This ‘Longmire’ Episode Changed the Show Forever

When Longmire was resurrected by Netflix for a fourth season, fans were ecstatic to see Robert Taylor as the titular Sheriff Walt Longmire. Despite the powerful cliffhanger Season 3 left audiences with (and the implications that followed), A&E still opted to cancel the Western mystery series. Thankfully, tragedy would be averted when Netflix swooped in to take over, and the rest is history. Unsurprisingly, the streamer brought the show back with the same action-packed flavor, and the television adventures of Walt Longmire ran for another few seasons, keeping us in a constant state of suspense. But one episode early in the fourth season changed the direction of the series forever, and effectively concluded the show’s mythology up until that point. If you haven’t already guessed, we’re talking about the Season 4 classic “High Noon,” and boy is it a doozy.

Longmire

Walt Longmire is the dedicated and unflappable sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. Widowed only a year, he is a man in psychic repair but buries his pain behind his brave face, unassuming grin and dry wit.

Release Date

June 3, 2012

Creator

Hunt Baldwin, John Coveny

Seasons

6

Studio

A&E

“High Noon” Is a Climactic Hour of ‘Longmire’

Written by Longmire co-creators Hunt Baldwin and John Coveny and brought to life by prolific series director Christopher Chulack (who also helmed both the pilot and series finale), “High Noon” is the aptly titled third episode of Netflix’s first official Longmire season (Season 4) that evokes the same sort of Western ambiance as the classic Gary Cooper film with which it shares a name. In the Season 3 finale, “Ashes to Ashes,” former Absaroka County deputy Branch Connally (Bailey Chase) discovers that his greedy land developer father Barlow Connally (Gerald McRaney of Jericho fame) has been secretly working with shady businessman Jacob Nighthorse (A Martinez, who got his start in Westerns with Johny Wayne back in The Cowboys). But to make things worse, Branch finds out that Barlow is the one responsible for the murder of Walt Longmire’s wife Martha, having borrowed Nighthorse’s personal assassin to do so. With Martha out of the way, building an Indian casino would become a quick reality. At least, that was the plan.

However, in confronting his father, Branch is murdered by Barlow, shooting his son mercilessly while claiming that he still has time to “make another” successor to the Connelly name and fortune. And thus ended Longmire‘s tenure on A&E. Season 4 begins with news of Branch’s death, and Walt soon discovers that it wasn’t a suicide but a murder. As always, he believes Jacob Nighthorse is to blame. Well, three episodes in, and we get to “High Noon,” which finally puts an end to all of Walt’s questions and gives him the answers he so desperately longed for. Pitting Walt and Barlow against the other has been a long time coming, especially since Branch has so often been caught in the middle, and “High Noon” doesn’t pull any punches (even if Walt does his best to).

The whole episode centers around Walt believing that Nighthorse killed Branch on his land. As a result, he does everything he can to get onto Nighthorse’s property, even using Bob Barnes (John Bishop) as his unofficial agent. But when Nighthorse is shot at and calls out Walt as the would-be assassin, things get all the more complicated when our favorite sheriff plays coy about where he was, leading Deputy Vic Moretti (played by Battlestar Galactica legend Katee Sackhoff) –– and even the audience –– to believe that maybe Walt was responsible after all. Walt Longmire may be a stand-up guy who does things by the book, but sometimes his anger blindsides him. Thankfully, that isn’t the case this time around. Walt didn’t shoot at Nighthorse, but the way they argue, you’d think he might have.

“High Noon” Keeps Tensions High and Revels in Its Western Flavor

The stakes are high in “High Noon,” and they get higher with every minute. Questions reign as Vic believes that Walt may have shot at Nighthorse, Tribal Police Chief Matthias (played by Dark Winds star Zahn McClarnon, who always kills it on the screen) calls in the FBI to investigate, and, on the other side of town, Walt’s daughter Cady (Smallville‘s Cassidy Freeman) discovers the connection between Barlow and Nighthorse. All of this comes to a masterful head when Walt finds Barlow in his home, there to confess that he was the one who shot at Nighthorse. But, to Barlow’s surprise, Walt already knows that Barlow was the one who killed Branch, bringing his entire house of cards down. And that’s when Walt finally pieces together the truth about who’s responsible for Martha’s death.

