Ex-Tory soldier John Gist (Ford Rainey) returns from Canada post-Revolution to Boonesborough to settle with one of his sons. He does not receive a warm reception from the townspeople or his Patriot son.
Fess Parker directs the hour, but also puts in screen time as some recompense for the previous episode's excuse for filler. Character actor Ford Rainey, in his third DB outing, is Tory with the unique theory that the Revolution was fitting of his soldiering up until the Declaration of Independence, but that the DOI was a step too far compelling him to join the redcoats. Nonetheless, Rainey is a convincing frontiersman in any of his many Western role.
Vietnam is the likely undercurrent here in a parable of how we all need to respect and get along with those who differ with us on questions of war and peace, which is easy advice to toss off by those who have never lived through a civil war such as the American Revolution. Since they were prompt to form a support network whenever the Crown forces pulled into view, neither George Washington nor the rest of the Patriot leadership spent much effort worrying about Tory welfare, and knew full well if the rebels lost that the loyalists would wreak unrestricted vengeance.
The episode is dated by the dialogue as taking place during the mid-1780's Articles of the Confederation period, by which point 200,000 American Loyalists had fled to other parts of the British Empire. Some Loyalists who had quietly favored the Crown managed to stay the US after the war and blended in to the new Republic as Federalists.
Becky and Israel take up a fair amount of time in what is yet another around-the-fort episode, but its one with strong political and historical flavor and strongly counterbalances some of Season 5's more inane outings. If DB was compelled by the national less-violence-on-tv nattering to do more human-interest stories, this was one of the better roads to take.
Fess Parker directs the hour, but also puts in screen time as some recompense for the previous episode's excuse for filler. Character actor Ford Rainey, in his third DB outing, is Tory with the unique theory that the Revolution was fitting of his soldiering up until the Declaration of Independence, but that the DOI was a step too far compelling him to join the redcoats. Nonetheless, Rainey is a convincing frontiersman in any of his many Western role.
Vietnam is the likely undercurrent here in a parable of how we all need to respect and get along with those who differ with us on questions of war and peace, which is easy advice to toss off by those who have never lived through a civil war such as the American Revolution. Since they were prompt to form a support network whenever the Crown forces pulled into view, neither George Washington nor the rest of the Patriot leadership spent much effort worrying about Tory welfare, and knew full well if the rebels lost that the loyalists would wreak unrestricted vengeance.
The episode is dated by the dialogue as taking place during the mid-1780's Articles of the Confederation period, by which point 200,000 American Loyalists had fled to other parts of the British Empire. Some Loyalists who had quietly favored the Crown managed to stay the US after the war and blended in to the new Republic as Federalists.
Becky and Israel take up a fair amount of time in what is yet another around-the-fort episode, but its one with strong political and historical flavor and strongly counterbalances some of Season 5's more inane outings. If DB was compelled by the national less-violence-on-tv nattering to do more human-interest stories, this was one of the better roads to take.
