Fagin

Big Dickens Energy; or

Alibert!: The Musical

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: Fagin

Airdate: October 23, 1978

Written by Carole and Michael Raschella

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Charles develops an unhealthy obsession with Albert.

RECAP: We open on a shot of Charles Ingalls’s muscular shoulders trying to burst through Pinky.

David Rose, who’s on a “traditional Western” kick lately, gives us more Coplandiana.

Then ack! We get a sudden closeup of some hideous beast in the back of the Chonkywagon!

Well, of its face, anyways. We can’t see the body the face is attached to. 

The face looks rather like the Mock Turtle from Alice in Wonderland.

Charles comes down the driveway, and we see there’s a new cow in town – the Ingallses’ third so far in the series.

Interestingly, this cow’s markings are identical to those of Cow, their second cow, whom Charles sold, or slaughtered, or maybe abandoned to die, before the family departed for Winoka last season.

Did Doc Baker buy Cow, and has he now sold her back to Charles? Unlikely, since Doc’s instincts for farming are terrible and I can’t see him keeping a cow alive for a whole year.

Perhaps Charles is so particular he always shops around till he finds a cow with his favorite pattern of spots? I have a hard time picturing that.

But as with everything on this show, there’s a likely explanation that’s perfectly simple. 

You all remember Laura’s old beau, Walnut Grove’s resident scientist Jason R.

I bet he’s just been doing experiments with cloning, and this bovine was grown from a sample he took from Cow the cow before the family left town. 

(You may think of animal cloning as a more recent phenomenon, but DNA was first isolated in 1869; and remember, Jason was ahead of his time in a number of areas.) 

Three-time Walnut Groovy Award nominees Carole and Michael Raschella are back as the writers of this one. (They were nominated in the “good” categories, too.)

Laura and Bandit come running, and it turns out the creature in the back of the wagon is a calf. The poor thing’s tied up, I suppose for its own safety.

WILL [as CHARLES]: “Veal Parmigian’ tonight!”

Pa yells to Albert, who appears from the barn. (His new bedroom?)

The kids goggle over the calf, and Pa says quietly, “I got him for you, Albert.”

Pa says if he’s going to live on a farm, he has to learn how to raise livestock, so he’s going to take care of the animal, much like Elmer Dobkins with his squirrels and chickens.

Albert looks happy, but Laura does not.

Albert misgenders the calf, which makes Pa chuckle.

Albert shouldn’t feel too bad, though. Willie Oleson did the same thing with Fred the goat, though of course Willie did it in service of a moneymaking scheme.

Albert and Pa have a sweet little moment.

Pa heads off to do who knows what, and Albert says he’s going to name the calf “Fagin,” a name Laura recognizes as a character from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens.

DAGNY: They do a lot of reading for a family that doesn’t even have a bookshelf.

Laura is surprised at this choice of name; and well might she be.

I’m not sure how familiar Americans are with Oliver Twist these days. People don’t read the way they used to, and long Nineteenth-Century novels, even ones as lively and fun as Dickens’s, require a bigger commitment than most surviving readers have the patience to make. (Myself included.) 

It’s a pity, because Dickens’s works are much like modern ones in having two of the same prerequisites. There must always be a social justice message, and that message must be 1000 percent obvious.

Reading was probably already in decline in the United States in 1978, long before the internet came along and put a stake in its heart for good.

However, Oliver Twist’s musical adaptation, Oliver!, was a lot fresher in people’s minds then. 

The musical was made into a film in 1968 which won Oscars for Best Picture and for director Carol Reed. Reed’s win is controversial these days, as he was nominated against Stanley Kubrick (for 2001). 

2001 is obviously brilliant, but I find Oliver! a lot more fun. 

It was influential, too, having provided the spark for Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil to write Les Misérables, arguably the greatest stage musical of all time. (The movie of Les Miz sucks, though.)

Back to Oliver! If you like old movie musicals, as our family does, you will remember Ron Moody as Fagin, wily mentor to the gang of child pickpockets that “adopts” the orphaned Oliver Twist. 

The orphans-and-thieves plot is likely why Landon & Co. made Albert, a character halfway between Oliver himself and Fagin’s best pickpocket the Artful Dodger, a fan of the book. (Even Albert’s name is similar to Oliver’s.) 

(Little House has had an Oliver Twist fetish lately in general, with references or allusions to it in “‘As Long as We’re Together’” and in “The Stranger” last season.)

Ron Moody is adorable in Oliver!, but Nineteenth-Century readers wouldn’t find his puckish Fagin very recognizable. 

In the book, Fagin is a ruthless, repulsive, greedy, violent, paranoid, and devious crime boss, beating the children in his “care” and arranging the murder even of his own followers. 

