The Music Box

Desire Begets Punishment; or

Head Games

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Music Box

Airdate: March 14, 1977

Written by Robert Janes

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Nellie engages in psychological warfare, blackmailing Laura and torturing a girl with a speech impediment. Then Laura is hanged to death.

In other words, a typical week on one of the most wholesome shows in TV history.

RECAP:

AMELIA: Are you taking notes? Should we try to be funny?

WILL: Yes, I am taking notes, but don’t try to be funny. Just BE funny, there is no try.

OLIVE: Don’t worry, Mimi. Nothing you say is ever funny enough to write down.

Sisters.

Oh, and speaking of sisters, my own dear sister Peggy reports from Illinois that she somehow touched poison ivy this week, and it is no joke. It even got on her face. She had to go to the emergency room for it!

She was pretty upset about the whole incident, so I didn’t risk asking if it really felt “just like velvet.”

Okay, let’s go! This one’s a real favorite of mine.

We open on a bizarre little rabbit with what appears to be a very long penis.

WILL [laughing]: That’s hilarious.

DAGNY [laughing]: It’s even circumsized!

The camera pans down to what appears to be a queen of some sort. Her face even has a Windsor-ish look, though it clearly isn’t Queen Victoria.

This queen actually looks quite a lot like Queen Charlotte. The real one, I mean, not from that show that’s on now. (I haven’t watched it. Bridgerton was a bit 13+ for me.)

(The Windsors were Hanovers then, but it’s all the same thing.)

Additionally, we see Santa Claus (holding Carrie?), and a drunken sea captain – or cap’n, if you prefer. 

(Jokey drunkenness was big in 1970s family entertainment. Nearly every Disney movie of the period has a comedy drunk in it, Mickey Rooney’s lighthouse keeper in Pete’s Dragon being the definitive example of the type.)

Oh, if you notice, there’s a huge fly on one of the Cap’n’s paddles.

Other dignitaries at this gathering include George Washington, or some other Eighteenth-Century fop like that. 

I suppose this could actually be Charlotte’s husband, evil Broadway star George III.

Also, Michael Myers from Halloween is there.

Quite a party! What we’re seeing, of course, is a bunch of vintage toys in a dollhouse scene – presumably in the Mercantile’s front window.

DAGNY: I think they stole this from The Friendly Giant.

WILL: . . . From what?

Now, I’m sorry to digress a mere 200 words in, but this is important. 

Regular readers will recall Dagny is from Manitoba. If you have Canadian or Canadian-born loved ones (actual Canadian readers can skip ahead), you’ve come up against this situation often: A Canadian mentions some incomprehensible phenomenon, believing it to be globally beloved, only to learn in reality it is known only in Canada, often at the provincial or local level.

In our house, this happens with some frequency. Examples remembered by Dags:

A pre-DoorDash phone service called “Champs” that would deliver KFC (and only KFC – no other food options) to your home.  

Screaming or singing “Halloween apples!” instead of saying “trick or treat” at Halloween. (No, you weren’t supposed to give the kids apples, just candy.)

Red or pink popcorn. 

And many others. Often, rudimentary research of the sort well known to our readers reveals these phenomena are unique to Dagny’s hometown, Winnipeg (a weird and wonderful place).

Anyways, The Friendly Giant was not globally known, but rather was a Canadian children’s show that was conceived and (originally) produced in Wisconsin. 

Cohosted by a bland, elderly male giant, an itinerant giraffe, and a tiny chicken the giant keeps prisoner in a sack (don’t ask), The Friendly Giant always began with the giant inviting viewers to have a seat on some tiny doll furniture.

And here, reader, the similarities to today’s episode, real or perceived, end.

Now back to our story. 

Finally, we see there’s a doll that’s more or less identical to the Ugly and Scary English Doll that was Nellie’s dancing companion while she was “convalescing” in “Bunny.” (Is it a duplicate model? Or did Nels take it away from her to re-sell it, as a punishment? I bet the latter, actually.)

You know, not to draw out this exhausting flounce down Memory Lane, but my friend Raja and I used to go to this bizarre place in my hometown called “The Museum of 1,000 Barbies.” Now defunct, sadly; but the feel was similar to this showroom.

(I wasn’t able to find a picture from the old museum; however, when it closed in the year 2000, its Barbies were donated to The Strong National Museum of Play in New York State, where they remain to this day.)

Anyways, this episode was written by another new writer, a Robert Janes, who wrote and/or produced episodes of Charlie’s Angels, The Amazing Spider-Man, Hawaii Five-O, and Voyagers! (That exclamation point is part of the title, though I’d add another one out of enthusiasm if I could.)

(What am I saying, I can do anything I want. Voyagers!!) 

We see Laura is on the Mercantile porch, looking at the toys and grinning like Conrad Veidt.

Mary comes clomping around the corner with her lunchbucket. 

Laura begs Mary to tell her what her birthday present is going to be. Apparently that’s what Laura was doing staring at the toys, trying to guess.

Others have noted Laura Ingalls Wilder was actually born in February, but this episode seems set in summery weather. (February also seems an odd month for a toy display in a general store.)

But as we’ve seen, birthdays can be surprisingly un-straightforward in the Little House TV universe. 

In the case where the characters were real, their TV birthdays haven’t matched the correct time of year. 

