Gunsmoke Passive Resistance (1955–1975) Online

Lots to think about in this episode. Gideon Seek is a sheep man with 24 sheep. Neighboring cattlemen who have partnered on a ranch, Joe Kell and Hank Voyles, do not want a sheep man so close to their ranch, afraid it will attract more sheep herders and make the land useless for cattle grazing. Actually Kell is the instigator in all of this, Voyles just wants to leave the old man alone, but is too wishy-washy to stand up to his partner. So the two (mainly Kell) shoot dead all 24 of Gideon's sheep while they are penned and while Gideon looks on in horror. When Gideon won't move on they come back and burn down his house and wagon. Finally, when Gideon still won't move on, Kell drags Seek, almost to his death, and leaves him at the outskirts of Dodge City.

Now from the beginning, Matt is suspicious when Gideon comes to town and rearranges his debt payment with Doc, saying all of his sheep died. How do 24 sheep just up and die all at once? He goes out to Gideon's place and finds out that two men did this, but Gideon will not say who. Gideon is a pacifist, does not even own a gun, and says the two will be punished by their own consciences. Matt keeps trying to get Gideon to talk, saying the law is not the same as vengeance, but Gideon never talks, even after almost being killed.

The funny thing is that Gideon is actually wrong. A sharp Matt Dillon picks up on a drunken Voyles at the Long Branch Saloon, notices Kell coming in and saying he's not quitting and they are leaving when he gets back. Voyles is disgusted with how much Kells enjoys the violence and is drinking his guilt away. Matt talks to Voyles, the only one of the two cattlemen with a conscience, and gets the truth out of him. He confronts a sober and completely uncontrite Kells and tells him to put his hands up, he is going to jail. Kells makes the fatal error of mistaking his drunken cowardly partner and pacifist Seeks with Dillon who will arrest you if you can, but shoot you dead if he must. Dillon is forced into option number two.

At the end everybody is saying "It's like Gideon said, evil destroyed itself". But that's not true. Evil (Kells) would have happily ridden out of Dodge and maybe killed Voyles too if he thought he was going to break down and talk, but I'm sure he would have slept like a baby every night for the rest of his life. Instead he sleeps on Boot Hill thanks to Dillon, not some goofy pacifist philosophy.

And here's the irony. The vast majority of the time Matt Dillon did use his wit and psychology to jail the criminals, not shoot them. But this episode that I guess was supposed to champion pacifism is one of the few episodes in which Matt has a traditional gunfight confrontation with the bad guy.

Also note that if Gideon had gone to the law after his sheep were killed, Matt would have just made the two pay for the sheep and put them on notice that if anything else happened to Gideon he would know where to go looking. Instead we have an almost dead Gideon and a very dead Kell because matters were allowed to escalate. Pacifism in this case had a body count.

Gideon Seek is played by Carl Benton Reid (his only appearance on Gunsmoke). Its amazing what he could take and not do anything about it. But Dillon said it best "Its hard to beat down a man that won't fight back." I wish we could've seen Carl Reid again as Gideon, but we never do.

Reed Morgan plays the main villain Joe Kell and he's as dark as they come. He kills Gideon's 24 sheep and later drags Gideon by horse. Those scenes were tough to watch, even in 2013. In the end, Dillon kills Joe Kell, Dillon's 73rd kill, in a shootout. The viewer was really hoping to see Dillon whip his behind, but Joe Kell got off easy trying to draw on Dillon.

One thing I didn't understand, as smart as Dillon is portrayed on the show, why when Gideon refused to name the people doing these things to him, Dillon didn't figure to check with his neighbor(s). He really seemed clueless on who did this to Gideon until they conveniently talked about it in the bar with Dillon nearby.

When two cowboys, Hank Voyles and Joe Kell, have heard about a sheep farmer in the area named Gideon Seek. With this part of Kansas being cattle country, the cowboys want no part of sheep in the area. So they ride over to Gideon's farm and kill all his animals. The sheep farmer does not believe in violence but instead believes that hate will lose in the end so he does not tell the Marshal the people involved with the killing of his herd.

It is only a matter of time before the two cowboys return wanting Gideon to leave the prairie. This time they burn down his house and drag Gideon behind a horse. Even with the serious injuries, Gideon refuses to reveal the names. Matt will need some help to solve this case before Gideon ends up dead.

A well acted episode that was interesting enough to hold the viewer's attention to the end. Even with the passive action by the sheep farmer the story held up well enough that it did not lose interest. Nice watch.

Sheepherder Gideon is a resolute pacifist. He refuses to use violence in any form, trusting violence's nature to consume itself, instead. So when cattlemen shoot his sheep flock he stands peaceably by. Nor will he alert Matt since that too would likely result in violence. All in all, he's consistent in his behavior and pacifist belief. But is he a fool or in possession of some kind of superior wisdom. And what's he doing on the frontier where violence is the rule, not the exception.

The entry starts out strongly as two roughneck cattlemen slaughter the sheep and we stand by helplessly. However, the practical and philosophical implications of Gideon's pacifism are left surprisingly under-developed. In short, the premise is a strong one, but the half-hour treatment remains unchallenging. There's still drama, of course, in how Matt will handle things, but that turns out to be fairly conventional, without the challenge to convention that pacifism poses. All in all, however, it's an interesting episode thanks to the offbeat idea, even if the idea remains relatively unexplored.

(In passing— Cattlemen dislike sheep, as I understand it, because when sheep graze, they kill the plant by eating the root, whereas cattle do not. Thus, sheep, unlike cattle, can leave a forage field barren.)

**SPOILERS** Well, they was wrong. About sheep, that is. sheep do less damage to the land than either cows or horses. They will, however, eat grass closer to the ground than other animals; because of their teeth, and also, they themselves are closer to the ground. The real reason is that Cattlemen hated anybody or anything that took any part of what they though was their property. Guess what? EVEN government land that isn't theirs to start.

These two drygulchers are just no good. THAT'S the reason for their violence against a defenseless old man. Kell likes pushing people around, and he wouldn't stop until Seek was dead. Kell needed killin, and that's the right end for him.

Matt should've gone into the long branch and collected Voyles; arrested him for disorderly, and then made him pay up for what he and Kell did to old man Seek. Matt, of course picked up a nice horse and tack, weapons and a horse. Burial would be paid for out of funds from the payback to Gideon Seek. I'm pretty sure that these things would be auctioned off and funds split between Matt and the office upkeep.