The BEST episodes of Gunsmoke season 18

#1 - Milligan

Season 18 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/6/1972

When a family man lawfully kills a murderous outlaw by shooting him in the back, some people in town start to physically abuse him.

#2 - Homecoming

Season 18 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/8/1973

Two outlaws head back to Dodge City to visit their mother who doesn't trust her son's. Who claim to want to work the farm and take care of their mother. They intend to take their mother's money along with Doc.

#3 - The Drummer

Season 18 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/9/1972

Daniel Shay comes to Dodge City as a drummer who peddles rat traps as a way of making money. While Daniel continues to look for buyers of his rat traps, he sees a Cheyenne boy stealing a horse. As he looks on memories of a battle at Rock Creek return. While having dinner with Sarah Morgan Mr. Shay wonders about Jimmy Morgan's father who died in the Rock Creek massacre, Sarah mentions that the cavalry ran him down.

#4 - Sarah

Season 18 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/16/1972

Matt runs into an old flame named Sarah that now runs a one-woman saloon for bandits out in the desert. Matt will have to pass as a villain in order to save Sarah's reputation as a trusted confidante.

#5 - The River (2)

Season 18 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/18/1972

#6 - Tatum

Season 18 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/13/1972

An ex-gunfighter is dying. He must reconcile with the daughters he abandoned, and wants to be buried next to his wife, who is buried in a town that hates him

#7 - The River (1)

Season 18 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/11/1972

Matt is tracked, with bad intent, along a river gorge by a gang of villains while in custody of one of the gang and $24,000 of their money. Escaping the gang by jumping into the river, Matt is rescued by two kids, brother & sister on a raft, and floats downriver with adventures galore.

#8 - Hostage!

Season 18 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/11/1972

Outlaw gang leader Jude Bonner seeks to force Matt to try and keep his condemned brother from hanging by kidnapping Kitty, brutally abusing and threatening to kill her.

#9 - Arizona Midnight

Season 18 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/1/1973

A midget arrives in Dodge City claiming he will turn into an elephant at the stroke of midnight. Arizona begins asking for someone to care for him along with three bales of hay. Everyone finds the story a bit far fetched.

#10 - The Fugitives

Season 18 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/23/1972

When Danny Stalcup, a young member of a gang on the run, is mortally wounded in a fall, Doc Adams is kidnapped, along with Festus, and forced to help.

#11 - Patricia

Season 18 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/22/1973

Newly falls in love with a woman he met while tending the injured after a tornado. It doesn't take him long to decide to ask to marry her. Doc notes an odd bruise on her arm and her lack of energy. After an exam he wars with his conscience over whether to tell Patricia that she's got a rare blood disorder. He tells Kitty, Matt, and Newly before he marries her. She dies shortly after in Newly's arms and prompts Newly to go back to studying medicine.

#12 - The Brothers

Season 18 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/27/1972

Killer Jay Wrecken is shot dead by Kitty and another man, at the same time, and now the dead man's brother is methodically murdering everyone connected to the incident.

#13 - A Quiet Day in Dodge

Season 18 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/29/1973

Matt comes back to Dodge City after capturing a prisoner he has been following for two days straight. Kitty is upset with Matt for not attending a lunch. To make up for the mistake Matt asks her out for dinner.

#14 - Jesse

Season 18 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/19/1973

Festus runs into Jesse Dillard who is wanted for shooting a black man. Festus wants to find out more and take his friend to prison.

#15 - The Sodbusters

Season 18 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/20/1972

Farm owner Clarabelle Callahan has absolute rights to the water supply in her area. Rather than negotiate with Clarabelle, rancher Lamoor Underwood turns to hatred and violence by bringing in a gunslinger, Dick Shaw. Unknown to either side, farm hand Pete Brown is the noted gunfighter John Jobson and represents a deadly equalizer for Clarabelle.

#16 - Whelan's Men

Season 18 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/5/1973

A former lawman that Dillon put out of business years earlier comes back with a group of men to gun him down. Since Dillon is out of town, they settle in at the Long Branch to play poker and wait. Kitty does the only thing she can do. She bets the entire town's wealth and Matt's life against the outlaw's hand.

#17 - Eleven Dollars

Season 18 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/30/1972

Festus heads to Abilene to bring a woman $11 left over from the sale of her things after her father's death, and finds time to teach two little boys a lesson along the way.

#18 - This Golden Land

Season 18 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/5/1973

Matt asks a Russian family to identify three men who dragged their son away. Matt tries to convince Moshe Gorofsky to give his testimony as to how his son died, he isn't sure American laws will protect him. According to Russian law Mr. Gorfsky can't testify in court as to how his son died. He isn't sure if the evidence is strong enough to convict those who killed his son. Gearshon tries to convince his father to let the American judicial system do the job of figuring out who killed his brother.

#19 - Kimbro

Season 18 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/12/1973

Matt runs into his former mentor Adam Kimbro and decides to build his self-confidence by deputizing him as a Deputy Marshal.

#20 - Talbot

Season 18 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/26/1973

Talbot falls in love Katherine after shooting her husband in self-defense. Katherine wants to learn more about Talbot. Katherine learns of Talbot's plans to rob the bank, she puts her life in danger by telling Talbot she will leave him if he robs the bank.

#21 - Shadler

Season 18 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/15/1973

Just before he's to be hung, stage robber Shadler busts out of jail, by slugging his last rites priest and donning the robes as a disguise. While burglarizing an uninhabited farm, the escapee helps Deputy U.S. Marshal Newly elude hostile lawmen quarantining a nearby outpost struck by a mysterious plague. Newly believes his pursuers are actually a ring of vultures waiting to loot the dying settlement. When Newly heads back to the besieged town, the fake padre insists on riding with him to minister to the dying citizens.

#22 - The Judgement

Season 18 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/2/1972

A guy comes to Dodge for revenge on a guy who might just deserve it.

#23 - Bohannan

Season 18 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/25/1972

A faith-healer comes to Dodge. Doc is skeptical.

#24 - Jubilee

Season 18 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/18/1972

A man neglects his family in favor of raising his prize possession: a race horse