The Winoka Warriors

Adam Can Be Really Mean; or

If a Blind Player Throws a Hail Mary Pass, Is It a Hail Mary Ingalls?

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Winoka Warriors

Airdate: September 25, 1978

Written by John T. Dugan

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: The football one!

RECAP: First things first: VERY interesting conversation between Melissa (Sue) Anderson, Alison Arngrim and Dean Butler on the Little House: Fifty for 50 podcast this week, hosted by Pamela Bob. No knives come out, but it’s a great discussion nonetheless.

Watch it here!

On to “The Winoka Warriors.” We get off to a strange start today. 

Even though David just gifted us a brand-new arrangement of the theme tune, two episodes later he’s reverted to Season Four’s arrangement. Slide whistle and all! (Why, why? The Season Five version was just starting to grow on me.)

After the credits, we find ourselves at Albert’s coffin factory, as a familiar yellow-wheeled buckboard passes in the street. 

Nobody familiar is driving it, though.

Albert emerges from under the steps, and a lazy waltz from the Rose suddenly modulates into marching band music of the sort synonymous with football games through much of the Twentieth Century. 

I know the marching bands are still a big part of college games. My knowledge of (and interest in) football is practically nil, but as a young person, I did use to enjoy playing in the marching band myself. I never paid much attention to the games, though.

Well, this “stirring” music stops as abruptly as it started, replaced by “The Artful Albert” (Albert’s theme tune) played slowly on what I think is a synthesizer or electric organ imitating a flute sound. (I think I’m losing my ear. I feel I’ve been struggling to ID instruments on the soundtrack lately – apologies. (No cards and letters, though, please.))

Albert carries his shoeshine kit through the town. 

John T. Dugan, who last season produced one outright masterpiece (“‘Here Come the Brides’”) and three other stories of more debatable quality (“The Creeper of Walnut Grove,” “To Run and Hide,” and “Apple Boobs”), is back as writer.

Clax is back as director.

Albert approaches what I feel is a rather sinister-looking man on the boardwalk to offer a shine. 

But the guy turns out to be quite friendly – not a threat.

Inside the restaurant, Laura, Carrie, and Baby Grace are having their breakfasts. What time is it supposed to be? For a full-service all-day restaurant, there’s a lot of downtime at the Dakota.

Ma comes in and Laura tells her she’s on a Walter Scott kick, having just plowed through The Lady of the Lake and now tackling Ivanhoe.

Sir Walter Scott (Bart.) was a Scottish novelist and poet. I haven’t read much of his stuff, but it’s interesting to me that in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century (he died in 1832), his writings came to be thought more suitable for children than adults. I had it in my head he did all this sort of dull, heavy stuff, but he must have been more fun than that if kids read him. Kids who read are great judges of literature generally.

Ivanhoe is a three-volume novel, an adventure tale set in medieval times (mind you, not the popular restaurant chain) which influenced Hollywood’s later depictions of Robin Hood and other stories from the Middle Ages.

The Lady of the Lake, on the other hand, is a long poem the main sentiment of which seems to be “Woo hoo, Scotland!” 

The poem has the not-so-nice distinction of inspiring the Ku Klux Klan to burn crosses, as it depicts the crann-tara, a cross which was set afire to muster Scottish Highlanders for battle, but which had no racist connotations at that time, unless you consider Englishmen a race.

Anyways, by the turn of the Nineteenth Century, the KKK had appropriated the symbol for its evil purposes. (Anybody care to send me an angry comment about that controversial opinion? Nothing would surprise me these days. Well, go ahead, I dare you.)

Less offensively, to most people, the crann tara also inspired a number of bagpipe tunes.

Like I said, I don’t know if I’ve ever seriously read any Scott, but his works did inspire some good bel canto operas, including Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s La Donna del Lago.

“All done!” slurps Carrie, who’s wearing a bib, which Ma takes off for her. (Anyone else find this odd? The Greenbush twins were eight years old by this time.)

Laura tells Ma she’s thinking about becoming a teacher, just like Mary.

Pa comes in as Carrie slurps that actually, she’s been contemplating such a career move herself.

DAGNY: Charles looks thin here. I bet Landon was one of those guys who obsessed about his weight.

WILL: Yeah. And drank his calories instead of eating them.

Then Albert arrives. He’s apparently getting free breakfast from the Ingallses now. (I wonder what Miles Standish would make of that.)

The Ing-Gals depart, and as Albert lathers, or perhaps slathers is the word I want, a roll with butter, Pa says he’s been thinking he should be in school. (Albert, that is, not himself.)

Albert delivers a briefer version of his “don’t need it” song and dance from when Laura made the same suggestion last week.

ALEXANDER: I earned nine Google Play Points today.

WILL: Alexander, nobody cares how many Google Play Points you have when Little House is on.

Ma brings Albert a bowl of her famous mush – a delicacy not mentioned since back in Season One!

Albert turns his nose up at it, but eventually admits “beggars can’t be choosers” – a Sixteenth-Century expression, literally true in this case – and tucks in whilst Pa gives him a social-worky lecture. 

Much like his future sisters, Albert announces he already has a career plan in mind – “to be rich . . . like Mr. Standish, only not as mean.”

