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North Fork is a magnet for crazed desperados, and here comes Jake Pardee, who is a murderer, a thief, a mug, pug, thug, bushwhacker, hornswaggler, backstabber, claim jumper, and numerous other nasty things. We know this by listening to his song, which plays for nearly the entire episode. Although most people seem to think the song was voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, the show's credits credit Bill Lee as being the balladeer. Curiously, Lee and Ravenscroft were both in the Mellomen back in the day. Anyways, Pardee, played by war hero Adam Williams, takes Luke's squeeze Hattie and Micah hostage, just because be can. Micah picked a bad day to give up drinking. Pardee, who we are assured will either hang or die by violence one day according to the lyrics of the song, decides to challenge Lucas boy to a gun fight, just to add another verse to his legend. While everyone else in town hides under their bed, the two of them meet in the street. Luke aims his super rifle at Jake and has his hand ready to deliver the kill shot when he tells Pardee to draw. This doesn't seem like a fair fight and Jake realizes that as he starts crying like a baby. Pardee's fellow prison escapees then turn on each other, leaving the streets of North Fork safe for another week.

Diana Hyland basically reprises her role in When the Bough Breaks in this one. Again, she has lost her baby and again she thinks Dick is the baby daddy. Kimble is driving a truck and working in a warehouse. He is really skilled at making phony driver's licenses. Stella is the sister of Edward Binns, who owns the company. Ed warns Dick to stay away from his sister, but easier said than done, because she is throwing herself at him and she's hot. Joe Campanella works with Dick and he also tells him to stay away from her because she is nuts. Joe and his wife have a little tyke named Johnny, played by Clint Howard. Stella is fixated on Johnny, and we find out that she was impregnated by someone who worked there until her brother ran him out of town. And that offspring is Johnny, who was given to Joe and his wife as a sort of Christmas bonus by brother Ed. And now Stella is thinking that Dick is her old beau. Ed gives Dick an hour to scram, but Dick can't just leave this mess without trying to fix it. And now Stella is hiding the kid somewhere and Ed shows up ahead of the cops. Dick thinks fast and gets Stella to demonstrate how delusional she is. Ed acts surprised at how crazy his sister is, but really he should have known, especially since he is greatly responsible for it. And he helps Dick get away. Clint is found and taken back to the only parents he knows. So it's a happy ending for him, anyway. As for Stella, who knows?

Desperate Dick is a step ahead of local and state cops as this one opens. He jumps out of a truck he's driving and runs through the woods. He happens upon a wounded man who wants Dick to take him to a cabin, and Dick agrees when the guy pulls out a gun. The cabin is occupied by a woman who went there for some solitude, but the place is soon to host a full house. The wounded guy's three cohorts show up. Seems the guy got shot during a robbery, and the loot got lost along with a lot of the guy's blood. Head baddie Ed Asner is not pleased to hear that, and soon there is more company as the sheriff, who happens to be the woman's boyfriend, comes by to check on her. So the bad guys get the drop on the sheriff, and doc is charged with treating the critically wounded guy, who is so bad off that not even super doc can save him. So Dick and the sheriff are in big trouble, but the sheriff says that Dick knows where the missing money is. They take the crooks on a tour of the woods and say the money is under a tree at the top of a huge pile of big rocks. The sheriff scrambles up the pile to his jeep where he grabs his rifle and kills the three baddies with just three shots. Kimble is especially glad to see Asner bite the dust since old Ed has made disparaging remarks about David Janssen's acting chops. The sheriff has Dick in his sights but his girlfriend stops him from pulling the trigger, because she knows Kimble is a good guy and the show isn't supposed to end yet.