Since the beginning of the series, Walt Longmire has been searching for who killed his wife. At first, he thought it was drug addict Miller Beck (John Lee Ames), only to learn he was hired by Jacob Nighthorse’s enforcer, David Ridges (David Midthunder). Walt and his deputies figure all this out throughout the show’s first three seasons, but it isn’t until “High Noon” that he discovers Barlow’s role in it all. In an instant, Gerald McRaney commands the scene as Barlow, explaining to Walt his master plan in the same vein as a villain might in an Agatha Christie novel. He’s frightening in all the best ways, and though there are other more compelling antagonists on the show, it’s this moment that shows just how sadistic and cruel Barlow Connally truly is — a far cry from his brother (and former sheriff) Lucian (Peter Weller), to be sure.

“High Noon” feels like your classic Western, particularly the aforementioned Gary Cooper film. Just like Cooper’s Marshall Kane, Sheriff Longmire is a man who stands alone in his struggle for justice. Sure, both Kane and Longmire had allies –– and Walt’s allies even help in the process –– but in the end, he faces his enemy all by his lonesome. It’s a showdown that’s been years in the making. These final moments between Walt and Barlow are a mixture of enraging and cathartic. Barlow’s evil deeds make the audience as angry as Walt is, but it also feels good to know that everything is out in the open. So, when Barlow pulls an empty gun on Walt and the sheriff fires two rounds into the land developer’s chest, it may be shocking, but it feels like the only way this story could end. The final shot of Walt looking over his land, reminiscent of classic Westerns like The Searchers, is perhaps the best visual clue that things on Longmire will never be the same.

“High Noon” Launched ‘Longmire’ Into a New Era

“High Noon” changed the game for Longmire. Season 4 had already brought in a bunch of new changes from the start, but three episodes in, it seals the deal. Despite Walt’s efforts to save his life, Barlow stabs himself with Walt’s knife in an attempt to frame the sheriff for murder. While that frame job doesn’t quite stick long-term, it does lead to a heap of other problems that shape the next two seasons of the show. For starters, Barlow may be dead, but his plans are still carried out posthumously. In Season 5, Walt is sued by Tucker Baggett (Brett Rice), the head of Barlow’s estate. This “wrongful death” lawsuit threatens to bankrupt Walt, remove him from office, and take his land––which would then be turned into a 36-hole golf course, just like Barlow wanted.

This civil suit gets even more intense in the sixth and final season, leading to a lot of bloodshed and even the suicide of Lucian Connally, who hoped to exonerate Walt by killing Tucker Baggett himself. While the events of “High Noon” act almost as a direct sequel to the Season 3 finale “Ashes to Ashes,” the Season 4 episode also concludes the multi-season mystery of Martha Longmire’s murder while simultaneously beginning a new overarching plotline surrounding Barlow’s will. It’s a nexus point that shifts the series’ focus and tone, transitioning us from the A&E era firmly into Netflix’s tenure. Longmire had already changed quite a bit when it was brought back by the streamer. The episodes were longer, the cast was smaller, and it seemed like the show was willing to go places it hadn’t been before. “High Noon” is almost a coda to the A&E years of the show, officially launching the Netflix era by closing out the mystery that kept the sheriff (and us) up at night for years.

From here on out, Walt would be much more careful about the deputies he’d hire, the people he’d trust, and how he would accuse Jacob Nighthorse going forward. In fact, by the series’ end, Nighthorse and Walt would even come to an understanding that they’d never had before. There’s a lot to love about “High Noon,” but the closure it gives Walt Longmire is at the top of the list. Robert Taylor’s performance is powerful, and he evokes so much raw emotion as he pieces together the truth about Martha’s murder. Even when we believe that the sheriff may be bending the law to entrap Jacob Nighthorse, Taylor plays the part so narrowly that we can see things going either way. By the time Walt is proven innocent, only to shoot Barlow Connally and watch him bleed out on his front porch, well, it’s about as good Western television as you can get, and there’s no one better for the part than Robert Taylor.

