MovieChat Forums > The Big Valley (1965) Discussion > Days of Wrath

Days of Wrath

posted 8 years ago by powersroc
22 replies | jump to latest

Trivia for this episode from January 08,1968 : The train coach we see Jerrod & Beth in is the same one used on The Wild Wild West that Jim & Artie have as a headquarters.

The town of Rimfire where the climax takes place would reappear in a future episode.In fact "Rimfire"is the name of the episode from February 16,1968.
The episode also served as a backdoor pilot for a weekly series.The guest star was Van Williams(The Green Hornet)who plays the sheriff who has a young son.

Sandra Smith(Beth Barkley)was the guest star on the final episode of Star Trek:TOS called Turnabout Intruder.

Michael Strong(Cass Hyatt) was also a guest star on ST:TOS on the episode What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Jon Lormer(Doc Saxton)was a guest star twice on Star Trek.
He appeared in the very first pilot of ST called The Cage & later re-edited into The Menagerie.
He was also on the episode The Return of the Archons.

This is one of the very few episodes where we see the Barkley's kitchen.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

I might be wrong on this, but I think this was one of the few times on this show when a hand-held camera was used (in the scene when Jarrod is goading Hyatt to draw on him). The big use of the hand-held in TV came in with Hill Street Blues, but that was some ten years later.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

I gave this episode a very high score on the IMDb but in my review, I mentioned what I consider to be some of the story's main flaws.

The first half is too rushed because they're trying to speed up and get to her death, so they can tell the revenge tale. But even the vengeance part is misplaced, because it is not clearly established how Jarrod would have wronged the man, to make him want to kill Jarrod's wife.

I think people who watch the episode are required to overlook several plot holes. And that's kind of easy to do, thanks to Richard Long's superior performance.

[–] peregrine630 8 years ago

Ok, I just read your review. Regarding Cass Hyatt's grievance, Jarrod worked as the assistant DA early in his career. This is stated in both "Widow's Web" and "Time After Midnight". He was also the one who had prosecuted Keno Nash in "Under a Dark Star".

Hyatt's pardon doesn't mean he wasn't guilty. Pardons were a common method of releasing prisoners in the era before the parole system was implemented. They were used as an incentive for good behavior but also as a political tool, so people often served very different sentences for similar crimes.

My feeling about this episode is that it's really unfair to Jarrod. All of the brothers have revenge stories, but only Jarrod's is portrayed as this terrible, horrible thing even though (or because?) his is the only one that's personal.

Hyatt has been stalking Jarrod since he got out of jail. He takes a shot at him the day after they meet. He bushwhacks him on the road to Rimfire. The law won't help. His family won't help. (You'd think Nick of all people would be a little upset about someone taking a shot at his brother but he apparently couldn't be bothered this episode. Instead of doing something constructive, the family decides to lecture at him.)

When they finally meet up, he does give Hyatt a chance. Hyatt is armed, and Jarrod doesn't shoot him when he throws away his gun. So to that end, it's a "fair" fight, which is more than Hyatt ever gave him. And what's the point of the writer giving Jarrod all these little moments of conscience if Jarrod isn't going to make that choice when the time comes? Very intense but very frustrating episode.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

Thanks peregrine for commenting. I had forgotten Jarrod started as an assistant D.A. Is a reason ever given for his switch to being a defense attorney?

At first, I thought maybe Jarrod had witnessed one of Hyatt's crimes and testified against him at the trial where he was found guilty, but the writers didn't mention that.

I agree it's a frustrating episode, because in a way, both his brothers should go with Jarrod to track down the killer.

If I had written the episode, I would have added another angle. Since we don't know much about the bride's past, except that she came west to teach-- I would have a subplot where someone has followed her from back east. So there is some doubt about Hyatt being the actual culprit.

As it stands, the episode's ending is a bit too tidy-- how Jarrod happened to be right that Hyatt was guilty. But it would have been a little more thought-provoking if maybe Jarrod had been wrong and there was another person who wanted Beth Barkley dead for leaving him and marrying Jarrod.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

I don't think Jarrod wanted his brothers going with him on this. He didn't want any voices of reason anywhere around him. All of the voices of reason were telling him to just let it go, be sensible and lawyerly and realize that Hyatt was going to get away with it and there was nothing he could do about it. So he just took off and his own and did not plan to come back.

