EPISODE: The Dark Gate

Reviewed by Robin

Season 2   Episode 56    Aired March 4, 1961

Guest Stars: James Coburn who was with Pernell Roberts in 1959's "Ride Lonesome” (a super movie if you haven’t seen it. Pernell looks scrumptious in it and if you are not an Adam fan, you will be after this). Coburn also was in the first season’s “Truckee Strip” and later in "The Saga Of Whizzer McGee" and "The Grand Swing”. Med Flory, Ce Ce Whitney, Dean Stanton (later known as Harry Dean Stanton - he is really creepy), Ray Teal, John Mitchum, James Anderson, Joe di Reda, Donald Foster, Roy Engel, Rush Williams, Bob Miles

Written by: Ward Hawkins
Directed by: Robert Gordon

SUMMARY:

The episode opens with a heart stopping, graphic close up of a woman being brutally beaten. Her husband is really slamming her around and demanding she admit that she is having an affair with Adam Cartwright. Finally, in desperation she says “YES! YES! Adam Cartwright and I have been seeing each other!”

Oh my god what an opener!  The first time I saw this, I couldn’t believe I had Bonanza on. It must have been pretty intense for that 1961 audience.

The next scene after the burning map and ride up opening is also more realistic than how the show was a few seasons later. The Cartwrights are actually and really shown working cattle …lots of it too, not just discussing their work in the dining room. Hoss and Adam are rounding up strays and Adam says how this is skimpiest round up after a hard winter. Neither of them can figure what happened to all the cattle they had expected to have.

Ben is working with two cowhands at the branding when he asks after the tally. They have a little “cowboy humor” about some former employee of Ben’s miscounting all the cattle. Seems that he counted on his fingers and had six on one hand until (hardy har har).  Ben  was forced to shoot one finger off the dyscalculating guys left hand. (hardy har har). Joe in chaps, looking cute, listens when Adam repeats his woeful tale of there being too few cattle. Ben tells him they have a couple of  Silver Dollars Ranch’s cows mixed in with the Ponderosa cattle and Adam should go tell his pal Ross Marquette to come help out at the round up to sift his out.

Adam , looking mighty good in a red shirt and chaps, goes to the Silver Dollar ranch home of his old pal Ross “Skinny” Marquete.  He walks in his old friend’s house like he belongs there and finds Ross holding a gun on him. At first Adam thinks his old pal Ross (who he had been the best man for) is fooling around and jokes back. Suddenly he realizes Ross is angrily accusing of Adam trying to steal his wife, the lovely and doomed Delphine. Ross pegs a shot at Adam narrowly missing him and smashing a lamp.

YIPES ! Watch out Adam, Ross has gone evilly insane!!

Del comes in and Ross elaborates the paranoid accusation. Adam sees the lovely and doomed Del has been beaten black and blue and is furious that she is hurt. He also denies the charges Ross has made. (OF COURSE we know Adam would never trifle with a married woman, the wife of his best buddy!)

Del cries and pleads and explains that she said it to get Ross to stop beating her. Adam feigns dismay, flips over the table and knocks Ross out. They tie him with a curtain cord. (What would Martha Stewart say?). Adam tells Delphine to go to the Ponderosa and he will take care of Ross. She leaves as Adam has told her. She explains that Ross has been this way for months, decompensating and cranky, and she thought he would get over it but he keeps getting worse. She is extremely frightened, with good cause. Adam says he would take care of Ross; he is his friend and you don’t drop a friend so easily…. Quite a summary of the entire theme of the show.

 Adam sends Del off to the sanctuary of the Ponderosa. He unties Ross and has a discussion that Del will be with him until Ross is “thinking straight and cools down.” Adam is aghast and says how can you do a thing like that, and Ross seemingly agrees to Adam’s wise suggestions…but demands his gun back which Adam does. OH NO ADAM!!!

A bad guy, Munk Hartley, comes to the Silver Dollar Ranch and talks evilly to Ross. Ross tells Munk that he wants a deal with the outlaw. In exchange for hiding on the Silver Dollar, Ross has Munk’s gang to carry out his plan to rob gold and silver that is being shipped on a nearby road. Ross brags he has access to short cuts in broad daylight across the Ponderosa. Munk is intrigued with the plan and calls in his crew (who look amazingly like Uncle Gunnar’s rotten outlaws from “The Last Viking”). Evil exudes from every pore of their greasy, rotten bodies!

Meanwhile back in Virginia City, Adam is checking out everyone’s opinion of Ross and trying to make heads or tails of his friend’s transformation from his pal to a wife-beating bully. Adam even offers at the bank to help out Ross if he needs money. The banker reveals to Adam that “…as soon as Ross changed his brand to the silver dollar, his luck changed & he got new stock from back east!”( hmmm…. That sounds pretty suspicious to me… just when the Ponderosa is missing like 500 cows Ross gets money from back EAST??? Who sent that money? Chandler, Monica, Phoebe and Rachel???)