Pa frowns and says, “Well, I guarantee you Mr. Standish went to school.” (I’m not so sure about that. Al Swearengen didn’t.)

Albert, who we’ve seen is good with a comeback, says, “Maybe that’s what made him so mean.” Ha!

Pa rolls his eyes, then says if Albert goes to school, he can come live at the hotel with them. But Albert says he likes his current lodgings just fine, thank you.

I think it’s weird Pa makes this offer, because it implies he won’t let Albert live with them if he doesn’t go to school. Wouldn’t Pa take him either way? Is he really going to send him back to live under that porch?

Then Pa says he’ll actually pay Albert to go to school. This is a little extreme – I believe Pa would like to do this, but given they can’t even buy birthday presents without hocking heirlooms, it seems foolish. 

Also, don’t they say it’s not a good parenting practice to bribe your kids for their academic work?

Well, Pa offers Albert the plush rate of 25 cents a week – about eight dollars in today’s money – and after pondering the offer a bit, Albert accepts and takes off.

David gives us a slow version of Albert’s theme that sounds a bit like “Goodbye, Old Paint.”

Pleased as punch, Pa smiles at Baby Grace, who as of this episode officially assumes Carrie’s glopface duties.

Then we get our first scene at the new school in the barn. There seem to be about eight students there, and in a cute touch, we see Alice Garvey is using a timetable slate from a railway station as her blackboard.

Alice stands near a horsepen at the front of the class, next to a very large young man – like, Jonathan Garvey large – who’s reading aloud from a book.

The young man is reading the history of the transcontinental railroad, which came into existence when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines were connected at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, in 1869.

The young man, who looks to be about 25 and is the only “kid” in the class over age twelve or so, clearly has trouble reading, and the other students giggle. 

But he actually sounds out the words quite admirably.

I was prepared for Alice to hit the gigglers with a Beadle-ish “Silence!” . . . but instead, she makes a crack herself about the kid’s performance. (One of these days, Alice, have Caroline tell you the heartbreaking tale of Dumb Abel, and then won’t you feel like a rude ass.)

The big kid, whom she addresses as “Luke,” sits down, and without any transition whatsoever Alice gives them a math problem. 

(Luke is played by J. Andrew Kenny, who was on Marcus Welby and M*A*S*H, but who might be best known as the student who wrestles John Travolta in Grease, a movie my sister Peggy made me watch ad nauseam when we were kids.)

(Not a bad musical, but enough is enough, Peg. It’s not like it’s The Dark Crystal or something!)

Anyways, Laura, Albert, Andrew Garvey and a Nondescript Helen scribble away on their slates. 

Laura and Albert are sitting together – I wonder what Andy makes of their intense new friendship?

Well, actually Albert isn’t scribbling, just staring at the front of the class.

DAGNY: Is he mesmerized by Alice’s chest?

WILL: Who wouldn’t be?

Albert astonishes Alice and the other kids by easily doing the problem in his head. 

DAGNY: Oh, are the Winoka Warriors mathletes?

This of course is more or less a direct ripoff of the scene in “I─── Kid” where Spotted Eagle is revealed to be a math prodigy.

Albert then shocks everybody by saying he’s good at math because he shoots craps in his spare time.

Meanwhile, at the Winoka (Blind) School, Mary is teaching a grinning Sue Goodspeed the braille alphabet.

Sue is doing well, and when Mary says she deserves an A, Sue pulls her hand onto the page and says, “It’s right here, Miss Ingalls!” 

This is perhaps not up to the standard of wit established by Thomas the Blond Freckle-Faced Moppet last week, but it’s not bad.

Speaking of Thomas, he’s in another classroom, learning math from Adam. (Unlike Albert and Spotted Eagle, he isn’t a great big showoff about it.)

Thomas is played by Ivan Wideman, who wasn’t on anything else except a short-lived drama series in the eighties called Palmerstown, U.S.A.

Adam injects a little practical advice into the lesson, saying blind people should always feel the coins during transactions to make sure they aren’t getting cheated.

At this moment, two men arrive. The younger looks to be about twenty, and is a big guy with broad shoulders and a shag haircut. We can tell by his posture and pose that he’s blind.

DAGNY: Are they just finding blind kids on the side of the road now?

The elder man is familiar-looking, because he’s John Ireland, whom we previously met as Wendell Loudy, Mr. Hanson’s archenemy who stole his girlfriend and then burned her to death. (Little House!)

We went through his full resume last time, but I’ll just point out again that he was on The Littlest Hobo.

These two are father and son, and the father, whom Adam addresses as “Mr. Carlin,” apologizes for bringing Tom in late. He cites a barnyard emergency as the reason, All Creatures–style.

Adam waves this off and welcomes Tom, who grunts surlily and sits down.

Tom is played by Brad Wilkin, who as I guessed was twenty in 1978. (The victory is mine, ha ha! You know, my favorite college professor liked to use that expression a lot. For instance, when he’d arrive for class in the morning, he’d say, “The victory is mine, I made it out of the effing bed.”)

Wilkin’s C.V. isn’t the deepest, but he did have a recurring role on Happy Days and was also on The Waltons and M*A*S*H.

He seems to have been typecast as football players (spoiler alert). 