Tough to watch him go down the drain like that, but that was the whole point of the story. Jarrod was not above turning into a monster. Maybe he was the calm, reasonable one for the most part, but even he had his breaking point. He broke, and that was the lesson he had to learn. Even he could break.

[–] spasek 8 years ago

The story would have obviously worked better if it had been a two-part episode, thus giving enough time for the set-up, characterization of Beth, and thus making the viewer feel even more for Jarrod's plight after she's killed.

We saw, fairly consistently, how the family members would actually try to talk the "Barkley" out of his/her feelings of anger or revenge.

Heath was outraged that the family, especially Victoria, would force him to deal with his grievance against Matt Bentell. None of them tried very hard to see it from his side. Instead, they forced him to deal with it.

Victoria pleads with Nick to back down after Heath is shot (and almost killed) in "My Son, My Son."

Heath, again, is alone when he meets another shady person from his past in "Hazard," who nearly cost him his life.

Heath, again, is actually initially looked upon as the problem in "By Fires Unseen" when Nick wrongfully attacks him for supposedly assaulting his fiance.

In Jarrod's case, I think there would likely have been the same situation had it been Heath or Nick. I think you really have to look at it from both sides to understand. I thought "Days of Wrath" was a brilliant character study of how, even someone like Jarrod, can lose it and be taken over by pure rage, which is why Victoria is pleading with that side of him; about how he's turning his back on everything he's ever stood for.

When you are in a position outside of the range of emotion, you typically have a clearer sense of things, but when you're in the thick of it, then rationale and judgment is compromised. For better or worse, the family in most cases, tried their best to save each other from the darkest part of themselves.

Or, say you were Nick/Heath. Would you help Jarrod find and kill Hyatt? (which would likely mean that Jarrod would go to prison for the rest of his life). Or would you try to stop him, despite understanding the rage and grief that he's going through, and that you yourself would feel if you were in his place?

[–] peregrine630 8 years ago

The story would have obviously worked better if it had been a two-part episode, thus giving enough time for the set-up, characterization of Beth, and thus making the viewer feel even more for Jarrod's plight after she's killed.

Beth is irrelevant. Her only purpose is to die as a pretext for Jarrod's behavior.

Heath was outraged that the family, especially Victoria, would force him to deal with his grievance against Matt Bentell. None of them tried very hard to see it from his side. Instead, they forced him to deal with it.

And look at how unpopular that episode is for exactly that reason.

Heath, again, is alone when he meets another shady person from his past in "Hazard," who nearly cost him his life.

Two differences: First, neither Bentell nor Gil Anders were acting maliciously. They didn't want Heath or anyone else to die. Second, both men were trying to make good in the here and now, years after they had crossed paths with Heath.

Heath, again, is actually initially looked upon as the problem in "By Fires Unseen" when Nick wrongfully attacks him for supposedly assaulting his fiance.

I've read this before elsewhere, but I don't see it. Eugene blames Heath because, like Nick, Eugene is quick to anger at any perceived slight to his family. Audra is upset because Nick was injured, and she seems totally unaware of the situation with Hester. Victoria sees what is going on with Hester but knows it is not her place to interfere in her adult sons' love lives.

I think there would likely have been the same situation had it been Heath or Nick.

I totally agree.

Or, say you were Nick/Heath. Would you help Jarrod find and kill Hyatt? (which would likely mean that Jarrod would go to prison for the rest of his life). Or would you try to stop him, despite understanding the rage and grief that he's going through, and that you yourself would feel if you were in his place?

I expect each character to act in accordance with his or her personality. I expect Victoria to lecture, and I expect Nick to take a more active approach because of the many times in the series that he advocates or attempts to "beat the truth out" of someone.

It's not a simple choice of go along with Jarrod or stop him. The Barkleys are always doing things for themselves when the law can't or won't help them, but we get no sense that the family is doing anything here. They don't seem at all concerned that Jarrod's life might still be in danger, and they don't seem at all perturbed that his wife was shot dead on their property.

[–] spasek 8 years ago

The point is that Beth could have been made more relevant, thus making a better story arc and making the audience feel the loss even more poignantly. I still feel that the episode works well. It just could have worked even better.

