"Halloween II" is the sixth episode of season 3 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Dr. Mike is reading Frankenstein to Matthew, Colleen, and Brian with Sully and Wolf. After Brian helps John, a stranger he discovers living in the woods, escape a trap, and feeds him Grace's pie. Brian tells John his Ma is a doctor. Later, Jake and Hank come looking for the "monster roaming around" and Matthew rides with them to divert attention away from the homestead. Sully is wary about John because is a stranger. On Brian's advice, after John comes to the barn with Brian, Dr. Mike helps John, a man who won't speak a word. John at first refuses Plastic Surgery but when Dr. Mike discovers more about John when his engine number, 649, is traced to a Denver bound train from Kansas City, which fell off a bridge with no survivors, he gives permission. She helps him deal with outer and inner scars when she operates on his maimed face and helps him deal with his guilt about the train wreck that caused his disfigurement to his face – as engineer of the train, he feels somehow responsible for the accidental crash. Sully tells Dorothy that Dr. Mike is "fixin' him up" and tells to not get involved and forget it, but she tells everyone in the town about it. After John can't sleep, Brian reads Frankenstein to him. Meanwhile, Loren, Jake, Dorothy, Hank, Horace, and Myra have a meeting in secret about what do about him. They stir up the entire town to find John and John has to escape the clinic and with Brian makes it to the bridge but Dorothy tells everyone they are escaping. John and Brian face them, and together with Colleen and Matthew, Dr. Mike rebukes everyone for their lack of sympathy and compassion and tells them they "ought to be ashamed of themselves" and that "they are the monsters". Dorothy comes to apologize to Dr. Mike and tells her she did some searching and found his name and the fact that the bridge was washed out. Dr. Mike goes to John and convinces him that he needs love in the inside where the real scars are. He goes with Dr. Mike, Matthew, Colleen and Brian who help him cross the bridge and introduce him to Loren, Dorothy, Jake, Hank, Grace and Robert E.
This episode provides examples of:
- Guilt Complex: John struggles with feelings of guilt over the train wreck.
- Halloween Episode: The second such episode, as you might guess from the title.
- Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: The train wreck caused both for John.
- Shaming the Mob: Dr. Mike does this again when the townspeople pursue John.
- Take It to the Bridge: The train wreck occurred at a washed out bridge, and the episode ends with the confrontation at the bridge, and with John crossing the bridge to meet the townspeople who had been chasing him.
