Alfred Hitchcock never attempted anything even close to a Western, and, likewise, he contributed nothing to this particular episode. "Triggers in Leash" (Season 1, Episode 3) is a compact little Western story that doesn't really go anywhere, though the one-room setting is something with which Hitchcock himself experimented several times throughout his career (his most notable example being 'Rope (1948)'). Maggie (Ellen Corby) runs a lunch-stop somewhere in the wild-west, and, in her lifetime, has developed experience and resourcefulness in dealing with impulsive, trigger-happy young men, among whom was her late husband. Dell Delaney (Gene Barry) and Red Hillman (Darren McGavin) meet at the diner the night after the latter was humiliated in a drunken poker game, and they are both hungry to prove their bravery by killing the other man. Maggie tries everything to take their minds off the duel even feeding them breakfast but the two men remain locked in awkward and ridiculous poses, one hand dangled over their gun belt, just waiting for the fatal draw.
Eventually, it is God who intervenes in the pair's quarrel, and both Dell and Red go away as good friends again (as Hitch says, "that was disappointing, wasn't it?"). Had it not been for the unexpected twist in the tale, I would have been pretty embittered by this cop-out resolution (we've all seen such contrivance before, and it always annoys me), but I liked how Maggie's cleverness mocked the all-too-convenient plot device that dictates the Almighty's intervention into such minor human squabbles. "Triggers in Leash" feels like a one-note short, working for twenty minutes towards a single pay-off. However, the relative lightness of this episode is offset by a brilliant closing monologue from Hitchcock, who reveals with a completely straight face that the two main characters actually died later that day from a bout of food poisoning: "Maggie's heart was in the right place; she just wasn't a very good cook." This is one of the best examples I've heard to demonstrate Hitch's particularly droll sense of humour, and I loved it.
Eventually, it is God who intervenes in the pair's quarrel, and both Dell and Red go away as good friends again (as Hitch says, "that was disappointing, wasn't it?"). Had it not been for the unexpected twist in the tale, I would have been pretty embittered by this cop-out resolution (we've all seen such contrivance before, and it always annoys me), but I liked how Maggie's cleverness mocked the all-too-convenient plot device that dictates the Almighty's intervention into such minor human squabbles. "Triggers in Leash" feels like a one-note short, working for twenty minutes towards a single pay-off. However, the relative lightness of this episode is offset by a brilliant closing monologue from Hitchcock, who reveals with a completely straight face that the two main characters actually died later that day from a bout of food poisoning: "Maggie's heart was in the right place; she just wasn't a very good cook." This is one of the best examples I've heard to demonstrate Hitch's particularly droll sense of humour, and I loved it.