The minister, standing in front of a pretty psychedelic stained glass window, says Ross tossed him out of his house and is acting pretty nasty. And good old Doc “Sigmund Freud of Virginia City" Martin says ‘It seems like he is going through a DARK GATE and we have no key to that gate and once he goes thru, it will be too late.’ Horrified, Adam says “Can’t we help him?” The doctor sighs and describes how “no, there is no hope as of yet for an insane person, nothing to do but to take their clothes and throw away the key.” Adam grimly and ominously says, “Or wait until they kill someone and have to hang them.”

Meanwhile, Ross and Munk and the outlaws lie in wait of the wagon and the gold.

Ross tells the outlaws his big evil criminal plans. They hold up the shipment. All is going well but Ross, who is behind the rock, shoots the driver, starting a shoot out. All the gold shippers get shot and Ross shoots Munk in a pretty violent display of violence. Ross tells the outlaw crew to bring the gold to his house and he takes the injured (and doomed) Munk the short way. Munk realizes that Ross set him up to get his crew and Ross shoots Munk in cold blood after explaining he set the whole thing up. It is another harshly brutal concept that insane Ross will, upon Munk's request, “Give him a shove.” EEEEEwwww.

In a sweet sequence, Adam comes back to see Del, who has been at the Ponderosa for a week, wearing her blue dress (OH NO!). She explains that she has been cleaning the house (where is Hop Sing?) and how much she misses Ross. Adam seems to think things are going better for Ross; he hired some men, it looks like he is working, and hasn’t come around looking for trouble. Adam says with relief that maybe in a few days she can go home. Then they go for a ride showing the viewer the lovely stock footage of Lake Tahoe and how nice the Ponderosa is…

Sadly, the tranquility is short lived.

Meanwhile back at the Ponderosa round up, Ben and the boys have found tampered brands and Sheriff Coffee arrives. Hoss is upset that they have to tell Adam what they discovered and their suspicions about Ross. Ben says they are 500 head short and shows how the Ponderosa pine tree brand was tampered with the silver dollar brand superimposed on it by Ross. DUM DUM TAH dduuuuummmmmm… (this tampered brand ploy was used seasons later by Charles Bronson in another episode). Adam can’t believe it but it is so. How could his friend be stealing from them? Not his Ross! Sheriff Coffee, wearing a plaid shirt, black hat and green jacket, also says the gold was stolen and everything looks like it is Ross.

One of the hands (the same guy who wanted silk in “San Francisco Holiday”) says “I would check on his wife”.

YIPES!

Adam races back to the Ponderosa house and is too late…. Delphine is lying (laying?) beaten by the fire place. With her last breath, she tells Adam Ross broke in and did it “Why did he do it?” she gasps pitifully. “Why? “ And, in her blue dress, dies in Adam’s arms.

Adam then knows what must be done. He takes a rifle from the case and rides out to find Ross.

Meanwhile back at the Silver Dollar Ranch, the two last outlaws are waiting for Ross to get back but SURPRISE! It is the posse! Joe, Hoss, Ben, a doomed guy, and Sheriff Coffee come to get the outlaws. The badder bad guy shoots at them, killing one member of the posse standing next to Joe. A shoot-out ensues.

Hoss says touchingly about the dead posse member. “He had a Ma to take care of.”

“Who’s gonna tell her?” Joe observes sadly. Not ones to let sadness ruin their day, the Cartwrights shoot the hell out of the outlaws. Hoss shoots the badder baddie and adds, “Hope he didn’t have a Ma.”

The other outlaw, thinking better of dying by lead, gives up and says there is no one else in the bunk house. Not one to trust outlaws, Little Joe runs in and checks.  He slugs the baddie and says “He wasn’t lying; there was no one else in there.” Ben, annoyed at his son’s impulsive risk taking, says “Wasn’t a safer way to do this?”

Sheriff Coffees harshly shakes the daylights out of the bad guy. “Where is Ross?” He doesn’t even read him his rights! The last outlaw tells them that Ross went to get Del and they all know that means trouble.

Adam goes after Ross.

In a rocky canyon closely resembling where Kirk fought the Gorn, Adam futilely attempts to get Ross to turn himself in. In a tensely orchestrated scene, a shoot-out ensues with Ross anxious to kill Adam from his sniper perch on a rocky pinnacle. They go back and forth, forth and back with Ross finally getting the drop on Adam. Ross doesn’t recognize Adam. “Who are you?” he demands angrily.

Adam tries his best to get Ross to give up but Ross shoots him and Adam spins and draws, killing Ross.

As Ross breaths his last in Adam’s arms, he suddenly transforms into the old Ross, almost like a wolfman turning back into the real person as he dies. He has no memory of the last 10 months when he was insane and very competently carrying out a methodical evil plan to steal cattle and gold. Broken-hearted at having to kill his friend, Adam comforts his dying pal saying, “You went a way for a while and now you came back.” He holds his friend until he dies Fighting back heart wrenching tears, Adam tells Ross, “Delphine is waiting for you.”

Ben, Little Joe and Hoss ride in to the deadly canyon and find wounded, devastated Adam with Ross’s body slung over his saddle.

