SHOOTOUT AT DIABLO STATION

• Aw, too bad our boys arrive in town by stage coach. I always savor their entries to some new environment on horseback as something special.
• What’s up with that weird three-bump-drum-sound as Kid walks into the telegraph office? It almost sounds like a TV station’s severe weather warning or something. It is so out of place and distracting, and I can’t for the life of me figure out its purpose. Especially since it seems so foreboding and the scene is actually a fairly playful one. Some logic just escapes me…
• I absolutely love the exchange between Kid and Heyes about Heyes’ telegraph! It is a classic dynamic between the two men. Kid teases Heyes a bit; Heyes feels he has to prove himself to the Kid but as usual falls the tiniest bit short; and in the end, Kid is respectful and appreciative of Heyes’ ability: “Poetry. Send it!” …followed by some masculine flirting. A delightful little couple’s moment. Perfect!

• Of course, for me, there is the immense joy of seeing Heyes saunter over to the telegrapher’s desk. Hey, give me a break! I have been gone a long time; pitiful me, sick and sad, not privy to any great butt shots in awhile. Just give me my moment of ogling bliss and move on…®§

*sigh*

• Ugh. Howard Duff. I never cared for him when I was young. As I think I have mentioned before, there have been several actors who have guested on Alias Smith and Jones that I really couldn’t stand as a kid, but somehow, as an adult, found appealing on this show—like Joan Hackett and Jack Cassidy. Not so with Howard Duff. First sight of him: Ugh. Last sight of him: UGH.
• I can’t quite follow why our boys have to act like strangers once they are aboard the stagecoach and throughout the station house captivity. Didn’t they agree they would be all right “unless that Sheriff sees us together”? I have to assume that once they leave the town they were in they are no longer under the watchful eye of the law.
• There’s the Kid Curry we know and love…always chivalrous; never afraid to step right into a conflict with some boorish lout who needs to be brought down a peg or two. I love how Heyes’ face always exhibits respect for the Kid in these situations. Heyes knows he doesn’t have to step in with brawn, because the Kid will—but then Heyes is more than willing to finish off the pushy windbag with the voice of reason. What a team!

• Yowsa!! I wonder if those false eyelashes were made of horse tails in the Old West!! They are certainly long enough. It is one real grievance I have with the show in general—the stretch from reality when it came to dressing and accessorizing the female guest stars. Fake eyelashes, fake fingernails, makeup, and dyed hair. C’mon. Those kinds of things jar me from the lovely time warp I am in as I watch, being one with the show and the era. They are always a giant slap in the face with the 20th Century—and the gaudy and overdone late 60s/early 70s at that.

• HEY!! I think that’s Heyes driving the stagecoach!! Look closely…dark hat, tan jacket, dark shirt, buff jeans…now look as the stagecoach pulls into the station…there’s the driver in white hat, tan jacket, light shirt and white jeans. Why, I do believe I will just mosey on back to The Legacy of Charlie O’Rourke to see if I am right...

• It always pleases me that if there is one around, Heyes picks up a book and reads. He seems to always be hungry for knowledge. Since the scene is framed differently in the script, with Heyes lying down with his arm over his eyes, I wonder if Peter had something to do with the change—knowing how much he loved to read, and learn…

• Now there’s a familiar face: Neville Brand! He is someone I remember clearly from my childhood, mainly because my older sister had a huge crush on him and I used to tease her about it! She loved the craggy, rough looking men; some one might even call ugly—Mr. Brand, Chuck Connors—while I loved the beautiful men like Peter Duel. *sigh*
• Even though I have no inkling why Chuck never responds to any comment the Kid makes, it tickles me nonetheless. Kid says, quite amicably, “My name is Jones. Thaddeus Jones. Can you tell us how long this is gonna take?” and Chuck just stands there and stares. The look on the Kid’s face, as he turns to Heyes in bewilderment is hysterical. I laugh out loud and rewind it every time, because I am every bit as confused as the Kid. Why won’t this nut case give our Kid Curry the time of day? I don’t get it, but I enjoy it!

• Aw. I love the old soldier, ready to lay down his life for the flag he has battled under and loves. Even in a silly show like this I am in awe at the incredible patriotism of those who have fought for this country. I sense that even Chuck, wielding a gun, has respect for the brave old man. The General reminds me of my dad…also a hard-as-nails, highly decorated veteran, valorous to the end.