Some feel he’s also coded as a pedophile, though this isn’t explicit in the novel. (It was Victorian England.)

Fagin is also remembered as one of the most virulently antisemitic characters in literary history. In fact, the vast majority of the time in the book, he’s referred to not by name, but simply as “the Jew,” and his characterization is a collection of exaggerated stereotypes. (Dickens was one of the great exaggeraters of all time.)

Oliver Twist was published in the 1830s, and Dickens said the character’s Jewishness was just a matter of authenticity, since there were many real Jewish “Fagins” who ran criminal organizations in early Nineteenth-Century London. 

But Dickens came to deeply regret his antisemitic tropes, especially when Jewish writers asked why his famous sympathy for social outcasts didn’t extend to their people. 

In his later books, he included positive portrayals of Jewish characters, and when he reimagined Oliver Twist toward the end of his life, he radically rewrote Fagin’s character to dampen the stereotypes.

None of this, of course, is important for what happens in our story today.

Anyways, Fagin the calf makes a horrible groaning sound, then we cut to Ma snapping beans in the kitchen whilst the rest of the family lounges in the Common Room.

Pa is reading the paper and talking about Albert and the calf. As he always does when he’s excited about something, Pa pretends he’s just making smalltalk for no special reason.

Ma, sunny as ever, says she thinks it was stupid to spend money to raise a steer, a thing they know nothing about. 

A better question might be where they got the money from. From this point, there’s no more mention of the railroad wars or Walnut Grove’s economic depression. 

Of course, a little time has passed – Mr. Hanson died “four months” after the Grovesters cleaned up the town (i.e., in the winter of 1881 into 1882-H) and now it appears to be spring (since that’s when a lot of calves are born), so I guess we can assume the economy bounced back during the interim. 

I suppose Hanson left Doc whatever hoarded treasure he had, plus the Mill, rental properties, Hanson Universal Enterprises, all of that, and perhaps Doc spent a good chunk of the inheritance getting people back on their feet.

One note: if it’s spring I’m not sure where the green beans, which aren’t ready till midsummer in Minnesota, came from.

“Well,” Pa says, “remember those pickles and preserves you entered in the Brown County Fair over at Sleepy Eye?”

Ma does remember it, but I don’t. Last season, Ma did win in at least one pickling category at the Redwood County Fair, in Redwood Falls. (Walnut Grove is in Redwood County, not Brown.)

Then again, by the sequence of events, “‘Meet Me at the Fair’” took place at least nine years ago in Little House Universal Time (LHUT). 

And today, at any rate, the Brown County Fair allows non-Brown County residents to enter items (though there are special awards for local residents). 

So presumably Ma entered and won in Brown County at some point. I’ll allow it.

One note, though: Since 1867, the Brown County Fair has been held in New Ulm, fifteen miles to the east of Sleepy Eye. (New Ulm, in real life a rather curious town where everything is mock-German, was visited by the Reverend Alden in “The Award” and by Charles in “Money Crop.”)

Pa, who never had an expectation he couldn’t inflate to the popping point, says not only will Albert learn valuable lessons from raising the steer, he’ll likely win the blue ribbon in Brown County as well!

Albert comes in from feeding Fagin. Pa also raises his eyebrows at the name. (Not only are Doc and Grace Snider Dickens fans, as we learned in “The Spring Dance,” Pa is also familiar, since he compares Mrs. Oleson to Ebenezer Scrooge in “Christmas at Plum Creek.”)

(In fact, the popular phrase “Big Dickens Energy” might have been invented for Charles Ingalls.)

(I’m sorry to report I’m not the first person to have thought of “Big Dickens Energy.” Like Evelyn Waugh said, it’s always painful to google your own jokes. I assure you I didn’t steal it, though.)

No doubt remembering the debacle of Carrie’s pet turkey Tom, Pa says it’s not always wise to give livestock names. 

He says in the end Fagin will be headed for the auction block, though he doesn’t clarify that, as a “beef” (as they call them), he’s also destined for the chopping block.

Pa and Albert head out to the barn then to pamper the beast. Ol’ Gopher Fangs tries to tell Pa how well she’s doing in school, but he blows her off.

WILL: Now she knows how Andrew Garvey felt when she started hanging out with Albert all the time.

DAGNY: Yeah. Is this the one where she prays for Albert to die?

That night, Caroline brushes her Playboy Bunny hair.

DAGNY: John Pima, John Pima.

Charles lies in bed droning on about Albert and the stupid calf. Only five minutes in, and I’m beginning to know how Laura feels.

Meanwhile . . . 

WILL: Ma puts perfume on before bed?

DAGNY: Pre-popcorn ritual.

