The BEST episodes of Gunsmoke season 8
Every episode of Gunsmoke season 8, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Gunsmoke season 8!
Marshal Matt Dillon keeps the peace in the rough and tumble Dodge City.
#1 - The Way It Is
Season 8 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/1/1962
While Matt is out of town, putting lawman's business ahead of Kitty yet again, a new man in her life has plenty of time and attention to give--perhaps too much attention.
#2 - I Call Him Wonder
Season 8 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/23/1963
An orphaned Indian boy latches on to a cowboy in need of work and the two of them find all doors closed to them in Dodge.
#3 - Daddy Went Away
Season 8 - Episode 35 - Aired 5/11/1963
Chester is sweet on a widow dressmaker. When the widow is not only intent on marriage but eager to make changes in Chester as well, he has second thoughts--especially after a talk with her child suggests that the widow may still be a wife.
#4 - The Bad One
Season 8 - Episode 20 - Aired 1/26/1963
When a young pretty farm woman becomes attracted to and sees some good in a would-be robber, she refuses to identify him.
#5 - Quint-Cident
Season 8 - Episode 33 - Aired 4/27/1963
A woman newly widowed is powerfully attracted to Quint, but when he gently turns her down, she vows to make him pay for scorning a white woman.
#6 - The Cousin
Season 8 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/2/1963
Chance Hopper is Matt's young foster brother, torn between loyalty to Matt and to his partners in crime, who are counting on Chance to divert Matt from their course and make good their getaway.
#7 - The Quest for Asa Janin
Season 8 - Episode 38 - Aired 6/1/1963
A young man is convicted of killing the saloon girl he wanted for his own. Matt is so sure that the young man is really innocent that he goes on the road after another suspect to prevent an unjust hanging.
#8 - Abe Blocker
Season 8 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/24/1962
Civilization is moving in on the isolation of a rugged pioneer friend of Matt's, and he starts using lethal force against the settlers encroaching on the land he regards as his.
#9 - Two of a Kind
Season 8 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/16/1963
O'Ryan and Finnegan, feuding over a girl they both knew back home, are caught in a legal loophole to take ownership of a mine and land they both own. When Matt is forced in the middle of it, he has to work fast so no one else is hurt.
#10 - The Odyssey of Jubal Tanner
Season 8 - Episode 36 - Aired 5/18/1963
Aaron, sweet on saloon girl Leah and wanting to make her his wife, is attacked and killed by Colie Fletcher. When Matt goes after him, Colie runs into Jubal Tanner, wounds him, and steals his horse. Jubal, ungrateful to those who help him, meets Leah, and each helps the other's outlook.
#11 - The Renegades
Season 8 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/12/1963
Quint says that white renegades, not Indians, are the cause of recent raids around Dodge. Working shotgun on the stage, he proves his point when he is attacked, then pursued by those renegades. His "Indian" skills save him and a colonel's daughter who has contempt for half-Comanche Quint.
#12 - The Ditch
Season 8 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/27/1962
A young woman who's heir to her father's land decides to carry out his plan to build a ditch that will impair her neighbors' access to water and perhaps trigger a range war.
#13 - Old Comrade
Season 8 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/29/1962
The "town fool" has a chance to change his life when he learns that a famous general, now on his deathbed, believes him to be his long-lost son.
#14 - Louie Pheeters
Season 8 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/5/1963
The town drunk believes he saw a man drowned in a dream, until he meets up with the man who did the drowning.
#15 - Tell Chester
Season 8 - Episode 32 - Aired 4/20/1963
Chester is smitten with Polly, but she has eyes only for Wade, a man new in town and newly her father's employee. Knowing little about Wade, Polly agrees quickly to marry him, but Chester discovers that Wade already has a wife.
#16 - With a Smile
Season 8 - Episode 29 - Aired 3/30/1963
A rancher's spoiled son believes even after he is convicted of murder that his father's wealth and influence will save him from the hangman.
#17 - Quint Asper Comes Home
Season 8 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/29/1962
A half-Comanche has joined his mother's tribe in killing whites to avenge the murder of his father, but Matt sees the good in the man and the chance to re-integrate him, perhaps, into white society.
#18 - Us Haggens
Season 8 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/8/1962
When a boy witnesses his grandfather's murder, it sends Matt looking for a new found companion's uncle. Festus Haggen is tracking his uncle for killing his twin brother Fergus. Matt is wary but learns to trust Festus when he's shot and in bad shape.
#19 - Anybody Can Kill a Marshal
Season 8 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/8/1963
Two men want to rob the bank in Dodge, but are unwilling to try it while Matt lives. A man agrees to accept the job of killing the marshal, attaching some rather peculiar conditions to his acceptance.
#20 - Blind Man's Bluff
Season 8 - Episode 24 - Aired 2/23/1963
Billy Poe is falsely accused of murder by a dying man, and flees to another town while Matt follows him, and encounters dangerous resistance from other men who hate lawmen.
#21 - The Trappers
Season 8 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/3/1962
A trapper leaves his friend dying alone in order to save his own life, only later to stumble across that friend in Dodge, very much alive and wanting him dead.
#22 - Jeb
Season 8 - Episode 37 - Aired 5/25/1963
A prized Appaloosa, grazing alone and apparently without owner on the prairie, proves to be the ruin of more than one man.
#23 - False Front
Season 8 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/22/1962
A slick city reporter sets out to prove that even a milquetoast can pass for a feared gunfighter, if a few well-placed tidbits of rumor precede him.
#24 - Cotter's Girl
Season 8 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/19/1963
A father's dying request is that Matt go to retrieve his daughter. Expecting to find a little girl, Matt finds a near-grown woman, but one who's wild and desperately in need of civilizing.
#25 - Ash
Season 8 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/16/1963
Ben and Ash are business partners and the best of friends, until a blow on the head changes Ben's personality and leads to a confrontation over a woman that may part the friends for good.