Spoilers

“Rights of Passage”

A powerful episode of Picket Fences, “Rights of Passage” featured a small band of Native Americans taking over the court house because the town of Rome decided to build a golf course that would extend over the burial grounds of their ancestors. The eventual showdown was built to exquisitely and was used, as is always the way with this show, to deal with some deep insecurities of one of its characters, in this case, Jimmy Brock, the sheriff, as Jimmy had some deep reflections on his time as the sheriff and what the job entails from him.

Jimmy really did not want to lead an attack on these Indians to reclaim the courthouse despite having the Mayor and Judge Bone making demands of him.

Seriously, Judge Henry Bone looked very much out of line through most of this episode, making demands of the police, especially Jimmy, whom he asked “What kind of sheriff are you?”

I found Henry to be really obnoxious during this episode. He seemed to be more concerned with get “his” courthouse back than dealing with the situation calmly and under control.

Chief Winnetka forced Jimmy’s hand with his demands to get rid of the golf course. It was a powerful episode with some painful moments for everybody.

The side stories included Matthew fighting a bully to protect Zach and Ginny protesting Jill’s office with other ‘little people’ because she was giving a small child HGH shots so he could grow bigger.

Either way, the standoff at the courthouse was clearly the main storyline and led to the death of the Chief. It was a sad ending.