She smiles and sloooooooowly turns off the lamp. Pre-popcorn is right; there’s no question about it. 

(Unless she’s just still riding the delicious high of Rev. Alden being back.)

She climbs into bed, and says to Charles, “Come here.”

Charles jokes that she’s only seducing him because she wants him to buy her a calf too. HA! It’s a pretty naughty exchange for Little House.

If she’s not careful, she may get a new “calf” of her own . . . in about nine months, ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Next, we see it’s pandemonium in the schoolroom.

DAGNY: Miss Beadle is rolling in her grave.

Seriously, the kids, who include Laura, Carrie, Albert, Nellie, Willie, Andrew Garvey, an AEK, the Midsommar Kid, Not-Linda Hunt, the Non-Binary Kid, the Smallest Nondescript Helen of Them All, Quincy Fusspot, Not-Ellen Taylor, a Not-Carl Sanderson and at least two other Nondescript Helens, are all just running crazily around the room. If there’s an organized game, I can’t tell what it is.

There’s also a Latino kid, likely the son of The First Latino in Walnut Grove, who was introduced last week.

Everybody’s favorite edition of the dictionary is on the desk. (Another special examination?)

Alice Garvey comes in and screams. 

“Denzil! Willie! Sit down!” she says.

DAGNY: Denzel?

Everybody listens except Denzil – the Not-Carl Sanderson.

“Denzil, sit!” Mrs. G says.

DAGNY: Denzel?

Mrs. G says they’re going to be studying British royalty. She asks who the current sovereign is, and Laura, obviously a Windsor watcher, answers Queen Victoria. (I suppose it would have been a Hanover/Saxe-Coburg-Gotha watcher in those days. Doesn’t have the same ring.)

Mrs. G tells the kids Victoria had a husband, Prince Albert. (She doesn’t mention they were first cousins, but I suppose nobody would have found that unusual then.)

She also says they had nine children. (I’ll list them in the tags for your convenience.)

Denzil, obviously a trollish piece of work, starts taunting Albert about sharing a name with “a king.” 

Laura snipes that Albert was Prince Consort, not king, but Mrs. G didn’t really explain it properly, so she shouldn’t hold it against him.

G continues, “We’ll begin in the Eleventh Century with King Edward the Confessor. Who’s heard of the Battle of Hastings?”

WILL: The Bead would never have them studying this crap. She was as American as apple pie.

Willie raises his hand with a smartass/stupid-ass answer. His jokes are usually good, but this one’s a little weak.

G sends him to the corner – like the “Go the Fuck to Sleep” conversations, another tradition that’s apparently going to continue into the show’s current era, the third of what I would say are five distinct “chapters” in the history of this show.

So far we’ve had:

Chapter One: Origins (The Pilot and Season 1)

Chapter Two: The Beadlemania Years (Seasons 2-4)

Chapter Three: Blind New World (Seasons 4-5)

And the final two are still to come:

Chapter Four: Where the Wilder Things Are (Seasons 6-8)

Chapter Five: Decline and Fall (“A New Beginning” and The Movies)

(I reserve the right to revise this breakdown if I change my mind or think of funnier chapter names later in the series.)

After school, Carl the Flunky rattles by in his wagon.

The kids all get vomited out, and Denzil follows Albert and the Ing-Gals, bullying them.

Laura fat-shames Fagin then. (Fat joke #26.) Bullied kids often take their frustrations out on those weaker than themselves.

They try to ignore Denzil, whose taunts, it must be said, aren’t any better than Willie’s joke was before. The Raschellas, excellent dramatists to be sure, aren’t among the funnier Little House writers. They should have just left blanks in the script for Landon to fill in with biting remarks.

Albert tells Laura that Fagin’s father was a “purebred Hereford.” He pronounces it the American way.

(Better authorities than I have pointed out Fagin is actually a purebred Angus.)

Denzil seizes on this, saying, “Who’s your father, Albert?”

Laura turns around and says, “None of your business, Denzil McCauley!”

DAGNY: Denzel?

WILL: Denzel looks like a a friend of mine from high school. We played in the trombone section together. She was nice, though.

Carrie turns around too.

DAGNY: Carrie should run up and kick Denzel in the nuts.

Denzil says there’s a word for fatherless children, “’cept my pa would wash my mouth out with soap if I said it.” (Indeed a popular form of punishment in those days.)

It’s funny the show gets squeamish about the word bastard here, because it had Albert describe himself that way in “‘As Long as We’re Together.’” (Maybe they only got NBC’s permission to use it once this season.)

Laura runs up to attack Denzil, but he restrains her.

WILL: She should have used her lunchpail. Even Mary won a fight that way, and she was as aggressive as mashed potatoes.

