“Here Come the Brides”

Midnight in the Garden of Simms and Beadle; or

Le Nozze di Pigaro

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: “Here Come the Brides” [sic]

Airdate: December 5, 1977

Written by John T. Dugan

Story by Robert F. Metzler and John T. Dugan

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Nellie forgets she’s evil, falls in love, befriends Miss Beadle, and gets married in a double ceremony.

RECAP: Happy birthday, Little House! I know it’s a bit early, but since festivities have already kicked off out in Simi Valley – did you go, perhaps? – we might as well get in on the fun. Some little birds and Friends of Groovy have been sending me some pictures and the like – how amazing is it that Jonathan Gilbert was there!

Not so amazing, or surprising, that Melissa Sue Anderson wasn’t, but that’s another story.

The celebrations will continue at various locations through the rest of this year. As for us, we’ll be attending the reunion in Walnut Grove itself, so hope to see ya there.

But we cannot let these festivities be a barrier to churning out these recaps. Today, our curtain rises – an apt metaphor, as this curious story has the character of a comic operetta – on the schoolyard.

Quotation marks again! This goes beyond twee and is starting to look really haphazard.

This one was scripted by Season Four’s new hotshot writer, John T. Dugan, after an idea suggested by Robert F. Metzler. 

Metzler appears to have been something of a Hollywood insider. He hasn’t many credits to his name, but he did work on the administrative side producing several Academy Awards ceremonies.

He also did production coordination for Disney’s “Flash, The Teen-Age Otter,” which they showed us in school, and which I remember loving when I was a tot. 

I know they say those Disney nature specials were rigged and the animals more or less tortured. If so, shame on you, Robert F. Metzler! But five-year-old me thought Flash was terrific.

Anyways, things kick off quickly as a strange wagon pulls into the schoolyard. I mean, it isn’t really that strange, we’ve just never seen it before.

The kids all turn to gawk, then Not-Linda Hunt, who rarely speaks, says, “Oh, come on!” 

And then a previously unknown Nondescript Helen says, “Don’t worry!” 

The Helen actually looks a lot like Mary, I think.

It’s not super-clear why they’re rallying the troops so. I suppose perhaps the wagon’s arrival has disrupted their jump-roping? An overreaction, if you ask me.

Laura flounces over to puppyishly greet the newcomers, whilst Tartan Nellie approaches more warily, in her trademark arms-behind-back pose.

Meanwhile, Willie rides the teeter-totter with the Midsommar Kid.

The newcomers from the wagon are a boy of about fifteen and his father. 

The boy wears dungarees over pink long underwear.

OLIVE: Oh, I call that look “the Jonathan Garvey.”

He isn’t wearing shoes, though – a style choice not encountered on this show since the Johnny Johnson days back in Season One.

Jumping the gun a bit, David Rose now gives us a melody we’ll hear over and over again in this episode. It’s the slow “Romanze” movement of Mozart’s famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

But for this occasion, David’s orchestrated it for a sort of “hillbilly” ensemble of harmonica, guitar, and jawharp or “Jew’s harp” (the famous “boing-boing” instrument). 

Whether the instrumentation also includes a jug, my ear can’t discern.

Laura greets the boy in a friendly way; and unusually, Nellie also asserts and introduces herself.

The boy seems friendly enough back. 

Once he’s inside, Nellie turns to Laura and says, “Don’t you have any manners? . . . It isn’t proper for the girl to speak first to the boy.”

AMELIA: She did it too. They’re both sluts!

(I apologize for the coarseness of my child, reader. This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine!)

Those of you who were looking forward to seeing Miss Beadle grill the new enrollee – I know I was – will be disappointed, since by the time we join them in the classroom Luke’s made it through that gauntlet.

The family’s name is apparently Simms, and the father tells Miss Beadle his wife passed away some time ago.

Since then, he says, Luke “ain’t had no woman’s touch in his life.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can do about that,” Miss Beadle replies, eyeing the young man up and down.

AMELIA: Huh! Keep your panties on, Bead.

Miss Beadle, who looks nice in her dark blue Beadling today, then addresses the elephant in the room when she accidentally (?) steps on Luke’s bare foot.

“I think that’s what you call getting off on the wrong foot!” she trills wittily, and she and the dad yuk it up. I love to think she did it on purpose, you know, to set up the joke.

(The origin of “wrong foot” is unclear, but it was around by the Nineteenth Century; Grammarist says it may date to classical antiquity.)  

