregnancy, Kitty's wise counsel and advice, etc.. But, NO.

I doubt that I'll be watching this one again. LR.

PS-- I DID enjoy Jack Elam's reptilian character, repulsive as it was.