But then Albert comes rammin’ and thumpin’ and tackles Denzil to the ground. 

DAGNY: Yeah, watch out, Denzel! Albert’s a streetfighter!

WILL: Yeah. Not to mention the star quarterback.

Denzil is played by Kraig Metzinger, who was the second incarnation of Maude’s grandson on Maude.

Anyways, we hear some very heavy-sounding punches as Carrie squeezes her eyelids shut in fright, or because she has Dry-Eye Syndrome.

When they get home, Ma comes running, upset about Albert’s bleeding nose.

She summons Pa from the barn.

DAGNY [as MA]: “Oh CHAAAAARLES!”

Charles is delighted to hear Albert kicked a bully’s ass.

WILL: Is Pa growing a mustache?

But Ma pooh-poohs him.

WILL: It’s that top again.

DAGNY: I know, I’m trying to figure out what makes it so boobilicious. They must have given her a different kind of bra this season.

Laura wants to accompany the menfolk to the barn, but Ma says, “We’ve got potatoes to peel.”

WILL: Incompetently.

Pa and Albert continue without her, chortling about how great Albert is all the way.

Then we get a musical montage – another device they’re leaning on a lot recently.

To a “Wild West showtune” arrangement of Albert’s theme, Albert wrangles the stubborn Fagin.

Yep, Fagin is a boy.

Albert somehow manages to fall into the creek, and Pa whinnies and shrieks with laughter.

DAGNY: Oh my God. Did you see his tongue go?

The music builds and builds.

WILL: Is this the overture to a new musical about Albert?

Time passes, because suddenly Fagin is full-size. 

I questioned how long it takes a calf to grow that big; but the size looks possibly about right for six months, if you can believe what you find on the Internet. 

If the calf is six months old, that would put us in the late summer or early fall of 1882.

Albert feeds Fagin some hay, and he and Pa both laugh about how fat he (that is, Fagin) is becoming.

Others have pointed out that Fagin has an anachronistic ear tag in this scene.

Meanwhile, the music practically overflows the speakers at this point. You may wish to mute it if you have a sensitivity.

Okay, now turn it back up, because suddenly David shifts to Mournful Mode, and we see Laura staring with resentment at Pa and Albert.

DAGNY: Yep, Albert’s gotta die.

WILL: Well, my sister hated Albert. She always felt he took attention away from Laura.

DAGNY: Oh, did she write this episode?

The montage concludes, and we cut to Pa and Laura, who are doing “Grecian urn” poses by Plum Creek.

Laura is trying to impress Pa by reciting her times tables. Laura, Pa never liked Mary as much as you in the first place. You think acting like her will win him back?

Well, as any sane person would, probably to preserve his sanity in fact, Pa tunes out Laura’s numeric mutterings.

He’s staring back at the farmyard, where Albert is wrangling Fagin again.

WILL: It’s interesting they have a Fagin and a Young Fagin, just like Michael Landon is Charles and Matthew Labyorteaux is Young Charles.

DAGNY: I think this project is doing something to your mind.

(In fact, several different “Fagins” were used in this production.)

Pa interrupts Laura to exclaim, “Still gonna be the team to beat at the Fair, you know that?” 

WILL: Six months is a long time for Pa to be exclusively interested in this.

DAGNY: Yeah. Think of the Grovesters whose lives fell apart because he took all this time off from meddling.

Laura then tries to interest Pa in some gossip about “Nellie Oleson and that Denzil McCauley.”

DAGNY: Denzel?

Pa doesn’t even look at her.

Annoyed, Laura cites a “Sarah Lewis” and a “Martha Kennedy” as sources for her story. (Not-Linda? Not-Ellen? The Smallest NH of Them All?)

Martha Kennedy is probably no relation to Christy, Sandy, Cassie, and their unhappy parents from Season One, who are either long dead or institutionalized.

Gopher Fangs notes the two were caught kissing.

DAGNY: She should make the story really dirty, to prove he’s not listening.

Blah blah, on we go. There’s a fair amount of flab in this script, but I think in this scene the most interesting takeaway is something that doesn’t get said: that Laura misses gossiping with her sister.

Eventually Laura gives up competing for Pa-attention. She says she’s got to write a paper about the Reformation, Mrs. G being a big fan of European history, I guess.

That night, Pa stands at the thinking/arguing place, smoking Gandalfily.

Laura comes out and says that it’s her “favorite time of year” because the fishing’s so good. What time of year??? Why don’t they just say?

DAGNY: Pa should give her a hit off the pipe.

I suppose it’s probably September, like it is right now – a fine choice for anybody’s favorite month in this part of the country.

Laura asks Pa if he’ll take her fishing tomorrow, and he says he will. But then he ruins the whole thing by saying giddily, “I’ll have Albert dig us some worms!” 

