Bonanza (TV Series) The Last Haircut (1963) User Reviews

Tricky Lawyers

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 12 May 2007]

This particular Bonanza episode deals with a very sharp defense attorney getting a coldblooded killer off. The attorney is John Archer and the killer is Perry Lopez.

Lopez and two sidekicks are a trio of nasty thugs who murder Alex Montoya in a barbershop on some really slight pretext. There's no doubt about that Lopez did it. Two eyewitnesses, the barber and another customer saw it. Little Joe Cartwright was in the barbershop, but one of the henchmen cold cocked him before the evil deed was done.

At trial, Archer discredits Michael Landon's testimony and then with a bit of skulduggery, discredits the other two witnesses and Lopez is free. This was around the time the Supreme Court was starting to reign in our police and our courts in making sure defendants got their due process. People like Lopez were starting to go free as a result.

The real story is how young Rafael Lopez deals with the death of his father. The Cartwrights, especially Little Joe, help the young man do just that. The real story is not the legal skulduggery, but how life sometimes hands you senseless tragedy and you just have to move on.

Of course this is a western so bad guys do get punished. Lopez does get punishment of a sort for that barbershop homicide.

The episode was one of Bonanza's best and seeing it today reminded me of how good it was.

Good Show

[Cuppajoe2go · 8/10 · 31 January 2022]

Good episode IMO. Since it's been pretty much reviewed by now I'll just point out that I'm convinced this really is the last haircut Little Joe received for the rest of the series' run.

Very powerful but still obviously uneven story

[smithbea · 8/10 · 13 September 2020]

The story is amazing. A trio of strangers come into Virginia City and (after conking Little Joe on the head) they kill a man in a barbershop for not letting them cut the line into getting a haircut. The three men are all brought to trial and despite two witnesses (not including LJ) the men are declared innocent. Even a notion that they were not even the three men in the barbershop at the time is made. A very expensive attorney gets them off. Who paid for this lawyer? The bad trio did not look like they had much money. Why did Ben not use his own influence to try to get these men put into prison? What about the arrest when Sheriff Coffee picked them up? How about the fact that they could not seemingly account for where they were at the time of the murder? Ridiculous!

A trio of tough cowboys come into town, and shoot one man for refusing to let one of their own take a haircut before everyone else.

[Norsin · 10/10 · 26 June 2008]

This episode is excellent from start to finish. The acting is superb on all levels. Little Joe is the first to get out of his barber chair after waiting two hours, to give it up to a gunslinger (Perry Lopez) who threatens his life. He does so, but then a Mexican shows he can't be bullied, takes the barber chair and is killed. His son comes to stay with the Cartwrights until relatives call for him to live with them in Mexico. An interesting trial ensues, and the slick lawyer gets the murderer and gang freed. Later when Little Joe returns and fights the men involved in the shooting, he lets the barber shave Perry Lopez head bald, and throws him out into the street for everyone to see. They start laughing, and Lopez is seen holding his head and feeling like the bug that he is. What a perfect ending. Recommended as a must see

Other Reviews Are Getting Half the Story Out

[richard.fuller1 · 10/10 · 16 January 2016]

The gunman shoots the Mexican boy's father, then 'forces' the terrified elderly barber to give him a haircut while the dead man rests on the floor. Seems Joe may have been there as well, not sure.

Little Joe, and the young boy, want justice, but the witness is tricked into identifying the wrong man (possibly either the barber or an elderly man who was also in the barber shop was the witness).

Joe now returns when the gunman shows up for his haircut again later on. Or Joe goes there to keep the boy out of trouble and gets tangled up in it himself.

The DEAL was the gunman was proud of his head of dark hair and had killed over it.

So once Joe had single-handedly taken out the gang and was left alone with the gunman and the once-again terrified barber, Joe strapped the gunman into the barber chair and instructed the more-than-willing barber as to what to do.

Scene fade, and we now see the gunman strapped in the chair, shining bald. When Joe lets him loose, the gunman wants his hat to hide his bald head and Joe refuses him, tossing him out into the street.

The ONLY person laughing was the elderly fellow in the barbershop when the boy's father was killed, possibly the thwarted witness (it was either the barber or this old man).

NO ONE else was laughing, and NO ONE was laughing at his baldness. The old man was laughing at the murderous gunman stripped of what he valued over another man's life; his own hair.

Intensely powerful episode on letting one's own faults and failures come back on you. Yes, Joe was the judge, but in a strange way, it was more the barber's decision and the old man laughing out in the street who had both been intimidated by the murderous gang early on.

Some Kind of Justice

[Scififan54 · 10/10 · 4 July 2021]

Little Joe is witness to a murder in a barbershop. He is friends with the victim's young son and takes him under his wing. Much of the episode is taken up with their struggle for some kind of justice for the dead man. But it also explores the difference between justice and vengeance, and how a structured society must abide by the rule of law if it is not to disintegrate. This is particularly true of the Wild West in the 19th century, where life is cheap and men lived and died by the gun.

Joe's relationship with the boy is sweet and caring, and his anger towards the murderer is always simmering in the background. He learns some important life lessons of his own with the help of his wise dad. You can see that Joe's duty of care for the boy helps him to mature himself.

The episode is worth seeing for the final scene where Joe inflicts some justice of his own. It is impossible not to laugh with satisfaction at an otherwise serious and sad story.