• At first it surprises me that it isn’t the ever chivalrous Kid who steps right in to protect the women by identifying one of them as his wife. But when I think about it, it makes perfect sense that the thinker of the two, Heyes, would start the ball rolling and the Kid would pick up where he leaves off, especially since the Kid is tied up and his typically brawny way of handling mistreatment of women wouldn’t hold up here.
• It also tickles me which choice Heyes made as the woman he designated to be his wife. In my opinion, she is the harder of the two—and also the most cunning. She has a thinking mind, however misguided her future decisions might be, and I think the pairing, if it were real, would be the correct one. And the coupling of the Kid with the more naïve, less clever sister is a perfect fit also. I have to say, though, that if these two women were to become actual love interests of our boys, I would have to shoot them by the end of the episode because they both just grate on me like Mary's fake fingernails on a chalkboard.
• Ok, here we go…the ball-less wonder, weasel-extraordinaire, George Fendler stands right up to betray the others to save his own neck. Maybe it was the roles he played that always made me dislike Howard Duff. Maybe he played a spineless creep well enough to give me an idea it might be his nature in “real life”. I don’t know. But really, even after he has reformed and apologized by the end of this episode, I still can’t stand him.

• I just don’t get why the whiny sister, Ellen, turns on the boys when it’s revealed they aren’t really married. “Can’t you see we’re helpless by ourselves? Can’t you understand that?” Gee, it may just be me, but it seems to me stepping in to try to protect them by saying they were married to them WAS ‘understanding that’… Seems a tad bit ungrateful to me.

• How spectacular that the bad guy takes offense at George Fendler’s self-serving betrayal. It enrages him that Fendler ‘sold these young ladies out’. Chuck’s ability to fly from calmness to fury at the drop of a hat makes him seem crazy, all right, but underneath it all—if not for his craziness over his brother’s death—I get a sense he might have some tiny bit of honor in him.

• You know, when you look at it, Neville Brand has a very interesting face. Weathered and full of character. I like his face. Not in a handsome way, just in more artistic sense. I suppose I'd better call my sister and apologize for teasing her all those years ago. I'm standing my ground on the Chuck Connors ick factor though.

• Oh, good lord. Is the vest Bud is wearing so wonderful we need to see it in two episodes?? I can stand it here, because Bud is a weenie, but to later see our gorgeous Heyes in it--ugh.
• When Mary calls the bad guys ‘big hunks’, I am taken aback. I don’t know if such a word existed in that sense in the 1880s. In the script I have, she says, “The image of you big baqueros—trying to do women’s work…” That too perplexes me, because the only word I know of that is close to that is vaqueros—which I am certain they were meaning to use because it translates as, basically, a tough cowboy. I wonder if in rewrites, no one could come up with the actual word and had to throw out baqueros—rightly so—and replace it with a one-syllable-no-fail-simple-ass-word, like hunk!
• Well, Mary certainly does have chutzpah, as she hikes her leg up onto the table and removes her stocking…much to the chagrin of Ellen and the delight of our boys and the rest of the men. Man, oh, man! Feminine wiles really do work in a pinch!

• I love how Heyes looks around the others to say “Mind if I ask you a question?” only to be rebuked by Chuck’s reply of “You don’t always have to ask if I mind if you ask.” The exchange is cute, and when it culminates with Heyes saying, “Well, for one thing, I’d like to talk—or walk—or do something to take my mind off my backside, which is commencing to protest.” I chuckle aloud and usually say something to myself along the lines of “I can keep my mind on your backside for you—so you don’t have to…” No, I don’t get to see much of it in this episode, but it is never far from my thoughts!! *giggle*

• Love the chicken walk the General does to change seats.
• My favorite line in the whole episode, from our favorite smart ass, Heyes, of course: “This really sounds like this could be fun—you know we all sit around and think of places where nobody’s coming from!” Even the Kid showed the tiniest bit of amusement at the line. And Peter’s left dimple from that angle, as he looks up at Chuck while he chides him? To die for.