Stepping outside again, Mr. Simms tells Miss Beadle he can buy Luke some shoes if it’s necessary. (He doesn’t have a single pair? Are these people not churchgoers? I think even Johnny J wore shoes IN school.)

Either way, the Bead says she doesn’t give a shit about such things.

Mr. Simms thanks her kindly, and she gives his ass a long lingering look as he walks back to the wagon.

Then the class assembles inside. Apart from the kids already named, there’s the NonBinary Kid, Not-Ellen Taylor, the Gelfling Boy, and three or four Not-Carl Sandersons.

The real Mary is there too.

WILL: So where is Patrick?

It’s true that Patrick, Mary’s beau of last week, is NOT there. 

Now, we know from “Times of Change” that he lives in Poplar Point, not Walnut Grove, but as Mary mentioned on the train, Poplar Point is “only half an hour” from the Little House on foot, so surely it’d be in the same district.

Andrew Garvey is also absent.

Anyways, since Luke isn’t Black or Indigenous, the class accepts him with unanimous approval.

Nellie knocks Willie to the ground so Luke can take the place next to her.

OLIVE: Why is Nellie so interested in him?

AMELIA: Just hormones?

Later, we see the kids playing (presumably) Three O’Cat at recess! The game hasn’t been seen or mentioned since “The Spring Dance” back in Season Two.

Luke Simms gets a hit, and runs the bases in his bare feet, despite the playground being littered with stones.

Nellie offers him some candy, which he (improbably) refuses. But he says he’d love to have lunch with her sometime.

OLIVE: They look alike. They should trade wigs.

AMELIA: Is Nellie’s hair a wig?

I’m sure we mentioned this at some point, but yes, they did switch to a wig for Nellie in Season Two, because Alison Arngrim couldn’t stand getting burned by the old-timey curling iron anymore. (Can’t say I blame her!)

Unfortunately, the wig wasn’t much better, since it had to be attached by sharp pins that scratched up her scalp.

That night, Nellie asks Mrs. Oleson if she can invite Luke for supper. “It’s not easy being the richest girl in town,” she says.

“Oh, ha ha!” Mrs. O snorts. “How well I know THAT!” (MacG is a scream in this one again.)

“Poor people don’t seem to understand the terrible responsibilities of us more fortunate ones!” she goes on. “Setting an example, and raising the spiritual and cultural standards for the community. . . .”

Out in the store, Nels rolls his eyes until he can bear no more of this bullshit, then he gets up from his stool and slams the door.

AMELIA: Ha!

OLIVE: I love Nels.

WILL: Yeah. When I was a kid, your Auntie Peggy and I always wished Nels was our babysitter. Wouldn’t he be great?

AMELIA: I dunno. . . . Wouldn’t Charles be a better one?

WILL: Nah. He’d just put you to work and expect you to think it was fun.

Mrs. Oleson asks Nellie what Luke’s father does. Nellie replies that they had “a big farm back in Illinois,” and that since moving to Minnesota they’ve taken over “the old Clanton farm.”

DAGNY: Who’s in that photo behind them? I’ve never noticed it before. . . . A relative?

Being Canadian-born, Dags wouldn’t know, but I’m pretty sure the photograph is of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, a one-term Republican President elected in 1877. I’m not sure if this is supposed to reflect Nels and Harriet’s political views or just their patriotism, but I’ll point out the Republican Party was the most liberal party on a number of issues in the late Nineteenth Century. (Hayes himself was a moderate, though.)

Upon learning Luke’s father is a wealthy agriculturalist, Mrs. Oleson decides it’s fine to invite him for supper.

On the night of the dinner party, Nels helps Willie tie his tie, which is cute. 

Luke arrives, and David launches into the Nachtmusik again – the straight-up version (no boing-boing) this time.

Luke is wearing exactly the same outfit we last saw him in. “Is this what I got all dressed up for?” Willie screams in disbelief.

Well, Mrs. Oleson is the last to greet Luke, of course, and of course she stares in horror at his feet. (At which point we do get some boings.)

Interestingly, they skip grace and proceed to food-passing and smalltalk. Mrs. O asks what Mr. Simms farms, and is unsurprised when the answer turns out to be pigs.

OLIVE: He’s a PIG farmer who never wears shoes? Now, that I do not believe.

