User Reviews

The episode begins when a lovely Mexican woman, Chavela, is walking along Front Street. Two drunk cowboys have just left the Long Branch and accidentally run into Chavela. The cowboys then pull the woman into the alley and want to whisper sweet nothing into her ear, much to the irritation of Chavela. It just so happens that Kitty is walking by the alley and runs the cowboys off. She then asks Matt if he will escort Chavela back to father's house right out of town.

Matt learns that the father, Miguel, is hot-headed and very protective of his daughter. When Matt tells him what has happened, Miguel advises that he will kill the cowboys responsible. Matt tells him not to take the law into his own hands and to let him find the cowboys.

Just so happens the cowboys find out where Chavela lives and ride up to the house. Miguel comes out of the house shooting telling them to leave his property. But the cowboys are obviously hard of hearing.

Simon Oakland does a nice job of playing the family man that believes in honor and that makes the character interesting. Other than Oakland and the bickering between Chester and Doc, there is not much more remarkable about this episode. The story was well written but a tale that has been told many times in many different forms.

Fintan Meyler plays the Mexican girl Chavela, who is being harassed by the same two cowboys on three separate occasions. At one point, she is assaulted by the cowboys. It is not explicitly stated, but implied, that she was raped.

The cowboys also beat up her father, played by Simon Oakland. Simon Oakland is hard to watch as the Mexican father. He is in the tough spot of avenging his daughter, and somehow looking unreasonable enough that Marshal Dillon arrests him for murder.

The main sexual predator is played by Ed Nelson. He gets away, and Marshal Dillon can't find him. Dillon warns Miguel not to take justice into his own hands. The message to Miguel was that hurting the cowboys was worse than all the evil that was done to Miguel and his daughter.

A couple of weeks later, Miguel brings the dead body of Nelson to the Marshal's Office. Dillon arrests Miguel, even though his daughter probably got sexually assaulted by Nelson, anjd Miguel was assaulted too. Dillon has no mercy for Miguel. Just bad frontier justice in this episode.

On the other hand, why did Miguel bring the body back to the Marshal's office? Dillon had warned Miguel. If Miguel wanted vengeance, he should have just buried Nelson's body out in the woods, and Dillon never would have found it. It seems like Miguel wanted to rub the fact that he got vengeance into Dillon's face. Maybe that is why Dillon arrested him?

(*Matt Dillon to Miguel Ramirez quote*) - "A man can't take the law into his own hands."

Chavela is the alluring young daughter of Miguel Ramirez who can't help but attract the attention of all of the randy men of Dodge.

Ab and Rusk get too carried away with their attraction for Chavela and it doesn't take long for her father to angrily avenge the honor of his molested daughter.

Fintan Meyler, who had come from Ireland to become an actress, plays the Mexican girl Chavela, who is being harassed by the same two cowboys on three separate occasions. On their last attempt to seduce Chavela, she runs into the woods and falls and hurts her head. The cowboys had just earlier clubbed her father, played by Simon Oakland, into unconsciousness. So it can be presumed that they had their way with the also unconscious Chavela. They certainly did not run to Doc Adams to get help.

While I tried to like this episode, the first problem was that Fintan Meyler seems to be doing a traditional "Old Country" Italian accent. I had to check the title of the episode, I thought it was Luigi's Daughter, or Giuseppi's Daughter, not Miguel's Daughter. Simon Oakland is pretty bad too. When Dillon asks his name at the beginning of the episode, Oakland responds "MIG- GOO -EL" which means he did not even try to figure out how Spanish people pronounce Miguel, which is MEE-GELLE. It was pretty bad to watch him mis-pronounce his own name.

I loved Simon Oakland in Kolchak, the Night Stalker, but here he gives his character no human dimensions. He just acts like a robot saying several times "I must kill to defend my honor," and similar traditional Old School macho-Father remarks. No doubt he was just reading his lines, but he gave them no human feeling, no Fatherly passion, nothing.

After Miguel & Chavela are attacked for the third time, Dillon takes one of the men into jail. No mention is ever made as to whether or not he went to trial or was convicted, or what his sentence was. The second villain, played by Ed Nelson, gets away, and Matt Dillon can't find him.

After a couple of weeks, Miguel brings the dead body of Nelson to the Marshal's Office. Dillon never asks if the would-be rapist was shot in a gun-fight, or anything else. He just arrests Miguel on the spot. It seems like Miguel should have gotten cut some slack considering that the two cowboys attacked his home, attacked him, and tried to rape his daughter. But Matt Dillon takes the hard line against a minority character. I doubt he would have done the same thing if it had been one of the Anglo town locals. Overall, this episode is pretty bad for a lot of reasons.

Rusk (Ed Nelson) and Ab (Wesley Lau) are two roistering cowpokes who run into a virginal Mexican girl (Fintan Meyler) along Front Street. They harass her until an outraged Kitty drives them off. Matt escorts Meyler back to small farm where we discover her father has a hair-trigger sense of honor and now wishes to punish the two interlopers. Too bad that Ab and Rusk don't know when to leave well enough alone.

Average entry with some extended byplay about Chester's coffee. Listening to his fumbling attempt to explain something to Doc is sort of amusing, but in a poignant way. It's to Weaver's great credit that he can play the slow-witted deputy without inviting scorn. Simon Oakland as the father makes up for an unconvincing accent with a strongly convincing presence. Consider how the episode would have altered had the the cowboys raped the girl which is probably what they had in mind, anyway.