It isn't an unpopular episode in my book.

Bentell couldn't have cared less about what Heath wanted as he felt that he was only doing his job. He wasn't even remotely sorry, as per the episode again.

Eugene blames Heath, and you missed Victoria's hard glare at him as well.

A person's personality will often take a backseat depending upon the situation at hand. It was obvious that Jarrod made no bones about the fact that his intent was to kill Hyatt. That was what pitted the Barkleys against supporting him in his endeavor. Had his intent been to simply "bring Hyatt in" the Barkleys would have reacted differently. And given Victoria and Nick's reaction to just how badly they feel about the loss of Beth, I don't feel that that was overlooked. Nick, Victoria, and Heath are out to save Jarrod from himself. That's the point of the episode as well as Jarrod coming to terms with what the tragedy did to him and what it nearly cost him.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

[

i]My feeling about this episode is that it's really unfair to Jarrod. All of the brothers have revenge stories, but only Jarrod's is portrayed as this terrible, horrible thing even though (or because?) his is the only one that's personal. [/I]

Actually, I thought that was a pretty good angle in the story - Jarrod was always cool, calm and collected one. Having him be the one to go completely ballistic was a good twist, simply because he WASN'T the one you'd expect it of, and RL pulled it off really well. I'm not sure Breck could have played that kind of range, and I know Majors couldn't (he just didn't have the acting experience).

[–] spasek 8 years ago

I agree. Jarrod is the one you would least suspect of going ballistic, which is why the episode works so well; to demonstrate that when something horrible happens, that even someone like Jarrod can find himself consumed with grief and rage.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

One thing worth adding here is that Richard Long lost his first wife (Suzann Ball, a cousin of Lucille Ball's). At the time of her death, they had only been married a short while. It was very tragic, and I have a feeling he tapped into that when he played the scenes for this episode. So his anguish is very real, and it's a superior performance.

[–] spasek 8 years ago

Interesting. I didn't know that. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he drew upon those feelings. It would explain how he was able to make that performance so powerful and moving. You couldn't help but feel for him.

Personally, I think it was Long's best performance on the show, much like "Night of the Wolf" was Peter Breck's.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

I don't know if Long's own experience would have influenced his performance or not. Depends on which school of acting he was aligned with (Method or Meisner), and how raw his feelings still were. His first wife's death was extremely public - messes up your ability to mourn, that's for sure - so maybe some of his grief was still unresolved - maybe he used this episode to blast some of it away. Who knows? But the thing to remember is that he was an excellent actor - he could make you believe he was experiencing real, personal feelings, whether he was or not.

[–] spasek 8 years ago

Very true. It worked, regardless.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

I watched this episode again last night, and I think the marriage was hurried through because that wasn't the point of the episode. Jarrod's descent into monstrousness was the point - that this calm, collected man could break just like anybody else, when he thought he was above all that. He had to learn that he was not the man he thought he was. He was capable of being as awful or even more awful as anybody else (the only time he pauses, and that's only for a second, is when Hyatt's brother shouts at him "What makes you any better than him (Cast Hyatt)?" He had to learn he WASN'T any better than Cass Hyatt. The marriage was only the catalyst for that, so the rush through it made sense.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

The marriage was only the catalyst for that, so the rush through it made sense.

From a dramatic standpoint, the marriage set the stage for his loss and it was the trigger for his emotional responses. But a man like Jarrod Barkley is not going to begin his descent into madness at the snap of a finger. Beth should have been a recurring character, where she had been developed more-- so there was time to connect her to Jarrod, to the rest of the family and to the viewers. Or as I said, at the very least, a two-part episode where the first hour is about the courtship-- we have to see why she means so much to him. Otherwise she's like any other gal the Barkley boys fell for, and there's always another one around the bend. Because Beth is so sparsely defined, we cannot empathize much with Jarrod or feel his grief or pain like we should.

She didn't even have to marry him. She could have been a fiancee. Or we could have found out he had an ex-wife he married on a trip once that he never told the family about. Anything so there would have been a longer and deeper connection. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a contrivance to make him go mad, while sacrificing the integrity of the character and all he stands for.