Actually, my own family is descended from pig farmers on both sides, though I don’t think the scale of operations was ever very large. My grandma used to tell stories about how her father, a moonshiner during Prohibition, would feed leftover mash to his pigs and laugh his head off when they’d get drunk and tip over. A civilized time, the Twentieth Century!

Rather unbelievably, then, Luke takes half the beef roast when offered the platter. 

OLIVE: I don’t get it, what is she supposed to see in him?

After dinner, Nellie entertains Luke by showing him pictures of pigs in a magnifying device called a stereoscope.

OLIVE: And why is she being so nice to him? It doesn’t seem like her at all.

WILL: Maybe she realized she needed to change her approach. She didn’t do very well with that scientist, after all.

Mrs. Oleson, watching from the doorway, gives a theatrical yawn and declares the party’s over.

After Luke politely departs, Mrs. O waits about half a second before starting to scream and stomp her feet in rage.

She and Nellie scream at each other about Luke’s appropriateness as a suitor. Nellie points out Luke aspires to be Minnesota’s largest pork producer someday; to which her mother responds: 

We all have our ambitions in life, Nellie darling, and one of mine is not to see you become the Minnesota Pig Queen.

Ha! The writing in this one has a brittle, Victorian, “epigrammatic” quality the show barely ever attempts, even if it’s quite in keeping with the period setting. I wonder if Katherine MacGregor ever played Lady Bracknell?

Well, Nellie shrieks and rushes to her room.

Then we’re back again at the school, which is slow-spewing kids today – including Nellie and Luke, holding hands!

“Want to go coon-huntin’ again tonight?” Luke asks. 

OLIVE: Nellie Oleson? Hunting?

That night in their bedroom, Mrs. Oleson tells Nels there’s something fishy about how Nellie’s been going to bed early these days. But he’s reading and not listening.

WILL: I’m sorry, everybody, I know this is how I am too.

DAGNY/AMELIA/OLIVE: [silence]

Nels says he’s sorry Harriet chased Luke off, since he thought he was nice. “Well, you never had any taste,” and Nels answers, “You’re right.” 

Rappin’ Nels emerges then when Harriet says “What?” and Nels replies, “I said, goodnight.”

Then we cut to Luke and Nellie holding hands and whispering on the porch of the Mercantile.

OLIVE: Wow, this is crazy!

WILL: I knew you would like this one.

“You know, Saturday’s Flag Day,” Luke says. “They’re going to have a corn-shuckin’ down at Miller’s barn.” He asks if Nellie would like to go with him. “I’d love to,” she says.

Now, “Flag Day” is probably anachronistic for this period. The United States had adopted the Stars and Stripes as its flag on June 14, 1777, but by the time of this story (likely 1881 in the F timeline), only Hartford, Connecticut, had ever had a “Flag Day” celebration, and that was a one-time affair in 1861. 

Other municipalities began celebrating Flag Day in 1885, but it wasn’t adopted as a formal U.S. holiday until 1916.

Then Nellie adds, “Saturday happens to be my birthday also.” Previously we had dated Nellie Oleson’s birthday to late spring – you’ll recall she hosted a party for the occasion way back in “Town Party Country Party.” 

June 14th is technically late spring, though it’s odd the kids would be still in school that late, isn’t it? (Then again, they were in “Town P Country P” too.)

Looking backwards, if Alison Arngrim was twelve years old when “Town/Country” came out (and she was), that would make Michael Landon’s fictional Nellie Oleson born on June 14, 1864, since we previously nailed “T/C” down to 1876 in the A timeline. 

That would mean in this story she’s turning fifteen or sixteen (if we go by Arngrim’s real age), seventeen or eighteen (if we judge by the date stamps – 1876 and 1881 – alone), or 29 or 30 (if we take these adventures to be strictly presented in chronological order).

Two final things. One, mid-June is an impossible time for “corn-shuckin’” in Minnesota. We’re lucky if the corn is “knee-high by the Fourth of July,” and the actual harvest season isn’t till August and September.

Two, “the Miller barn” is presumably located on the property where Bert Miller, who took Mary for a spin at “The Spring Dance,” grew up.

Anyways, Nellie looks deeply into Luke’s eyes and says, “I’m almost full-grown now.”

OLIVE: Oh my God!

Then she adds, fairly, um, huskily, “A woman.”

OLIVE: OH MY GOD!!!

Inside, Mrs. Oleson is coming downstairs to get some water, when she hears Nellie giggling on the porch.

