The BEST episodes of Gunsmoke season 9
Every episode of Gunsmoke season 9, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Gunsmoke season 9!
Marshal Matt Dillon keeps the peace in the rough and tumble Dodge City.
#1 - Carter Caper
Season 9 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/16/1963
A man with a grudge hits upon the perfect revenge when he spreads the word in Dodge that short-tempered Billy is so good with a gun that he shot down the famous gunfighter, Beau Carter.
#2 - Prairie Wolfer
Season 9 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/18/1964
Festus returns to Dodge from wolfing and is hired by the Cattleman's Association to hunt down the wolves killing everyone's cattle. What he finds is that what's been doing the preying may wind him up in prison if he doesn't get Matt's help.
#3 - Owney Tupper Had a Daughter
Season 9 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/4/1964
To earn money to recover the custody of his daughter, an aging man accepts the job of Dodge's first in-town hangman, work no one else wants.
#4 - Once a Haggen
Season 9 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/1/1964
Bucko, a close friend of Festus, is accused of murdering a man to whom he lost at poker. When his alibi witness lies out of fear, Bucko is sentenced to hang, and Festus, who'd begun to see the marshal as a friend, vows Bucko won't swing.
#5 - Bently
Season 9 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/11/1964
A dying man confesses to a murder of which he was acquitted, but Chester suspects the man was lying.
#6 - Caleb
Season 9 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/28/1964
Childless and poor, farmer Caleb feels like a failure, and his wife assures him he is one. Caleb moves into town to seek some meaning in his life, and soon finds himself--a man who doesn't wear a gun--challenged to a duel.
#7 - The Promoter
Season 9 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/25/1964
Henry Huckaby, a local farmer and fed up with a sore back and an empty belly leaves to seek his fortune in Dodge. After several failed ideas he hits on one that may make him rich but could also cost him his life.
#8 - No Hands
Season 9 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/8/1964
The Ginnis family, not from any town, live on the prairie and are used to getting their own way. When one son gets hurt, they ride to town to get help. That was just their first brush with the folks of Dodge but proves not to be their last.
#9 - Kitty Cornered
Season 9 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/18/1964
Competing with Kitty is a fancy new woman in town with plenty of money to build a new saloon and a secret from the past life she recently left behind.
#10 - Kate Heller
Season 9 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/28/1963
A teen-aged boy who robbed and killed to impress a saloon gal is pursued by Matt. The boy waylays Matt and leaves him for dead, then goes home to his grandmother's house to find her nursing Matt back to health.
#11 - Journey for Three
Season 9 - Episode 36 - Aired 6/6/1964
Two brothers traveling to California are joined by a third man who soon proves to be a wrong 'un, manhandling and killing a young woman they encounter on the prairie and turning on Quint when he shows up to share his rabbits with them.
#12 - Ex-Con
Season 9 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/30/1963
On his way to Larned, Matt, feverish, spends the night at an abandoned shack. When he wakes up after losing a day, a recently released convict who swore to kill Matt, is himself found against a wall, dead, unarmed, shot twice, and the murder weapon appears to belong to the marshal.
#13 - Homecoming
Season 9 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/23/1964
Orval returns from seven years in prison for killing his wife's lover, vowing to reclaim his house and business. Edna tries to goad her new husband and Orval's son into a plot to kill Orval; then her head is turned by a traveling salesman.
#14 - Dry Well
Season 9 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/11/1964
It's a test of wills when Quint witnesses a murder and the father of one of the prime suspects lowers Quint into a well to try to force him to promise his silence.
#15 - Comanches Is Soft
Season 9 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/7/1964
After some horsing around, Festus breaks some of Quint's equipment. To repair or get anew, they travel to Wichita and meet a saloon girl who tells them she needs to get away from town but her jealous boyfriend is now hot on their trail.
#16 - Friend
Season 9 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/25/1964
A man carrying a tempting sum of money is attacked from behind by someone who beats him and leaves him for dead. Lucky for the injured man, an old friend of Matt is there to take him in to Doc Adams for mending.
#17 - The Bassops
Season 9 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/22/1964
A family in search of a doctor find Matt and his prisoner unconscious and handcuffed to each other on the prairie. The prisoner wakens first and announces that Matt is the condemned man he is transporting for hanging.
#18 - My Sister's Keeper
Season 9 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/2/1963
A despondent widower goes to work on a farm for two sisters, each of whom finds him fascinating in her own way.
#19 - Extradition (2)
Season 9 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/14/1963
Matt finally catches up to killer Charlie Hacker in Mexico, and has make a deal with the greedy Mexican police to get Hacker back to the border, with revengeful Mexican bandits in pursuit.
#20 - The Kite
Season 9 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/29/1964
Festus finds a little girl out on the prairie. He learns she saw her ma get killed by a stranger. When he takes her to Dodge, Matt hears she was hiding when this happened but can identify this man who may already be in town.
#21 - Quint's Trail
Season 9 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/9/1963
Quint is hired to escort a family on the first leg of their journey to Oregon. On the way, he learns the reason for their going, a motive that could have repercussions for Quint.
#22 - Trip West
Season 9 - Episode 31 - Aired 5/2/1964
Given three months to live by a quack peddler of patent medicines, a mousy bank clerk quits his job, withdraws all his money, makes ready to go to California, and falls for a girl who may endanger what time he has remaining.
#23 - Scot Free
Season 9 - Episode 32 - Aired 5/9/1964
Rob Scott considers himself a man who could stay or go when it came to women. He may have met his match though when a woman he desires and her husband take over an abandoned homestead and they come to where he works to look over some stock.
#24 - May Blossom
Season 9 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/15/1964
Festus's beautiful young cousin, whom he has not seen since she was a little one, arrives in Dodge to keep the pact her father made for her when she was a baby: to marry Festus.
#25 - Now That April's There
Season 9 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/21/1964
Festus, returning to Dodge after doing some trapping, sees his girl, April, and they argue over a gift she received. Running off, she hides but her perch gives her a bird's eye view of a murder, one no one believes she witnessed but the killers.