SEASON TWO
1966 - 1967
#46 - "The Scourge of San Rosa"
Reese gets the best of outlaw Johnny Rhodes when Rhodes brings his lame horse to a waterhole. However, a snake spooks Reese's horse before he can transport his prisoner to Laredo. As Reese lies unconscious some men approach. Rhodes takes off on Reese's horse, leaving his lame horse behind with its distinctive silver saddle.
Reese wakes up with amnesia and a lame horse. He walks to the nearest town - San Rosa, Mexico. He ends up in a cantina  with Mio, its flirtatious owner. When bad man Luis comes in to make unwelcome advances to one of the young bar maids, Reese stands up to him and ends up with a beer poured over his head. The ensuing fight is interrupted when one of Luis' men notices the silver saddle on Reese's horse. Everyone concludes that he must be Johnny Rhodes who robs those with money and kills those with empty pockets. Reese figures they must be right.
In the meantime, Chad and Joe have found Reese's hat by the waterhole. They track the horse they think Johnny Rhodes is riding into San Rosa. However, the view through the cantina window shows Reese holding court as Johnny Rhodes. They don't want to mess up whatever plans he has, so they go in pretending to be friends of Rhodes.
However, all three are confused over the course of the conversation. Reese thinks they're trying to confuse him in order to cut him out of a gold shipment robbery he has planned with the McCord gang. Actually, Chad does plan to do just that although for different reasons. He figures in his discombobulated state, Reese would mess things up. So he and Joe will pose as Johnny's partners and tell the gang the gold train was delayed on the U.S. side of the border. Once they get up there, the gang can be rounded up and jailed in Laredo. Joe suggests they just tell the McCords they've decided to rob the Laredo bank after the gold gets there so they won't have to walk them so far to jail.
Mio, who wants "Johnny" to take advantage of his memory problems to retire from the outlaw business and run her cantina in Durango as "the man of the house." They figure that Chad and Joe, his fellow outlaws, could cause him trouble for backing out of the McCord deal. Mio has her two comely young barmaids to help Reese. The girls flirt with our heroes and put knock-out drops in their drinks.
Joe and Chad wake trussed up with rope, feeling like they've had sand laced with tabasco shoved down their throats. Reese intends to dump them on the edge of town so he can take off for Durango.
Unfortunately, the real Johnny Rhodes and his gang show up. Rhodes can't figure why one of the Rangers has tied up the other two, but takes all favors without question. Luis takes the opportunity to repay Reese for their previous fight by kicking him into the street where he hits his head and gets his memory back.
With the help of Mio's skillet bounced off Luis head, our heroes escape, but not before Rhodes' gang mines the street with dynamite. Naturally it only takes three Rangers to overpower the whole gang.
Reese explodes the last of the dynamite just in time to soil Erik, point man on a Ranger patrol. The boys let Reese know he apparently made some plans with Mio. The episode ends with Reese's classic bleating complaint, "you guys" (which prior to Erik's addition to the cast was "you two").
NiteOwl Review: Overall this was a fun episode. It was one of the favorites of our parents and younger siblings who just couldn't get enough of Neville Brand.
Our Favorite Scene: We loved Mio's single line capper to the scene in which Chad and Joe think they've gotten lucky with two beautious Mexican girls only to be slipped a mickey in their drinks. As she and Reese watch them collapse, we hear our heroes summarized sucinctly, "Them two sure ain't much."
Cast Note: Kathleen Freeman (Mio) who played delightfully opposite Neville Brand in this episode, was a prolific comic actress for decades. In 1921, at the age of two, she was part of a vaudeville act with her parents. She appeared as a regular on five sitcoms and made numerous guest appearances on others. As Flo Schafer on two seasons of The Beverly Hillbillies, she teamed with Phil Silvers as part of a team of con artists who tried to part the Clampetts from their money with such schemes as selling them the Washington Monument. She was also a regular on the short-lived series It's About Time (1966-67) with Joe E. Ross and Imogene Coca ("It's about time, it's about space; it's about the dawn of the human race"); Funny Face with Sandy Duncan (1971); Lotsa Luck with Dom DeLuise (1973-74) and for one year (1953-54) on the early classic series Topper with Leo G. Carroll. She also guested on numerous westerns, sometimes doing a comic turn as here, e.g Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971). She often played the shrewish troublemaker as in Wagon Train ("The Geneva Balfour Story") in which Peter Brown guested and on Peter's prior series Lawman ("The Substitute").
A bump on the head turns Reese
into the Scourge of San Rosa
Reese captures a murderer
Johnny Rhodes
But fate slithers in
Reese goes down
Mio, the friendly proprietor
A confrontation with Luis
Luis pours beer over Reese
Luis and Reese fight
Joe finds Reese's hat
Chad and Joe find Reese
They do some plotting
Chad is confused when
Reese doesn't know them
Joe tries to work things
out in his own mind
Reese is just confused
A little night air might help
Joe thinks things are
going well, for a while
Chad is rarely cautious
where women are concerned
The boys aren't as irresistible
as they had thought
"Them two sure ain't much"
Chad & Joe: wake up, tied up, fed up
Johnny Rhodes is back
Not thrilled
Talking sense to Reese
Once again, Peter Brown with the nicest drop, roll and shoot in TV Westerns
Reese learns he may have made
a few promises to Mio
Erik gets dusty
Original air date Jan 20, 1967
Directed by Joseph Pevney
Written by Calvin Clements

Regular Cast
Neville Brand as Reese Bennett
Peter Brown as Chad Cooper
William Smith as Joe Riley
Robert Wolders as Erik Hunter
Phil Carey as Capt. Parmalee

Guest Cast
Robert Yuro as Johnny Rhodes
Kathleen Freeman as Mio
Rodolfo Acosta as Luis
Pedro Gonzales as liveryman
Stella Garcia as Marguerita
Roberto Contreras as peon
Robert Hoy as Willie
Fred Krone as George McCord
Maria Cove as Marie
Official Peter Brown Fan Site