Honestly, he’s like a teenager with a crush, talking endlessly about the person they’re into even though no one cares. He’s a Knox Overstreet!

Laura says she opposes inviting Albert, because she wants it to be like “old times.”

DAGNY [as PA]: “Well, sure! Old times plus Albert!”

Pa agrees, and the next day we see them fishing in the creek. Looks like some distance from their house.

Laura says she brought sandwiches that include “your favorite – ham and cheese.” (This may be new information.)

Then they talk about carrot cake and apple turnovers a while, and then Pa does a different sort of hysterical laugh than his normal one, or I suppose I should say his usual one.

This one’s more like a “huh! huh! huh! huh! huh!” in the upper baritone range with a lot of vocal “cover,” as I think singers call it. 

In fact, he laughs like some singers I’ve known, though I wouldn’t describe their laughs as normal either.

Father and daughter reminisce about a preposterous supposed incident when Laura baked unripe whole apples into turnovers and Pa ate eight of them. (Which I don’t believe for a fucking second.)

“Remember when I used to pretend that I was gonna marry you?” Laura asks, which sounds creepy; but it does remind me of when Amelia and Olive were very little kids and the things they would make-believe. Where does the time go, huh?

Anyways, their conversation is going just fine, but Laura torpedoes it by suddenly blurting out, “I could . . . have raised Fagin all by myself!”

Pa dodges that bomb pretty well.

And then, as they’re sitting there wishing they’d never started talking in the first place, suddenly Albert’s voice can be heard crying “Mr. Ingalls! Mr. Ingalls!”

Apparently Fagin has a cold.

“I’m sorry, Half Pint, I gotta go!” Pa yells as he springs into action.

Albert joins him in running. I think we’re supposed to assume they ran all the way home. Because a cow coughed?

DAGNY: Is that a real lake, or manmade?

WILL: I would guess manmade. They’d have to keep it clean all the time. That would be hard to do out in the wild.

When we return from a commercial, we see the red-wheeled phaeton of Doc Baker has come to rest at Casa dell’Ingalls once more.

There’s also some sort of devastated tree stump in the foreground. A casualty of the Sioux Wars, I suppose.

Doc is examining Fagin, who appears to be unconscious.

DAGNY: That thing is huge.

I noticed a very strange thing in this scene: Doc appears to have attached the homemade “wedding ring” he created for Kate Thorvald in “Doctor’s Lady” to his watch chain!

At first I assumed this meant Doc, having lost Mr. Hanson almost a year ago (LHUT) at this point, decided to find and make another play for Kate after all this time!

But no, this cannot be; since as you all remember, when Doc broke their engagement, Kate asked to keep the (lame) ring as a sort of “notch on her lipstick case,” as Pat Benatar memorably and poetically put it.

So why would Doc be wearing an identical “ring” as a watch fob today? Has he got his eye on someone new?

Well, let’s keep an eye on this for developments. Anyways, Doc rises and gravely says, “I’ve seen it before. . . . They call it husk.”

[DAGNY SINGS FLEETWOOD MAC’S “TUSK,” ONLY YELLING OUT “HUSK” INSTEAD OF “TUSK.”]

“Husk” is a real and disgusting condition where an animal’s lungs get filled with worms. It’s also known as parasitic bronchitis. Do not look it up if you’re squeamish.

It is interesting to have references to two separate types of worms in a single episode, though. Unprecedented, I think.

Doc says there’s only one known treatment, but it’s “drastic.”

DAGNY [as DOC]: “One of us is gonna have to have sex with it.”

Doc says the treatment is an injection of chloroform, turpentine, and creosote.

This whole business is a ripoff of an incident from that rural veterinary fantasia, All Creatures Great and Small. I’ll give you the exchange from the 1970s version. (The current version was fine the first season, but we like the old one better, shocker.)

SIEGFRIED FARNON: You gave them all the injection, did you, James?

JAMES HERRIOT: For what it’s worth.

SIEGFRIED: Oh, the books speak very well of it. Chloroform to stupefy the worms, turpentine to kill them, creosote to cause the cough that expels them.

JAMES: You’re on with all that?

SIEGFRIED: Not for one moment. No, I think that any good effects that have been achieved have been the result of getting the cattle off the infected pasture in time. Still, it always impresses the farmers very greatly.

Nice classism from Siegfried there. You know, as much as I love Little House, I would point out that when I was a small child, my own picture of what the real world would be like formed from 1970s TV versions of 1930s England. 

I mean, crossed with Love Boat. 

I know I set myself up to have my illusions shattered with such dreams. Well, Charles worries the treatment is too risky, but Doc says For God’s sake, man, time is running out! (Paraphrase.)