And in “To Live With Fear,” Part One, the family celebrates Charles’s birthday, when in real life he and Mary had the same birthday, meaning they should have had a double party, right?

Anyways, party-poopin’ Mary won’t say what Laura’s present is.

Off they go up Shortcut Way – fairly heavily trafficked today.

With the theme tune triple-fortissimo in the strings, we cut to the Little House, where Pa holds an improbably-fancily-wrapped present. (I know I use a lot of adverbs, which writing experts complain about. But it’s light humor writing, so fuck off, writing experts.)

The fireplace is lit, so maybe it really is February after all.

So, Laura opens the gift, and guess what, it’s a huge dictionary.

Suppressing her horror, Laura thanks Pa politely.

“Well, I thought it was about time you had one!” Pa laughs idiotically.

“Mary can use it too,” Laura says. 

“And me when I get bigger!” slurps Carrie. Which kind of sounds like Elmo dialogue to me.

Speaking of Mary, here’s something odd. I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that an identical dictionary appeared in Season One’s “The Award.” 

In that story, the dictionary was a school prize – one which Mary coveted so hard, she broke the rules, and almost burned down the fucking barn!

Desire always begets punishment in the Little House universe.

Today, Mary shows zero interest in the dictionary, which you’d think a Brainiac like her would still be thrilled to have in the house. (She didn’t actually win that prize in “The Award,” if you recall.)

Pa burbles with enthusiasm for the book, talking up its special features, add-ons, and the like. 

OLIVE: I don’t think I’ve ever used a dictionary.

WILL: Well, you grew up in the post-book age. You’re paying a price for it, though.

OLIVE: Whatever. [looks at TikTok]

If you read the recap for “The Award,” you’ll recall a book like this would have cost about $6, probably over $150 now. An extravagant gift for a 10-year-old peasant child, one might say.

Not to mention, Pa also paid for Todd Bridges’s stagecoach ticket back to Iowa in the last episode. 

This on top of being so destitute he risked the lives of countless Chinese immigrants mere weeks before. 

(How much money did he make from that mining job, exactly? I know the Hill Street Blues guy threw in extra hazard pay, but still.)

Anyways, Laura says she loves the dictionary.

One of those fun “blowing-out-the-lamp” transitions follows, and we see Ma and Pa have gone to bed. 

Charles is still going on about the glorious dictionary, but he’s losing steam.

Caroline says, with a touch of dryness, “I certainly never had anything like that when I was little.”

It’s still windy and you can see the shadows of the trees through the moonlight on the headboard . . . despite there being zero trees in the vicinity of the Little House.

Well, Charles quickly abandons his charade, saying, “Who am I kidding? She hated it.” 

(If you think “Who am I kidding?” seems out of period, you’re right, though kidding in the sense of “joking” was around already.)

Caroline says Laura didn’t hate it, adding, “It’s exactly what I would have picked out.”

OLIVE: God, what a lie!

DAGNY: That was expected of women back then when men gave bad gifts. Actually, it still is.

And while this is indeed the likeliest explanation for Caroline’s fib, to be fair she also engages in several of her classic angling-for-sex behaviors here: flattering Charles, fondling Charles, squirming, doing little gasps between sentences, and so on.

Then she ASMR-whispers, “Years from now, when things like fancy mirrors are broken and long forgotten, she’ll still be using that dictionary, and thinking what a beautiful gift it was.”

WILL: Is she back on the laudanum?

Then, grinning, she says, “Now come on – let’s go to sleep.”

(Clearly, “Let’s go to sleep” must be a private euphemism of theirs, along the lines of “Is there any more popcorn?”)

Charles rolls over, away from her . . . but he’s smiling in a way that suggests something is beginning to happen under the covers.

Fortunately (?), this one being 7+, we cut away before things get too spicy. 

Back in the dollhouse, Queen Charlotte is entertaining Harriet Oleson.

Laura is staring through the window at the dolls again, pretty glumly this time.

The Kid with Very Red Hair (Mean One), an Ambiguously Ethnic Kid, and the Midsommar Kid pass in the thoroughfare, as a blonde girl we’ve never seen before approaches.

But if you’re thinking she’s just a Nondescript Helen, you couldn’t be wronger.

“Hi Anna,” says Laura. 

The girl just smiles and bobs her head.

Laura comments on the great toys in the display; yet Anna still says nothing.

Finally, Laura asks her which one she’d pick, and, stuttering slightly, Anna says, “I think I’d like the doll.” 

(“The doll”? Gotta be more specific, kid, when you’re shopping at The Museum of 1,000 Fucking Barbies.)

Then Anna gets hung up on a word, stuttering quite severely.

“Take your time,” says Laura.

OLIVE: Oh, Laura’s gonna cure her, huh.

DAGNY: She has got crazy language skills. She picked up ASL in, like, a day.

DAGNY: How would you grade her stuttering? I’d give her a B. The blinking helps. It brings her up a full grade.

AMELIA: Oh my God.

The likable actor playing Anna is named Katy Kurtzman. If you recognize her, it may be because she comes back next season, playing the young Caroline in a famous flashback episode. (I am aware some readers think I’m over-liberal with terms like “famous” or “big classics.” Truth is just truth, people.)

Katy Kurtzman was also a regular on Dynasty, and appeared in The ABC Afterschool Special, Fantasy Island, and The New Adventures of Heidi.

