The Bride

EPISODE: The Bride

Episode 50, Season 2, originally aired, January 21, 1961

Guest Stars: John McIntire, Suzanne Lloyd, Adam West

Written by Ward Hawkins

Directed by William Dario Farallo

SUMMARY:

This episode opens with Jennifer arriving at the Ponderosa in a buckboard full of luggage, and announcing to Hoss that the Ponderosa is her new home. When Hoss asks Jennifer who she is, she tells him "Mrs. Ben Cartwright". Hoss is thunderstruck by this news.

After the opening credits, we see Adam and Joe (looking mighty fine in their chaps - although Adam takes his off way too soon) walking into the house with Hoss. Adam is distrustful of the idea that their father would marry someone without telling his sons (if nothing else, they would miss out on the reception and wedding cake). Hoss defends his decision to let Jennifer stay, while Joe keeps asking what the lady looks like (he's obviously trying to decide if having Jennifer around is going to improve the scenery). At this point, Jennifer descends the stairs wearing a see-through blouse. The boys are stunned for a moment, both at the idea of this woman marrying their Pa and also at the fact that she's revealing a lot about herself (and I don't mean about her background). Hoss and Joe rush forward to greet her (Joe is obviously thinking "Wowser! This is my kind of step-mother!") while Adam hangs back and greets Jennifer coolly. Jennifer then says how much she loves their father and declares herself part of the family. Hoss and Joe readily accept her (Joe is still trying to get a better look at what's under that see-through blouse), while Adam regards her cynically.

Late that night, Ben returns home and the boys rush out to greet him. Joe and Hoss hint around, asking Ben did while he was gone, while Adam finally blurts out the question, "Did you get married?" Ben is astonished and then amused, and assures his sons he didn't get married. When the Cartwrights return to the house, Adam goes upstairs and gets Jennifer, who immediately claims Ben isn't the man she married and bursts into tears. This automatically turns all the Cartwrights into mushy sympathetic men who want to help a lady in distress (one of the oldest female tricks in the books and the Cartwrights fell for it). After Jennifer runs crying to her room, Ben declares he's going to escort the lady to Crater Plains so they can find this fraud who is using his name. Adam, Hoss and Joe argue Ben should take them along as chaperones, and he reluctantly agrees (he was hoping for nights alone on the trail with a beautiful woman but now he's stuck with three chaperones!). Ben starts up the stairs to his room and then realizes that's where Jennifer is spending the night. He grumpily turns away and announces he's going to sleep in the bunkhouse, much to his sons' amusement (the 100 spare bedrooms in the ranch house must have already been booked for a convention or something).

The next morning, Jennifer and the Cartwrights leave for Crater Plains, stopping to admire Lake Tahoe along the way (good picture for those color TV's). When Jennifer exclaims she doesn't know how someone could end up with such a neat ranch, Joe tells her that his Pa worked 14 hours a day to build it (foreshadowing what it is to come - that work builds a ranch like the Ponderosa, rather than stealing the land). As they ride to Crater Plains, the group runs into an old miner who is unpleasant and cranky. Jennifer and the Cartwrights ride away and shortly thereafter, a gambler shows up at the miner's cabin - Adam West, who is still searching for an alter ego for his Batman character and is trying out the gambler identify before settling on Bruce Wayne. The gambler kills the miner and leaves a letter addressed to the Cartwrights next to the body (evidently believing the posse will think Ben was reading his mail while his sons killed the man).

Once in Crater Plains, Ben and the boys stop at the sheriff's office, thinking this is the best place to search for the Ben imposter. They don’t know the sheriff is behind the whole scheme, and pressuring the town clerk to back up Jennifer's story. Once in the sheriff's office, Jennifer changes her story and Ben ends up arrested on some trumped up charge. He sends his sons out to find the truth, and the boys dutifully leave their Pa in jail while they seek truth, justice and the American Way (they don't know it's Batman, not Superman, who is involved in the plot). The boys immediately head for the saloon, giving the excuse that the saloon is the best place to get information - not to mention a cold beer. While Adam, Hoss and Joe are guzzling beer in the saloon, the word spreads about the dead miner and the letter next to the body. The men in the saloon immediately turn into a mob, getting ready to attack the boys who have been helpfully identified as Cartwrights by the crooked town clerk. Just as Adam, Hoss and Joe get ready to fight the whole mob, the sheriff turns and arrests them. Cleverly, Hoss and Joe distract the sheriff so that Adam can escape and continue searching for truth and justice (apparently, Hoss and Joe figured they would let Adam do all the work while they took a nap in jail).

