Why Wyatt Earp Gives Doc Holliday His Badge In Tombstone’s Ending

The climax of the 1993 Western classic Tombstone featured Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday teaming up for a final ride against The Cowboys gang, which yielded an important development for both characters right before they set out. The iconic movie has evolved into one of the most beloved Westerns of all time, thanks in large part to the incredible performances of Tombstone’s entire cast. Legendary scenes like Doc Holliday’s shootout with Johnny Ringo and Wyatt Earp’s real-life riverside charge make the movie eminently rewatchable, and it contains some of the most famous quotes from the genre.

Unlike other cinematic interpretations of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone focuses on Earp’s relationship with his friend Doc Holliday. While Val Kilmer gives an absolutely movie-stealing performance as the tuberculosis-afflicted gunslinger and gambler, it’s his character’s development that serves as an important thematic touchpoint for the movie. By the ending of Tombstone, Wyatt Earp gives Doc Holliday, a lifelong rogue and gambler, his deputy US Marshal badge, inadvertently legalizing all of his actions in putting down the Cowboys. It’s one of the most important moments in their on-screen relationship for several reasons, specifically the reasoning behind it.

Wyatt Earp Thought He & Doc Holliday Were Both About To Die

The Two Men Had Been Resigned To Their Fate

Following the assault on his brothers, which left one of them dead and the other permanently handicapped, an enraged Wyatt Earp sets out to end the threat of the Cowboys once and for all, seeking a “reckoning”, as Doc Holliday puts it. Earp puts a posse together to ride out against the remaining Cowboys, but Doc Holliday is unable to join them due to his worsening health condition. After hostilities escalate with deaths on both sides of the conflict, Earp visits the bedridden Holliday before heading out to face off against Johnny Ringo one-on-one.

At that point in time, both men truly believed they were about to die. Holliday knew that he was nearing the end of the line due to his ongoing struggle against tuberculosis. Meanwhile, Wyatt was certain he was heading to his doom in a one-on-one shootout with Ringo, who they both knew was the faster gun.

Doc Holliday Wanted To Feel What It Was Like To Be A Better Man

Holliday Was A Notorious Gambler And Gunfighter

The badge was an important symbol to both men, as it was a line that the two men had lived on opposite sides of most of their lives. While Wyatt Earp was a famous lawman who had built a reputation as a peacekeeper all across the West, Holliday had lived just outside the law his whole life. While Holliday was never truly evil in the way the Cowboys were, he was a notorious gambler, alcoholic, and gunfighter who had a reputation as being more than willing to kill if he was crossed.

In reality, Doc Holliday reportedly only killed three men in his life, but regardless of his body count, he straddled the line between being a law-abiding citizen and an outright outlaw. He asks Wyatt Earp what it’s like to wear a badge, as he seems (in the movie, at least) to have a good heart under his roguish exterior. The badge serves as a way for him to briefly feel like a better and more righteous man, and it spurs him to save Wyatt Earp’s life by challenging Johnny Ringo himself in one-on-one combat.

Wyatt Earp Was Tired Of Wearing The Badge By Tombstone’s Final Battle

He Originally Came To Tombstone To Escape Being A Lawman

For half of Tombstone, Wyatt Earp refuses to put his badge back on, having grown tired of the life of a lawman. Wyatt and his brothers first arrive in Tombstone planning to seek their fortune, wives/girlfriends in tow, and look to settle down in what has become a booming frontier town. He is only forced to don the badge again once he recognizes the true threat that the Cowboys present not just to his own family, but to the hundreds of people in Tombstone and the surrounding area.

By the time he is ready to ride out against the Cowboys once and for all, Earp is simply done being a lawman. He seeks a reckoning against the Cowboys for the sake of creating a lasting peace, and he knows that he’s unlikely to return from his attempt. By turning the badge over to Holliday, Earp is declaring his time as a lawman over, regardless of the outcome. In Earp giving Holliday the badge, both men get to symbolically live as they wished they always could, even if only for a short while at the ends of their lives.