She spots Nellie and Luke on the porch, as David gives us a hint of the main theme from Tristan und Isolde on a high fiddle – another story of doomed romance! You know, sometimes my musical identifications in these recaps are a stretch, but I do think most of the classical/operatic references in this episode are deliberate. A clever man, that David Rose.

The music suddenly changes to a crazy explosive blast as Mrs. O bursts out of the Mercantile screaming. Luke runs off into the night, just as you or I or anyone would.

Once back inside, Mrs. Oleson seizes Nellie. Nels comes down, but he doesn’t much care what’s going on. “I thought it was the end of the world,” he says.

“Well, it IS, Nels, it IS!” Harriet shouts (with an undeniable note of Bette Davis in her delivery).

The next morning, Mrs. O marches over to talk to Miss B.

The Bead quite sensibly points out there’s nothing she can do re The Most Inconvenient Affair of Nellie and Luke.

AMELIA: Yeah. Why would she even ask?

WILL: It’s just to get the Bead to go out to the pig farm.

Mrs. Oleson says the matter falls under the Bead’s jurisdiction because “My Nellie’s schoolwork is being affected by consorting with that barefoot bumpkin!”

WILL: That was like a Dr. Smith line. [AS DR. SMITH:] “You bumptious braggart!”

It really makes no sense, but long story short, the Bead is itchin’ to chat with Luke’s handsome dad again, so  yes, she agrees to go out for an intervention.

As we fade to commercial, Charlotte Stewart quickly cycles through some amused/scheming/lustful faces.

After a break, Miss Beadle arrives at the Old Clanton Farm. Simms comes out to greet her, saying, “Can I help you down?”

OLIVE [as YOUNG GEORGE BAILEY]: “Help ya down!”

The Bead, who’s wearing the bonnet she assembled herself from Michaels Christmas clearance, delivers the message that Luke and Nellie may be spending too much time on their young selves and not enough on their homework.

Mr. Simms says he’ll speak to Luke, but says for his part he’s delighted to see how romance has overtaken the kids.

The Bead laughs and says she feels the same way.

OLIVE: Shouldn’t she be warning him that Nellie is the worst monster in the entire territory?

Then Mr. Simms feeds the pigs whilst the Bead giggles at them.

The actor is Joshua Bryant, and he appeared on this episode’s namesake series Here Come the Brides as well as on Ironside, Mannix, Columbo, The Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones, CHiPs, Knots Landing, and Hart to Hart.

I remember him from M*A*S*H, on which he had a recurring role as a sexist love interest of Margaret’s (serves her right), and from Salem’s Lot, where he was Lance Kerwin’s ill-fated dad.

And he was on Highway to Heaven and Love Boat. 

Anyways, the two make some flirty smalltalk.

WILL: What happened to her old boyfriend? Remember him?

You’ll recall that in “Four Eyes,” Mary caught the Bead in a mad embrace with an interloping dandy inside the school! 

It was enough to convince Mare that having glasses doesn’t correlate with lifelong virginity; but the relationship itself must not have worked out. (He was creepy anyway.)

Simms then disappears for a moment and returns with a small ham, which he gives to Miss Beadle as a gift – “for taking the trouble to come all the way out here.”

It’s a nonsense statement, but the Bead accepts. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: in those days, meat would be a very nice present.

Mr. Simms and Miss Beadle voice their agreement that they make a great parent/teacher combo.

Simms suggests the two of them call each other by their Christian names: Adam and Eva. “This ain’t exactly no Garden of Eden!” he admits, and they both laugh.

Dags and I laughed too. Her hometown, as you may remember, is Winnipeg, Manitoba, and there’s a campy old song called “Wonderful Winnipeg” that was released to promote the 1967 Pan Am Games that features the lines:

Winnipeg, Winnipeg,

Wonderful Winnipeg!

It’s no Eden that you would see,

Yet it’s home sweet home to me.

Dags just got a tattoo of the line, in fact.

I love when places have unique “anthem” songs. Minnesota itself has a little-known one:

So does my home state of Wisconsin, though the state name is not actually mentioned in it:

Anyways, back to the vomiting schoolhouse!

This time, the vomiting is accompanied by the fast fourth movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Nellie wants to walk with Luke, but he rushes ahead to talk to Mary.

Furious, Nellie storms home, and once she’s out of sight, Luke sneaks Mary into the Mercantile. (You wouldn’t think that would be safe territory for an assignation. Would you?)