Charles agrees, and Albert looks worried as Fagin lies there groaning.

Pa comes into the house to find the Ing-Gals have started dinner already. Night has fallen, which is in keeping with a fall setting.

Pa says the yearling’s medicine hasn’t kicked in yet, so he’s going to take his plate out to the barn and eat with Albert.

Laura looks sad and remote, and Ma says she should eat, or “you’ll be sick yourself.” (Not with lungworms, though.)

Out in the barn, Fagin is still unconscious.

WILL: Is that real or a prop?

DAGNY: It’s real. Look at it breathing.

WILL: So did they sedate it or what? It IS just like All Creatures. I don’t know how they get farm animals to follow stage directions.

Albert is shivering, so Pa gives him a blanket. (A September-ish thing to do, wouldn’t you say?)

Then, in an extraordinarily sappy scene, Albert nudges the topic of whether he can start calling Pa Pa. 

As I say, he nudges it, without saying exactly what he means at first.

Pa says he’s been called Charles, Ingalls, and Hey You. (Mr. Hanson also called him “Charlie” once, as did that call girl in Chicago.)

Pa says he can call him “Charles,” or “Uncle Charles,” but Albert says he had something else in mind.

WILL [as CHARLES]:  “‘Unky Chuckie’?”

Albert shares a stupid anecdote about how a Winoka bully called “Raymond” used to make him “say Uncle,” so he hates the word. (No one knows where or when “Say Uncle” originated.) 

DAGNY: I can’t believe Charles is making the kid beg for it. He’s gotta know where he’s going with this.

“You know,” says Albert, “it might make things easier – for the kids in town – if I called you ‘Pa.’”

WILL: He should suddenly get hit by an arrow, and Laura’s standing there in the doorway.

Pa melts and coos “It’s fine with me” as a lush arrangement of Albert’s theme swells on the soundtrack.

Albert says, “Thanks, Mr. Ingalls – I mean, Pa.”

WILL: This seems sentimental for Albert. He’s a hardened, cynical urbanite.

DAGNY: Oh, Charles could turn anybody into a pile of jelly.

It does feel like a shift for Albert’s character. Not that he doesn’t have his emotional side; it’s just been leavened so far with a sort of tough world-weariness, or perhaps a world-weary toughness. I suppose it’s all right, though.

Albert snuggles up to Unky Chuckie – I mean, Pa – and goes to sleep.

The next morning, presumably, we get one of the show’s trademark closeup cock shots.

Pa and Albert start crowing (sorry) that Fagin’s recovered. Pa apparently slept out in the barn too.

The Ing-Gals run out and Albert cries, “He’s gonna make it! Me and Pa did it!”

“Thank God,” Ma says. That’s kind of an overreaction, I’d say.

Ma, Pa and Carrie head to the house for breakfast. “I’ll be right in, Pa!” Albert says.

Laura stares at Albert in disbelief, but she gives him the benefit of the doubt and says, “He didn’t notice . . . you called him ‘Pa’ by mistake.”

Albert says that’s what Pa said to call him.

Albert, who’s not a complete idiot in this one, tells Laura the decision was just so he can stop getting called a bastard at school.

But she’s still stunned.

DAGNY: She thought she had it made without Mary around anymore. Now it’s even worse.

We leap forward in time about thirty seconds. Inside the house, the family’s still eating breakfast, but Laura is now upstairs faking sick.

Pa goes up to check on her, but he just annoys her by saying well you know, ALBERT stayed up all night worrying about Fagin, and HE’S going to school anyway, and HE’s Pa’s hero for it, et cetera et cetera. (Paraphrase.)

So Pa drives the kids, Laura included, into town himself.

At the Mercantile, Nels pops out to say a delivery Charles was expecting hasn’t arrived yet.

Willie and Nellie come out then. Even Willie has joined the Cult of Albert, it seems.

“See you, Pa!” Albert cries as Nellie watches with interest.

“See you later, Albert!” Pa screams back adoringly.

When the others have gone, Nellie creeps towards Laura like a python or some other stealthy jungle predator. An ocelot?

“So,” Nellie says. “It’s ‘Pa’ now, is it?”

DAGNY: Nellie’s in her prime in this era of the show.

“Leave me alone,” Laura says. It seems there isn’t much fight in her today. For now, anyways.

“Well,” Nellie says, ignoring her, “your father’s always wanted a son.” Half the characters on the show are obsessed with this notion, aren’t they?

Nellie keeps prodding Laura, says “Don’t you like your new brother?” and then giggles like the scariest zombie in The Evil Dead.

Laura finally looks at her for a moment, then punches her in the eye.

DAGNY: That was a good punch.

