Episode Guide - The Friendship

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Title: The Friendship

Episode No.: 74                 Season: 3

Summary: A prisoner on a chain gang saves Joe’s life and in return, Joe manages to get him freed from prison. But things do not go smoothly – hey! This is the Ponderosa after all – did you really expect anything else?

You’ll like this if: you’re a Joe fan and enjoy seeing him as a mature, responsible and caring individual, sticking up for the underdog. And if you like episodes in which the whole family feature.

Synopsis: Joe is out riding his new horse, Concho when the prison guard shoots his rifle right beside Joe. His foot caught in the stirrup, Joe is dragged along the ground, but his life saved by Danny Kidd, who is working on the chain gang. In return, Joe asks Danny what he can do to help him and Danny tells Joe to get the chains off him. With help from Ben, Joe proceeds to do just this and Danny is released into Joe’s custody. Danny comes back to the Ponderosa where Joe resolves to help him adjust to life on the outside

The first thing Danny does is save Concho’s life (he could have a good career here), thus earning himself the horse as his own and cementing his friendship with Joe – nothing like two men boding over hot, steamy blankets and a glossy black horse….

During a party at the ranch Danny meets Ann Carter, who seems to quite fancy him. Ann’s father is unhappy to learn (via two ranch hands) that Danny is a convict. Adam and Joe confront the men after Carter storms off and Adam sacks them. After the party, the two men start a fight with Joe and Danny, where the latter is unrelentingly brutal and almost drowns one of the men in the horse trough. Ann Carter returns to see Danny and when he kisses her more passionately than she expects, and tears her blouse, she runs off. Meeting Joe, she tells him half the story, arousing his protective and chivalrous nature. Joe tells Danny he is taking him back to the prison, for abusing his trust, whereupon Danny knocks Joe out and runs away. Joe goes after Danny and they fight. Joe tells Danny he must make up his own mind. On the way home he meets his family and as Ben resolves to go after Danny, they see him riding towards them, willing to come back and face whatever punishment Ben decides upon. Ben tells him to get his chores done, and Joe and Danny race each other back to the ranch.


Clothes:

Ben is wearing his aubergine shirt and long neckerchief.

Hoss has on his usual shirt and tan waistcoat.

Adam is seen in his customary black, although he models a white shirt and string tie at the party

Joe has on his usual green jacket, short trousers combination. He, too, models a white shirt and string tie combo, but his tie is longer than Adam’s.

Danny is originally wearing a filthy white shirt and hideously shaped hat that denote his lowly position in life, but is then given Joe’s cast-offs. The mystery of what happened to Joe’s dark blue shirt and black hat from the first season is solved here – they were given to Danny. Waste not want not! Well, Ben didn’t get to be one of the wealthiest men in Nevada by not watching the pennies, did he?


JPM: A stunning JPM that will get the pulse of all red-blooded females beating at a brisk adagio tempo. Pa anxiously bathes Joe’s head after his beloved son has been knocked out for an hour. However, there is no blood and Joe has just sustained a Cartwright Concussion, a mysterious ailment known only in the realms of Bonanza, induced by a hard blow to the head and instantly inducing unconsciousness, but with absolutely no other side effects! A loving hand cupped to the nape of Joe’s neck tells us that Ben was desperately worried about him, while Adam and Hoss hover protectively in the background. However, the effect is slightly dissipated by the fact that all three older men happily trot off to bed about three minutes after Joe returns to consciousness, thus slightly negating all the angst and leaving the poor lad alone.

Adam: first seen polishing a saddle, but not looking very enthusiastic about it. I bet he’s wondering why the bunkhouse always does a bunk when there are menial chores to be done. He could do with putting a little more elbow grease into it! He is very supportive of Joe and Danny during the scene at the party.

Joe: What a showcase for Mike! He looks gorgeous as always, even when being dragged by his horse, thus proving one can be athletic and unfeasibly handsome at the same time - a rare gift, shown to perfection here! He is so vulnerable looking while lying unconscious on the sofa and wears his cuts and grazes well after the fight with Danny.