In a fun coincidence, he was in a movie called Midnight Madness, which costarred Dumb Abel himself, Dirk Blocker! 

Irene Tedrow, aka Minerva Farnsworth, was in it too. 

I love when that happens. Someday I’ll have to do an extra post where I go through all the movies that had two or more Little House alums in them.

Anyways, Mr. Carlin tries to sneak out quickly, but Adam nabs him before he can.

You can see during this scene how they’ve worked to make the building crummy-looking and rundown. It looks good, or rather bad. You know what I mean.

Mary, an experienced eavesdropper, pops out of her classroom to spy on Adam’s conversation.

Adam says that although Tom has been in school there for four weeks (so we’re at least in October), he’s been resistant to all the usual Adam Kendall tricks that make learnin’ fun.

ROMAN: I wonder if he tried having him touch his face.

WILL: Yeah, or making the bed and having foodfights.

Just like Ma did with Dumb Abel’s dad Baker Makay, Adam asks Mr. Carlin to help motivate Tom to apply himself at school. 

And just like Mr. Makay did, Carlin says he considers school a waste of time, though it’s clear in his case it’s not because makin’ bricks is so damn satisfyin’, which was Makay’s justification, but rather because he has a bad attitude about blindness, a la Mary Ingalls circa 1881-G.

Adam asks the same question you probably are right now, which is well dude, why the hell did you bring him here in the first place then?

Carlin explains Tom’s late mother wanted their son to go to school.

DAGNY: Women.

He doesn’t mention how she died. (But let’s be real, she burned to death.)

Adam tries a different tack then, huffily pointing out that he himself is blind, and his own education wasn’t a waste. (He has gray eyes, doesn’t he? You don’t see that too often.)

But Carlin dismisses that comparison, saying obviously his son is no intellectual wunderkind like Adam.

He says Tom had humble but noble ambitions to join his father as a farmer before he went blind from the measles. (Which can happen.)

MR. CARLIN: We worked side by side, plowing, sewing, reaping . . .

WILL [as MR. CARLIN]: In-the-sheaves-bringing . . .

Adam tries again to convince him, but Carlin just says “I can’t – you try” and leaves.

Mary, who if I may say so is dressed in Temptation’s Raiment today, surprises Adam by revealing her presence.

(As for me, I’m surprised Adam’s surprised. His other senses are virtually superhuman, after all.)

The two lovers agree not to give up on the Carlins as we head to a break.

ROMAN: Cliffhanger!

And we’re back. We see boys playing American-style football in the street in front of the Mountain Man Saloon.

Now, regular readers are aware I don’t know from sports, but apparently a form of American football did exist by the 1880s. 

Its rules were more like rugby at the time, but this is actually about the era when the sport was evolving into its modern form.

Anyways, the smaller kids are all attempting to “tackle” Big Dumb Luke, to no avail, obviously.

Andrew Garvey actually seems to be trying to pull down Luke’s pants, which you’d think would be against the rules. 

But apparently it’s okay in water polo, so who knows? (We’re watching the Olympics this week. How about our hometown girl Suni Lee?)

Luke is good at football, but struggles to add up the score.

Then we hear another marching band playing, and this time it’s diagetic (a new word I learned recently, meaning “experienced by characters in the story”) rather than just background music in the orchestra.

We can tell the music’s diagetic because Big Dumb Luke immediately starts dancing to it. His mental abilities are played for laughs in this episode, which is unfortunate and kind of out of character for this show. I like him, actually. Seems like a pleasant kid.

The music is coming from a sort of flatbed wagon, which carries a bunch of kids in old-timey sporting costumes – the wealthy kids from the Winoka (Private) School, waving pennants that say Dragons.

The Dragonwagon drops the kids off. Their outfits – matching turtlenecks, sweatpants (?), and what Canadians called toques – seem fairly authentic compared to photographs from the time.

There are some girls in school uniforms too, and we see Not-Ellen Taylor is of their number.

Willie Oleson, who doesn’t look the happiest, is there as well, holding a pennant.

The other kids come over, and Nellie (who appears from nowhere) informs them they’ve just come from a football game in which “Jeb” scored twelve touchdowns. 

“Jeb” is Junior Standish. Hard to believe a lil runt like him is their star quarterback, or whatever; but whatever.

Albert cracks that they only did so well because they were probably playing against a girls’ team – a sexist insult, but Laura laughs.

A boy with curly hair growing out of the sides of his head like a Babylon 5 alien says actually they were playing against “Milltown,” a team previously unbeaten.

Kinda surprisingly, Milltown is a real place! Located in South Dakota, it apparently has a population of eight people today. Yes, eight! Presumably it had more in 1882(-G), since I think you need more than eight people to have a football team.

Milltown is probably my kind of place too, if you can judge by this postcard they put out in 1914. 

But never mind that, the important part of this is it helps us to place Winoka in the Dakota Territory. Fairly close to the Nebraska border in the south, Milltown isn’t really near anything else. It’s about 170 miles southwest of Walnut Grove and seventy miles west of Sioux Falls.

The nearest town of any size is Parkston, population 1,500.

Junior Standish says their victory over Milltown “makes us Dragons the champions of Dakota.” Since the Dakota Territory was enormous and encompassed much larger cities like Yankton, Bismarck, and of course Deadwood, it seems unlikely its two football titans would be Winoka and Milltown; but I guess we’ll have to accept that they are.

