The Gunfighters part 3 discussion:
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R = Ronelyn
P = Photobug
M = MisterMother
K = Ketina
H = Historian
Sp = Spoo
Sc = Schmallturn
R: I will pay money to anyone who will shoot the piano player.
P: I have money.
M: I have a gun.
K: You do?
H: Hey, if you can’t take “The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon”, stay out of “The Gunfighters.”
R: I was staying with it okay until the reprise for “Curtains for Charlie…” You made me sit through it once already!
Sp: <singing> “Well, they hated the singing… and the pain it was bringing… as we all sat here watching… the Last Chance Saloon.” They have me conditioned now to sing every 5 minutes!
H: It’s like a Greek Chorus.
R: Yeah, except it sucked!
P: Mightily!
M: Now, about the episode. That was some dark stuff.
R: Really?
Sp: Yes!
M: Yes, it was. Doc Holiday killed a guy for breakfast!
H: Be fair, it was for dinner.
R: In a comedic off-camera fashion.
Sp: I thought he was shooting birds or something. And then…
M: I didn’t think it was comedic at all. I thought it was pretty damn cold.
H: And Johny Ringo shooting a guy down in cold blood.
R: It would have worked better if the guy Johnny Ringo was threatening had dropped is Oakey accent for a Welsh one.
H: Johnny Ringo was really the Welsh gunfighter here.
R: It did kind of sound like Ringo was trying to be Texan and just gave up.
M: I’m over the accent thing.
Sp: For me, the strength of the scripts over road the usual “tee hee, he didn’t get his accent right” complaint.
P: I was surprised that Ringo wouldn’t take a $500 payment to do what he was going to do anyway.
H: Remember, he was going back to Tombstone to do a job. And the job the Clantons wanted him for was to go against Wyatt Erp. So now he’s going back to Tombstone for the $500 for the job.
R: <singing>“ “So he’s going back to Tombstone… for five-hundred bucks..” OW! <sound of tickling>
Sc: Please stop!
M: Charlie was playing a game.
K: Charlie was stupid!
M: He was trying to manipulate these dangerous people for who knows why, and then he got killed for it.
P: I think he was star struck.
M: For whatever his reason was, he was sticking his nose into their business, and that was why he got killed.
Sp: I missed the second episode, so I have a little distance from the start of the story.
P: You missed it?
Sp: I did not see it, I didn’t necessarily miss it. So it just struck me that much more just how good the acting, direction, pace, at how solid the story is. Singing not withstanding. Everyone’s having fun.
P: I think part of the story fell apart when Dodo gave Doc Holiday the gun because he promised to take her back to Tombstone.
K: I don’t think so at all.
H: Can you explain?
P: I can’t imagine someone who’s been taken hostage, which she has, would simply trust someone to take her back. At the point she gave him the gun, she didn’t know he was armed with a derringer.
M: This was established, it was his character. He made a promise to her, and she believed that he would keep it.
P: She just blew it, he didn’t say today or tomorrow.
M: So she just exacted a more precise promise.
H: And they did. We didn’t see him take her back, but presumably that’s what he was doing.
R: Plus there’s another vital part that you’re forgetting.
K: Dodo’s stupid?
M: Yeah, that’s why the scene didn’t bug me. It was an absurd situation, but it was true to their characters.
K: I liked the fact that she fainted after like “Oh, my god, I held a gun.”
H: No, it was “oh my god, he could have killed me the entire time.”
K: But, she was already flustered from holding the gun.
H: And cocking it.
M: Hey, at least she doesn’t scream every episode. There isn’t as much screaming as there was in the early seasons.
Sc: No twisted ankles either.
H: No, not yet.
R: I had some strong moments of internal sarcastic monologue. When they leave Erp junior and the Doctor glances back and says “Are you going to be alright?” a little voice inside of me says “Nope!”
M: I will say that the clichés were running thick and heavy.
H: I think that’s been the case throughout the entire story. But I think that’s the point.
M: Half the characters knocked back enough whiskey to leave them on the floor and it didn’t even make them blink.
H: Pa Clanton was awesome.
P: They weren’t going to stay on their horses long that way.
