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CBS (Ended 1996)
Episode Guide > Season 1, Episode 20

Picket Fences: Rights of Passage

 

Episode Score

 
7.8 Good
11 votes

Your Score

Air Date

Thursday April 15, 1993

Production Code

9K19

Episode Summary

A group of heavily armed Chippewa Indians declares war on Rome and takes over the courthouse, as a dispute over enlarging the golf course gets violent. Ginny accuses Jill of discrimination when she agrees to give an abnormally young boy a controversial growth treatment. Matthew stands up for Zach against the school bully.

  •  
    8 Great

    A group of Indians take over the courthouse in a protest. Jill gives HGH to a small child and Ginny protests. Matthew fights a bully to defend Zach. hide show

    Overall, this was a good episode but I have a problem with two of the storylines.

    First, the fight with the bully. Early in the first season, Matthew and Zach both fought off bullies using karate, which their father taught them. It seems that the writers forgot that fact when coming up with this fight story. So why couldn't Zach deal with the bully himself? And, if he needed his big brother, why couldn't Matthew fight better?

    Second, the HGH protests. If Ginny knows that Jill is giving the growth hormone and she knows to which patient, why doesn't she protest to the mother of the child receiving the injections?

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  •  
    9.1 Superb

    The local Chippewa tribe takes the county to court over plans to expand a golf course on the ground where their ancestors had been buried. When things don't go in their favor, the Chippewa take over the courthouse in an act of war. hide show

    The last couple of episodes are really taking big strides in this show. After the local Chippewa tribe fails to get Judge Bone to rule in their favor about a golf course, sixteen tribesmen take over the courthouse in a formal declaration of war. The golf course would unearth the ancestral remains of Chippewa people and the chief has had enough of being bullied. Jimmy at first defies the city council by not trying to violently take back the courthouse, but after negotiations don't work out, both by him and then by Judge Bone, he has no choice. The Rome sheriff's station, much to their misfortune, must reclaim the courthouse. Just as the police after about to win, the chief comes out, trying to invoke the officers into shotting him. Kenny wounds him, but the chief suffers a stroke and dies at the end.

    Also, in a side story, a classmate of Zach's is getting bullied, most likely due to his small size. The mother of the child requests that Jill try using the hormone enhancing drug to speed up his grow process. Ginny takes an exception to this, however, and rallies a group of little people in protest. In defense of his brother, Matt decides to fight the bully and ends up winning.

    Like I mentioned, the last couple of episodes have ended on very dramatic scenes, and this one is no exception. The writers again take another subject which is a tough one and tackle it head on. They try to evoke emotion for both sides of the argument and allow the viewer to make their own decision instead of shoving something down their throat. As always, Judge Bone and Wambaugh play their characters with grace and dignity. This was more or less a Jimmy-centric main story, and Skerritt does it again, making it easy to see the problems facing Jimmy. While certainly nothing this extreme has ever happened, it shows what could possibly, and maybe should, happen.

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Episode Cast and Crew

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  • Jimmy: Fundamentally, I believe in civil disobedience. []
  • Jimmy: 'Round up the midgets. (Walking away) Madness. Everywhere I go, madness. []
  • Chief Bill Winnetka: Do you know what self-determination means, Henry? It goes to the core of being an Indian. []
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