The Olesons are surprised to find Luke and Mary looking at rings together. Mrs. Oleson is happy, of course, and tries to pass off their fake jewels as real, but Nels won’t have that.

Mary approves Luke’s choice; and sure enough, we see Nellie has been spying on them.

When they’ve gone, Nellie interrogates her mother about the purchase. Barely concealing her glee, Mrs. O says she assumes Luke and Mary are getting engaged.

Then she turns on the sympathy for her daughter, whose eyes look about to pop out of her skull with rage.

But when her mother suggests they’re lucky to see the back of the young pig-farmer, Nellie screams, “SHUT UP!!!”

OLIVE: OH MY GOD!

(Really, this one is so funny.)

Nellie runs out then, nearly plowing over poor Mustache Man as she goes.

Meanwhile, Miss Beadle is unhitching Pat or Pap and getting ready to go home. Here’s another funny thing – since the Bead supposedly lives above the Post Office (i.e., ACROSS THE STREET from the school), why the hell would she bring her horse to work so often? Why does she need a horse at all? Maybe it comes with the job as a courtesy.

Anyways, the Bead notices sad Nellie in her fancy boots sitting on the swing.

The swing appears to be suspended over a recently filled grave. Presumably Patrick’s.

Nellie breaks down crying and tells the Bead the whole story. “I’m never gonna get married,” she bawls. “I’m gonna wind up an old maid like you!”

Miss B lets this unkind remark pass, and says she’ll go out to the Old Clanton Farm (again) and talk to Luke.

And she does! But of course Luke is baffled, explaining to the Bead that she must have misunderstood, because Nellie is “kind of like my girl.”

OLIVE: His hair looks nice.

The likeable Luke is played by Bob Marsic. He didn’t act in much else, though he was on The Waltons once.

Luke explains that Mary simply helped pick out the ring, which is a present for Nellie. Mr. Simms chimes in that he opted to buy it instead of a hunting rifle he’d been saving for.

Much embarrassed, the Bead apologizes.

AMELIA: Why is she wearing oven mitts?

They’re not really oven mitts, but they certainly are heavy gloves for June.

Anyways it’s all good; in fact, Mr. Simms asks her if she’ll be his date to the corn-shuckin’, clearly the social event of the season in Groveland.

Then she gets in her buggy and says, “Giddyup, Jack.” I guess Pat or Pap must have died.

She drives away to music that’s more AM Gold/Smooth Seventies than Mozart.

The next day at the Mercantile, Nellie is punishing a throw pillow as her parents and Willie make to leave the house.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Mrs. Oleson asks, but Nellie says no.

Are they going to the corn-shucking? Why? Doesn’t seem like their kind of entertainment. Plus, they’re awfully dressed up, if so.

The harpsichord – an instrument more usually associated with Mary than Nellie – comes in again then, playing the slow Mozart. I have a friend who has one. They’re fun to play.

Well, after the other Olesons have gone, Luke stuns Nellie by showing up with flowers and the ring.

All suspicions forgotten, Nellie says she’ll change her dress to go, but Luke says, “What for? You look beautiful just the way you are.”

It seems a lot of fans online characterize the Simmses as “ignorant morons” unworthy of the ladies’ attentions, but really they just seem straightforward and pleasant to me.

Anyways, on the way there, Nellie and Luke stop for a kiss – just as the fireworks go off, which is sweet.

DAGNY: The shots are really nicely designed in this one. Landon?

Actually, no . . . it’s Clax this time. Way to go, Clax!

Well, if you were hoping to see anything (or -body) get shucked tonight, sorry, it ain’t happenin’. 

After a commercial break, we get a slo-mo segment where Fancy Purple Nellie and Luke run through a meadow, a la The Muppet Movie, or maybe Polyester.

This is to Mozartean music again.

Then, to goofy non-Mozart music and in surprising fast-mo, we see the Bead trying to catch a pig whilst Simms laughs genially.

Then we switch back to Nellie, who’s watching Luke chop wood and looking, for perhaps the first time ever on this show, genuinely happy. 

And seeing this, we’re happy too. It’s one of the magic tricks of this episode – to make us realize how much we care for this young woman whose most notable storylines to date have involved her publicly torturing and humiliating people with disabilities. 