Albert points out to Junior that the Winoka (Livery) School’s team is obviously much better than theirs, despite never having played a game.

Albert continues his toxicly masculine taunts, and then wagers 25 cents – his whole going-to-school paycheck in other words – that they can beat the Dragons on the field.

Junior doubts Albert actually has that much money, but Albert assures him he has. He adds he’s sure Junior can come up with that much too, since everyone knows he just steals from his dad whenever he wants.

The teams agree to meet on the Dragons’ home field that Saturday.

The Dragons move off, except for Willie, who remains behind looking glum.

Albert says with Big Dumb Luke on their team, they can’t lose.

Albert suggests to Andy that Jonathan Garvey might make an ideal coach, and in a well-known meta joke, he replies, “My pa doesn’t know anything about football!” (Merlin Olsen, of course, was a football star for the Los Angeles Rams for fifteen years before doing any acting.)

But Andy says he’ll ask him.

Some time passes then, and we see Carl the Flunky, yet another Grovester seeking his fortune in Winoka apparently, driving a stagecoach through the thoroughfare.

When the rig has gone by, we see Jonathan Garvey is indeed coaching the kids.

The team includes Albert, Big Dumb Luke, Andrew Garvey, and, astonishingly, the Poor Fat Kid (PFK) from Season One – not seen since “The Love of Johnny Johnson”!

I’m quite sure it’s the same actor. I know you all remember PFK – he’s the one Mean Harry Baker called “too fat to run.” (Mean Harry of course is long-dead, so who’s laughing now, asshole?)

PFK must have moved to Winoka years earlier than everyone else. I’m sure he’s been glad to see his old Season One pals Laura, Nellie, and Willie again. (And glad Mean Harry isn’t with them.)

Anyways, PFK is flanked by two other boys. Indeed, in this story they seem to function as a trio.

This first has a sort of melon-shaped head. Well, I mean I guess we all do, but there’s something extra-melony about his.

And the other boy looks a bit like Julie McCoy.

Watching from the sidelines are Charles, Laura, Nels, and some other Winoka (Livery) School kids.

Junior Standish and the Babylon 5 kid are watching too.

The Babylon 5 Kid, by the way, is credited as “Spence,” and he’s played by John Joseph Thomas, who was also in Blood Beach. I’ve never seen it, but I remember being scared by the VHS cover at the video store when I was a kid.

One critic said of Blood Beach, “It’s a tough one to track down. If you do search this one out, you should probably be out looking for a job.” Some of us are too busy blogging about Little House on the Prairie to do either, sir.

Thomas would go on to have a very distinguished career in movie sound effects. Speaking of video stores, I think my friend Greg and I watched every single movie from the first part of his resume whilst hanging out at the video store Greg worked at in high school: Little Man Tate, Hellraiser III, Cool World, Raising Cain, Super Mario Bros., Last Action Hero, Blink, Billy Madison, Moll Flanders, etc., etc. If you’re my age you no doubt remember some of these, despite none of them being especially memorable.

And JJT continued to have success! Big-time: There’s Something About Mary, Cruel Intentions, Best in Show, I Am Legend, Splice, The Crazies (2010), Joker, A Star is Born (2018), three Hunger Games movies, and the TV series Yellowstone.

He was nominated for sound awards several times, too. Walnut Groovy salutes you, Babylon 5 Kid!

Anyways, Big Dumb Luke scores an imaginary touchdown.

WILL: I thought they going to plow through that fence.

ROMAN: They would have, but there’s a 1970s parking lot behind it.

Junior Standish and Babylon 5 start heckling the Liverysters, then depart.

When they’ve gone, Jonathan Garvey admits the team can’t really get much of value out of their practices if they aren’t facing opponents.

Laura says the girls could do it, but Garvey’s afraid they’ll get hurt.

DAGNY: Yeah, wouldn’t want them to tilt their uteruses or something.

Then Charles and Nels volunteer. Anybody see where this is going?

WILL: What is Nels wearing? That is a loud shirt. It looks bizarre on him.

DAGNY: I love it. I was just going to compliment it.

Nels says, “I haven’t played football since I was on the scrub team in college.” 

We already knew Nels went to college; he mentioned that in “The Fighter,” only in that one his sport was said to be boxing, not football.

Richard Bull was 54 when this episode was filmed, so if we work backwards we can assume Nels went to college sometime around 1850. That’s pretty early for American football to be played anywhere, though apparently a number of universities did have similar games without standardized rules.

Before the 1860s, football-type sports were quite controversial, since rules were few and people would often get injured.

But the formalization of the sport that began in the 1870s brought it into public favor, and the rest was history.

As for “scrub team,” I’m not sure what he means by that. Somebody on the internet suggests scrub players were sort of the team backbenchers who were used mainly to scrimmage against the better players. Another possibility is that “scrub” just means “informal” in this context.

Anyways, you can see Landon cracking up throughout the scene. You can really tell he loves the scenarios where Nels and Charles are pals, or maybe just the ones where Nels gets clobbered.

Because once play begins, Big Dumb Luke immediately plows Nels and Charles under. Both of them; but especially Nels.

