The BEST episodes of Gunsmoke season 4
Every episode of Gunsmoke season 4, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Gunsmoke season 4!
Marshal Matt Dillon keeps the peace in the rough and tumble Dodge City.
#1 - Print Asper
Season 4 - Episode 36 - Aired 5/23/1959
Print Asper is suspected of attempted murder when he forces a crooked lawyer, at gunpoint, to return the ranch he stole from him, and the lawyer still ends up getting shot later by someone.
#2 - Marshal Proudfoot
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/10/1959
Matt goes along with a hoax when Chester's aging Uncle Wesley arrives for a visit. Wesley thinks Chester is the marshal and Dillion is his assistant.
#3 - Stage Hold-Up
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/25/1958
A stagecoach on which Matt and Chester are riding is robbed and another passenger is murdered. Matt utilizes a ruse to incriminate the thieves when a "cowboy" appears and offers to show him where one of the thieves may be buried.
#4 - Letter of the Law
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/11/1958
When Matt is forced to serve an eviction notice on farmer Brandon Teek, Matt tries every way he can to help the farmer. Matt tries to speak with Judge Rambeau in the hope the Judge will stop the eviction process in the proper legal manner. When the Judge refuses to stop the court order eviction of Brandon Teek, Matt refuses to serve the eviction. The Judge hires another man to evict Teek, but the man finds the job of evicting Brandon Teek harder than he ever thought it would be. The man hired to evict Brandon Teek meets resistance from Brandon Teek and a scuffle ensues. Brandon's pregnant wife, Sarah Teek, is injured in the scuffle and loses her child because of the injuries suffered.
#5 - Matt for Murder
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/13/1958
Matt resigns as Marshall after Tom Samples accuses Matt of killing an innocent man;however, Doc and Matt's old freind Wild Bill Hickok come up with a plan that might clear Matt of this erroneous charge of murder.
#6 - Jayhawkers
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 1/31/1959
Trail boss Dolph Quince sends for his friend Matt to help escort his cattle herd into Dodge because he is having trouble with Jayhawkers (Kansas renegades), and he hopes to ease the animosity his men have towards all Kansans.
#7 - Kitty's Rebellion
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/7/1959
An old friend of the family comes to Dodge looking for Kitty, but when he finds out she's a saloon owner, he's dismayed. Intent on defending her honor wherever she is insulted, he nearly gets himself killed. Kitty finally tells him that she has no honor, and he keeps making a fool out of himself thinking otherwise. It sends him away and saves his life at the same time.
#8 - The Constable
Season 4 - Episode 37 - Aired 5/30/1959
Dodge City's businessmen learn a hard lesson when they reject Matt's advice and hire a meek constable to handle a gang of rowdy but free-spending trail cowboys.
#9 - Buffalo Hunter
Season 4 - Episode 33 - Aired 5/2/1959
When a Buffalo hunter dies from injuries from burning led, Matt and Doc think that their boss (Jim Gatluf) might have had something to do with the man's dying. After Matt speaks with one of Gatluf's employees about the killing of the Buffalo skinner, Matt is convinced that Gatluff murdered the man. Soon after, Chester informs Matt that another Buffalo skinner had been murdered. Since Matt is now convinced without any doubt that Guttliff committed these murders, Matt and Chester set off to bring Gattluff in for murder. While Matt and Chester are searching for Gatluff out on the prairie, they run into a buying agent who tells Matt that he had recently done business with Gatluff. The agent also informs Matt where Gatluff's is. When Matt and Chester ride into Gutluff's camp, they discover another one of Gutluff's men who has been attacked by Guttluf with a knife. Matt and Chester finally find Guttluff's camp, but soon discover some more troubling information about this case.
#10 - Lost Rifle
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/1/1958
Matt refuses to arrest his friend Ben Tiple without more evidence, when the man he has been feuding with is found shot in the back.
#11 - Thoroughbreds
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/18/1958
Matt and Chester, out of water while riding back to Dodge, come upon a man with two fine horses who is not very trusting. When they meet him later in Dodge, he is much different: friendly and spending money freely.
#12 - Love of a Good Woman
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 1/24/1959
An old friend of Doc's, a nurse, is visiting and he hopes she will stay around Dodge. In the meantime Matt is worried that an ex-con is gunning for him even though he thought he was innocent five years ago.
