The WORST episodes of How the West Was Won

#1 - The Hearing

Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 5/14/1978

Luke's hearing begins and things look bad for him. Frank Grayson produces proof that Luke was a member of the Flint gang. A snooping Evans overplays his hand with Deek. Josh is framed for assault by Doreen - and his brother's plight provokes Luke to drastic action.

#2 - Secrets

Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/7/1978

A vengeful Stillman hires local power broker Francis Britten to help convict Luke. Deek moves onto Macahan land, and Tap confesses the truth to Zeb. Luke gets a mysterious visitor.

#3 - Brothers

Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/30/1978

After he learns of presence of gold, Deek bribes a land agent to seize ownership of the Macahan creek. Tap takes extreme measures to keep Zeb from learning about the rustlers. Josh arrives in Las Mesas to support Luke at the hearing and - literally - runs into Doreen, with whom he is instantly smitten.

#4 - The Posse

Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 5/21/1978

Fleeing jail with Josh, Luke finds Judge Rensen dead. When the brothers split up after narrowly eluding the posse, Josh is attacked and Zeb's pursuit ends in a face off with Stillman. The cattle drive regroups and makes a final homeward push. Deek menaces Laura and Molly for the last time.

#5 - L'Affaire Riel

Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/5/1979

Zeb Macahan is asked by general Sheridan to find Louis Riel so he can be sent back to Canada since he is wanted.

#6 - Luke

Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/2/1979

Luke Macahan finds out that there is still a $5000 reward on his head, and to expect more and more bounty hunters as an effect off that fact.

#7 - The Forgotten

Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/19/1979

Army surveyors led by Luke Macahon is ambushed and shot at in the mountains by an unknown person.

#8 - The Enemy

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/5/1979

A by-the-book Army lieutenant clashes with the Macahans when he hunts for an Indian chief suspected of raiding wagon trains.

#9 - Buffalo Story

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/12/1978

Kate Macahan's sister, Molly Culhane, joins the family. A Mormon family arrives at the homestead while fleeing religious persecution, but the patriarch soon charms Laura. Zeb mediates between the Army and the angry Sioux after a Russian royalty kills a buffalo on Sioux land. Luke aids a local sheriff and meets his feisty daughter.

#10 - The Scavengers

Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/12/1979

The Macahans are out on a riverboat when the boat is attacked by river pirats.

#11 - The Judge

Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/16/1978

Jessie and Teel-O have a fateful encounter with Teel-O's grandfather. While scouting for water, Luke comes to the rescue of Judge Rensen, who offers to seek a pardon for Luke's criminal past in Missouri. Teel-O and Jessie are stalked be would-be slavers.

#12 - Hillary

Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/26/1979

Luke embarks on a double mission: to win back his old flame Hillary and find the man who is suspected of murder as Luke once accused of - and to get him to confess.

#13 - Deek

Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/9/1978

Deek Peasley is reluctantly hired to lead the search party for Jessie, who tries to bridge the language gap with Teel-O. The cattle drive gets underway, shadowed by Tap's rustler cronies. While camping out, tensions mount between Deek and Molly, and a costly bargain is negotiated.

#14 - Erika

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/13/1977

Zeb finds Luke with the Simonites but before Luke is strong enough to leave, Zeb must take the opportunity to find a friend who has started a vendetta against an Indian tribe. Luke has taken a liking for the lifestyle of the Simonites and especially for the young and beautiful Erika who has looked after him. He therefore contemplates the option of becoming a Simonite.

#15 - Provost Marshal

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/6/1977

Luke is on the run from Captain Grey who wants to arrest him for deserting from the Union Army. Luke gets shot when trying to prevent some men harassing a woman and is later taken care of by a group of Simonites. Zeb searches for Luke so the family can continue the journey towards Oregon.

#16 - The Innocent

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/12/1979

Josh is friends with Cora Johnson and her children, who are operators of a ferry service. In this way he becomes embroiled in a dispute over ferry operations, and the conflict takes an unpleasant turn when capital borrowings by Cora's retarded son is accused of murder.

#17 - Gold

Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/23/1978

Luke is jailed pending his hearing, and from his cell, gives a newspaper interview that draws trouble to Las Mesas. Apaches disrupt the cattle drive. Jessie is rescued, and she and the others return home to find gold in the Machan creek - just as Deek becomes more neighborly.

#18 - China Girl

Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/16/1979

#19 - Robber's Roost

Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/26/1978

On the journey home, the stagecoach carrying Molly and Jessie is wrecked - and a dazed Jessie wanders into the desert, where she meets the young Navajo Teel-O. Zeb and Josh purchase a cattle herd to bring back to the reservation, and Zeb hires old friend Tap Henry to serve as cook on the drive.

#20 - The Rustler

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/22/1979

Jessie is blindly in love with a handsome young stranger named Bob, who rescues her from a nasty villain. Together they flee to a small town and finds a priest who agrees to perform the ceremony.

#21 - The Gunfighter

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/15/1979

Rancher Henry Coe hires a professional gunman to drive the Macahans off what he considers to be his property. Frank Grayson ingratiates himself with the Macahans, but Josh recognizes him as the gunman once hired to kill Luke.

#22 - Cattle Drive

Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/19/1978

Jessie recovers with the help of the Aapaho, but the tribe finds itself on the brink of starvation due to the broken promise of beef shipments. Zeb and Luke embark on a cattle-herding journey across harsh flatlands, joined by contentious Indian drovers - and trailed by a young runaway.

#23 - Amnesty

Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/12/1978

Zeb learns Beth's husband is supposedly a dead, guilt-ridden Army hero involved in a military massacre. As Jessie nears death, Zeb decides to take her to an Arapaho medicine man - with a skeptical Luke and Josh in close pursuit.

#24 - Mormon Story

Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/19/1978

Zeb sides with the Sioux after the Russian incident triggers a war - and the clash leads to a great leader's sacrifice. Luke's feelings for Hillary Gant intensify, but when her father learns of Luke's past, he asks Luke to leave. Laura accepts a marriage proposal, while Luke finds himself forced to join a thieving band of ex-Confederates.

#25 - The Slavers

Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/23/1979