User Reviews

The twentieth and final season of Gunsmoke begins with this thrilling, memorable, iconic episode. Amanda Blake and the Kitty Russell character are gone now. Matt Dillon's right arm is completely healed from the gunshot wound in Season 19's finale "The Disciple." A new show opening is used where Milburn Stone, Ken Curtis, and Buck Taylor are all shown in familiar settings before James Arness is shown preparing for a gunfight in the streets of Dodge City (the actual shooting had been dropped years earlier).

This is a straightforward, not entirely original story. Matt Dillon has pursued Laban Wakefield since he robbed the bank in Dodge City and killed a clerk. The outlaw manages to make it back to his family's cabin in the mountains before the Marshal catches up with him. When ordered to surrender, Wakefield chooses to shoot it out. Marshal Dillon kills the young man.

(Why is Laban in Dodge away from his marauding father and brothers? His father later makes the statement that Laban ran off against his wishes. Why rob the bank? Of all the banks scattered throughout the plains, choosing the bank in Dodge City would seem to be quite ill advised.)

Soon afterwards, the remaining members of the Wakefield clan arrive. Abraham Wakefield is the patriarch. His sons Esau, Abel, Isaac, and Jacob accompany him. (Anyone with any knowledge of the Bible will recognize these names from the Book of Genesis. Laban's sister Rebekah married Isaac, and they had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Abel was the son of Adam and Eve, who was killed by his brother Cain.)

The Wakefields possess a notorious reputation for the raiding and murder of settlers from Kansas into the Dakotas. Abraham claims this is in retaliation for the murder of his beloved wife several years earlier. (It is never clear why Abraham Wakefield thinks killing isolated settlers throughout the plains is vengeance for his wife's murder.)

When the remaining Wakefields discover Matt has killed Laban, they take him prisoner. Being outlaws, they hold any member of law enforcement in great disdain. Furthermore, Abraham blames a group of law men for the death of his wife. Abraham declares the Marshal will be set free with no coat in the frigid air of the mountains so he can be hunted and killed by him and his sons. Abraham wants Matt to suffer in the cold and know how it feels to be pursued and killed. At this point, the story becomes a familiar cat-and-mouse game where the Wakefields pursue Dillon.

However, there is a twist of sorts with this conventional story: Abraham Wakefield's hate has consumed him to such a degree that he is extremely mentally ill, even to the point of being unable to function at times. Abraham has descended into a Hell of his own madness. His sons Esau, Issac, and Abel all share and even amplify their father's hatred and sadistic tendencies. (Abraham's sadism is born from the lingering grief and subsequent hate following his wife's death. Three of the sons are sadistic monsters who merely take pleasure in inflicting pain and death on others.) Only Jacob shows any measure of love or compassion to his father and brothers.

Morgan Woodward makes his eighteenth and final appearance in the series with this tour-de-force performance as Abraham Wakefield. Not since Woodward's performance in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Dagger of the Mind" has he played a stark raving mad character like Abraham Wakefield. Even though Gunsmoke fans have seen Woodward play several different characters during the show's run, he has never been more menacing or terrifying as he is here at times. In a particularly chilling scene, Abraham tells Abel and Isaac he is going to be "turrible hard" in inflicting punishment on them with a horse whip. It is chilling, even after repeated viewings.

This episode features a small cast. The brothers are played by Frederick Herrick as Laban (Herrick's only appearance in the series), Joseph Hindy as Jacob (Hindy's second and last episode), William "Bill" Lucking as Esau (Lucking's only role in the series), Henry Olek as Isaac (Olek's second and final appearance), and Douglas Dirkson as Abel (Dirkson's sole involvement in the series). Elaine Fulkerson has a small non-speaking part as Annabel Wakefield, Abraham's deceased wife, in a scene where Abraham is re-visiting his past. This is her only Gunsmoke appearance.

This episode takes place away from Dodge City. There are no other cast members present, other than James Arness. This follows a trend of "Matt only" season debuts in many of the latter seasons of the series.

Over the course of twenty seasons, the Gunsmoke writers frequently included families of incorrigible, sadistic characters as story elements. Season 8's Strunk family ("Phoebe Strunk"), Season 9's Ginnis clan ("No Hands"), the Stone family from Season 12 ("The Jailer"), the Picketts from Season 16 ("The Witness"), the Sutterfields from Season 19 ("A Family of Killers"), and the Cassingers from the upcoming "In Performance of Duty" all come to mind. The Wakefields in this episode are as despicably monstrous as any of them. The common elements among these sinister characters is their ability to exist outside the law, the depths of their depravity, their arrogant overconfidence in their ability to do whatever they want, and the way their hatred for others consumes them.

This story moves along quickly, and the tension runs high throughout. It makes for an immensely entertaining episode.

This is the first of five Gunsmoke episodes directed by Victor French, all in Season 20. In fact, this is the first episode of any television show or movie directed by French. It was much more common to see French playing a character in an episode than directing. He would go on to direct episodes of several other series including Dallas, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven.

In many ways, this episode is a remake of Season 12's "The Jailer" with some modifications. Both families feature only male offspring. Etta Stone in "The Jailer" is replaced with Abraham Wakefield in "Matt Dillon Must Die." Stone wants to make Matt suffer before she kills him as an act of vengeance for her husband, who was hanged after Marshal Dillon arrested him. Wakefield wants to make Matt suffer before he kills him because Matt killed his son Laban. All but one of the Stone sons are unrepentant outlaws who delight in inflicting pain and suffering on others, as is the case with the Wakefield sons. All the sons are terrified of their parent's wrath. The one son in each family that has any measure of conscience is the youngest member of the family.