Poor Melonhead also falls flat on his face.

Unfortunately, a sinister figure is watching, literally from the shadows. Standish.

After the other kids have gone, Standish summons BDL over. He starts out by questioning Luke’s age, but the lad assures him he’s only fifteen. (I don’t know how old J. Andrew Kenny really was, but if he was really fifteen I’ll eat my bonnet.)

DAGNY: Both these guys have huge teeth.

Standish immediately adopts a new strategy, asking where he might find the kid’s father. Luke tells him to inquire for a Mr. Hoskins at “Muldoon’s Livery” – presumably that’s where the kids are going to school. His dad is the smithy there. 

WILL [as GRIFFIN from THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIEVAL ODYSSEY]: “Please, smithy!!!”

I’m sure some of you out there haven’t ever seen The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, but you really should, because it’s a strange and very beautiful movie. It’s about the Bubonic Plague, but not scary.

We cut then to the Olesons’ apartment, where the kids are eating dinner and Mrs. O is hectoring Nels about helping the other team practice by “cribbaging” with them.

“I call it treason,” she says, and Nellie adds, “I agree with Mother.”

Tartan Nels, who’s reading The Winoka Gazette, says that’s ridiculous.

Willie says even though he’s technically a Dragon himself, he doesn’t care if they lose, since they never let him play.

Nels says that proves the Winoka (Private) School has upside-down priorities about sports, which should be played mostly for fun, not competition. 

Harriet says if you’re not going to win, there’s no point in playing, which was also my first wife’s view on games. (She was a vicious and cutthroat game-player. Still is!)

“I agree with Mother,” Nellie says.

Harriet tells Willie it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t play as long as his team wins.

“I agree with Mother,” Nellie says again, and Nels shouts, “Shut up, Nellie!” Not the wittiest of rejoinders, Nels.

Meanwhile, the Ingallses and Adam are dining in the restaurant, which of course is empty again.

Charles sits down, holding his ass, which is sore from the football scrimmage.

Adam and Mary fill the family in on Tom Carlin’s educational problems.

Then Adam changes the subject, asking Laura about the upcoming football game. He says, “I hear you’re playing the Dakota Dragons on Saturday,” which is odd, because the team’s name is actually the Winoka Dragons.

Laura realizes the Winoka (Livery) School team doesn’t have a mascot yet. Adam suggests “the Marauders,” and Carrie slurps, “The Snakes!”

Likely catching a glimpse of Laura’s teeth, Ma suggests the Gophers, prophesying the University of Minnesota’s future mascot.

“The Cougars!” says Mary. 

DAGNY: No one on this show’s really a cougar, are they? 

WILL: Well, Mrs. Whipple.

WILL: Actually, I could see Alice Garvey becoming one. 

DAGNY: Yeah, if she lived. 

Baby Grace belches and Pa thanks her for suggesting “the Burps.”

Then Laura says “How about the Warriors, in honor of all the brave Indians who owned all this land in the first place?”

To a modern viewer, this is likely to be read two one of two ways. First, it’s pretty close to a modern land acknowledgement. (You know, when we were at the Calgary Stampede, I found it interesting that even in Alberta, the most conservative of Canadian provinces, the rodeo began with a formal acknowledgment that the events were taking place in “the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the îethka Nakoda Nations (Chiniki, Bearspaw, Goodstoney) [and] the Otipemisiwak Métis Government.”)

(If this were to happen at most professional sporting events in the United States, you could count on instant booing. Not because people here are racist or uncaring, of course, but rather because such a gesture “doesn’t mean anything” or is “compelled speech.” (Unlike, say, the performance of our National Anthem, a tradition so meaningful that those who don’t like it should get out of our fucking country! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!))

On the other hand, many object to such mascots as they appropriate Indigenous imagery and reduce real people and groups to dehumanizing caricatures. Somewhere else we discussed the example of the Edmonton Elks (also Canadian), who changed their name from the “Edmonton Eskimos” in 2021.

Either way, I’d probably advise Laura to pick something else. Maybe the Mulligans?

Albert comes wandering in then with bad news: “Big Dumb Luke Hoskins” (he actually calls him that) has been given the inaugural Standish Gridiron Scholarship to attend the Winoka (Private) School and play for its team instead.

“What a shame,” Ma says, but it’s obvious she doesn’t care much. I probably wouldn’t either.

But Pa says they shouldn’t quit. He takes a position somewhere between Mrs. Oleson’s and Nels’s, saying sports isn’t just about winning or having fun but rather doing your best at something.

DAGNY: Charles should just pretend to be a student and play on the team.

ROMAN: Yeah. He could wear a backwards baseball cap to make it convincing.

After a commercial, we get back to the Tom Carlin storyline, which has barely been developed at all, considering we’re about halfway through the episode already.

At the Winoka (Blind) School, Adam is yelling at Tom.

Tom stands up for himself, but his viewpoint is defeatist.

Tom settles down then and says he once asked his dad if he could help with something on the farm, but got the impression he would just be burdening him.

And Tom says his dad was right – as a single parent running a farm, he doesn’t have time to waste helping a disabled kid pretend to do chores.

Tom doesn’t seem angry, but he says he’s un-enrolling (unrolling?) from the school, effective immediately.

