The BEST episodes of The Rifleman season 1
Every episode of The Rifleman season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Rifleman season 1!
Widower Lucas McCain can fire a round with his specially modified Winchester in three-tenths of a second. Added to his high moral code and resolve enable him to help Marshal Micah Torrance maintain order in town while raising his son, Mark, on a ranch near North Fork, New Mexico.
#1 - The Sister
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/1958
Rebecca Snipe is returning to North Fork after a long visit away. Before her stage left, she over hears a man saying he's going to North Fork to kill a big man with a big mouth. Upon Rebecca's arrival in North Fork, Mark is smitten with her and gets it in his head to play matchmaker between her and his pa. Thinking Lucas has intentions on their sister, the Snipe brothers come looking for Lucas to see if he measures up to their standard of being good enough for her.
#2 - The Boarding House
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/24/1959
Reformed card sharp Julia Massini now runs a respectable boarding house in North Fork, but Sid Fallon is threatening to reveal her sordid past unless she lets him turn the establishment into a saloon and gambling hall.
#3 - The Gaucho
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/30/1958
Rumson, without even saying to whom he had sold his property, left the bill of sale with the bank and moved away from North Fork. Curge, who's highest offer was upped by $1,000.00 is upset because Rumson sold out to a "peppergut". The Argentez family who bought the place are from Argentina. Lucas arranges for Mark to hang out with Manolo, who teaches Mark to use the Bolas. Manolo is angered at anyone who shows interest in his sister, he believes she is only for a "Caballero". Her latest suitor, Ned Dunnell, has been found murdered and the townsfolk are quick to believe it was Manolo.
#4 - The Marshal
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/21/1958
Micah Torrance, a once famous lawman, is introduced as a drunken derelict, who stumbles into North Fork. Micah, nursing an arm crippled in a gunfight, is hired by Lucas to help out at the ranch. Three outlaws ride into town looking for revenge against Micah. When they kill the sheriff, it's up to Lucas and Micah to protect North Fork. Micah becomes North Fork's full-time Marshal.
#5 - The Mind Reader
Season 1 - Episode 40 - Aired 6/30/1959
When a wealthy rancher is killed, Mark suggests that they seek the aid of a mind reader to identify the murderer.
#6 - Home Ranch
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/7/1958
Two hired hands of a wealthy cattleman, who has been using the ranch for grazing his cattle, demand that Lucas move out. When Lucas refuses, he is beaten and dragged and then the ranch house is burned down. They left Lucas and Mark with the burning house and rode off with Lucas' rifle. Leaving Mark to tend to the animals, Lucas tracks them down and confronts their boss, Mr. Jackford.
#7 - Three-Legged Terror
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/21/1959
When a rambunctious teenager wrecks a schoolroom, Lucas McCain, as a member of the North Fork school board, asks the boy's reluctant uncle to pay for the damages.
#8 - New Orleans Menace
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/26/1958
Tiffauges, a wealthy and sadistic Frenchman, who is used to getting whatever he wants, decides he wishes to purchase the McCain Ranch. Tiffauges' lead man, Xavier, proclaims Lucas to be muy macho, and does not believe Lucas will give in so easily. Xavier and the other men are tiring of being subjected to Tiffauges' whippings and cruel treatment. Lucas plays on the men's longing for freedom to keep his ranch.
#9 - The Angry Man
Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/28/1959
The McCains try to be tolerant of their embittered neighbor Abel MacDonald, who tels Lucas to keep off his land and won't allow his son to become friends with Mark, but they decide he's gone too far when he won't allow his injured boy to get medical treatment.
#10 - The Pet
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/6/1959
Ward Haskins guns down Joe Flecker, who has evidence that could be used to blackmail him. Haskins thinks the information was given to Lucas, since he brought Flecker to the doctor before he died. Stirred up by Haskins behavior, Lucas goes through Flecker's things, finding a wanted poster for Haskins in the sole of Flecker's boot. He also finds Doc Burrage drinking. Doc is discouraged because three children have died of an anthrax epidemic that he has the new serum for, but nobody is willing to allow him to administer it in time. Haskins rides out to the ranch and is bitten by Flecker's horse, which is now believed to have anthrax. Mark overhears about how anthrax always causes death and is worried because he had bitten by Flecker's horse, also.
#11 - A Matter of Faith
Season 1 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/19/1959
Although a drought has forced local cowhands to seek work on a railroad construction project, railraod executives are afraid that their workers will desert them if they believe an old man's claim to have found a way to make rain.