AND, she was on Love Boat!!! (That deserves three extra exclamation points.) 

She also appeared, years later, on Grey’s Anatomy.

Suddenly, from inside the Mercantile, Tartan Nellie screams, “Laura, we’re going up to my room to play!”

We see there are some other girls with her, but we don’t get a great look at them – one is the Mona Lisa Nondescript Helen, I think.

Laura and Nellie have a whole conversation whilst Nellie’s on the stairs and Laura’s on the porch, so apparently the front door’s open? (Also strange for February. . . .)

Nellie tells Laura she’s founded a “best friends” club, which she invites Laura to join. (Improbable? Maybe. More on this later.)

Skeptical Laura asks why she’s being invited, and says she’d rather play with Anna.

Nellie says Anna can come with her. 

Since Nellie, by virtue of her wealth, is a celebrity to some of the other schoolgirls, Anna gets very excited and begs Laura to join them.

Cut to a bunch of girls playing in Nellie’s bedroom. Laura stares, absorbed, at one of Nellie’s music boxes.

WILL: Laura is obsessed with music boxes. Remember how she used to sneak into that old man’s house when he wasn’t home to play with his? 

DAGNY: Yes. She needs meds.

(If the box is playing a real tune – I mean, obviously it’s real, as in it exists, but if it’s anything other than a David Rose original, I don’t recognize it.)

Nellie suddenly comes over and slams the music box shut. Then she calls the “meeting” to order, designating herself as President and Laura as Vice President. 

Laura and Nellie’s relationship is quite weird, isn’t it? Clearly there’s mutual antipathy, and yet Nellie, perhaps recognizing Laura’s popularity and independence, craves her approval as well. They might be the truest frenemies on this show.

But when Laura nominates Anna for Veep instead, Nellie snorts and says in disbelief, “She can’t be in the club!”

“Why not,” asks Laura flatly.

“Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-you kn-na-na-na-na-na-na-know wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-why not,” says Nellie. 

Behind her, Anna suddenly looks down at the floor. 

This is a cruel story, reader. It may be too close to the knuckle for some. I was bullied, too, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t really “make you stronger.” It sort of fucks you up for life, actually.

(One side note: Interestingly, we see the framed picture of the doll “Janet” – smashed by Nellie at the end of “Bunny” – is now fixed.)

Before anyone has a chance to react, Mrs. Oleson – the real one, not the doll – bursts in.

It really is hard to tell who all these girls are. The only one we can definitively identify in this shot is the hungover-looking Nondescript Helen.

We see Nellie’s Ugly Scary English Doll is in the room, though, so that must have been a different one on the Mercantile’s display floor.

Well, Mrs. Oleson has gone all out for this party, preparing not only sandwiches but punch as well.

All the girls rush out of the room, except Laura and Anna.

Anna is still looking down at the floor, heartbreakingly. I’ll tell you right now, I’m a sucker for Katy Kurtzman’s performance in this one.

Laura doesn’t say anything, though, and eventually Anna says they should go downstairs too.

But as they’re leaving, the music box, which tipped over during the hubbub, mysteriously begins playing.

ROMAN: It’s the end of The Changeling!

Laura lingers a moment, and when Anna’s gone, she lunges forward, snatches the box, and puts it in the apron of her pinafore!

Cut to Laura and Anna walking across a windy plain. Although this is a dark story, the wind so far seems fairly ordinary, as opposed to the supernaturally horrible Winds of Doom this show usually gives us. The main difference is that the Winds of Doom are usually accompanied by shock chords from David Rose. (Slide whistle sometimes, too.)

Oh, and the landscape actually looks like Minnesota for once!

Laura is apparently tricking Anna into not stuttering by forcing her to talk about her favorite things – in this case, Nellie’s doll furniture.

It isn’t clear if she’s referring to the dollhouse Nellie partially destroyed in a rage in “Bunny,” but probably not. (I’m sure they got her a new one.)

Well, Laura’s trick works, so then she suggests Anna start screaming her epic catalog of doll furniture “so they can hear you all the way to Mankato!”

Anna tries to comply, but Laura keeps interrupting to scream new orders.

Abruptly Anna departs. At first it looks like she’s limping heavily, a la “Town Party, Country Party,” but it’s probably just the rumply turf she’s crossing.

The trees around them all look dead. Can it be this really is meant to be February? (Of 1877-D?)

Laura turns and takes off running. We see she’s mere yards away from home, which is weird, since the impression I got is they were somewhere in the wastes separating Casa dell’Ingalls from the urban hub of Walnut Grove.

Laura slips into the barn. A lot of shenanigans happen in barns on this show, don’t they? Crazy Mary starting her fire, Solomon suckin’ eggs, Pa murdering Jasper 2 . . . The list goes on and on.

WILL: There is something about a barn, though. When I was growing up, the kid next door lived on a farm, and his older brother stashed a couple Playboys in the hayloft, which we found. Young people these days will never understand what we went through in the Twentieth Century to access even the mildest pornography. You’d walk ten miles for it!

AMELIA/OLIVE: Oh my God, Dad.

Of course, there was always the public library, too. I have to laugh that puritan nutsos are only banning books with sex content from libraries now, when actual pornography is unlimited, and practically unavoidable, on the internet, for free! 

