User Reviews

Daniel and Cincinnatus encounter Irish peddler Timothy Patrick Bryan (John McIntyre) on the trail, who accompanies them to Boonesborough. He turns out to be Rebecca's father, but the reunion is not altogether a happy one.

After a mini-epic like last week, there is always a budgetary comedown, so its around-the-fort time again. A big compensation is McIntyre, another Westerns mainstay who succeeded Ward Bond as the second and more genial wagon master on "Wagon Train," and later the second Shiloh Ranch patriarch on "The Virginian." McIntyre grew up in Montana through the 1910's; that put him in contact with many people who had reached the state during the settlement and homestead years. In turn, one can see familiarity with the era come through in his performances, though unfortunately in this hour the writers inserted on him an unneeded Irish leprechaun overlay. His story is that of a wayward father who prefers life on the road, and there was abandonment, but the issue is largely framed as one of shrewish obsession on Rebecca's part.

Something of Rebecca's backstory is detailed here, though largely unconnected to her indentured-servant narrative related in the origin story redo at the end of Season 2. If you cannot get enough of the Boone kids, a lot for you this hour. Jemima's adolescent progress comtinues along, but again Darby Hinton at this point is just too young to do much other than bounce around. This might have been a showcase for Patricia Blair, but the writers throughout the series will only give her free rein in severely limited quantities.

Not much call for historical context this hour, but what there is falls short. McIntyre is garbed in a costume more appropriate to the 19th century, and his rationale for ditching the family is that he went off to fight for Irish independence. Organized Irish resistance to British rule had go-rounds in the late 17th-early 18th centuries and the 1790's, nothing that would fit into the timeframe of McIntyre's 1770's character unless you count Irish regiments in French service.

The presented reconciliation-through-crisis narrative is pretty much staple TV drama fare, but the McIntyre appearance justifies the watch.