He walks out, with David giving us moody music that sounds quite a bit like “Binary Sunset” (aka “The Force Theme”) from Star Wars.

“I lost him, Mary,” Adam says. “You know, that’s the first time I couldn’t get through?”

WILL: He should have offered him twenty-five cents a week.

DAGNY: Yeah, or had Mary seduce him.

Sadly, Adam says he must face the music and report the loss of a student to his terrifying employer, Mr. Ames.

Then we cut to the family having dinner alone again in the Dakota. Come on, John T. Dugan, you can’t have the restaurant only be open when it’s convenient for your story!

Adam is far away in his head and not engaging with the conversation.

He tells them about Tom Carlin quitting school.

“Any chance he’ll be back?” Ma asks. You can tell she doesn’t really care about this, either.

Laura and Carrie have a brief existential chat about the certainty of mortality.

DAGNY: Laura would make a good death doula.

Adam says he’s trying not to let the situation get him down.

WILL [as ADAM]: “At least he’s not as bad as this ONE student I had who threw food everywhere. . . .”

Albert, who seems a regular member of the family already, then changes the subject to the now-terrible football team, saying what they need is “a big guy” to replace BDL.

Pa and Albert go back and forth talking about various strategies the team could try.

WILL: I can’t believe they’re really having a serious conversation about this. Just get to the game!

Pa then says just draft the biggest kid in their school, but Laura says that’s a “Cindy Lou Herron.” (Fat Joke #18.)

DAGNY: Wow, they’re letting the fat jokes fly the last few episodes, aren’t they?

Pa giggles at this like some lunatic in the booby hatch.

On and on they go, repeating variations on “If only there were some other big boy around!” or “What can we do, we haven’t got anybody big enough!” like a million times.

But while they do, Adam gets an evil sparkle in his eyes. Well, no, actually he doesn’t, but you can tell it’s there in his mind and his spirit. (It must be hard not to act with your eyes!)

He asks Pa to drive him out to the Carlin farm in the morning.

And hey presto, we’re there. The topography is remarkably similar to that of the Greater Walnut Grove Metropolitan Area.

Mr. Carlin is taking the bridle off Bunny as they pull up.

Adam immediately starts whining about the same old stuff, and Carlin again says I don’t want to hear it.

Adam makes an impassioned, rather Charles-ian speech at this point.

WILL: Pa should be grinning and bobbing his head.

DAGNY: Yeah, and getting a boner.

Farmer Carlin storms away, but Charles and Adam are in hot pursuit, like Sherlock Holmes and Watson.

They find Carlin half-collapsed in the cowshed.

WILL [as WENDELL LOUDY, drunkenly]: “You know what, Hanshon? I DID shteal your girlfriend!”

Adam immediately resumes his lecture, saying his own father was just as much of an ass as Carlin is. Whether this is true or just one of Professor Kendall’s mind tricks remains to be seen.

Probably the latter, because Adam keeps taunting and goading the man with ever more personal remarks.

Things escalate when Adam literally accuses him of lying about enrolling Tom in school because it’s what his mother wanted.

DAGNY: Adam can be really mean.

Adam then mentions he talks this rudely to his own father too, I guess to let Carlin know not to take it personally.

Finally, Adam just starts screaming “I can’t stand to look at my son!” at the guy until he starts screaming it back.

ALEXANDER [as DANIEL PLAINVIEW]: “I’VE ABANDONED MY CHILD!!! I’VE ABANDONED MY BOY!!!”

DAGNY: It’s also like Pretty in Pink. [as MOLLY RINGWALD]: “Say it! Just say it!”

WILL: Charles takes a somewhat lighter approach to his social-work projects, doesn’t he?

DAGNY: Well, Adam’s just starting out.

ROMAN: What kind of social worker are you, Mom? A Charles or an Adam?

WILL: Oh, I can tell you. She’s a Ma.

DAGNY: How’s that?

WILL: Cold and practical.

DAGNY: Yes! That is what I’m like!

The spell now broken, Carlin says, “God forgive me. . . . I’m sorry.”

Getting an idea, Adam says wouldn’t it be great if there were some activity Tom could do that would make him feel strong and masculine again, oh, say, like playing football???

To be fair, he doesn’t mention the football game yet, which is wise. He doesn’t want Carlin to realize this is all just a scheme to bring down the Dragons!

Music as rich and thick as a velvet curtain falls over the scene as Charles says, “You really are something, son.”

DAGNY: Whoa! That’s like the ultimate compliment from Charles.

Back in town again, we see Charles driving the Chonkywagon – carrying both Adam and Tom Carlin as passengers.

They pull over at the Winoka (Livery) School, where Alice Garvey is teaching the students about women’s suffrage in Wyoming – also a favorite topic of the Bead’s.

Adam, Charles and Tom come in, and Adam introduces Tom as a “new temporary student” – and football ringer.

And the next thing ya know, ol’ Tom is being placed in formation by Jonathan Garvey.

Adam, Charles, and Nels sit on the sidelines.

ROMAN [as NELS]: “This is insane!”

Tom says, “I can’t do it, Mr. Garvey! . . . I can’t see anything!”

Very coldly, Adam says from the sidelines: “Tell him to do it.”