The Gunsmoke television series started airing before I was born, and I was too young to see many of the earlier episodes during their first run. Gunsmoke was required family viewing in our home, though, and I clearly remember this episode. It still holds up after many years of repeated viewing. It is worth watching for Morgan Woodward's performance alone.

This story's been told 100 times: Hillbilly clan out to get justice with the youngest son the only rational family member. ( Why is it always the youngest son?) The thing that stands out in this episode is just how tough our Marshall is. Five crazy blood thirsty men loaded with guns galore are absolutely no match for Mr Dillon. Oh, and don't forget the ferocious wolf/dog. In the final season of the series and the subsequent five later Gunsmoke movies, James Arness becomes almost superhuman. Am I complaining? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

Morgan Woodward gives a chilling performance as a beaten man, made insane by the death of his wife. Not willing to accept her death while grounded in reality, he and his posse of sons kill more than 40 people. Matt Dillon kills one of his sons after a bank robbery, setting off a tense and sadistic chase through snow-covered mountains.

Exciting episode. At first, I tired of the old man's "woe is me" tale but this story does grip you and I'm glad I watched it until the end. More than once, I thought to myself "they are all crazy!!"

Great way for "Gunsmoke" to start its 20th and final broadcast season. This episode is all about Matt Dillon.

Morgan Woodward was one of "Gunsmoke"'s most-popular guest stars. He played a variety of characters, most of them deranged (or at least "socially challenged"). And nobody played them like Woodward. (As I write this, he's still with us at the age of 90.) He was usually unshaven, and pitched his voice at a tone almost as unnerving as Boris Karloff's. And like Karloff, his performances were intense, but never overplayed. And he was damned sexy.

Matt Dillon made a lot of enemies, and there were more than a few episodes where they ganged up to do him in. The most-popular of these is "The Jailer", mostly due to Bette Davis's fine performance. But not even it matches "Matt Dillon Must Die".

Woodward plays a man whose life has been destroyed by the murder of his belovéd wife, and he swears revenge on the world. Anyone who's lost someone who meant more than life itself will shed tears as Woodward tastefully chews the scenery.

This is quite a brutal episode, a return to "Gunsmoke"'s original view of the West as the golden land of homicide. Woodward's character is very much a "Meston maniac".

One of the high points of the series. Recommended without reservation.

Long before the Joker in the Batman movies deeply explored the human psychosis, this episode "Matt Dillon Must Die," embarked deeply upon the examination. Guest star Morgan Woodward made this episode, and was the central character throughout. He managed to stage a master's class of acting, drawing upon starkly disparate emotions within minutes of each other while never once losing the gravitas of the situation, nor sacrificing the mandate of believability.

A man's sense of personal loss drives him to sadism, seeking to extract vengeance upon all others, including his own surviving children, after his wife is brutally murdered. This consumes him, and in this episode, we see his futile attempts at quenching his fire of hatred, destroy everyone around him long after he stopped caring about all people, except for the figments of imagination he crafted around his deceased wife.

To play this role, without for once losing control of the theme, nor for once losing grasp of realism, is a testimonial of the script, but primarily of Woodward's supreme acting skills.

Watching how he crafted the story of a man descending into hell, all of his own making, is haunting and mesmerizing in equal measure. It is a brutal examination, and one marking a powerful message of the dangers of humans wrought with vengeance and blood lust.

This is a special episode that must be watched.

In 20 years of 'Gunsmoke' episodes, Morgan Woodward makes his 19th appearance in the series. Mr Woodward does what he does best as he plays a aging man that feels like he is being mistreated. This is a role that he plays to perfection. An aging widower, Abraham Wakefield, who's wife was killed by renegade lawmen now he hates all people that carry a badge. He has five sons with four of them just as dangerous as their father and one much more mild mannered. But all have high respect for their father.

Marshal Dillon has tracked one of the son that has robbed a bank to their cabin in the mountains. Matt has to kill Wakefield's son and then is captured by the family. After Abraham goes through dialog of letting the viewers try to understand his position we find out that they will treat Matt like a game.

Just like hunting animals, they let Matt loose in the cold mountains and the family will track Matt down and kill him. But as you can already guess things do not go the way Abraham wanted. Abraham may lose everything he loves if he cannot let his hatred about his wife's death rest.

James Arness was at his best in this episode as he was performing from being to end of this show. Morgan Woodward is also brilliant as the aging family man that is nearly eaten alive by his wife's death. When the end comes it will be powerful and also heartbreaking. This episode was as entertaining as any in the series.

This is the second time I have written a Gunsmoke review for the sole purpose of addressing a mistake in a trivia entry. There is no mechanism for commenting on a trivia entry, so I will address it here in the review section.

One trivia entry for this episode states that James Arness once described a situation in which his stunt double, Ben Bates, was hospitalized for two days following the filming of scenes in which the stunt double collapsed after multiple takes of running through snow. The writer of the trivia entry stated that James Arness "did not specifically identify this episode, but it's the only one that would fit the description".

That's not true. There were also scenes of Marshall Dillon literally running through snow over a long distance on a moonlit night in the season 16 two-part episode called "Snow Train". Perhaps there were other such episodes as well, although I don't recall any at this time. If the stunt double collapsed from running through snow, I strongly suspect it would have occurred during the filming of "Snow Train", rather than "Matt Dillon Must Die".

As a matter of review, I would highly recommend this episode. The great Morgan Woodward was as outstanding as ever.