User Reviews

Paladin is hired by a rancher named Gene Morgan (Barry Atwater, who co-starred with Boone in several "Medic" episodes) to keep him from killing his headstrong young next door neighbor Grady (Geoff Parish). Grady has a chip on his shoulder and egged on by his future brother in law Frank (Adam Wiliams) thinks Morgan is taking advantage of him.

Really well written and acted episode. I thought Parish was particularly good as the headstrong kid and was surprised to see this was not only his TV debut, but according to the IMDb records, the only credit he had for the next 44 years! I wonder if the Geoff Parish credited in 2002 might be this one's son. Barry Atwater is strong as the rancher who can see what this all is leading to and doesn't want to kill Grady. The script gives Boone a great moment as he punches his own guy to keep him from killing Grady. There is also a running joke in this one about how he keeps getting interrupted every time he stops to get a shave.

Norma Moore who plays Shelia, is also memorable as Grady' sister. Before this she played the wife of Jimmy Piersall in "Fear Strikes Out".

The episode is mainly, like other ones such as The Return of Dr. Thackeray, about the story of a young man with problems to become the same strong man figure as the man who has raised him.

Its secondary theme is about a Iago - named just Gault here... - who tries and almost manages to reach his vile ends by using the complexes of the young man to instill in him envious resentment and a suicidal urge to defy the older man. This is quite a bright scenario, and credibly developed. It takes all the wiles of Paladin to open the eyes of the young man unmask the scoundrel and, more importantly, his punch to avoid the senseless bloodshed plotted by Gault.

The most memorable scene in this episode is when Paladin punches Barry Atwater to prevent him from shooting the kid that he doesn't want to kill. Boy did he knock out Barry. Barry didn't know what time zone he was in. He needed a lot of help to get back on the horse and still was super wobbly. The whole scene was hilarious. And what's more amazing, Paladin still got his $1000 fee!

The gunfight scene at the end was underwhelming. It was sad to read that Tom Pittman who played the boy died shortly after this from an auto accident.

Adam Williams plays the baddie. There was no love lost when he gets killed. The actress who was going to marry him got over him very quickly, even though the day before Cupid was controlling her.