- THE JAIL AT JUNCTION FLATS
Original Airdate: November 9, 1958
Synopsis. In Broken Wheel, Wyoming, Bret bumps into the “new” Dandy Jim Buckley, who claims that he’s now making an honest living selling horses. Buckley promises Maverick double his money back if Bret joins him as his business partner. Reluctantly, Maverick loans Buckley $2,000―and is quite shocked when he sees that Dandy Jim is actually buying horses. But Buckley’s true colors show when he plants a rumor about a gold strike, then sells back the horses—at a profit—to anyone foolish enough to check out the “claim.” After Buckley pays Bret his share (then immediately steals it back), Maverick finds Dandy Jim locked inside an apparently impregnable jail in nearby Junction Flats, where Buckley is accused of shooting the sheriff’s nephew. In order to get his money back, Maverick must break Buckley out of jail.
“The Jail at Junction Flats” scored a 46 audience share when it first aired on the night of Nov. 9, 1958, a figure that made it the most-watched episode of Maverick to that point. Both “Gun-Shy” and “The Saga of Waco Williams” would top that mark within a matter of weeks.
Synopsis. Maverick befriends Lefty Dolan, a bank robber who rescued Bret from “a parcel of very disappointed poker players.” Their friendship is cut short when Lefty is gunned down by two other holdup men—but before he dies, Lefty tells Bret an incredible story. Several years earlier, he and three others had pulled a bank robbery in Dry Springs, Arizona. A man named Jed Ferris, who bore a slight physical resemblance to Lefty, was arrested and convicted for the crime. Lefty, whose conscience has bothered him over the fact that an innocent man has paid for his crime, asks Bret to do whatever he can to clear Jed’s name.