The last scene is back on the porch of the Ponderosa. A great brother moment that really is the meat of why we love Bonanza. Good-hearted Hoss is consoling his older brother. Adam, who has his arm in a sling and is wearing his signature entirely black “Adam Uniform”, is devastated and grieving.  Hoss says “Adam, you had to do it; there was no other way.” Adam says sadly “Those last minutes, he was just like we always knew him.”

“He was a friend then,” Hoss says gently. “He didn’t die a stranger.” In his simple way, Hoss helps Adam by acknowledging that his brother had really done everything he could to save his friend, even almost dying, but in the end Ross went through the Dark Gate. Hoss pats Adam’s back and then they walk into the house with Hoss’s arm around him, a great brother moment and a great episode of a great series.

REVIEWS:

“This is a particularly gritty and violent episode but it really showcases Adam, as a moral man facing a horrific decision dealing with his criminally insane best friend.”  Robin

“I always liked the way Adam commanded women like Delphine to do what he wanted:  "You go Ponderosa; wait for me there; oongowah!! (a word borrowed from Tarzan).  They always went too.....hmmm, wonder why?  As for "Skinny Marquette", he didn't really die. He took on yet another personality and became a knife-throwing gunslinger in the Magnificent 7---the rest is history!” Eileen "Fluffy"

“Funny that all through that other intense Adam/guest star (Lee Marvin) ep, The Crucible, Adam is tested by trying NOT to kill someone he hates, and here, he is tested by having to kill someone he cares about.” Becky

“James Coburn was one of my favorite actors and I love to watch him and Pernell together. To me, this was one of the best dramatic episodes.  I, too, remember being shocked at what went on with Ross and Delphine (pretty name).  The way he beat her was pretty brutal and is still graphic and gory even by today's standards.  My poor Beloved - he really tried to understand and help his friends.  Adam is quite a guy!  It was especially creepy and shocking in the beginning scenes when Adam is at Ross' house calling for him and he senses something, turns and Ross is behind him with a gun and an evil look on his face and actually SHOOTS at him.  I yelp every time I watch it!” Gail (whoa bunny, bonanza)

“I have not watched it in a while, and found myself getting all choked up when Hoss says to Adam that Ross didn't die a stranger.  Wahhhh.  That bit really got me.  I guess I am just becoming overly sentimental.” Miss Maggie

“The ending of this episode just encapsulates the love that the brothers have for each other and the closeness of Hoss and Adam, when Hoss does all he can to make Adam feel better about what happened. It puts to shame all those comments about Hoss being a simpleton, as he shows just how sensitive and caring a man he can be, and how he has so much more going on in his head than people give him credit for. I, too, being an LJ fan, love our impulsive boy giving Pa a few more grey hairs, and being referred as a 'darn kid' LOL” Lynne Little Joe forever

“I have always wondered why Adam chose a shotgun to go after Ross; was it because it is a close-up weapon and Adam wanted to face Ross when he found him?” Diana

“I love James Coburn in all of the Bonanza eps he guest starred in.  He was such a talented actor, really adding to the drama and dynamics.  He played a great role of a guy going crazy and who better to play off of than PR.  I love Adam in this episode.  You get to dive right into his heart, see the turmoil; his hope that his friend will come out of this and his grief and despair when he realizes the truth.  It was a disturbing episode in that it was rather violent, especially the depiction of violence against women.  I agree in that the network really took a chance with this episode during the times.  I wonder what kind of ratings it got that week?” Nancy

“Rob gave me this ep on video when we spent our honeymoon in London 6 years ago so I have a special memory to it, including a wet one. LOL. Besides that, I like the ep.“ Heidi

“While I know this is an "Adam" episode, my favorite part -- as a Joe fan -- is when the Ben, Hoss, Joe and Roy Coffee have the bad guys cornered in the bunkhouse on Ross' ranch. Joe rushes around, going after the bad guys despite the danger, while Pa is muttering in the background about Joe needing to be more careful. I always get the feeling that Pa doesn't really mean what he's saying, and deep down, he's a bit proud of the way Joe takes charge of things. As for Adam, this episode is a nice dramatic piece for Pernell Roberts. He does a nice job of portraying the confusion Adam feels about what Ross is doing, and the pain Adam feels when he finally has to kill his friend.” Susan Grote

“This show was one of Roberts' best performances and I liked the ending when the guy returns to sanity for the last few minutes of his life. I wonder if that actually made it worse for Adam to accept what he had been forced to do though. Lj was pure LJ as he barged into that room. Poor pa, gray hair number 1,000.” Deb

“I particularly like the relationship between Adam and Hoss in it. Not  just the lovely brother moment at the end but also when Hoss wants to try and protect Adam from learning his best friend is stealing their beef and says he'd rather hit Adam with a gun butt. he knows just how hard Adam is going to take it. The discussions in town with the banker, vicar and Doctor show Adam at his most handsome, concerned, intense and 100% gorgeous.” Lyn

“Has anyone ever counted how many times Adam was a best man?  I think he was "the blue dress" of best men.  He was best man for Ross - died. He was going to be the best man for the mine foreman in the Philip Dedesheimer Story - died.  Yikes.”   Phyl