Back at the house, Pa is tightening a wheel on the Chonkywagon whilst Baby Grace keeps him company, which is cute.

DAGNY: See her hat? Anything Ma makes is crocheted, not knitted. They’re very consistent about fiber art on this show.

Then they see Laura walking home from school.

Mrs. Garvey has sent her home for hitting Nellie, but she won’t tell Ma and Pa the nature of their dispute.

DAGNY: Do you think she doesn’t tell Pa the truth because she’s more mature than she used to be, or because she’s angry at him?

WILL: I think it’s because they need to stretch this thing out to an hour.

Later that day, we see Ma and Laura approaching the Mercantile.

Inside the Olesons’ residence, Mrs. O brings a raw steak to Nellie, who sits in a grandfather chair with its back to the camera.

DAGNY: Is Nellie completely disfigured? Why are they not showing her face?

Another interesting thing is that the house is back to having all its opulent furnishings, the piano, etc. I thought they sold everything before they left for Winoka? I suppose it’s been over a year since they got back at this point, but still. 

Plus, much of it appears to be the exact same stuff. You can see three decorative plates we’ve seen before, e.g. 

Mrs. Oleson answers the door, where she finds Laura and Caroline – the latter wearing a Boobilicous/Boo Berry combo. Quite, erm, fetching.

Caroline has brought Laura to apologize, but Nellie, who we now see is pressing a steak to her face, snarls at them.

Laura whispers her apology, and Nellie snorts “Well, I should say so!” Canadianishly.

Mrs. O wails that Nellie’s new dress from St. Louis was ruined in the skirmish, and Ma says, “Don’t worry, we’ll pay for it.” (How?)

Nellie reveals herself then. She has a very bad bruise – over her right eye.

DAGNY: Laura actually hit her on the other side.

(It’s true.)

WILL: That’s quite the shiner, considering Pa gets in a fight every week and doesn’t get any bruises whatsoever.

Mrs. Oleson shames Laura until she bursts into tears and runs out.

Caroline gives Harriet a disapproving look, but departs politely.

Outside, Laura rages how everyone cares more about bitches and beasts like Nellie and Fagin than about her.

She breaks down then, saying she’s realized Albert was always just out to steal Pa’s love from her.

DAGNY: Everyone fighting over Pa again. What an ego Landon had.

She complains about the “Pa” thing, then shouts she’ll never call Albert her brother and runs off.

DAGNY: That’s funny because they’re brother and sister in real life!

WILL: That’s Laura and Willie.

As a tragic minor-key version of Albert’s theme plays, we see a number of Grovesters lumbering near the Mill. (Get it?) But I can’t tell who any of them are.

This has been the first suddenly-running-away resolution to a scene we’ve had this season, I think. (There wasn’t really anyplace to run to in Winoka.)

After we come back from the break, we see Albert is grooming Fagin and talking to Pa about the Fair, which is two days out. These days the Brown County Fair is held in early August, but let’s assume in 1882 it was later in the year for the purposes of this story.

Ma gets home and immediately pulls him aside to talk about what Laura’s going through.

Albert can hear them talking, though.

Charles starts ranting about how foolish it is to think he’s been favoring Albert.

DAGNY: He’s being a total dick about this.

Ma calls him on that, in fact.

Upset at what he’s heard, Albert steps out of the frame.

We cut to Plum Creek, where Laura is throwing rocks in.

WILL: Does Albert drown her? Does it turn into The Good Son with Macauley Culkin and Elijah Wood?

But no, it’s actually Pa who appears.

He wades into the creek to talk to her. No wonder his boots are always falling apart.

Pa apologizes, quite sincerely and beautifully, and Laura jumps up and hugs him.

DAGNY: Is this Landon-directed?

WILL: I didn’t catch it.

DAGNY: It’s gotta be. Look at how this shot is set up.

WILL: Yeah. Plus we don’t get a single close-up the entire scene.

It is.

So, with this tension resolved, it must be smooth sailing the rest of the way, right?

Of course not right. Back at the house, where Ma is playing with Baby Grace, Pa surreptitiously packs up all his things under the guise of “doing laundry.” 

DAGNY: I don’t buy this. Moms are always suspicious when anybody volunteers to do laundry.

But Albert, whose hair has less volume than usual in this story (a key indicator of men’s emotions in the Little House Universe), is running away.

WILL: Back to Winoka, I guess. Or is he gonna crawl under the Mercantile porch?

DAGNY: No, he’s gonna move in with Kezia. He’s gonna live in Kezia’s cavern.

Unsentimentally saying goodbye to Fagin and Bandit (see, that’s the Albert I like), Albert tacks a note (addressed to “Mr. Ingalls”) to the cow stall and leaves.

