Although the murder at the end feels tacked on and rather intrusive on the overall plot of the episode, I think the character piece has enough going for it to overcome a bit too many developments.
Richard Whorf gets a nice part as an artist from New York City struggling with the ill effects of alcohol addiction since the "magic of the brush" has left him. He's commissioned to paint the portrait of Midge Ware's Hannah Shaw, a woman of affluence with a pa (Dayton Lummis) who runs a large cattle ranch and demands for his little spoiled brat
erm, daughter
to receive the best, not some drunk has-been artist. Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) is acting marshal as Micah (Paul Fix) is gone out of town. Meanwhile, the Shaw's head rancher, Ben Travis (Ed Nelson, a familiar face in all kinds of television), is up to no good, jealous of the artist, Jeremiah Crowley, wanting him out of the picture so he can try and court the uninterested Hannah for himself.
I think the point of the murder development was to challenge Lucas' ability to handle the marshal post as the locals are stirred up by the killing of one of their own. A mob wants justice and Lucas has to keep them at bay while also trying to prove Jeremiah isn't a killer. Jeremiah's *bout with the bottle* is exploited by a gamely devious Travis who looks to have him embarrassingly drunk again instead of rehabilitated (Lucas wisely had Jeremiah painting the town jail to keep his attention on anything else other than booze). I liked Whorf in the episode as he clearly underlies the pratfalls of alcoholism, and the writing emphasizes how someone so talented as the Jeremiah character would succumb to the lure of liquor when Lucas and his boy, Mark (Johnny Crawford) speak about it before bedtime. Also established is just how rotten Travis is as a human being, enticing Jeremiah into a saloon and putting the booze right in his face (the way this is shot, with the whiskey poured in a shot glass right up close and Whorf's face clearly fighting off the allure so evident and desirable, is solid work by all involved) when Lucas is off to the ranch after Mark tells him of a cow that grazed in the wrong vegetation. At its best, I think the episode works when Lucas sees Jeremiah as a reclamation project; Jeremiah gets a shot at redemption. Lucas using Jeremiah to draw out a killer is a clever touch that not only belies a mob of folks provoking an escalating situation, but it provides an artist a chance to use the brush to possibly rescue himself.
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