Gunsmoke
Lavery
TV Flash files “Lavery” as hour 537 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 16, episode 22, aired 1971-02-22, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S16E22: listed hour 537 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 22 of 24 in season 16. It aired 1971-02-22 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Cleavus” (S16E21). Next is “Pike (1) (aka: Dirty Sally (1))” (S16E23). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Lavery is a ne'er-do-well small-time crook who does pretty much what he wants -- much to the distress of his wife, who's a Long Branch saloon-hall girl. Now Lavery is on the run for horse theft (he actually left his tired horse at the barn in trade for a new one). Lavery gets his chance at redemption when he sees a thug about to bushwhack Matt and shoots the thug dead. Matt has a talk with the stable owner and clears Lavery of the charge, and gets him a job tanning hides. But Lavery's two outlaw buddies soon show up to try to get him to start stealing again. Added to the confusion is the fact that Mrs. Lavery, who quit her job at the Long Branch when her husband got a job, is now pregnant.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Lavery sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S16E22 is listed hour 537 of 635 — hour 22 of 24 in season 16, season 16 episode 22.
When did Gunsmoke S16E22 air?
Lavery aired 1971-02-22 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1955 opener, where the marshal is not invincible. Then sample a later guest-star hour rather than marching through hundreds of titles in order.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty seasons of Dodge as a civic appointment: a marshal who can lose, a chorus instead of gadgets, and adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Longevity here was weather, not catalog padding — weekly public work with dust still on the boots.
September 1955, CBS: a marshal takes a bullet in the first hour and the adult western stops being a kid’s hat commercial. Gunsmoke had already lived on radio, with a different voice in the badge. Television wanted a face the lens could trust. The lore still pours like bar whiskey — John Wayne pointing at James Arness, William Conrad left on the airwaves, a casting fight that was really a medium fight. Radio-to-TV is never a reprint. It is a negotiation about whose body gets to mean the law.
Filed against
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
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- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
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- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
Dennis Weaver’s Chester Goode was Gunsmoke’s limp and loyalty — chorus, not gadget, in Dodge City’s weekly moral court. Twenty seasons of adult western that treated a gunfight as a verdict, James Arness as a marshal the camera could…
- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
Ken Curtis’s Festus Haggen is Gunsmoke’s later chorus — Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a marshal who can lose, adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Twenty seasons of civic work with dust on the boots. On TV Flash…