The Man From Kansas : Slim comes striding angrily out of the sheriff's office and Jess is hot on his heels, struggling to keep up. As he continues to walk away, Slim looks back and says "Where are you going?" and Jess replies, "I'm tryin' to keep up with you but you've got them long le...." BAM! Slim has suddenly stopped and turned around and Jess plows right into him "Did you say 'whoa' or somethin'?".
Queen of Diamonds Jess wakes up in the house alone thinking that Slim is there. He throws a boot behind him onto Slim's bed to roust him out. Then someone starts pounding on the door. Momentarily confused, Jess looks around and discovers he's alone. Then he hops up, in his drawers no less, and pulls on one boot (he can't find the other) as he hobbles his
way to the kitchen door. This is so great. The first thing he thinks to do is put on his boots, even though he's dressed only in his civvies. At the door, it's Mose and they have a very cute
exchange about Jess sleeping his life away,yadda yadda yadda, while Jess stands there and turns blue from freezing to death. It
ends with Mose making coffee and Jess stumbling off saying "I'll see if I
can find my pants."
"Did you say 'whoa' or somethin'?"
Jess in the sack
"Ease off! I'm comin'!"
"What do you want?"
Another great scene from that same episode is the one at the beginning when Jess is doing the "outside" chores and Slim is doing the "inside" chores, and never the twain shall meet.
Jess struggles through the hungry chickens to the back door with a full basket of laundry that he's just taken off the line. He can't knock so he kicks the door. Slim comes to the door in an apron, but he won't let Jess in because he has mud on his boots and Slim has just mopped the floor. Jess get's frustrated and just dumps the laundry basket into Slim's arms and stalks off. Slim puts it down and goes after him. "You're just settin' up and beggin' for it, aren't you?". As they're squaring off against each other, Jess is kicking chickens away, and they finally realize how silly it all is, and they begin to laugh. What a great episode that.
Cactus Lady This episode is full of great moments. An old girlfriend of Jess' had come looking for him and he doesn't want to have anything to do with her. She almost got him killed once. After a nighttime escapade involving the girl, a cow and a mud hole, Jess rides up to the ranch house, covered with mud, soaked from head to toe, and mad as a hornet. He leaps off his horse and begins shedding hat, gun belt etc, and then gets into the outdoor shower fully clothed. He slams the door, a piece of it breaks off in his hand, he slams it again and then pulls the rope releasing the water. The next sound you hear is Jess' anguished scream (no, not a girly scream) as the cold water hits him.
The Fortune Hunter At the end of the episode, Slim is saying goodbye to his girlfriend who is going off to college. As the stage pulls out and Slim watches wistfully, Jess comments that she's going to go off to college to get smart and then she'll want to marry a man with brains. It takes a minute for the comment to sink in, but when Slim realizes he's been insulted, Jess starts running with Slim in hot pursuit. Slim tackles him and throws him into the watering trough. Jess wrestles Slim into it as well and is able to climb out himself. Jess is soaked through and laments "...and it ain't even Saturday!"
Killer Without Cause At the end, Jess and Slim are working on fences. Slim is holding a large pole while Jess pounds it with a sledgehammer. A visitor rides up and they talk for a minute and then the man rides away. Jess, deep in thought, watches the man ride away. Slim says, "You think I'm just going to stand here holding this thing all day?" Jess comes back to himself and mutters a small "oh, yeah", and continues hammering. Okay, so you had to be there, but that little "oh yeah" was so underplayed and subtle and natural. It was truly a case of not being what he said, but how he said it.
Okay, a favorite Slim moment from the same episode. Slim is trying to help a former girlfriend of Jess' fix herself up to attract Jess. Slim loans her one of his mother's dresses and helps her put it on, but it's a tight fit. She says, "I thought you said I was the same size as your mother" to which he replies, "Well, there's a little more to you than I thought." He goes on to help her with her hair using a Godey's Lady's Book as a guide. He ends up putting her hair up with bailing wire that he gets out of the barn. What a man!
Slim, putting Troy's hair up with bailing wire.
The "happy" reunion between Jess and Troy
Shadow of the Past It's morning in Laramie and Jess, who is acting sheriff, has had a hard night. He spent the night on the floor of a storage shed where he had been left after being beaten up by three guys. (Hey! They surprised him! It could happen!) So the next morning Mose comes looking for him and he's at the jail just as Jess comes trudging across the street towards him. Jess is just a tad the worse for wear. Mose asks what happened and Jess says "I fell down, Mose" and Mose replies, "Fell down what? Pike's Peak?" "Very funny, Mose, very funny." Jess isn't having any of it. He insists he fell down and Mose, although he knows better, goes along with it.
After Mose leaves, Jess goes inside and checks his rifle. It's broken, so he grabs another one and loads it. Every gesture, every movement is purposeful and deliberate. He's royally pissed and now he's loaded for bear. He stalks out of the sheriff's office and strides down the street towards the saloon. The tracking shot of Jess walking down the street with fire in his eye is a masterpiece. Townsfolk are getting out of his way, and turning to watch him (who wouldn't?). When he gets to the saloon, he finds the town leaders waiting for him. To Jess' great surprise, they are there to tell him that they support him and what can they do to help? Jess is truly touched and gets a little choked up, "Right now I feel about nine feet tall." A great couple of scenes in a great episode.
Going after the bad guys.
"I feel about nine feet tall.
This is also the episode that we find out that not only is Jess' sister alive, but she's also somehow become his older sister, instead of his younger sister (Fugitive Road). Anyhoo, we love when Jess first sees her. He's stunned because for years he's thought she was dead. He cautiously takes her hand as if he's afraid she'll vaporize. "I-I thought you were dead."
"I-I thought you were dead."
Jess and his sister, Francie
The Mountain Men This episode is notable for a few things. The guest stars are Dan Duryea (again), Jason Evers, and a very young and almost unrecognizable Alex Cord (his name wasn't Cord then tho). It's also notable for one of the most charming scenes between Jess and Slim ever done. They're lamenting the fact that they, the men of the house, are being asked by Daisy to paint the barn, a chore they obviously would do anything else rather than. They both profess to have lots of work "out there" to do, and then they meet, after "all that work" is done, for a mid-afternoon snooze in the sunshine. Oh yeah, the rest of the episode was good too.
Confederate Express This episode is notable for a few great Jess and Slim scenes. The partnership and caring is really evident throughout, as they both try to help a stranger who saved Jess. Unfortunately, the stranger is shown to be unworthy of the guys' loyalty, but along the way, we're treated to Jess and Slim at their most noble.
"Now, I don't mind hard
work. It's what keeps a man in shape."
"Truer words were never spoken, Jess"
Company Man Slim is pressured by an agent of the stage line to fire Jess. He of course, refuses and stands behind Jess one hundred percent. Jess, however, feels it might be in everyone's best interest if he left, to save Slim trouble with the stage line. Slim has a heart-to-heart with a depressed, and frankly feeling-sorry-for-himself Jess, and manages to pull him out of his funk with a few well-chosen words of friendship.
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