R: I think the reason the accent thing bugs me is because there are people like Pa Clanton who are spot on. And there’s Erp who looks like he fell into this episode from a cowboy movie, and is mightily confused. Then contrast that to Ike and Billy Clanton and their brother Minsy.
H: To be fair, Warren Erp was pretty “Minsy” himself.
R: He was just a 40 year old guy trying to play a nervous 16 year old.
P: That’s funny, because most nervous 16 year olds are trying to play the part of a 40 year old guy.
Sc: This is going in a strange direction…
H: Should we go to final thoughts????
Sp: The Historian asked, pleadingly.
P: If you side step the inadvertent humor, and perhaps are immune to the pain of the song…
Sp: You would have 4 minutes of story.
P: It’s actually a very well executed play on a very great stage.
H: I would argue that a lot of the inadvertent humor is actually advertent.
K: Intentional?
P: The sound is better in this episode too, thankfully. It sounded like a gun, instead of someone dropping a marble.
Sc: So I noticed two things. One, they ran out of single action revolvers when they were equipping Johnny Ringo. So he has out-of-period revolvers.
H: Good eye!
Sc: And I noticed his shirt had three-buttons on the cuff, which is a very 1960’s style thing. It’s a very Peacock Carnoby Street style.
H: They went out to a store and bought a shirt for the wardrobe.
R: To interject. I’ve been in Western Supply stores. The haircuts were the only distinguishing factor between the cowboys and the mods.
Sp: “Cowboys and mods”, just like I played on the playground as a lad.
R: Look out Tex, you got one of them scooters with way too many mirrors!
A: Mopeds!
Sc: So, in my mind that was a 60’s thing. Maybe it was a Western thing that they may have adopted in the 60’s, I don’t know.
P: That was a very close observation.
Sc: I liked it, beyond that.
Sp: Lots of fun. I liked that Hartnell was given an intentional “Billy Fluff” of Mr. Werp. Great pace, every character was lively and well rounded.
K: Well, most of them anyway.
Sp: Within the margin of error. The only weird note to me was Ringo’s romance with Kate seemed a little tacked on. There was already enough going on in the story that unless we find something out in the finale that redeems it, I find it excessive.
H: But it does give him a reason for tracking down Doc Holiday.
Sp: He already has the reason of “bang bang haha funny” that he doesn’t really need another reason.
K: It’s a kid’s show, he needs another reason.
M: Also, he’s a professional gun fighter.
Sp: So shooting the bartender was in his off hours.
K: No, the bartender was going to tell on him.
H: No, shooting the bartender was just a hobby.
P: Funny death!
H: I love that moment… they come down, they totally see him from the stairs, and then Steven leans on him and is all “Whoa!”
P: I assumed they thought he was asleep until Steven leaned on him and learned better.
M: “Hard living and hard drinkin’!” “But he’s been SHOT!”
P: “That’s hard dyin’.”
M: I thoroughly enjoyed it, except for the dang song. It finally got to me. I defended the music in episode two. But it just got to the point of too silly this time. The other thing I felt about it was that the violence was very personal.
Sp: Yes. I get behind that because we’ve seen Daleks slaughtering mooks and other background people, but this had a body count. These were people that were killed for little to no reason, you felt it. It was great.
P: That’s them thar wild ‘Mericans.
R: I did find it a little sad that it took Doc Holiday five shots to dispense someone who was eating.
H: To be fair, we don’t know if the shots were all fired by him.
P: That’s true.
M: Well, they couldn’t have all been shot by him because he had a derringer.
K: He had two guns.
M: I don’t think he was carrying the other gun.
K: Anyway…
R: So… <sniff> I’m wondering if that was poor Charlie’s younger brother who moved to a safer town. </sniff>
K: I did like this episode, certainly more than part two… again, song aside.
H: I continue to be shocked at how much I am enjoying this story, given that my memories of seeing it centered around how bad it was. It’s funny, it’s exciting. Yeah, it’s silly, but it’s silly in a good way.
P: Ladies and Gentlemen… oh, I should have said Reader… I checked the Historian, and he’s not running a fever. Nor does he smell drunk.
Sc: There’s more than one Reader, I think.
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