Gunsmoke/Kangaroo

Kangaroo
Season 5, Episode 7
Airdate	October 24, 1959
Production Number	154-164
Written by	John Meston
Directed by	Andrew W. McLaglen
Produced by	Norman Macdonnell
← 5x06 Annie Oakley	5x08 → Saludos
Gunsmoke — Season Five

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Kangaroo is the seventh episode of the fifth season of Gunsmoke, and the one hundred sixty-third episode overall.

Matt and Chester deal with a violent, ill-tempered Christian fundamentalist zealot who abuses his sons and metes out punishment to people he thinks slighted him, literally translating and quoting the Bible to deliver his brand of justice. When Chester stops the zealot from violently assaulting another man, the zealot vows revenge with "biblical punsihment": literally cut Chester's hand from his arm.

Starring: James Arness (Matt Dillon)

with Dennis Weaver (Chester), Milburn Stone (Doc), Amanda Blake (Kitty)

Peter Whitney (Ira), Richard Rust (Dal), John Crawford (Hod), Lew Brown (Jim Bride)

Plot Overview

While on the way back to Dodge City, Matt and Chester witness a middle-aged man and his two sons tying a young cowboy to a tree, intent on violently assaulting him for no apparent reason. The eldest of the three men identifies himself as Ira Scurlock, who claims the cowboy was engaged in sin "on the Sabbath" – wasting his substance on "riotous living," as he puts it – and deserved punishment. Scurlock's sons, despite their reservations – had acted as jurors and joined in the whipping, and Chester interfered by untying the man.

Scurlock, as it will be seen, doesn't take kindly to people interfering "in the Lord's justice," which, as he will demonstrate, involves violent assaults on anyone that he judges to be doing wrong, and freely quoting Bible verses that fit his views. Both of his sons, Dal and Hod, want to break free from their father's religious oppression but are afraid they will be beaten to death if they do. At one point, the younger son, Dal, enters Kitty's Saloon and decides to sample some whiskey, but Scurlock comes and takes his son home, violently whipping him along the way and quoting Bible passages to justify his assault. Matt eventually intervenes and tells Scurlock to knock it off or he'll be taken to jail.

Later, Dal and Hod, acting on their father's orders, kidnap Chester and vow to enact justice for the earlier incident ... by cutting his hand off his arm. However, Dal goes along just to draw his father into a trap; that night, when everyone is asleep, Dal sneaks away and goes into Dodge City to get Matt. The next morning, when they return, they see Hod overpowering Chester and Scurlock wielding his axe, about to chop the hand off. Dal fires his rifle, and – perhaps not the intent, but ... – the single bullet kills Scurlock instantly.

In the final scene, Matt quotes from Micah 6:8: "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Then he muses, "Too bad he (Scurlock) didn't understand that."

Trivia

The Show

The episode is a televised version of a radio broadcast originally aired on January 18, 1959.