Fortunately, when I was a kid in the early eighties, there was no campaign to take racy shit like The Whole Earth Catalog or Our Bodies, Ourselves off our library shelves. (I can personally attest, my hometown library’s copies of both titles were, as they say, well-thumbed.)

Like Gollum with his ring, Laura scrambles up to the loft to stare worshipfully at the precious thing she’s stolen, and pulls the music box from a pocket. (A secret one this time, in her . . . petticoat? Pantaloon?)

The music box’s tune is so familiar. Seriously, does anybody know if it really is a Rose original? It’s catchy. He did use an existing melody, by Lully if I remember, in “Haunted House.” But this one’s driving me crazy, because I feel I recognize it, but have no idea from where.

Once again, Laura grins madly, and just like in “Haunted House,” she then starts twirling like Stevie Nicks.

DAGNY: Laura is a sneak. She does sneaky shit like this all the time, like her bullshit with those medicines.

Then the door opens, and Laura freaks out, knocking the music box to the floor in her haste to hide the evidence.

But when she hangs her head down to look from the hayloft – we actually get an upside-down “LauraVision” shot, which is delightful – she sees it’s only the wind. (Which maybe isn’t so benign in this one after all.)

Relieved, Laura returns to her fetish. But when she opens it, she finds it no longer plays properly.

Cut to Pa playing a (quite musically interesting) waltz whilst Ma, Mary and Carrie listen in the firelight. 

DAGNY: This is a very cool shot. Carrie and Ma in shadow.

It is. Landon’s fake fiddling is a little half-assed in this one, though.

The camera pulls back to reveal Laura moping by the fireplace.

Ma puts Carrie to bed, and Mary clomps over to the ladder and climbs up.

DAGNY: I always wished I lived in this time because they never had to brush their teeth before bed.

Pa tries to get Laura to talk, but it doesn’t work.

Pa watches her go, with the tree shadows once again moving over his face. (Is there even a window on that side of the house?)

DAGNY: You can tell Landon directed this one himself. He likes to have a lot of shots of himself staring at Melissa Gilbert.

(Landon did direct it, of course. Dags always knows!)

Then we see Laura in bed, tossing and turning and sweating. David Rose, rather nastily, accompanies this with the music box tune.

Then we get to see the nightmare Laura’s having – always a treat on this show.

As the lower brass and some chimes take over the music-box tune, we see Laura, dressed in rags, standing in the dock before a judge.

And the slide whistle is BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! Well, we all knew that was coming, right?

The judge is dressed almost exactly like George William Powell, an Australian judge whose picture is currently the main image for the Wikipedia article on judicial court dress.

(How Laura’s subconscious knows what U.K. Commonwealth judges dressed like is beyond me. Maybe Miss Beadle taught them about it.)

Doing a decent Boris Karloff impression, the judge asks for the jury’s verdict.

“We have, your honor!” says a voice doing a decent Mrs. Oleson impression (because it’s Katherine MacGregor’s). “We find Laura Ingalls guilty of stealing a music box!”

I doubted women would have been allowed on juries at that time, and in fact, in Minnesota they weren’t until 1921, though it seems in some other states they were. (Wyoming apparently began seating women on juries in 1870 – surprising for a couple reasons, but never mind.)

But it is a dream, after all.

The judge announces a very silly sentence, which includes having to write “I will not steal” ten million times.

ALEXANDER: Did they even know numbers went up to a million then?

ROMAN [annoyed]: Alexander, that was discovered by Victorian scientists in like 1850.

The actor playing this nightmare judge is Fred Stuthman, who appeared in some interesting seventies movies, including Network, Marathon Man, Escape From Alcatraz, and The Sentinel, an odd horror movie that, depending on your point of view, you’ll find either offensive or very offensive. It also starred Cristina Raines and John Carradine (as well as a lot of other people – big and little).

He also appeared on TV shows including The Rockford Files, Lou Grant, Hart to Hart, Father Murphy, and my personal favorite from his CV, It’s a Living.

Damn, I wish they’d bring back full-length theme songs on TV shows.

Well, back in the real world (well, the Little House TV universe, at least), furious Mary wakes her sister.

Comedy isn’t usually Melissa Sue Anderson’s strong suit on this show, but she is funny here.

Commercial.

When we come back, Laura and Mary are walking to school with their new best friend Anna. (Speaking of best friends of the week, I wonder what happened to Ginny the Gelfling? I suppose her mom married Mr. Mayfield and they moved away, huh? Too many painful memories.)

Anyways, we see two Nondescript Helens walking in the background. I think one of them might be Leslie Landon, actually.

(Actually, it turns out it isn’t. She is in next week’s episode, though.)

As they pass the Mercantile, Nellie appears, and squeaks, “Laura Ingalls!” (I love when Nellie talks in her squeaky voice.)

Willie’s there too.

Nellie surprises Laura by offering her a gumdrop. (I wondered if they had gumdrops then, but they did!)

Nellie informs Laura she’s invited to a club luncheon later that day. 

Laura’s noncommittal, but Anna says, stuttering, “I’ll be in the club!” Does she have amnesia? It is fairly common on this show.

Nellie also notices this, and, annoyed, says, “You can’t be in the club until you learn how to talk.”

Laura fiercely defends Anna, even returning the gumdrop, which she hasn’t yet eaten. (I don’t buy that. Nobody holds a gumdrop for five minutes before eating it.)

