Honor Before Justice

I have to agree with the other reviewer that this was an especially poor episode. I kind of knew that when I saw it only had one reviewer(2 now with mine ). Most episodes have at least 4 or 5 reviewers and this one was so bad and plain that nobody wanted to comment. The only interesting part was when Thad uncharacteristically stood up to, and fought those 2 Indians. Oh well maybe next time.

I agree with most of what the other reviewers said, and they certainly identify the many weaknesses in the plot.

Without mentioning plot specifics, I can only say that it was a rambling mess. For a few minutes at the beginning, after seeing Indian justice, I had a momentary hope that this would turn into a murder mystery with an Indian sleuth there to find out who done it. But no. Matt & Thad are a poor substitute for Holmes & Watson.

We all know that Roger Ewing was not a prodigy at acting. He basically was a regular for the potential love interest factor. His job description did not include acting, but merely looking great and eliciting sympathy at the right times. When presented with this lemon of a script, he did not disappoint me in failing to pull it off convincingly.

An Osage council votes to sentence Chief John-Two-Bears to death after finding him guilty of murder. The chief's daughter, Sarah, knows her father is innocent, but women have no standing within the tribe. (It is interesting that Sarah has little regard for the council's authority in this matter regarding her father.) Two-Bears has accepted his fate, although he knows he is not guilty. He considers obeying the council's decision more important than his life.

Sarah travels to Dodge City out of desperation in the hopes of soliciting "white man's justice" in the situation with her father. She visits the Marshal's office where she encounters Thad Greenwood. Thad is minding the office while Matt Dillon and Festus Haggen are away investigating a recent rash of horse thefts. Thad returns to the Osage reservation with Sarah, despite Doc Adams's advice to stay out of the matter.

Thad's arrival on the reservation is seen as an unwelcome intrusion. Thad does not understand the actions of the Osage council, and he does not respect the limited autonomy the Osage are afforded. Elias Franklin, the U. S. government agent assigned to liaison with the Osage, finds Thad's approach frustrating and places Thad under arrest.

Eventually, Matt Dillon's investigation points to Osage involvement in the theft of the horses, which leads him to Franklin and Thad. Thad is released to the Marshal, and Matt and Thad continue to attempt to discover the link between the thefts and the internal situation with Two-Bears and the Osage council.

This story is a bit of a confusing mess, but it is ultimately a conflict between Osage factions. The older members of the tribe want to maintain peace with "the white man," while some of the younger members embrace revolution to restore what they consider the past power and prominence of the Osage. The situation in this story is complicated by the cultural differences that exist between the Osage and "the white man."

To confuse matters even more, the writers chose to introduce a sort-of love story between Sarah and Thad, although this is only minimally explored.

The casting of this episode is odd. Noah Berry Jr. Portrays John-Two-Bears and George Keymas plays one of the Osage known as Thunder Man. I am not sure who thought applying a ton of makeup and having those two veteran character actors fill American Indian roles was a good idea.

Syrian actor Michael Ansara is once again tapped to fill an American Indian role as the character Grey Horse. Fans of television Westerns will certainly recognize Ansara from his stint as the Apache Chiricahua Chief Cochise in the series Broken Arrow, and the Harvard-educated Apache U. S. Marshal Sam Burkhart character in two episodes of The Rifleman and the short-lived series Law of the Plainsman.

Ralph Moody, who was frequently cast in American Indian roles for some reason, plays the elder Osage Chief Joseph-Walks-In-Darkness.

French actress France Nuyen is Sarah. While she plays an American Indian in this story, she would return in Season 12 as an Asian character in the Gunfighter, R. I. P episode.

Another aspect to this episode that works against it is Roger Ewing's prominent role. This is the first episode since Clayton Thaddeus Greenwood's arrival in Dodge where Ewing is included as a central character, and his performance flounders. There is absolutely no chemistry between Nuyen and Ewing. Even Ewing's performance in the scenes with James Arness comes across as stiff and awkward.

"Honor Before Justice" is distinguished as - at least arguably - the worst episode of Season 11. The perplexing script, the curious casting, and the unusually poor performances fell short of what Gunsmoke fans had come to expect.

This episode certainly won't make any Top-Ten Gunsmoke lists, and the other reviewers have identified some of its weaknesses. However, there are two things that make this episode worth a watch.

First is France Nuyen as a young squaw who solicits the white man's help in trying to liberate her innocent father from an Osage tribal death sentence. She is a vision of loveliness and does a better job of acting than many of the beautiful girls who have appeared on Gunsmoke.

And second is the conundrum, born with the Enlightenement and still haunting the world to this day, of the clash between universalist notions of right and wrong, versus the particularisms of various cultures. The universalists, mostly Westerners, insist all peoples around the world adhere to their notions of so-called "human rights," even while they allow immigrants to the West to behave however they please. Particularists, on the other hand, assert that there are irreducible cultural differences between peoples and that no common standard of right and wrong can exist.

This conflict plays out in "Honor before Justice." Thad Greenwood plays the universalist white knight who seeks to subvert the particularist justice of the Osage people. The Osage, on the other hand, claim that the white man's justice is alien and irrelevant to the Osage. Of course, in this case, that claim is a fig leaf covering a frame job of an innocent man. Regardless, the episode does a decent job of showing the inherent conflicts that exist between different peoples.