Above par episode, which follows the lines of a classic Western movie.
Its originality is to imagine that a top-notch Italian tailor has been been seized late in life by gold fever - his mine being called The Grail... It enables the story to straddle two almost opposite worlds, the refined San Francisco society, and the rough mining town where the gun rules. Actually, nobody straddles these two worlds more than Paladin himself... The world of the tailor shop is chiefly there, at the beginning and the end, for the sake of contrast : it suggests how inexperienced the heiress to the mine with the striking good looks is likely to be in the other world, as her cheated and now strangely deceased father has been before her. Paladin is there not only to protect her but to open her beautiful credulous eyes. When he tries, however, to convince her of the duplicity of the foreman, Bryan, in his presence, he strangely does not use all the proofs he has in his sleeves - namely, that he saw with his own eyes a number of miners "high-grade" - conceal ore, while Bryan was conveniently looking away from the practice with obviously inefficient controls. Why does not he mention that to Angela? Obviously, for the interest of the show, because if she was convinced then, it would forestall the final showdown in the mine. More sensibly, Paladin guesses that whatever his proofs Angela will keep doubts, the only way to dispel them being to oblige Bryan to throw the mask and show his true murdering self.
Its originality is to imagine that a top-notch Italian tailor has been been seized late in life by gold fever - his mine being called The Grail... It enables the story to straddle two almost opposite worlds, the refined San Francisco society, and the rough mining town where the gun rules. Actually, nobody straddles these two worlds more than Paladin himself... The world of the tailor shop is chiefly there, at the beginning and the end, for the sake of contrast : it suggests how inexperienced the heiress to the mine with the striking good looks is likely to be in the other world, as her cheated and now strangely deceased father has been before her. Paladin is there not only to protect her but to open her beautiful credulous eyes. When he tries, however, to convince her of the duplicity of the foreman, Bryan, in his presence, he strangely does not use all the proofs he has in his sleeves - namely, that he saw with his own eyes a number of miners "high-grade" - conceal ore, while Bryan was conveniently looking away from the practice with obviously inefficient controls. Why does not he mention that to Angela? Obviously, for the interest of the show, because if she was convinced then, it would forestall the final showdown in the mine. More sensibly, Paladin guesses that whatever his proofs Angela will keep doubts, the only way to dispel them being to oblige Bryan to throw the mask and show his true murdering self.