OLIVE: Nellie should give the one she touched to Willie.

Through this scene, Mary is holding an ancient book that looks like it came from a pirate’s treasure chest, or something.

Or maybe it’s the Necronomicon?

Laura says Nellie can go fuck herself (paraphrase), and as they leave, Nellie shouts after them, “A chicken can squawk, and a butterfly can flutter,/But Anna can’t talk, all she can do is suh-suh-suh-suh-stutter!”

Evaluated formally, it’s not a bad poem to improvise on the spot. Eat your heart out, John Junior!

Unfortunately for Nellie, during this conversation, Nels has come onto the porch because they’re apparently having a sale on butter churns (no joke). He isn’t so impressed by her creativity.

I notice Alison Arngrim has an anachronistic cap or brace on her right eyetooth. Or is it a morsel of gumdrop?

Horrified, Nels orders Nellie into the house and tells her to “get the strap ready!” You know, I realize it’s a lighthearted 99-percent-fictional show, but there is something I don’t like about how Little House deplores violence against children, except in the case of Nellie Oleson because she “deserves it.”

(It’s the Big Lie behind “meritocracy,” which really means “Reward or punish people as you see fit, as long as you can justify it to yourself.”)

Nellie and Willie run into the house screaming, “Mama!”

Mrs. Oleson defends Nellie, who apologizes and goes all doe-eyed.

Nellie even calls Nels “Papa.” (Not “Puppa-paw,” though.)

Nels relents, but says Nellie needs to walk out to Anna’s house and apologize. Isn’t this before school? Why doesn’t she just apologize there?

Then he tells her to “spend the day in your room thinking about what you’ve done.” So I guess it’s Saturday. But why are all the kids in town, then?

Willie doesn’t do much during this scene, but Jonathan Gilbert is quite funny, as usual.

And Richard Bull is terrific as well, with Nels being uncharacteristically firm. He even yells “What are you looking at!” at Harriet once the kids are gone, then gives himself a little eyebrow-raise of satisfaction.

The bell rings out in the shop, and Nels, clearly enjoying this spurt of Alpha-Male-ness, strides manfully away.

Out in the barn again, clever Laura is trying to DIY-repair the music box.

It doesn’t work, though. (My DIYs never do, either.)

Then, in a hilarious moment, we see Nellie walking down the Little House driveway . . . and Jack comes barreling out of nowhere and leaps onto her chest, nearly knocking her down. Hands-down our favorite Jack moment so far.

Nellie yells at him. I’m surprised she knows his name, actually.

(If you look closely, I think Arngrim is trying not to laugh.)

Nellie takes refuge from this savage attack in the barn. (Yes, it’s a silly contrivance, but whatever, it’s Little House.)

She’s horrified to discover Laura with her stolen booty.

Laura, looking not exactly un-horrified herself, whips up some bullshit story about how Charles bought it for her; but she doesn’t have the conviction to carry it off.

Plus, Nellie knows the inventory.

And in fact, if you look closely, the other music box was in fact in the window when Laura was looking through it before.

Laura confesses pretty quickly. Taking control, Nellie says she’s going straight to Caroline. But when Laura begs her not to, she quickly concocts a blackmail plan, saying she’ll keep quiet as long as Laura obeys her orders, joining her dipshit club being at the top of the list.

Laura agrees, and Nellie with acid irony says, “Good. You’re lucky I like you.”

Pa suddenly appears, and now watch how smoothly Nellie does this:

CHARLES: Hi girls! Whatcha doin’?

LAURA: Nothing. . . . We were just listening to Nellie’s music box.

NELLIE: Oh, it’s YOUR music box now, Laura! Remember? I gave it to you for your birthday?

Nellie goes on to say this “present” is a “peace offering” to demonstrate their feud is over and they’ll be “best friends” from now on. (Is that what Nellie really wants? I think she kind of does. She is a lonely kid, after all, like a lot of bullies.)

Anyways, stupid Charles takes her statement at face value. (Amnesia galore this week.)

Nellie asks Charles’s permission for Laura to come over the following day, then asks Laura for directions to Anna’s house.

Laura says Anna lives “past Oak Hill” (that narrows it down) and “just beyond the Blue Pond.” (Oh, for heaven’s sakes, how many lakes, ponds, and swamps can there be in the immediate vicinity of the Little House? This is at least the fifth we’ve heard about.)

Then, hilariously, Pa says, “Well, I better get to work!”, but pauses first to say “That’s a beautiful music box” and wink idiotically. I don’t know which performance brings me more joy: Landon as normal Charles, or Landon as stupid Charles.

DAGNY: Now that my hair is longer, if I do pigtails I’m always conscious of how far I braid them down. I don’t do it all the way to the bottom because I’m afraid people will come up and say I look like Laura Ingalls.

Then we follow Nellie as she walks across a field towards a gigantic chair.

WILL: Look, that must be where the Friendly Giant lives.

DAGNY: Oh, ha ha ha.

The chair is actually on a front porch, of course. Nellie is swinging her right arm, and as she approaches, we can see she’s tired out from her day of web-spinning. Seriously, is Nellie our viewpoint character now?

Nellie knocks on the door and we see a handsome (?) middle-aged (?) woman in stereotypical Scandinavian costume coming to answer it.

DAGNY: She went authentic. Low-hangin’!