Well, of course Garvey isn’t just going to tell him to do it, the big sweetie-pie. Instead, he uses the metaphor of horses pulling a wagon, saying Tom doesn’t need to see or think, he’ll be steered by his teammates.

“Don’t be easy on him!” Adam snarls. (Even Charles gives him a take-it-easy look at that.)

Charles and Nels take their places as the opposing team, but the first attempt does not go well. Tom has a panic attack, yelling, “I can’t! Let go of me, let go of me!”

WILL: That’s quite understandable. It’s not like they tried to ease him into this.

ROMAN: Well, this is a show that thinks you teach small children to swim by throwing them off bridges.

Tom falls on his knees in the street, saying quietly, “Please, leave me alone. I can’t do it.”

From the sidelines, Adam sneers, “Well, I’m afraid you’re right, Tom. You can’t.”

WILL: Is he gonna hit him with his cane?

He starts shit-talking Tom generally, and Charles, catching on, joins in.

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Nels adds in an inspired (if anachronistic) ad lib.

Tom, who has tears in his eyes, rises angrily and says, “Mr. Garvey – let’s try it again.”

Adam grins and chortles in triumph.

ROMAN: This is their solution? Bullying him?

And this time, of course, it goes much better.

After a lot of smiling and backslapping, we cut to a beautiful shot of Ma closing up the restaurant. No customers, of course!

The kids are working on pennants for the football game.

Laura says it’s too bad Ma and Pa have to work on Saturday, and Ma says, “The hotel won’t run itself.” Her tone probably reflects Karen Grassle’s annoyance that her part is so shitty this week.

Albert points out that a win for the Warriors is no sure thing, since Big Dumb Luke is now a Dragon.

Laura again mocks Luke’s stupidity, saying he’ll probably run the wrong way and they’ll be fine.

This throwaway joke gives Albert an evil idea.

The day of the big game, I guess, we see Albert scampering across the thoroughfare.

He runs into the livery, where Big Dumb Luke and his pa are working as blacksmiths.

Albert tells Luke an outrageous lie, saying the field has been changed to one in a town called Henderson. “Don’t you remember?” he says.

(This fucks with our orientation of Winoka near the Nebraska border. The Dakota Territory did have a town called Henderson, but it was 400 miles north of Milltown. Four hundred miles seems like a big range for a children’s football conference in the 1800s to me, but never mind.)

Well, Luke does not remember being told this. But Mr. Hoskins immediately sides against his son, calling him a “big dumb ox” who can’t remember anything. Poor kid.

Hoskins is Peter Canon, who was on Gunsmoke and Star Trek.

Hoskins says, well, if they’ve got a four-hundred-mile drive to make, they better get going!

WILL: Is this unethical?

DAGNY: Well, no more than the Canadian women’s soccer team spying on the competition with a drone.

WILL: Ah, I see.

Luke almost figures it out then, asking if the game was moved why Albert isn’t in Henderson too. But Albert just says he knows they’ll lose, so he’s decided not to play.

Meanwhile, at the real field, the band is warming up the crowd. Well, it’s just two trumpet players and a drummer, but they sound pretty good.

In the stands, Standish is sitting (rather oddly) with Nels. There’s a continuity error here, as we cut immediately from the panoramic shot, in which Standish and Nels are clearly standing, to the closer one, where they’re seated.

A flunky (not Carl The) approaches and tells Standish Big Dumb Luke has not arrived yet. 

On Standish’s instructions, the flunky tries to stall the game with the official, but the guy won’t have it.

DAGNY: How did they get this organized? A handful of kids say, “yeah, let’s play an unsanctioned game this Saturday,” and everybody in town just volunteers to make it happen?

(The official is credited as “Snyder,” and he’s played by Glenn Robards, who was in Marathon Man and The Incredible Shrinking Woman, both of which I liked.)

Play begins, and seconds later Garvey decides to put in Tom, instructing him to eliminate opposing players by tripping them.

This he does, but the Dragons score anyway.

We see that Mr. Carlin is sitting near Laura, that Herbert Diamond is the scorekeeper, and that Willie is warming the bench.

Play resumes, and the Dragons tackle poor Melonhead.

Then we see the Midsommar Kid is in the stands too! Very glad he made it safely from Walnut Grove as well.

We notice some other interesting things too. First, Winoka is a remarkably diverse community, because not only is the Crossing-the-Street Black Guy there, but a second Black man, this one with a mustache, is attending the game as well. (I don’t like classifying characters by their race, at all, but it certainly is unusual and nice to see on this show.)

Finally, there’s also a little girl wearing Laura’s old yellow bonnet (“Dagny’s favorite”). For the sake of convenience, since this recap already has about 165 tags, and since there is nothing I like more than economy, we shall assume she’s the same Girl in Laura’s Yellow Bonnet who attended the Redwood County Fair last season.

But then Albert scores a touchdown, tying up the game.

Meanwhile, the Hoskinses arrive in Henderson and realize they’ve been tricked. Well, Mr. Hoskins does, and they turn around and head back, David Rose giving us “And The Green Grass Grew All Around” in the orchestra for some reason.

Well, the teams play for a while longer. (If you were hoping for a more precise color commentary from me, tough.)