#13 - Monopoly
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/4/1958
Two murders result when an unscrupulous Eastern businessman named Ivy hires a psychotic killer to help him establish undisputed control of Dodge City's freight shipment business.
#14 - Gunsmuggler
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/27/1958
When renegade Pawnee Indians attack some local ranchers, Matt and Major Evans think that white gunrunners supplied the Renegades the rifles. Matt, Chester and Indian scout Tobeel, go the scene of the massacre to pick up the trail of the renegades in the hopes that the Indians will lead them to the camp of the gunrunners. One thing that the gunrunners were not counting on was that the riffles that were sold to the renegades were an outdated Henry 44. Matt thinks that once the Indian renegades find out that they have been cheated and have purchased outdated rifles that no longer have the ammunition in supply, the Indians will go after the gunsmugglers. The Indians do take out revenge on one of the Gunsmugglers, but the other man tries to flee. With the information supplied by a cowboy on the prairie, Matt finally arrives in the camp of the remaining gumsmuggler to confront the man.
#15 - Passive Resistance
Season 4 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/17/1959
A man's house is burned and his livestock killed, but he refuses to identify the perpetrators to the marshal.
#16 - The Bear
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 2/28/1959
Rivalry for the affections of a former saloon gal leads to a frame-up for murder.
#17 - The Choice
Season 4 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/9/1959
Matt tries to help Andy Hill, a young gunman who is apparently trying very hard to go straight, by getting him a job riding shotgun on the stagecoach.
#18 - Cheyennes
Season 4 - Episode 39 - Aired 6/13/1959
Matt seeks the help of wise Chief Long Robe to track down gunrunners who are supplying renegade Cheyenne braves with rifles used to murder prairie-dwelling families. Long Robe provides Matt with the needed information, but warns him that the death of even a single brave could lead to a violent uprising.
#19 - Young Love
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/3/1959
Over the objections of his sometime partner Rod Allison, treacherous Jim Box murders aging rancher Jesse Wheat, then attempts to steal cattle from Wheat's young widow.
#20 - Blue Horse
Season 4 - Episode 38 - Aired 6/6/1959
Seriously injured Matt faces a moral dilemma when Blue Horse saves his life and prevents the escape of a prisoner. The Marshal knows that Blue Horse is being sought by the Cavalry as a fugitive from a reservation, and he is well aware that he is duty-bound to assist their search in any way possible.
#21 - Grass
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/29/1958
White men pretending to be Indians attack greenhorn Harry Pope at night, and he kills one of them. Now the dead man's friends want revenge.
#22 - How to Kill a Friend
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/22/1958
Two gamblers find Matt incorruptible and attempt to intimidate him by hiring gunman Toque Morlan. The two are ironically unaware that Morlan was Matt's close friend until a long-ago attack by a mob left Morlan scarred and harboring a bitter grudge against lawmen.
#23 - Lynching Man
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/15/1958
After mild-mannered Hank Blenis is "lynched" by the two men who stole his horse, self-righteous Charlie Drain decides to take the law into his own hands and is led tragically astray by the culprits.
#24 - Sky
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/14/1959
While Chester is teaching Miss Kitty guitar playing and singing technics, the cowpokes at the Long Branch are making quite a fuss over Frog mouth Kate. Kate has a fondness for a younger man almost half her age (Billy Daunt). Billy does not share the same feelings for Kate and runs away much to the delight to the Long Branch barflies. Late that night, Chester wakes Matt in the middle of the night to tell Matt that Kate had been shot at Ma Torvet's boarding house. Ma Torvet tells Matt that Billy was the one who shot Kate. Ma also believes that Billy shot Kate because Kate kept some money stashed away under her bed. Matt and Chester search the countryside for Billy Daunt. While Matt and Chester are conducting their search, they discover the wife of a destitute farmer who claims Billy killed her husband and tortured a very old man. Matt and Chester finally overtake a desperate Billy Daunt and transport Billy back to Dodge. Shortly after their arrival in Dodge, Matt finds out some more tro
#25 - Murder Warrant
Season 4 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/18/1959
Matt and Dodge City's businessmen employ an unusual tactic to save ambush victim Lee Prentice from being taken to corrupt Baker City to face certain hanging on a trumped-up murder charge.