Then, to a rather dreamy waltz, we see all four of these lovers and dreamers sitting in a field of wildflowers eating watermelon. (Watermelon is also out of season for June – we’re lucky if we have asparagus by then – but I suppose it’s possible a little time has passed.)

Then the Bead and Mr. Simms excuse themselves to go hump in the bushes. Ha! Just kidding! What they really do is go for a walk along Plum Creek.

DAGNY: That’s a pretty elaborate set.

Simms tries to say something romantic, but cuts himself off, saying, “Ah, I’m just a dumb, uneducated pig farmer!”

The Bead responds by screaming furiously at him.

OLIVE: They’re off to a great start as a couple.

The Bead goes on and on about how wonderful Mr. Simms is, and finally he interrupts her and proposes.

WILL: Who does he remind me of? Mike Brady? Fred Willard? Lindsey Buckingham? 

Miss Beadle turns away, stunned. Charlotte Stewart does a wonderful job here communicating that our aging schoolmarm really did think her time to marry had passed.

The Bead starts spewing a frenzy of thoughts, including saying she’s concerned about her age, but I’m not sure what she means by that. Is she supposed to be older than Simms? She doesn’t look it. (In fact, Charlotte Stewart is seven months younger in real life.) 

OLIVE: No, she just means he could find somebody younger if he wanted.

AMELIA: Yeah. He should be, like, “You’re right! What am I thinking? I’ll just marry Nellie myself!”

Well, he doesn’t say that, he just tells her to take her time before deciding.

Watching them from afar, Luke tells Nellie he’s glad his pa is finding love again, and suggests they get married as well.

Nellie is also shocked; then she says with a curious maturity, “Oh, Luke – I don’t know if I’m old enough . . . or if I really know enough to be a wife . . . or that I’m really good enough for you.”

As funny as it is, this script doesn’t do much to reconcile the almost pathologically cruel Nellie we know with this introspective sweetheart. But I think her worrying about being “really good enough for you” suggests she’s looking back on her past conduct with judgment, probably for the first time.

Luke points out that his parents were younger than themselves when they got married, which is pretty accurate to the time.

Later – like, another day later – we see the Bead ecstatically swinging at the playground/graveyard. 

Tartan Nellie approaches and asks what she thinks of marriage, and the Bead, giving no thought whatsoever to what’s behind this question, makes an old-fashioned, rather florid speech about how the wife archetype is the “keeper of the present” and “mother of the future.” I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but a glance at the internet suggests a number of people have found the quote very inspirational – if only they knew it’s from a schlocky seventies TV show!

Then Nellie asks Miss Beadle about “age”; and now the (uncharacteristically dumb) Bead gets huffy at the suggestion she’s too old to be a bride. “Nothing should stand in the way of love!” she says, and Nellie runs off.

We can all see where this is going. Nellie finds Luke at the Feed & Seed.

OLIVE: Wait, is he working there?

WILL: No . . . he’s picking up a bag of EFFING PIGFEED!

Over strains of “Oh Promise Me,” once a wedding standard (nice), Nellie says she accepts the proposal, and Luke says they’ll have to run away together.

He says they’ll have money for a marriage license because “Mr. Miller says he wants to buy my prize sow.” 

I ask, who is this Mr. Miller – he who hosts community-wide corn shuckings that people dress up for, and solves monetary problems with the sinister grace of a Don Corleone? He’s never been mentioned before.

Luke notes the sale will also provide them money “for the honeymoon,” to which Nellie smiles slyly.

OLIVE: They can’t go there.

Meanwhile, the Bead drives back out to tell Mr. Simms she’ll be his bride.

Okay, here we go! Back at the Olesons’, Mrs. O asks Willie to fetch Nellie for supper. But Willie says casually, “She ain’t there. I saw her and Luke riding out of town in our buckboard couple hours ago. She had a suitcase.”

“Oh, Nels!” Harriet cries, wobbling as if about to faint. Then she steadies herself and says, “Get the shotgun.”

Then, in a hilarious image, we see Nels and Harriet riding a horse together. (We know from past stories the Mercantile actually has access to a fleet of other vehicles, but I’m not complaining. This is much funnier.)

And when they get to the Old Clanton Farm, they actually fall off the horse!

Now, Little House lore has it that Katherine MacGregor and Richard Bull actually did their own stunt here, and MacG was hurt, at least to the point where Ruth Foster of “Mrs. Foster” fame had to double for her in some scenes.