The actor playing her, Lidia Kristen, has a short but terrific resume, appearing in Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, Love at First Bite, and Young Frankenstein (another family favorite), in which she plays little Helga’s mother. (You either know the scene or you don’t.)

Nellie asks the woman if Anna is home, and she replies, “Jag förstår inte engelska.” (Which is actually real Swedish! You don’t always get that from Swedish characters on American TV, as I’m sure you know.)

(Actually, I remember reading an article once saying real Swedes don’t understand the humor of the Swedish Chef . . . and also they think he sounds Norwegian, not Swedish! That cracks me up for some reason.)

Anyways, Anna comes out and says guardedly, “What do you want?”

Nellie says, “I don’t blame you for being mad at me. I came to say I’m sorry we teased you.”

The thing is, she actually seems sincere enough. For all Alison Arngrim’s obvious gifts for going big, part of the appeal of her performance throughout this series is how Nellie is a blend of both big and subtle evil. Unlike her mother, Nellie is a creature of varying colors.

DAGNY: She sounded Canadian there.

Nellie says she wanted to apologize to Anna’s parents also, but Anna says they don’t speak English.

Anna’s mother (the credits tell us the family name is Gillberg) invites Nellie to stay for supper (which Anna translates).

Nellie politely declines. The girls step outside, and Nellie actually compliments Anna on how her speech is improving.

WILL: God, she knows how to manipulate people. This is beyond what she usually does. This is up to the standard of that one with the phonograph where she captures Laura saying how much she loves the scientist and then plays it for him.

Nellie says she wants the two of them to be “best friends.” She smiles warmly, and then, in one of my very favorite Alison Arngrim moments ever, turns away and drops the mask.

When she does, though, she doesn’t look gleeful, or smug, or anything like that. She actually looks quite unhappy – just the miserable kid she is, for once. I’d love to ask Arngrim about that choice someday.

Anna sure looks happy, though. I have to tell you, I don’t know how I’m ever going to do the Walnut Groovy Awards this season, because there are so, so many fine performances across the acting categories, big and small.

Another amusing transition gives us Laura actually reading her dictionary. 

I’ve said this before, but I’m surprised this show makes Mary the academic, and depicts Laura as spunky and brave but hardly scholarly. She does turn out to be a famous writer, after all. 

Then again, some people say that daughter of hers actually wrote all the books, don’t they?

But in Laura’s defense, I had spotty grades myself, and look how well I turned out.

Laura looks up. I actually thought she was going to talk to Pa, who’s stuffing a hacky-sack or something behind her, about the book’s crazy extras, but instead she asks what it’s like to be in jail.

Pa says he doesn’t know, though he adds, “I did know a couple of fellas went to jail during the War.”

ROMAN: I bet you did. . . . FELLOW DRAFT-DODGERS LIKE YOURSELF, CHUCK???

“What kinda things can they put somebody in jail for?” Laura asks.

WILL [as CHARLES]: “Well, having sex with sheep is the most common one these days. . . .”

Laura says she assumes you’d just get sent to jail for stealing valuable property like horses.

“Oh, no!” Pa laughs, smoking up. “No, they hang you for that.”

The popular notion of horse theft as a hanging offense in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century America is somewhat exaggerated, though legally-sanctioned punishments were severe. In Pennsylvania, hardly the Wild West, horse thieves were punished with branding – sometimes on the face.

That night, Laura sleeps with her mouth hanging open (Willie-style).

David gives us a rather Christmasty arrangement of his (?) music-box tune.

And we head to Dreamland again, where we see a bunch of girls in a dungeon.

There’s a lot of vaseline or what have you smeared on the camera lens, but I think they actually used the regular schoolkids for this sequence. And why would they hire somebody else, I suppose?

For instance, I’m pretty sure that’s Cloud City Princess Leia tied to the torture wheel. (This show!)

This device of torture and execution was a real thing, known as a “breaking wheel” or “Wheel of Catherine” (after St. Catherine of Alexandria, who supposedly survived a ride on one, though not for very long).

Again, how Laura knows of such a thing is unclear. Probably the Bead again.

Laura is there amongst the prisoners.

A door opens, and a hooded executioner-type appears in the misty background, carrying a bucket.

This figure steps into the light, where it’s revealed to be Harriet Oleson!

Hilariously, she reaches into the bucket and starts throwing handfuls of breadcrumbs at the kids, who crawl on hands and knees to eat them off the floor. (One of them might be Gelfling Ginny, actually.)

Mrs. Oleson laughs, revealing horrible fake teeth. Katherine MacG clearly is relishing this opportunity to ham it up.

This (terrific) dream sequence is clearly inspired by Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe movies – notably the Spanish-Inquisition-themed Pit and the Pendulum.

Just when you think it can’t get better, Nellie, also hooded, appears behind her mother, chewing on a turkey drumstick.

And AGAIN when you think it can’t get better, Nellie hits Laura over the head with the turkey leg!

Well, Mary wakes Laura up from her dream.

DAGNY: Those are different nightcaps than the ones they used to have. They’re obviously smaller. Laura used to look like the Purple Pieman in hers.

WILL: Well, she’s grown.

DAGNY: No. Well, I mean, yes, but they’re also different hats.

Then we get this hilarious exchange.

LAURA: Mary?

MARY: What?

LAURA: If I was to tell you something bad, would you tell Pa?

