This Episode of ‘Gunsmoke’ Was a Total Game-Changer for the Western Series in 2 Big Ways

With over 600 episodes of this classic Western television program, it’s hard to nail down one episode that changed everything for Gunsmoke. After all, so many of these Western adventures are one-and-done stories that have little to no bearing on the rest of the program, especially the further into the series you get. However, there is one episode that comes to mind as a true game-changer for the show, both in terms of the show’s overarching narrative and the way Gunsmoke was presented to audiences: Season 12’s “Snap Decision.”

“Snap Decision” Forced Matt Dillon To Re-evaluate His Time as ‘Gunsmoke’s Marshal

Credit: Image via CBS

The Season 12 premiere “Snap Decision” explores what happens when Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) hunts down an outlaw friend of his named Ray Gilcher (Sam Gilman), only to gun him down while Ray was trying to save his life. It ws an honest mistake. He believed that Ray was going for his gun to shoot him, when in reality he was trying to depend Matt from a bounty hunter who was closing in on their camp. As Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) later puts it, it was a “snap decision,” one that he couldn’t have known would end so poorly. But the whole thing rattles the marshal so fervently that he decides to quit being Dodge City’s number one lawman altogether.

For the first time in the show’s history, Matt truly questions his life calling as a marshal, hoping to leave the badge and gun behind him forever. No matter how many try to convince him otherwise, including Festus (Ken Curtis) and Kitty (Amanda Blake), he refuses to return to his chosen profession. It’s only when two new criminals appear to capitalize on the opening tragedy — Ray’s supposed son Kipp (Michael Cole) and the bounty hunter Shaver (Michael Strong) — that Matt discovers that his moral character won’t let him leave the job behind.

The entire episode comes as a big surprise for both Matt and the audience. This isn’t the first time that Gunsmoke has pitted the marshal against an old friend (see Season 1’s “Hack Prine”) nor is it the only episode of the horse opera where Matt watches an innocent man die in front of him (Season 7’s “The Gallows” does just that). However, “Snap Decision” was unique in that it made Matt the direct cause of the death of his friend who, incidentally, was innocent of the crime he shot and killed him for. The whole thing was a mistake, and it proved too much for the marshal to bear.

‘Gunsmoke’s Marshal Dillon Isn’t Sure About His Future in Dodge City

Credit: Image via CBS

Upon handing over his badge to temporary Marshal Clint Tucker (played by the ever-great Claude Akins), Matt spends a lot of this episode soul-searching, trying to distance himself from the job while constantly being pulled back toward it. The tension within Matt as he struggles to be what Dodge needs him to be in the midst of his grief is powerful, and it’s a heck of a way to start the twelfth season of a long-running Western series. When compared to the previous season’s premiere, “Seven Hours to Dawn,” we can see how this era of Gunsmoke enjoyed putting Matt through the wringer up front before jumping back into its standard standalone format.

But this entire experience offers Marshal Dillon a new perspective going into the twelfth season. While Matt does indeed pick up the badge again by the end of “Snap Decision,” it’s only after careful consideration and learning to forgive himself. After years as a lawman, Matt recognizes that he too can make mistakes, and that while he is paid to uphold the law, he is not infallible. Not that he didn’t understand this before conceptually (Matt has made mistakes before), but it takes on a whole new meaning when his snap decision costs a man, a friend, his life. As Doc notes, Matt wasn’t in the wrong for his quick thinking in the heat of the moment, but it does prompt the marshal to rely a bit more on his brains than his brawn. Indeed, that’s exactly what he does in the final moments of the episode when he unravels Kipp and Shaver’s plot. Sure, the whole thing still ends in a quick gunfight (the show’s called Gunsmoke, after all), but only after Matt tries to give the outlaws an easy way out first.

“Snap Decision” Was ‘Gunsmoke’s Very First Color Episode

In addition to solidifying Matt’s status as Dodge’s only marshal, “Snap Decision” is quite notable for another reason — it was the first episode of Gunsmoke to be filmed in color. This not only reflected a major change in television as a whole at the time, but it shifted the entire look and feel of the traditional Western program. From here on out, Gunsmoke offered a far more colorful picture of the Old West than it did previously, thrusting the change on audiences with a doozy of an episode that pushed Matt into an interlude of total uncertainty before reinforcing his love of truth and justice. While this wasn’t the first major shift in the show’s structure (the show went from being a half-hour program originally to producing hour-long episodes in Season 7), it ushered Gunsmoke into the modern age of television where audiences further connected the world of reality with that of televised fiction.

Of course, Gunsmoke would continue to produce color episodes for the remainder of its run. “Snap Decision” aired on September 17, 1966, and the series remained on air for nearly another decade before it was cancelled in 1975. As one of the most popular television programs of its day (and all-time, quite frankly), Gunsmoke had no qualms about adapting to more modern broadcast standards. This is what prompted the initial transition from 25-minute episodes to tales lasting around 50 minutes. It’s also why, over time, the show eventually began to feel almost more like a Western anthology — albeit with some recurring characters who tied it all together. Indeed, by the show’s sixteenth season, these standalone episodes began introducing characters that CBS aimed to spin-off into their own programs.

“Snap Decision” is not only a great episode of Gunsmoke that highlights the show’s ability to generate impactful, emotionally rich character dramas, but it was a groundbreaking moment in the series’ history. While Matt would temporarily resign once more in Season 19’s “The Disciple” after a gunshot wound (this was also Amanda Blake’s final performance on the show), this Season 12 premiere gives the lawman the most honest reasoning for doing so. In examining himself and coming to terms with what happened, Matt is reminded that he truly is the best man for the job, and thus sparking new life and energy into a show that, by its twelfth season, could easily have lost the spark that made it such a great Western adventure.

Release Date

1955 – 1974

Directors

Andrew V. McLaglen, Harry Harris, Ted Post, Bernard McEveety, Vincent McEveety

Writers

John Meston, Charles Marquis Warren, Paul Savage

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  James Arness

  Marshal Matt Dillon

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