And as quickly as he goes off the deep end, he is just as quickly cured at the end in the final scene. This side of Jarrod was never revisited again and it really should have become a thread in some of his later stories. That once he learned to go off the deep end, he could just as easily have returned to that dark sinister place-- if he wasn't careful.

So while I love Richard Long's incredible acting in this episode, the writing is off. Ultimately, the story is contrived, rushed, and then too easily wrapped up for me to accept it.

[–] spasek 8 years ago

I agree. The viewers want to feel what Jarrod is feeling. I pointed out in a previous post, that had they made it at least a two-part story, the audience would have felt the loss much more poignantly. The episode still stands quite powerfully as it is, but had they not chosen to rush it, it would have been even more effective.

[–] peregrine630 8 years ago

I think focusing on Beth's characterization misses the point that Jarrod is able to cope with his brother getting shot, his mother breaking down in the wilderness, his sister being held for ransom, an old law school chum murdered or seeing a client in danger of being lynched nearly every week. Not to mention a past that includes growing up on the frontier, serving in the Civil War, and watching his ambitious father build an empire only to be shot dead. To have the death of a romantic partner make him hell-bent on revenge just because True Love(TM) diminishes all of those things and makes Jarrod into a complete hypocrite.

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

In episodic TVland of the 1960s, everything evolved and got wrapped up in neat little packages in one episode (even though, if you ask me, that neat little denouement wasn't all that neat - the man was still deeply troubled, but of course, he was fine by the next episode). If that episode were made today, it would probably run over a couple months of episodes, if not an entire season or an entire series (take Gibbs and NCIS, for example). They do things differently now. I have lived through all these years, so I watched episodic TV change and I don't tend to judge "then" by "now." Besides, now there's always fanfic - you can write your own backstory and forward story and post it online. Or read it, if you can write. Some of it is awful, but some isn't bad.

[–] jarrodmcdonald-1 8 years ago

In episodic TVland of the 1960s, everything evolved and got wrapped up in neat little packages in one episode (even though, if you ask me, that neat little denouement wasn't all that neat - the man was still deeply troubled, but of course, he was fine by the next episode). If that episode were made today, it would probably run over a couple months of episodes, if not an entire season or an entire series (take Gibbs and NCIS, for example). They do things differently now. I have lived through all these years, so I watched episodic TV change and I don't tend to judge "then" by "now."

I just don't agree. It seems like you're over-generalizing. And it's easy to prove your statements wrong when we consider that Heath's introduction was not wrapped up in just one episode-- it was serialized over several episodes of the first season. And even after it was resolved, it was then dredged up again in the opening episode of the second season when another man claimed to be Heath's real father.

And around the same time, we had Andy and Helen's on-going courtship on The Andy Griffith Show. They would not marry until the first episode of Mayberry RFD. And what about The Fugitive, which spent four seasons of Richard Kimble trying to catch the one-armed man. So episodic TV writers in the 60s did not always wrap stories up in neat little packages.

In this case, they tried to pack too much into a 48-minute episode of The Big Valley, and it really doesn't work. Even a two-part episode would have seemed rushed but at least it would have been a little better. Anyway, we do not have to judge a show from "then" by the standards of "now." But we should not be trying to make excuses for a story the writers did not handle as well as they could have.

[–] elvisforever-633-689384 8 years ago

Lee majors said they were going to spend the first few episodes introducing the character of Heath and then move on. The BV was new and had to prove itself in the ratings and could not experiment with stories that needed time to tell. The ratings were not good in the first season so it was hard to formulate any long stories that would take up too many episodes. Many fans of the show wish they had prolonged some of the stories and so many endings left too many questions unanswered. Unfortunate but many fan fiction writers give their version to how shows should have ended. It was a good show for the 60's

[–] mlbroberts 8 years ago

There is truth in what you say about "then" versus "now" in Tv land. I just think it's far more common today for "episodic" tv to be more "carryover" than it used to be.

And actually, in watching some of the later BV episodes lately, I seem to notice a vague change in Jarrod's character - several of the post-Days of Wrath episodes have him keeping secrets a lot ("A Passage of Saints," "They Called Her Delilah," and of course, "The Secret" where his profession required he keep the secret) and he's often a bit more surly in general ("Delilah" where he hardly cracks a smile, "Deathtown" where he manhandles Kathie Brown just to get information out of her). His halo slips a little.