This ‘Longmire’ Episode Helped Solidify Walt Longmire as an Honorable Lawman

It’s true that Longmire always portrayed Walt Longmire as an honorable Western hero. Robert Taylor’s consistent and understated performance surely conveyed this in the show’s early years, and “High Noon” is no exception. In fact, if anything, this episode even further drives the point home that Walt is the type of hero that many can only strive to live up to. His initial willingness to show mercy to Barlow, who he assuredly would rather have just killed after discovering the truth, is a strength to Walt’s character that would’ve been easy to dismiss here. Instead, the Western hero aimed to see that Barlow would be incarcerated so that justice, true justice, might prevail. While that’s not how it played out, Walt did everything he could to get there.

When speaking about Walt Longmire, actor Robert Taylor still looks back fondly on playing the character, noting that Longmire was a show unlike any other. “The characters are trying to do the right thing in tough circumstances,” Taylor told UPI in 2024 while in Wyoming for the annual “Longmire Days” celebration. “They are not special people. They are not amazing or great people. They’re just people and things go wrong.” Taylor further noted that one of Longmire‘s greatest strengths was that the show had great drama, but never felt the need to do so on an elaborate scale. “People connected with it,” he concluded. “I connected with it.” We all do, that’s why we feel Walt’s loss, and his sense of betrayal, when he realizes that the man he’s been comforting after killing his own son took the dearest person to him also. It’s a level of self-restraint that few others could muster.

Although “High Noon” concluded the show’s initial murder mystery, Longmire always found creative ways to continue, reminding us that life goes on. Walt Longmire is a fabulous character who appeals to audiences because of his persistence, clear sense of justice, and desire to do what’s right even when everything seems wrong. Plenty of Craig Johnson‘s original Walt Longmire Mysteries meditate deeply on this fact, and episodes such as “High Noon” — which challenge Walt’s commitment to justice in the face of personal tragedy and the desire for vengeance — end the way they do because those character traits stand-out in the midst of his inner turmoil. Heroes like that can be hard to come by these days, as are good Westerns.

Could Walt Longmire Return for More?

Despite their deviation from the source material, revisiting installments such as “High Noon” remind us that Longmire needs to return for more. We can’t help but love the stoic Absaroka County sheriff and feel deeply for him through every phase of the six-season series. It’s no wonder many fans are still itching for more. For every “High Noon,” there are half a dozen other episodes (like Season 1’s “Dog Soldier” or Season 4’s “Miss Cheyenne”) just as excellent in the show’s impressive canon, mysteries that remind us just how good we had it with this Western. 63 individual adventures aren’t nearly enough of Robert Taylor’s tenure as Walt Longmire, and to this day there are still rumors that he might return. “There’s a constant buzz about the return of the series, a potential Season 7 or made-for-TV movies, but nothing concrete,” Walt Longmire Mysteries author Craig Johnson noted back in 2022.

While there’s still no official news about whether Longmire will return in the future, the fact that people are talking about it is a good sign. With how popular shows like Yellowstone are nowadays, you’d think that Longmire would be a shoo-in for Netflix to revive. The beloved series is always popular on the streamer, of course, and Longmire continues to build on its already impressive audience despite having been off the air for quite a few years now. Longtime fans still hold out hope that maybe Netflix and Warner Bros. Television will be willing to play ball and produce some sort of send off. Back in the day, shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza were revived via made-for-TV movies, a Western tradition that Netflix could easily revisit with Longmire, if they were willing.

Thankfully, even if we never revisit Absaroka County on the screen, at the very least, Craig Johnson is still penning stellar Walt Longmire stories in his ever-growing collection of novels. With well over 20 different installments in the original book series (which started back in 2004 with The Cold Dish), Johnson’s Sheriff Longmire continues to solve crimes in northern Wyoming even though his show went off the air nearly a decade ago. Many of the characters from the series (and plenty who never got to show up on the show) are still around and kicking in the books, a new one of which comes out every year. In fact, the latest installment, First Frost, hit bookshelves in Summer 2024, and another installment, the novella Tooth and Claw, is set to be released in Fall 2024. It turns out, you just can’t keep a good sheriff down, not even if you cancel his show or kill his wife.

Longmire can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.

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