#12 - The Deadly Wait
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/24/1959
Dan Nowry, released from Yuma prison, arrives in North Fork intent on getting even with Marshal Torrance,who helped send him to jail.
#13 - Outlaw's Inheritance
Season 1 - Episode 38 - Aired 6/16/1959
Lucas is the town's representative to the railroad commission until an infamous train robber dies and leaves his ill-gotten wealth to Lucas. Lucas must clear his name and stop the reckless ambition of his replacement.
#14 - The Second Witness
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/30/1959
Lucas puts his life in jeopardy when he agrees to testify in a murder case where the first witness was killed before he could testify, and the killer is still at large.
#15 - The Safe Guard
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/18/1958
Floyd Doniger comes to North Fork, looking to start a new life. He's got a steady job as the guard at the new bank and he's entertaining ideas of settling down on a spread of his own. Also arriving in North Fork are three men who followed the bank's new safe, figuring any town needing a safe like that must have money to put into it. At the grand opening celebration of the bank, the three men discover the new bank guard is their old pal, Floyd. The three men try to convince Floyd to join them in robbing the bank, after all with a man working inside it should be easy.
#16 - The Raid
Season 1 - Episode 37 - Aired 6/9/1959
When renegade Apaches wound Lucas and kidnap Mark, Marshal Torrance joins with U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart to form a rescue posse.
#17 - Young Englishman
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/23/1958
Lucas gets in trouble when he accuses the foreman of a neighboring ranch of rustling some of his cattle.
#18 - Boomerang
Season 1 - Episode 39 - Aired 6/23/1959
When a rancher dies after the bank forecloses the mortgage on his property, his son blames the banker for his father's death.
#19 - The Woman
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 5/5/1959
An unfounded rumor causes North Fork's outspoken feminist schoolteacher to be attacked by a mob of angry townspeople.
#20 - The Money Gun
Season 1 - Episode 33 - Aired 5/12/1959
When his employer begins to suspect him of embezzlement, bookkeeper Asa Manning decides to hire a professional gunman to take care of the problem.
#21 - The Wrong Man
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/31/1959
Young Mark McCain is eager to help lawman Jay Jefferson, who has arrived in North Fork intent on killing an outlaw for the reward, whether he is the right man or not.
#22 - Duel of Honor
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/1958
When an Italian Count arrives in North Fork, his strange attire attracts the attention of Groder, a town bully. Groder trying to have fun with this stranger, destroys some of the Counts currency, mocks him, and tries to humiliate him. Eventually the Count challenges Groder to a duel and asks Lucas to be his Second. They meet at dawn and the Count, the offended party, brings his single shot dueling pistols, something Groder is unaccustomed to. Lucas as second must see that all rules of the duel are adhered to.
#23 - The Photographer
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/27/1959
Abel Goss, the photographer who took Lucas' wedding photograph, is in North Fork doing a portrait of Mark standing in the street. When Goss sees Col. Whiteside and his sidekick Jamison, he recognizes them as the butchers who tortured him and others while he was captive in their prisoners of war camp. When Lucas stops him from killing them, Goss swears to kill those men. Whiteside planned to call Goss out, but he had Jamison shooting from the upstairs hotel window, as his insurance. When the shots are fired, Whiteside is dead, shot in the back, and his gun hadn't been fired. Goss is arrested and at the trial Lucas and Mark have different testimonies. Mark reenacts the scene in the street, and Lucas backs Mark's theory , using the photographic negative Goss had shot of Mark.
#24 - The Hawk
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/14/1959
Young Mark manages to capture a hawk, but then falls into danger from a rattlesnake. When a stranger comes to his rescue, the grateful Mark invites the man home, unaware that he is on the run from the law.
#25 - The Sheridan Story
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/13/1959
Frank Blandon, a man with only one good arm, wanders on to the ranch. Lucas gave Blandon a job to "hire him and Mark a clear conscience". General Sheridan and his patrol wandered by and Lucas offered to let them stay the night at the ranch. Blandon pulled a gun on General Sheridan, as it turned out Blandon was a confederate soldier, who once had General Sheridan in his gun sight during the war. Blandon hung fire, but Sheridan did not hesitate and blew out Blandon's shoulder. General Sheridan shamed Blandon out of exacting his revenge, then lifted Blandon's spirit by praising Johnny Rebs' fighting spirit. Sheridan ordered that Blandon be taken to a hospital to have his shoulder properly mended, carrying out his Commander in Chief's last order to ""Bind up the Nation's wounds.""