MARY [instantly]: Yes.

Laura: Oh. Goodnight, then.

HA! Seriously, I love this episode. It’s really the perfect mixture of darkness and light.

WILL: Mary’s such a rat in this one, but she’s right.

OLIVE: Dad, what would you do if I confessed to something like this?

WILL: I would put you in the cellar and just throw breadcrumbs for you to eat.

In another wonderful transition, we cut to Nellie pompously declaiming rules to the playground girls as Laura, Mary, and Anna race around in the background.

Then she invites Laura and Mary to play hide-and-seek. Mary declines flatly.

I’m not sure who most of these girls are. Mona Lisa Helen and Hangover Helen are there, but I don’t recognize any of the others.

Except Willie, of course! He’s apparently caucusing with the girls for recess today. (I often did the same. Still do, at work.)

Nellie shrugs off Mary’s snub, then says, “Come on, Laura.”

Laura guiltily hesitates, then says, “All right.”

“Laura!” says Mary, shocked.

David gives us a sappy, sentimental arrangement of the music-box tune as Laura abandons her pals for her worst enemy.

After a break, we see Laura running through the woods. She’s flailing her arms, but not with the refined technique of a Ma or Miss Beadle.

She finds Willie behind a tree and says, “Gotcha, Willie!”

“No you didn’t,” says Willie. “You didn’t find me.”

Laura is confused, until Willie mimes opening a music box and sings, “Dum Dum Dum” – the mysterious tune!

Stunned, Laura gulps silently.

It’s worth noting, after this cruel musical interlude, Willie politely closes the “box.”

Her voice dry and small, Laura says, “You’re right. I didn’t find you.”

That night, the girls seem depressed at supper. Caroline is all smiles, though. (Has she even had a line since her angling-for-sex scene at the beginning?)

Pa asks about the present from Nellie, and Mary, sickened that her sister can be bought by a villain, asks to be excused without dessert.

Laura refuses to talk about what’s going on, so Pa dismisses her.

Up in their loft apartment, Mary and Laura immediately begin screaming at each other, and Pa rushes up to mediate.

But when Mary gets to the part about Anna being blacklisted from the club because of her speech impediment, Pa rounds on Laura furiously, telling her she can’t be in any club without a DEI policy.

When he leaves, Laura stares down at the music box, by now as much a talisman of evil as Stephen King’s monkey.

The show then veers into ludicrousness as we see tree branches actually trying to get into Laura and Mary’s window, like a Triffid, or Audrey II.

(Or maybe a Krynoid, a reference I know some of you might prefer.)

This is accompanied by Forensic Files-style “screaming” music from the Rose.

And now, even though it isn’t my birthday this week, we get a THIRD dream sequence!

This dream begins with a rank of no fewer than EIGHT drummers dressed as British Revolutionary War redcoats. (I wonder where they found them all? Were they David Rose’s minions?)

Then we see an executioner leading Laura, who’s shackled, in a cart drawn by a mule.

ROMAN: Are they gonna burn her, like The Wicker Man?

OLIVE [singing]: SUMMER IS ICUMEN IN! . . . 

We see the cart is being pulled to a gallows. (So, more Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General than The Wicker Man.)

OLIVE: They probably have hangings every week in this town, she would know they don’t have drummers.

The executioner’s face is fully concealed this time . . . though her hat is strangely familiar. . . .

Nicely, the Ingallses have all turned out for Laura’s execution. Even Mary showed up.

ROMAN: What the heck is THAT? An alien?

For, a second masked executioner is standing on the platform, with something weird wiggling from its mouth, like an insect’s proboscis.

Laura marches up the stairs, and as the executioner prepares the noose, we see golden curls protruding from under the hood.

The “wiggling proboscis” is a candy cane.

ROMAN: Are you sure YOU didn’t direct this one, Stepfather? This scene is like a Walnut Groovy picture.

The executioner releases the trap – and Laura sits bolt upright in bed.

Mary, who has not been sleeping, is staring at her sister. “Goodnight, Laura,” she says with ferocious intensity. (This is kind of the Go the Fuck to Sleep episode to end all Go the Fuck to Sleep episodes, and definitely Melissa Sue Anderson’s funniest performance since “If I Wake Before I Die.”) 

WILL [to AMELIA and OLIVE]: This is totally the two of you when you were little. Olive was Mary, and Amelia was Laura, only she would wake Olive up by sleeping sideways across the bed.

Laura folds her arms and says “Goodbye” rather than “Goodnight.”

The next day, Laura, practically trembling, tells Nellie Charles will make her quit if Anna isn’t allowed to join the club. Melissa Gilbert is pretty subtle in this one, but it’s a very satisfying performance.

Nellie ponders this a moment, then smirks and says all right, Anna can join.

Later, all the girls gather in Nellie’s bedroom for Anna’s initiation ceremony.

Anna stutters her way through answering Nellie’s questions. It’s quite sad – not to expose her, but Olive has run with some cliquey girls at times. I never understood why. Human nature, I suppose. And in retrospect, I suppose I had my Nellie-ish moments as a kid, too.

Laura beams at Anna’s performance. The more squeamish amongst you may want to skip ahead a bit now.

Nellie says all that remains is for Anna to read a password from a sheet of paper.

Anna stares, horrified.

She protests, but Nellie won’t take no for an answer. 