DAGNY: I wish real football was like this, just five-second snippets of the good parts.

WILL: Yeah, and over in ten minutes instead of four hours.

DAGNY: Yeah. It should be like Rugby Sevens.

David’s music has some similarities to the Notre Dame fight song.

The game is nearly tied up when Snyder the official announces there’s only one minute left.

Suddenly the Hoskinses come driving up, and Standish’s flunky (the private school coach?) runs out onto the field to call a time-out.

Big Dumb Luke threatens to stomp Albert’s head, and Garvey calls the Warriors over for a new strategy: Tom is simply going to hurl Albert to the other side of the field. I have no idea if this is really allowed or not. Again, football rules weren’t standardized at this time, so I’d say anything goes.

Garvey compares the proposed maneuver to a “log toss,” bringing us full circle to Scotland again. (The caber toss is the most famous sport at the Highland games.)

The teams get ready for the final play, or move, or whatever.

You can see Tom is very engaged and having fun.

Big Dumb Luke makes a hilarious pouty face.

Junior Standish, who hasn’t really been given much to do in this story, looks optimistic.

Play resumes, and Tom launches Albert right over Luke’s head to score a touchdown.

WILL: If a blind player throws a Hail Mary pass, is it a Hail Mary Ingalls?

Mrs. Oleson and Nellie are upset, Nels is thrilled, and Mr. Carlin just stares in disbelief.

Standish’s flunky tries to dispute the outcome, but Mr. Snyder declares the play valid and fires a fucking gun in the air!

DAGNY: Jesus Christ!

WILL: He should have shot the guy. “Anybody else wanna question my calls?”

The game apparently ends in a tie (huh? isn’t there a lightning round or something?), and Carlin comes over to his son. Weeping, he congratulates him, and tells him he wants them to work together on the farm to grow a new money crop.

ALEXANDER [as TOM]: “You can’t grow money, Pa.”

“We can do it, Pa,” Tom says, smiling.

They walk off arm and arm. Mr. Carlin asks if Tom’s tired; he says he is, but adds, “It feels great!”

Preposterously, then, we see Mrs. Oleson complaining that the Dragons would have won if only they’d let Willie play.

Then we get a surprise cameo by Voiceover Laura, who says:

The record books show the first forward pass was thrown on October 3, 1906, in New Haven. But I happen to know that the first forward pass OF A HUMAN BEING was thrown on November 29, 1880, in Winoka. I know because I was there, and saw it.

Oh boy, this statement is a pickle in the mint dish in a number of ways. First of all, Laura gets the date of the first forward pass wrong by about a month.

Second, the 29th of November, 1880, was a Monday, not a Saturday.

Third, using my exacting methods, I had dated this story to the fall of 1882-G. Regular readers are familiar with how this show will travel backwards in time every once in a while, but to this point the hole in time has always dumped our characters out in 1876 again. We will just have to accept that this time they only traveled back two years rather than six, making this the first story of the H Timeline.

Then, with the Notre-Dame-ish march again, the curtain falls. (Or whatever the football equivalent of a curtain falling is.)

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: Nels’s shirt, which he pairs with brown pinstripe pants (which don’t match his usual pinstripe outfit).

Standish wears a summery linen suit to the game (even though it’s late November).

And Herbert Diamond wears a jaunty lavender neckerchief.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: I don’t love the sports episodes, but at least this one has a plot. It plays like somebody put “School Mom,” “In the Big Inning,” “I─── Kid” and “‘I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away’” in a cocktail shaker (with a dash of “The Bad News Bears” added for good measure).

But in the end, that’s not a bad little recipe; the feel-good ending is satisfying and there are lots of fun moments. Matthew Labyorteaux and Linwood Boomer turn in fine performances again, and J. Andrew Kenny and Brad Wilkin are both great, too.

And for anybody who wants the full catalog of movies with multiple Little House cast members in them, I’m sure I’ve missed some, but a partial list would contain A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, A Star is Born (1954), Airplane!, Airport ’77, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, An Officer and a Gentleman, John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, Blazing Saddles, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Chinatown, Cimarron, Cool Hand Luke, Deadly Friend, Easy Rider, Escape From the Planet of the Apes, Escape to Witch Mountain, Flower Drum Song, Freaky Friday (1976), Grease, Gremlins, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, High Anxiety, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, In Cold Blood, Jack Frost (1997), Jaws 2, Lost Highway, Love at First Bite, M*A*S*H, Midnight Madness, Mommie Dearest, Night of the Demons 2, Night of the Lepus, North by Northwest, Orca, Papillon, Parts: The Clonus Horror, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Planet of the Apes (1968), Prophecy, Psycho, Rebel Without a Cause, Rosemary’s Baby, Sarah T.: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, Scream Blacula Scream, Some Like It Hot, Spartacus, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, The Birds, The Goodbye Girl, The Goonies, The Green Mile, The Music Man, The Pom Pom Girls, The Poseidon Adventure, The Swarm, The World’s Greatest Athlete, Three Days of the Condor, Torn Curtain, and WarGames. It’s a little classier than my Criterion graphic would suggest; and that’s just from the episodes we’ve done so far, of course.

Thanks everybody for reading! See you next time.

UP NEXT: The Man Inside