It seems unlikely to me the producers would have two stars do something so dangerous, but it certainly does look like Richard Bull in the fall shot. You can’t really see MacG’s face.

The Olesons march up to the door, but Mr. Simms doesn’t know anything more about the matter than they do.

Then Miss Beadle appears from behind him, causing Mrs. O to gasp in shock at the impropriety!

AMELIA [laughing]: She’s the greatest.

The four quickly deduce what’s happened, and Nels says “the nearest justice of the peace is over at Sleepy Eye.”

That’s hardly credible at this point, since as recently as two episodes ago Springfield, at least ten miles closer to Walnut Grove, was depicted as a huge, thriving metropolis.

Come to that, Marshall, Minnesota, a much larger city than either Sleepy Eye or Springfield which for some reason is never mentioned on this show, is also closer.

But whatever. I love when they go to Sleepy Eye. We drove through it once ourselves, but all I remember is they have a Subway.

Sleepy Eye is named for a Dakota chieftain, Ishtakhaba (“Sleepy Eyes”), who was known for his diplomatic relations with white settlers. His contributions surely helped prevent war in Minnesota for a time, but things changed quickly after he died in 1860.

Anyways, Mrs. Oleson screams and freaks out some more. 

AMELIA: I’d think Nels would be a little more concerned. She’s probably pregnant.

That night, Nellie and Luke arrive in Sleepy Eye. Google Maps puts the city 14 hours from Walnut Grove on foot; the travel timeline in this story is a little wobbly. And who’s watching Willie?

They park at a private home with a sign on it that reads Justice of the Peace Cyrus Varnum. 

(The stolen buckboard is the yellow-wheeled one, by the way.)

Sure enough, we see a jowly judge in a dressing gown and nightcap performing the ceremony, with a sleepy woman, presumably his wife, as witness.

You wouldn’t think many judges would be open 24 hours – but maybe that’s Varnum’s marketing angle.

Varnum asks Luke, who I’m pleased to report has put on a proper shirt for the occasion, if he takes Nellie for his wife. Luke says “yeah.”

Annoyed at the slackerish talk of young people, Varnum corrects him to “I do.” Suddenly threatened, Luke snarls, “Well, I’m marrying her, I do!”

WILL: Ha! They should fight a duel. 

The judge rolls his eyes, and says, “Do you, Nellie, really take Luke here for your lawful husband?” (I’m not going to quote every single line, but almost everything Varnum says is funny.)

The actor has the face right out of the commedia dell’arte, an Italian comedy tradition highly influential on classic romantic comedies and farces like The Marriage of Figaro, and so sort of the stylistic great-grandfather of this episode.

He’s Ivor Francis, and he was in a lot of stuff, including Here Come the Brides (haw haw), Dark Shadows (our first Dark Shadows person, I believe), The Flying Nun, Bonanza, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, The World’s Greatest Athlete, Kojak, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Fish, Lou Grant, The Waltons and The Jeffersons.

He had regular or recurring roles on Days of Our Lives, and on Room 222 and Dusty’s Trail, though I’m not familiar with the last two.

In real life, he also was the father-in-law, but posthumously, of Jonathan Frakes, TV’s Riker. They did know each other before Francis died in 1986, but sadly I can’t find a picture of them together.

[Wonderful reader neversaydi writes to remind me that Ivor Francis’s daughter who Jonathan Frakes married is of course Genie Francis – the legendary Laura of “Luke and Laura” fame from General Hospital! I was always more of a Days man, but my sister Peggy would kill me if she knew I missed that one. Thanks, neversaydi! – WK]

After some more nonsense where Luke tries to put the ring on the judge’s finger, the latter pronounces them man and wife.

OLIVE: Oh my God! They don’t stop them?

Then he says “Philomena!” and his wife wakes up and throws a handful of rice.

The explanations of wedding rice-throwing available online don’t seem very deep or scholarly to me, but they seem to agree the tradition goes back to Ancient Greece and Rome.

“What do we do now?” Nellie asks, and Luke says, “Guess we gotta get a room.”

OLIVE: OH MY GOD!

Then we cut to our would-be wedding crashers speeding across the countryside in Mr. Simms’s wagon. This is accompanied not by Mozart but by Gioachino Rossini – another master of operatic romantic comedies. It’s the tail end of the overture to La Cenerentola, unless I’m mistaken. (A lot of them do sound alike.)

