Virginia Gregg had an incredible talent for playing cold-blooded women and evil killers. I often wonder what kind of person she was in real life.
In this episode of Gunsmoke, she plays the sociopathic Ma, Phoebe Strunk, of a gang of four psychopathic killers. All five of them put together have no humanity, compassion, or morality. Each one is a cold-blooded killer in his own right. They start out by riding over to a wagon with a couple of "nesters" and immediately killing them off to steal their horses and their money. Then they burn the wagon with the bodies inside.
The cynical remarks between them illustrate how evil they truly are. Joan Freeman is the daughter of the "nesters" and she avoids getting killed because she was away when the Strunks came by. Freeman never got a look at them, and that proves to be fatal to her new family later on.
Eventually Freeman wanders into a home that takes her in. John McLiam and Phyllis Coates play the family that gives shelter to Freeman. McLiam looks a little too happy to have the young and beautiful Joan Freeman in his home, and almost immediately offers to adopt her. Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane during the first season of The Adventures of Superman, goes along with the plan, but it seemed a bit weird.
Eventually all hell breaks loose. Joan gets kidnapped by the Strunks, her new benefactors are killed, and Marshal Dillon and Quint are on the trail of the killers. Burt Reynolds was only on Gunsmoke for a couple of years, and he did not get too many opportunities to join Dillon in a manhunt, so that makes this episode even better.