Back in 1956, The Bad Seed, about the psychotic little girl came out. Then along came Village of the Damned, with the evil mutant kids. Since then, many other movies have featured cold-blooded and manipulative kids. Some of them were pure evil, as the boy in The Omen.
In this story, which ends without an ending, we get Charity. Her step-father burns to death in a shack on the prairie. Charity tells Marshal Dillon that she never liked her step-dad. Charity says she watched the place burn down, and that she tried to wake up her step-dad, but when it got hot, she went outside and watched him burn to death.
She is very happy to go off with Dillon and Chester to Dodge City, and never sheds a tear. Did Charity wait until her step-dad was drunk, and then put a match to the shack? Once in Dodge, Doc Adams and Miss Kitty both get to talk to Charity, and that makes this episode a little bit better.
Charity is determined to manipulate Matt Dillon into doing what she wants, which is having him become her new dad. Dillon has other plans. When Charity runs away from Mrs. Henry's home, and realizes Dillon is not going to give up his life for her, she tells him about another relative where she wants to go.
The story ends there, and we never see what happens to Charity. After investing 25 minutes into the life of Charity, it would have been nice to see if she got a happy ending, but John Meston never wrote happy endings, so we are left hanging, and hoping for the best.
Susan Gordon played Charity. This was her only appearance on Gunsmoke. Her acting career ended as a guest on My Three Sons in 1967. She was also on The Twilight Zone in 1961, and Picture Mommy Dead in 1966. As Charity, she was not very charismatic, and somewhat creepy.