WILL: It’s like the scene in Misery where Annie makes Paul Sheldon burn his book.

Anna begins, and WE realize with horror this “password” is actually the “Peter Piper” tongue twister. (Published in 1813.)

With difficulty, she stammers as far in as picked, when Nellie, smiling mildly, says, “No, no, you have to say it fast.”

The schoolgirls laugh cruelly from the bed.

Even the inscrutable smile of the Mona Lisa Helen turns slightly upwards for once.

“Spit it out!” laughs Nellie. “I can’t understand you!” (Not sure if the expression “spit it out” was actually in use yet.)

“No, Anna!” shouts Laura. “Take your time! You can say it if you take your time.”

But Anna can’t say it. 

She tries, though. 

For FORTY-TWO EXCRUCIATING SECONDS she tries. And she keeps trying, even when, choking with terror and shame, she can no longer make any sounds at all.

My God, this poor child. It’s unbelievably brutal – I can barely take it.

AMELIA: She’s really good.

ROMAN: Yeah. Do you think Landon was poking her with a pin off-camera to get this performance?

Then she runs out.

“I wonder what’s wrong with her,” Nellie says, sitting down on the bed amongst her courtiers and laughing – just the subtlest little shaking of her shoulders.

Laughing at Laura.

Because make no mistake, what she’s done isn’t about punishing Anna. It’s about punishing LAURA – for not liking her, for choosing losers like Anna over her again and again, for being innocent and normal and free in a way she herself can never be.

This whole twisted game was cooked up as revenge on Laura for being a different kind of person, and for choosing a life that doesn’t allow Nellie into it, except as an enemy.

There are dark depths to this one, friends.

Laura turns and tells the bunch of them off; but (with apologies to “A Matter of Faith”) she really doesn’t have a leg to stand on. 

No, she’s bungled this whole business since Day One, and as I’m sure Mary would point out, she can thank herself for much of the pain experienced by her friend. 

(I know what I’m talking about. I was bullied, but as I said, was a very mean kid myself also. I think I felt it was justified because I was bullied. I still have regrets for the hurt I caused some people when I was young. I lose sleep over it, in fact. But this isn’t my therapy session, so don’t worry about that.)

Laura runs out, and while her speech seems to have no effect on most of the girls, it does on Nellie – more proof of my point.

After a final commercial, we see the wind is still a-howlin’. (Word to the wise: If you ever find yourself in Walnut Grove and it’s windy out, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR LODGINGS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! STAY THE FUCK IN BED!)

Laura finds Anna weeping in agony under a barren tree. (So February it is, I guess.)

She tries to justify herself, but you can tell she doesn’t believe it.

AMELIA: Melissa Gilbert’s faces are great.

Stuttering though she may be, Anna lets Laura have it, quite devastatingly.

(Anna does sort of let herself off the hook, though, saying “I only wanted to be in the club because you were in it,” when in reality it was she who begged Laura to join with her, just so she could see Nellie’s goddam dolls and shit.)

Then Laura kneels down and says she’s quit the cockadoodie club, and is going to make coaching Anna’s diction her top priority from now on. (Yay?)

Anna forgives her surprisingly quickly, but it’s TV, and we’ve got plenty to attend to before we wrap this fucker up!

The girls run off, singing, “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring,” a nursery rhyme/drinking song from 1912.

And rain it does! Back at the Little House, with thunder in the background (it’s rare in the winter, but it does happen here), Pa guzzles coffee whilst Ma and Mary untangle fishing nets, or something. 

Carrie’s whereabouts are unknown. Laura comes in soaking wet, but before they can dry her off, she confesses the whole thing to the three of them.

Laura’s speech is so brave, and Gilbert’s performance so true, I actually did cry a little here. It’s all a matter of taste, but for me, this is one of the finest episodes so far.

Pa, who’s almost smiling with pride, says he’ll leave it up to Nels to determine a punishment. Oh my God, NELS? I’m surprised Laura doesn’t start laughing with relief!

Laura and Mary make up too.

The next day, we see the Chonkywagon parked by the Mercantile, as Mustache Man passes by. (Yay!)

Laura, who’s accompanied by Pa and Anna, explains everything to Nels, and he’s furious – at Nellie.

As for Laura, he says she’s been punished enough.

Nellie comes down, and tries to accuse Laura of stealing the music box, but of course the cat’s out of the bag.

Then Nels tells Nellie she won’t be going to school today, because he’s going to spend the whole day beating her.

But we won’t end on that note. Instead, Laura and Anna encounter Willie on the steps, who tries to blackmail them into carrying some water buckets for him. 

But, freed from her obligation, Laura just dumps it over his head.

Whew, the end! Dum-Dum-Da-Dum! I mean, Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: Evil though she may be, Nellie wears a nice lavender ensemble.

Mrs. Oleson wears a clasp or brooch that seems to be shaped like a starfish. (Has she worn that before?)

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: I think everybody who watched this as a kid remembers the searing drama of this one. Perfecting the themes of “Town Party, Country Party,” it’s a masterpiece, and features Alison Arngrim’s finest performance in the series so far. (I wonder if Landon knew what a great investment he’d made when he hired her.) Gilbert’s great, Kurzman makes a heartbreaking victim, and while it’s dark and brutal, it’s also hilariously funny throughout. (On purpose, too!) Hard to top this one.

UP NEXT: The Election