• There it is again!! God, I just love that Chuck totally ignores Kid when he speaks! I just can’t figure out a reason for his disregard though. The script lights on the subject just a bit: One side of Chuck’s mouth smiles and his eyes gleam—and his cronies know he is drifting toward another bout with his transient madness. But that doesn’t explain why it is always when the Kid says something that he has these fade-out moments.
• I wonder what a rotten roddlesnake whelp is…Ah, I see Mr. Brand didn’t enunciate as clearly as he should have—he was meaning to say a rotten rattlesnake’s whelp. Still, I wonder why Chuck considered the “murder” of his brother to have been perpetrated by a baby rattlesnake and not just a regular rattlesnake.
• For a moment there, I thought the Kid was thinking of the safety of his friend and benefactor, Lom Trevors, when he says to Heyes, “We gotta stop this lunatic…” but I thought too soon. In very typical Kid Curry self-preservation mode, he finishes his thought with, “if he kills Lom, our amnesty’s dead.” Wow. Not a concern in the world over the possibility of Lom losing his life. Gotta love a friend like that.
• You have to be kidding me. Those fingernails on Mary are absurd. Almost as long as the horse tails on her eyes. And opaque white fingernail polish, to boot. Give me a break.



• I may be stretching here, but it seems to me it might have been a good idea to have a plan before overpowering only two of the four bad guys, Mary.
• In an exceptional scene, by using his arm and shoulder to hold him back, Heyes—always a quick, instinctual thinker—stops the Kid from rushing to Mary’s rescue and thereby exposing the fact that he is no longer tied up, when Chuck hits her. The communication between the two continues as Heyes doesn’t lean away—instead keeping his body against the Kid’s, knowing his partner tends to hold longer to the anger and might yet lash out. They have to sit there, witnessing something I think they both find deplorable, as we hear Chuck strike Mary hard, four times. In the end, it seems only marginally satisfying as Heyes has the last word, knocking Chuck off his high horse when he reminds him it is actually he who should be happy to be alive since “she had the gun.” A very good scene, indeed.

• Ah, to be the woman attached to the shoulder one Mr. Joshua Smith has chosen to rest his weary head on… *sigh*

• Heyes feigning surprise at the missing Mr. Jones is very cute. He looks adorable as he pretends to have no knowledge of his partner’s whereabouts as the perplexed bad guys scurry about trying to find him.

• From way back in the Pilot, I have enjoyed the hammy overacting of Bill Fletcher, the actor playing Hank in this episode. His jerky movements, meant to signify machismo, it seems, just make me chuckle. Even in his relatively small roles it makes him stand out to me.
• Good job, George. It seems your testicles have finally dropped and you have, in the nick of time, become a man.

• The General. Now there’s a man who epitomizes the meaning of the word balls…take a lesson George, you still have a long way to go.

• For someone with claustrophobia, Ben did a great job being in the hidey-hole…maybe on the set there was no back to it to make him feel trapped.

• I love that everyone in the room, except Hayfoot and the Kid, believes Heyes is really so stupid he would make a tactical error as crucial as to expose what no flag would mean to the approaching sheriff…
• An apology to the two “saloon girls” from George. Too little, too late—I say.
• Eww—I can never watch a scene where someone gets a bandana tied into his mouth—especially close up—without first wanting to scream and run because it triggers a huge wave of claustrophobia in me, and second, without wondering where that bandana has been. Dirty men putting dirty bandanas in peoples’ mouths—very disturbing. *deep shudder*
• It’s a satisfying climax as our favorite outlaws, very experienced in removing gags from each other, save the day by warning Lom of the impending offensive from the supposedly unarmed gang.

• I feel a bit of Peter—of his actual real life frustration—as Lom tells the boys they still won’t get their amnesty. It feels like a real life prophecy to me that had to have been dismaying to someone who wanted the series to end so badly.

• Wow! I guess this is the first moment we have seen Anne Archer and Elizabeth Lane standing beside each other. I never thought of Anne Archer as being tall. Well, because I have no life, I just googled Anne Archer’s height and she is only 5’7”—tall but not exactly stately—so I must deduce that the other actress is simply petite.
• This episode had a lot of issues with things not making sense to me, but I just decided to enjoy it for pure entertainment’s sake. I must say there was really not enough involvement from our boys—and almost no physical expression, (like walking away butt shots *giggle*) to make it a favorite episode for me. But it was enjoyable in a minimalist way.