LONESOME DOVE: PART IV: RETURN (TV)
Summary
Part four of this four-part western mini-series about Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, two former Texas Rangers who pick up stakes in the small Texas town of Lonesome Dove to lead a perilous cattle drive to Montana. After the funeral of Joshua Deets, Gus and Pea Eye embark on a scouting mission, hoping to find a suitable site for a cattle ranch; they instead happen upon a group of Indian warriors who do not take kindly to the white trespassers. While Gus is pinned in a shallow creek inlet, his leg is badly wounded by arrows. Pea Eye drifts down the stream to find help, and Gus is stranded for several days before an eccentric trapper takes him to a nearby town for medical help. Gus's gangrenous leg is amputed, but the proud Ranger refuses to allow the doctor to remove the other leg, though failing to do so will ensure his death. Woodrow finds his friend and pleads with him to undergo the operation, but Gus chooses to die rather than live a compromised life. Understanding that his undemonstrative companion can only express his love and process his grief through his rigid adherence to an abstract sense of duty, the wily Gus makes Woodrow vow to return his body to Lonesome Dove for its burial. In the course of the winter and following spring, Woodrow establishes the cattle ranch and grooms Newt to run it in his absence. Woodrow's long, difficult trek back to Texas with Gus's body becomes something of legend, as people marvel at the tender dedication displayed by the famously dour Ranger. Woodrow stops along the way to witness the eerily bungled execution of Blue Duck and to deliver Gus's farewell letters to Clara and Lorena. Clara seethes with fury at the fatal romanticism she feels Woodrow encouraged in Gus; Lorena literally collapses in grief. Woodrow finally fulfills his promise and returns Gus to Lonesome Dove; he is staggered by how the town has changed in his absence and comforted by the ways it has remained the same. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: February 8, 1989 Wednesday 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:33:44
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:49201
- GENRE: Drama, western
- SUBJECT HEADING: Cattle drives - Drama; Drama, western; She Made It Collection (Suzanne de Passe)
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1989
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Suzanne de Passe … Executive Producer
- Bill Wittliff … Executive Producer, Writer
- Robert Halmi … Co-Executive Producer
- Michael Weisbarth … Supervising Producer
- Dyson Lovell … Producer
- Simon Wincer … Directed by
- Larry McMurtry … Based on the novel by
- Basil Poledouris … Music by
- Robert Duvall … Cast, Gus McCrae
- Tommy Lee Jones … Cast, Woodrow F. Call
- Danny Glover … Cast, Joshua Deets
- Diane Lane … Cast, Lorena Wood
- Robert Urich … Cast, Jake Spoon
- Frederic Forrest … Cast, Blue Duck
- D.B. Sweeney … Cast, Dish Boggett
- Ricky Schroder … Cast, Newt
- Anjelica Huston … Cast, Clara Allen
- Chris Cooper … Cast, July Johnson
- Tim Scott … Cast, Pea Eye Parker
- Glenne Headly … Cast, Elmira
- Barry Corbin … Cast, Roscoe Brown
- William Sanderson … Cast, Lippy Jones
- Barry Tubb … Cast, Jasper Fant
- Gavin O'Herlihy … Cast, Dan Suggs
- Steve Buscemi … Cast, Luke
- Frederick Coffin … Cast, Big Swey
- Travis Swords … Cast, Allen O'Brien
- Kevin O'Morrison … Cast, the Doctor
- Ron Weyand … Cast, Old Hugh
- Leon Singer … Cast, Bolivar
- Lanny Flaherty … Cast, Soupy Jones
- David Carpenter … Cast, Needle Johnson
- Martinez de Hoyos, Jorge … Cast, Po Campo
- Todd Merrill … Cast, the Reporter
- Jack Caffrey … Cast, Cholo
- Thomas Connor … Cast, Bob Allen
- Missy Crider … Cast, Sally Allen
- Lauren Stanley … Cast, Betsy Allen
- Sonny Carl Davis … Cast, Bert Borum
- James McMurtry … Cast, Jimmy Rainey
- Charlie Haynie … Cast, Ben Rainey
- Terry McIlvain … Cast, a Cowboy
- John Bark … Cast, the First Trapper
- Richard Slaughter … Cast, the Second Trapper
- Ed Geldart … Cast, the Undertaker
- Curtis Taylor … Cast, the Blacksmith
- David Little … Cast, the Sheriff
- Kenny Call … Cast, Deputy #2