This story had a lot of potential. And casting Rick Jason in the villainous role of Rivera helps, though Jason goes a little overboard with the method acting (especially when he is tied up to a wagon and sneering at the men). I also liked the final sequence where the men are at a standoff with the bandits, as it seemed realistically staged. It seemed like something Jesse Hibbs would have done in one of the Audie Murphy western films he directed.
Where this story fell flat for me was how clueless the main characters were. You mean to tell me that none of them realized that a man of Hispanic heritage, named Rivera, might possibly be in cahoots with the bandits and was the one who poisoned them? It would have been easier to accept them overlooking Rivera as the obvious culprit if Rivera had used a less ethnic sounding name; or if he had only been part-Mexican and the reason he was doing these things was to gain approval and acceptance from the gang of bandits who didn't quite feel he belonged with them. Sort of where he was trying to fit into two worlds-- a life with the bandits, or a life with the white men on the cattle drive.
Also, it would have been easier to accept Gil Favor and his men overlooking Rivera if there had been another recent member of the team who was Mexican and could have been scapegoated by Rivera to take the fall. An innocent guy who had no ties with the bandits but was set-up to look as if he did, and was getting blamed, until Rowdy figures out that Rivera is behind everything and is in fact the one poisoning them.
There was also a silly moment involving the antidote Wishbone makes. When he's stirring the pot and licks the spoon, the concoction is dark and syrupy. But when Favor starts giving the stuff to the men, it is a clear liquid, like water. And in fact when one of the men refuses to swallow it and spits it out, it certainly looks as if he's spitting out water, not the dark-colored cure that Wishbone had prepared.
I just felt this plot wasn't quite smoothed out in spots. But as I said, I did like the showdown at the end. And I liked the irony that Rowdy had to put the cattle ahead of Favor, just as Favor had to put the cattle ahead of young Roy Evans who died earlier in the stampede.
However, we really couldn't feel anything about the men losing Roy, since Roy was only in this episode and was killed off at the 22-minute mark. It would have been better if Roy Evans had been introduced a few episodes back, where it seemed like he was going to be a regular character on the show. So that when he's killed off in the middle of this story, it's a bit shocking and feels more tragic because we've lost someone we actually got to know during the course of several episodes.
Where this story fell flat for me was how clueless the main characters were. You mean to tell me that none of them realized that a man of Hispanic heritage, named Rivera, might possibly be in cahoots with the bandits and was the one who poisoned them? It would have been easier to accept them overlooking Rivera as the obvious culprit if Rivera had used a less ethnic sounding name; or if he had only been part-Mexican and the reason he was doing these things was to gain approval and acceptance from the gang of bandits who didn't quite feel he belonged with them. Sort of where he was trying to fit into two worlds-- a life with the bandits, or a life with the white men on the cattle drive.
Also, it would have been easier to accept Gil Favor and his men overlooking Rivera if there had been another recent member of the team who was Mexican and could have been scapegoated by Rivera to take the fall. An innocent guy who had no ties with the bandits but was set-up to look as if he did, and was getting blamed, until Rowdy figures out that Rivera is behind everything and is in fact the one poisoning them.
There was also a silly moment involving the antidote Wishbone makes. When he's stirring the pot and licks the spoon, the concoction is dark and syrupy. But when Favor starts giving the stuff to the men, it is a clear liquid, like water. And in fact when one of the men refuses to swallow it and spits it out, it certainly looks as if he's spitting out water, not the dark-colored cure that Wishbone had prepared.
I just felt this plot wasn't quite smoothed out in spots. But as I said, I did like the showdown at the end. And I liked the irony that Rowdy had to put the cattle ahead of Favor, just as Favor had to put the cattle ahead of young Roy Evans who died earlier in the stampede.
However, we really couldn't feel anything about the men losing Roy, since Roy was only in this episode and was killed off at the 22-minute mark. It would have been better if Roy Evans had been introduced a few episodes back, where it seemed like he was going to be a regular character on the show. So that when he's killed off in the middle of this story, it's a bit shocking and feels more tragic because we've lost someone we actually got to know during the course of several episodes.
