YMMV / Bonanza S 08 E 16

• Values Dissonance: Remember that Bonanza was set in the Old West and these were the 1860s, when prominent citizens often acted (and not just in latter-day drama) as lawmen when they believed the sheriff and/or deputies weren’t getting results. Such as here, where Joe — frequently at odds already with Deputy Clem Foster over his effectiveness in enforcing the law — takes matters into his own hands when, perhaps in a grief-stricken haze over the violent death of his girlfriend — he takes matters into his own hands, believing Clem let a murderer loose. Clem represents today’s attitudes, that he was doing what he could but short of direct evidence he can’t hold Horace Perkins in connection with Sally Bristol’s death. The tactics Joe uses to tie circumstantial evidence to Perkins — he left a previous city shortly after being questioned in the death of a young woman — and the psychological torture he uses would likely have Joe jailed (for at least harassment, if not assault) and Clem little alternative but — unless direct evidence were later found (there were also no witnesses) — to let Perkins go with zero charges filed.