Despite having made VERY good time (Sleepy Eye, again, being at least a full day’s drive from the Grove), they arrive too late. They do get Judge Cyrus out of bed again, though.

The judge first assumes Mrs. Oleson has come to get hitched herself, but she says, “Oh, I don’t want to be married!” and Nels adds “I don’t either!”

Nels quickly says there are “only two places in town” the kids could be staying: “either the hotel, or Mrs. Leary’s.” Wow, with that and finding the justice of the peace, he’s like a walking Sleepy Eye directory. Who needs the internet?

We actually don’t know where Luke and Nellie are, the hotel or Mrs. Leary’s, but wherever it is, Nellie is UNDRESSING behind a screen!

ALL: OH MY GOD!!!

You can’t really see what the pictures on the screen depict, except that the people in them appear to be very naked. Nymphs and satyrs, or something? Or maybe the Garden of Eden! Naughty Landon.

Luke sits on the bed nervously as Nellie’s pinafore comes sailing over the screen. David Rose, quite crassly, gives us a hint of “The Stripper” – a famous novelty tune you’ll surely recall was of David’s own composition.

(I was a trombonist in my younger days and always loved playing that one.)

Nellie comes out then – in a frumpy bathrobe and mobcap. She looks quite adorable, but we were relieved this is clearly going to be a scene WITHOUT risqué content. (7+, you know.)

Embarrassed, Luke says, “My turn, I guess,” and steps behind the screen.

Then his clothes start flying. Nellie runs to look out the window.

Luke comes back out in his pink long johns. No erection, thank God. (Somebody had to say it.)

Nellie swallows hard.

The score swells suddenly into the Tristan und Isolde Liebestod again – music that’s about as grand and climactic as it gets. 

Nellie and Luke stand face to face in their underclothes, and they’re about to kiss when Mrs. Oleson bursts in.

ALL: OH MY GOD!!!

In a classic moment, Mrs. Oleson points at Luke and says, “Nels! Make her a widow.”

Of course Nels won’t shoot him, so Harriet grabs the gun, which goes off, firing into the ceiling.

In terror, Luke runs into the street, where he’s seized by his father.

We never find out if Mrs. Oleson’s shot killed anybody, or what the aftermath of the incident was at all, since suddenly we’re back at the Varnums’, waking the judge up yet again.

He opens the door on the assembled Olesons, Simmses and Beadle, sighing, “Tell me, what’s Walnut Grove got against me?”

Mrs. Oleson orders the judge to “unmarry” the kids (who are dressed again).

Referencing “The Spider and the Fly” (1829), the judge reluctantly agrees.

“Let me have the marriage certificate, Romeo,” he says. (“It’s Luke,” Luke replies. Ha!)

The judge tears the paper up, but then Mr. Simms suggests to Miss Beadle that they ought to get married on the spot, “as long as we’re here.”

He says he’ll pay extra, and the judge shouts, “Philomena!”

The lady toddles out. She doesn’t even open her eyes this time. 

Philomena is played by Montana Smoyer, who also did Highway to Heaven, Charlie’s Angels and Eight is Enough and who was on Love Boat three times.

She was also in the ABC Afterschool Special “Very Good Friends,” which costarred Melissa Sue Anderson and Katy Kurtzman (presumably as the VGFs).

The judge stands them up in the right order, with Luke as best man and Nellie as the Bead’s maid of honor. (Never thought you’d see the day, did you?)

“Where do you want me?” Mrs. Oleson asks. “I’d rather not say,” Varnum replies, and Mrs. O shouts “Well!”

Varnum can’t believe it when told the celebrants’ names are Adam and Eva, but he presses on, noting the “despicable hour” and “weird assemblage” in his homily.

With Nellie and Luke holding hands behind them, Mr. and Mrs. Simms are married (don’t worry, she’ll still the Bead to us). Philomena throws the rice, it’s congrats all round, and that’s that! BUM-BUM-BA-DUM!

STYLE WATCH: Once again, the Bead is wearing dangly earrings, the shadow of which makes it look like she has a big dark birthmark on her neck. I never notice this with anybody else. 

THE VERDICT: Philomena! Despite some out-of-character behavior from the regulars, we all loved this one. It features lovely performances from Arngrim and Stewart, hilarious ones from MacGregor and Bull, a well-deserved love story for the Bead, and the funniest script since “Little Women.” (The Little House episode, not the movie.)

Plus both Simmses are pretty darn likeable.

UP NEXT: Freedom Flight