Agatha Corey (Nina Foch) plays the powerful widow of a town named after her husband. The inbred townies worship her, because she owns everything and they are too lazy to move somewhere else.
She has two sons, one of them is named Billy Joe (but they say it like Billy Joel), played by Kevin Coughlin, who died in 1976 at the age of 30. Billy Joe is not too bright, but he plays an important role by being honest to Marshal Dillon, and telling him how his brother is innocent.
His brother is played by Thomas Hunter, whose greatest fame was in European and Italian Westerns. He has a very poignant look, which makes his confessions of love for the woman that he killed very sincere and sad.
He also looks a lot like Michael McDonald, who used to play the cry-baby Stuart Larkin on Mad TV. Thanks to the Nina Foch, who plays Agatha Corey, the controlling mother, it is hard not to laugh and think of Stuart Larkin every time I see this episode of Gunsmoke. On Mad TV, Stuart's controlling mother was played by Mo Collins.
Ruth Roman plays the bar owner. She has a big secret to share, and eventually, everyone finds out that there is more than one Corey mother in town. Roman was a very talented actress, like Foch, and they hate each other's guts with the kind of realistic passion that only great actors can create. Their fire makes this boring story a lot better than it should be.
The last motivating force in this episode is the gorgeous Jo Ann Harris, who plays the sister of the accused killer (sinister Bruce Glover). She runs to Dodge to get Matt Dillon involved, and is willing to risk his life to bring Justice to Coreyville.
One thing that I did not like is that Dillon gets an incredible beating from the townies, but he does not arrest any of them, or get even. In various other episodes, Dillon occasionally got beaten up by locals who were loyal to bad characters, and Dillon was willing to turn the other cheek. It would have been nice to see him exact some revenge on occasion.