Shaved head is punishment for murder

[LukeCoolHand · 5/10 · 31 January 2022]

All the reviewers are raving about how great this episode is. Well not me. A bad man kills a man in the barber shop because he won't get out of the barber's chair so he can get his haircut first. He had already forced Little Joe out of the chair. The barber witnessed the murder and gave the murderer his haircut after his cohorts knock Joe unconscious and left him on the barber's floor. The ridiculousness of the upcoming trial was out done by the ending. The murderer gets away with murder at the trial on ridiculous evidence. Later Little Joe fights with the murderer in the barber shop and has the barber shave the murders head bald. The murderer treasures his hair so this is supposed to be his punishment for killing a man. WHAT ?? The murderers hair will grow back - the man he killed will not come back from the dead. The show ends with the bald man on the street being laughed at. Stupid episode.

Guy with a haircut fetish gets what he wants

[glitterrose · 1/10 · 7 February 2022]

So this guy's proud of his hair. Why's he constantly getting it cut? Yeah, I can see getting it cut when it's growing out too much. Seems like this guy was going and getting a haircut every couple of weeks? Why would you especially do this when you're in a town that you're not so popular in?

I also thought it was hilarious how being shaved bald was supposed to be justice for murdering somebody. Unless something else was done and his hair will NEVER grow back, yeah, hair does grow back. So you didn't let him get his hat to cover his newly Mr. Clean bald head. I'm sure he'll be able to get access to a hat and wear it til his hair grows back. Unless this truly is a kink of his and he'll go out of his way to do get another head shave?

You will be disappointed at the 'ending' ..

[sunnyellowstar · 2/10 · 7 May 2015]

spoiler In the end , A truly awful episode.

A person is very pre-meditatively murdered .

The murderer escapes justice.

But never mind ; his nice head of hair is shaved clean.

Now he is a baldie , so the towns folk can have a good laugh at him !!! I never knew there was such a thing as Baldism - till I saw this one. To be fair it was intriguing up till then. I don't think I have ever been so aghast at at a concluding scene.

Most of the episodes are pretty good imo.

However, occasionally the storyline goes awol.

Weird episode

[apelieuproar-69389 · 5/10 · 21 June 2023]

A trio of gunslingers enter a barbershop. One, Duke Miller, wants a haircut and forces Little Joe out of his chair at gunpoint to get one. Joe reluctantly complies, but another man, Ramon Ramirez, takes Joe's place in the chair and getting killed for his defiance.

Two of the gunmen are caught, including the actual killer. They are brought to trial but are declared innocent because of a lawyer's trick. The trick? To bring in another man who just happens to look like the third man, the one who escaped capture. The barber and a patron both positively ID the man, despite his hair color being dark and having a scare, whereas the actual man's hair was blond and scarless. The defense attorney then points out that the man is a convict who has been in jail for more than a year, thereby discrediting the eyewitnesses' testimony and ultimately procuring the 'not guilty' verdict. Also crucial to the decision is that Joe was knocked unconscious just before the murder. The defense has also brought up that one of the witnesses is old and the other, the barber, was terrified.

The son of the murdered man, Paco, wants to exact vengeance and Joe is ready and able to exact it for him. When Joe's father convinces him otherwise Joe must then convince the boy. His reasoning? That bad people go to hell and God will punish the man. So the boy agrees to go to live with his parents in Mexico.

Not long after, as Joe and Paco are making a stop in town on the way to Mexico, another encounter occurs in a barbershop where Paco cannot resist his impulse for revenge and tries to shoot Duke, but he is stopped by one of his confederates. Joe enters the barbershop to make sure Paco is okay, which he is. Paco is ordered out of the shop by the bad guys. Joe tries to follow but Duke, who is in the barber's chair, orders his men to rough Joe up. But Joe beats one unconscious and another (incidentally, the one who evaded capture before) flees. The barber, meanwhile, restrains, and even tries to strangle Duke with a strop so that he can't interfere. Once Joe is done with the other men, he tells the barber to stop strangling Duke, then fistfights Duke and wins. He then orders the barber to shave Duke's head. Duke, horrified, and apparently vain, is forced to endure the stares of the townsfolk.

A few things wrong with this picture. How likely is it that an exact doppelganger of one of the gunmen could be produced by the lawyer? A complete match except for the hair color? How likely is it that such a man would even exist? The very idea is simply preposterous, especially as the lawyer had never even seen the other guy. Second, even if Joe was unconscious at the time of the slaying, he can still positively ID the defendants and can attest to the fact that he was told to get out of the barber's chair at gunpoint. How plausible is it that his testimony could be completely disregarded by the jury? How likely is it that some other men of similar description entered the bar and committed the murder? How reasonable is this doubt, really? It's all a bit too far-fetched.

There are other problems. Joe telling the boy that God will punish Duke seems like cold comfort to me. Also, Ben tells Joe not to go after Duke, and if he does happen to run into him, not to use guns. So, if Duke is armed and tries to kill Joe, should he then just let Duke shoot him? I don't get it.

Finally, it was somewhat satisfying seeing Joe beat up Duke and his men, but the so-called punishment of Duke having his head shaved is not really punishment at all. It's more like a time out. As other reviewers have pointed out, hair grows back, but the dead remain dead. So, all in all, not a great episode. It's engaging throughout but the ending leaves something to be desired, which is par for the course for this series, I must say.

A couple of random final observations I find the casting of Perry Lopez as Duke a bit odd. Here is someone who is clearly not white yet here he is carrying on as if he were; for instance, his name. I found it a bit disconcerting and just a bit of an odd casting choice. Also, Hoss and Adam appear in this episode but very briefly and they don't seem to have any lines.