Adam immediately searches for and finds Jennifer. After much persuasion and threats from Adam, Jennifer admits the truth - the gambler is her boyfriend, and the sheriff cooked up the whole scheme in an attempt to steal the Ponderosa. Batman, er, um, the gambler shows up and Adam kills the man, throwing Jennifer into hysterics (and also eyeing Adam as a replacement boyfriend). Adam then drags Jennifer toward the jail, figuring he'll make her admit the truth to everyone and get the sheriff arrested and his family freed. The sheriff, however, has other ideas. He confronts Adam, there are shots exchanged, and when the smoke clears, the sheriff is dying and Adam is unscathed (sheriffs in the Old West were notoriously bad shots and this one was no exception). As he is dying, the sheriff admits the scheme and says how much he always a place like the Ponderosa, so he thought he'd hang the Cartwrights and take over their ranch (see above about working hard to acquire neat ranches versus stealing them). The sheriff dies, Ben and the boys go home and they all (or at least the Cartwrights) live happily ever after.

REVIEWS:

“This is one of the good earlier episodes, in my opinion. The interaction between Adam, Hoss and Joe as they debate Jennifer’s presence very much depicted each of the boy’s character and temperament. Ben also shows how he regards his sons – listening to them, discussing the situation with them, but ultimately taking charge. Adam is the key to the plot unraveling, understanding what his father would and wouldn’t do better than his brothers and then exposing the scheme and killing the sheriff in order to save his father and brothers.” Susan Grote

“As far as Adam Cartwright, love how he sets himself up to be the loner, black sheep or MIB in the family in these early ep's. He always stands on his own, ready to defend his beliefs, even if they are not status quo. Seems as if Adam is always one step ahead in this ep and the writers seem to use this in other eps too.” Nancy

“The teaser and the start of Act I are absolutely hysterical. I love the interaction between the boys and then with Jennifer. The bar scene is also terrific. The way Adam gets in that last punch is an act of pure "gotcha" and the smug look on his face defies description. I admire the way they stand behind their father and the way they stand up for each other. The middle gets a bit muddled...and you could have figured out the end long before the credits started rolling...but it's the little extras that keep the momentum going.” Lillian

“This early episode was very good. Jennifer was one hot-looking woman in that red see-through blouse! The plot was a good one - I liked the way it showcased Ben's virility! It wasn't impossible to believe, as Joe and Hoss thought, that their dad would remarry. Only my beloved remained skeptical. Joe looked so young and yummy! Adam was very tanned and handsome. Oh, those chaps! My word, he looked marvelous with those rolled up sleeves!” Gail (bunny bonanza)

“I remember it being a wonderful show that included great scenes of each of the Cartwrights. And yeah, that woman was a hottie. Good thing she hadn’t really married Ben because if she continued to dress in the type clothes she had on in the beginning, things would have popped on the Ponderosa.” Deb

“It seems very often in these early episodes that Hoss and Joe were the comic reliefs, while Adam always stayed cool and cynical. In my opinion, it made Hoss and Joe seem so young, as they joked and kidded like teenagers, and Adam just acted too grown-up. (I did like this episode, though). The look on Pa's face had me laughing as Lorne Greene did act shocked when he met the alleged bride! But true to form, the lady’s integrity was protected when Pa stated he was going to sleep in the bunk house!!” Miss Maggie

“That was a pretty complex plot. How did Batman know they would pass that way? And why did he kill the miner? It was a pretty convoluted thing. Why didn't Jennifer just show up with a wedding certificate claiming to marry Ben, all the witnesses say she married him and only Ben would disagree. Then she would be the wife of a gazillionaire cattle baron. If they were going to kill anyone, they could have killed Ben, set up the boys or marry one of THEM, have two of them THEM hung and made her the widow of Cattle Baron...and the bride of the heir. But I guess that would have been a whole other episode.” Robin

“The bad guys' plan in this episode just doesn't make sense. They were evidently in it for $10,000 (that's what Jennifer thought, anyway), but it was not explained exactly how they intended to get that sum. Blackmailing Ben so he could get out of jail perhaps? They never said. Meanwhile, Frank's ACTUAL plan was to "steal" the Ponderosa. An awful lot of pieces had to conveniently fall into place in order for THAT to be accomplished. And at the end, Jennifer tells Adam that she and Frank were going to go away together when it was over, and Adam asks who was going to "take over". Take over WHAT? The Ponderosa? Sheriff to share it with Jennifer and Frank? Just how was THAT to come about? Egads.” Sue W.