Hoss: barely features, but looks quite worried a good deal of the time. The thought that poor little Danny in the orphanage only got desert once a month seems to give him a great deal of pain. Or else it was indigestion. Comes over all self-righteous with Joe when the poor poppet has just regained consciousness, but is dim again in the end scene. Poor Dan – such a talented actor but sadly neglected in this episode.

Ben: the concerned father, but shows that he trusts Joe, even if his actions do cause him great worry. This episode clearly shows why the poor man went grey!

Token Female Interest: Ann Carter has to be one of the most annoying females out. It is an unusually tolerant viewer who does not want to give her a good, hard slap.
Ann wears a blue dress but manages to avoid dying. She deserves everything she gets. An annoying little flirt, who leads Danny on – and why? She is rich, he is a lowly ranch hand. Given that both Adam and Joe are clearly available, why doesn’t she make a play for one of them?


Marvellous Medicine: Plain water. Joe’s head is bathed with what looks like a bone-dry cloth, but it seems to work. Joe does dip the cloth into the water and touch it to the back of his head and it invokes an instant cure. But then, it was just a Cartwright Concussion, which is much more convenient than a normal one. So the rest of the family is quite happy to toddle off to bed, leaving poor Joe on his own. A convenient plot-line which lets Joe be all impulsive! Whoopee! No complaints on that score.


Where Am I?: Why are convicts from Yuma working on the Ponderosa? Was the old West so law-abiding that this was the nearest penitentiary or could someone not be bothered to do any research? And Joe and Danny seem to make the journey back to the Ponderosa in under two days. What on earth were they feeding the horses? Performance enhancing drugs?

The horse trough has migrated from its traditional position beside the porch and is now handily located beside the barn. Which actually makes an awful lot more sense. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t stay there for long.

We see inside the bunkhouse for once – but no clue as to where on the Ponderosa it is situated.


Continuity? What continuity?: Mike Landon tried very hard to show he didn’t know Teller and Stevens were creeping out of the barn, but for once, isn’t entirely successful.

Joe’s hat falls off the credenza with a dreadful thud when he comes in to see Ben, but both men continue on regardless. What on earth was the script-girl doing during that take? And did the scene in the barn between Danny and Ann take place while Joe was inside chatting to Ben about the responsibilities Joe had taken on? Because if so, Joe had a very swift change of heart! This really wasn’t clear at all. And we could all see if was a toy soldier that Danny was carrying around with him, so why did we get the appalling martial music every time it appeared?


Have You Been Following the Plot?:

Dean Jones is a familiar face to Walt Disney aficionados, appearing in both the Herbie (Love Bug) films and the Shaggy DA.


Norm Addler (Teller) played Polk in Breed of Violence. Obviously the Cartwrights didn’t check those job references too closely!

Ed Faulkener (Stevens) later appears in Credit for a Kill.

The famous Chinese lanterns make an appearance at this party, too, for as we all know, you can’t have a party on the Ponderosa without the lanterns! Where do they store them in between? And just who are all those other guests – including the elderly lady Joe and Adam chivalrously lead around the dance floor?


For Your Eyes Only
Just watch closely when Joe and Danny are tending to Concho. The camera zooms in on Danny, so that Joe is only seen from the waist-down. Magnificent! Non pareil!! Bravo! Encore un fois!


You Can Quote Me On That!

"Joseph, sometimes you make me very angry." – Ben (said with more than a hint of weary resignation)
"No matter how old a man gets, he can always learn something new." – Ben, tacitly acknowledging that Joe has been right all along and that sometimes you have to follow your heart. Logic can only go so far – emotions are the more powerful force. Without them, you are nothing.
Ben: "There go two very wealthy young men."
Hoss: "What do ya mean, Pa?"
Ben: "They have something not all the money in the world can buy. . . . It's called friendship."


The Crucial Questions no-one Asks: Adam says he got the doctor to look at Concho. Has Paul Martin got a new side-line to help pay the bills, as a horse doctor? Personally, I’d rather prefer the two specialities were kept quite separate, not having four stomachs, like a cow!!

How does Mr Carter know Bob Stevens’ name?

Why exactly are the Cartwrights having a party? And watch when the music during the party starts up again - how did that couple know exactly which tune was going to be played after the confrontation?
 

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