Have Gun - Will Travel (TV Series) Full Circle (1960) User Reviews

Have Grudge, Will carry

[zsenorsock · 6/10 · 20 March 2007]

Casting again hurts what could have been a good episode. Paladin responds to a call for help from Simon (Adam Williams) an old friend of his that set him up to be killed and hung him out to dry to save his own skin three years prior. Simon is in trouble again, and the only one that can save him is Paldin, who has the only proof that Simon is innocent.

Barbara Baxley plays Simon's adoring girlfriend. She's really good, as she was in her prior appearance "Killer's Widow". She just seems to have a problem picking the right guys--the first was a killer and a thief, this guy is a worm and a cheat. Her scenes with Boone are highlights of the episode.

Boone is great facing down Cabell (Stewart Bradley) the man who's after Simon, and has a terrific moment that seems really out of character for Paladin when he burns the only proof that Simon is innocent in front of his eyes. I kept waiting for Paladin to reveal it was just a copy, but no. He's still so sore at Simon for the betrayal and crimes he did commit that he's ready to let him pay for a crime he didn't commit.

The real problem here is Adam Williams. Never, not for a second do I buy him as "an old friend of Paladin". There's nothing charming, amusing, intellectually stimulating or interesting about him. Paladin tends to choose his friends carefully. I cannot for the life of me imagine why he ever would have been friends with this guy.

Heve Gun - Will Travel -- Full Circle

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 3 November 2013]

"$5.00. He got himself killed for $5.00."

Paladin is conflicted when called upon by an old acquaintance's mistreated girl, Lilly. Lilly (Barbara Baxley) has always been in love with a cowardly, back-stabbing, no-good crook named Simon (Adam Williams, always adept at loathsome hoods); He has preyed upon her love for him for quite some time. Simon sold Paladin a map to a goldmine he either stole or won in a poker game (it seems the former is the case considering Simon's shady history) from the Cabel brothers. One of the brothers came hunting for Simon and the map, but Simon tricked Paladin into staying in his room (knowing, no doubt, that Cabel would be targeting him in the room) resulting in gunplay…Paladin won the gunfight in self-defense. But the other Cabel brother, Roy (Stewart Bradley), has discovered that Simon is hiding in a shack in some wink-and-you'll-miss-it town in Idaho (the perfect kind of place to hide away), planning to get vigilante justice. Pitiable Lilly, who just can't get it through her thick skull that Simon is using her as he has so many times in the past, begs and pleads with Paladin to help him against Roy. But Simon has fled the premises in drag in the past so what's to say he won't leave Paladin to fight his battle once again? Seeing Williams' Simon as the slimy scumbag misusing the adoration of Baxley's pathetic, long-suffering Lilly proves difficult, especially when you can tell that Paladin is understandably sore and wrought with teeming bitterness for Simon's treachery. Paladin's inescapable pity on Lilly benefits Simon, and this is part of the story's ultimate tragedy…Lilly has put so much stock in Simon's innocence and cries for help, she is left with nothing in return for such loyalty. Paladin's struggle with allowing Simon to get what's coming to him and Lilly's begging (he obviously cares for her, but tries with all his might to defy her knowing Simon's a lost cause) for him to help is at the center of the story's conflict. An engrossing episode with an ending that leaves practically everyone damaged. The episode also features an elderly man, who essentially claims to run the town (what little town there is), and his dimwitted sons, who get involved in the plot, earning the ire of Paladin. Seeing Paladin destroy by fire a signed deed as proof that Simon was with him during the time of a crime he's accused of is an intriguing moment...rarely does Paladin do something so morally dubious as this, which explains just how angered he is with Simon.