Well, we jump to the aftermath of Pa’s unsuccessful search for the boy.

He says he searched “most of Hero Township” – about 35 square miles, but he’s probably not speaking literally.

He sadly says Albert could be “halfway to Winoka” by now. I suppose it’s possible – we figured Winoka was near Milltown, Dakota Territory, about sixty miles from Walnut Grove.

DAGNY [as PA]: “Nice job, Half Pint.”

WILL: Yeah. [as PA:] “Hope you’re happy now, Half Pint.”

Actually, I’m sure Pa blames himself.

“When’s Albert gonna be home?” Carrie slurps.

“Doesn’t look like tonight, darlin’,” Ma says.

WILL [as CARRIE:]: “Oh, damn!”

Carrie slurps Albert promised to take her berry-picking tomorrow. (Raspberries probably, if it’s fall. We know Carrie does like them.)

Ma says, “Sometimes people can’t help breaking their promises.”

DAGNY: Ma’s philosophy is pretty warped. “Some people break their promises”? That’s the life lesson she gives the four-year-old?

WILL: Carrie is, like, nine, but point taken. 

Pa and the Guilt Gopher head out to the barn.

DAGNY [as LAURA]: “We have to go to that mountain! He’s sure to be there!”

Pa tries to shrug off what’s happened, but Laura comforts him and says, “It’s all right if you tell me that you loved him.”

Commercial.

And when we come back, we’re at the Brown County Fair.

WILL: Denzel sort of dropped out of this story.

DAGNY: I know. I’m surprised. I thought we were going to have a real problem with him.

Denzil may not be there, but Herbert Diamond, the Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Mustache Man, and the Gelfling Boy are.

I’m pretty sure Carl the Flunky is working as a carny, too.

(We’ll also spot the Non-Binary Kid, the Smallest Nondescript Helen of Them All, Not-Ellen Taylor, the Latino Kid, Not-Richard Libertini, and the French Maitre D’ in the background in the Fair scenes.)

DAGNY: Wait, is that Denzel?

WILL: No.

DAGNY: Wait, is that Denzel?

WILL: No.

Then we jump into the calf judging. 

DAGNY: Wait, is that Denzel?

WILL: No.

The Gelfling Boy is amongst the competitors.

DAGNY: Wait, is THAT Denzel?

WILL: No, that’s the Gelfling Boy.

DAGNY: No, behind him.

WILL: Oh. No, it isn’t.

DAGNY: All these kids look like Denzel! It’s like Men.

The judge gets to Fagin, and we see Laura has brought him to the contest in Albert’s place.

DAGNY: Will she have to ride him, like at the Calgary Stampede?

The judge announces the finalists, of which Gopher Fangs is one. He says the contestants have an hour break, then they’ll come back for the final judging.

DAGNY: Would they really need to split this event into two sections?

WILL: I have no idea. But no.

The silver-haired judge is Hal Riddle, a veteran of Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Highway to Heaven as well as The Fugitive, Days of Our Lives, Mary Tyler Moore, The Waltons, and Dallas. He does look familiar, doesn’t he?

He was also in Scissors, a Dario Argento ripoff with Sharon Stone, as I’m sure you all don’t remember.

Well, guess what, Albert is there, spying on them. How did he get to Sleepy Eye? I suppose he hid in the back of somebody’s wagon. That’s what Oliver Twist did.

As the finalists are called for the second judging, Laura is pensive, but when Pa pesters her she tells him to just give it a rest for once in his life. (Paraphrase.)

Suddenly Pa spots Albert, and without telling Laura why, he takes off running after him.

Albert’s theme leaps and swoops on the soundtrack.

DAGNY: This fair looks fun. I like the layout of the grounds.

WILL: Yeah. It’s completely different from Redwood County’s.

Revealingly, Albert runs past the same group of vegetable stands twice.

Pa catches him, and surly Albert tells him he left town because he got a job on the railroad.

DAGNY: He’s stealing the fat handyman’s story.

Albert says he’s headed to San Francisco. I suppose I don’t need to point this out, but Sleepy Eye is not on the way to California from Walnut Grove.

Albert continues in this vein for a little while, but then they start talking about the real issues.

DAGNY: This is a pretty adult conversation for an eleven-year-old.

WILL: You grow up fast on the streets of Winoka.

Albert says Laura doesn’t want to see him, adding, “Besides, I gotta go.”

DAGNY: Do you say “beh-sides” or “bee-sides”?

WILL: I say “buh-sides.”

Pa tells him as long as he’s here, he might as well watch Fagin’s competition.

At the judging, the Silver-Haired Judge announced the third place winner, a Rod Peterson of Sleepy Eye (#41).

DAGNY: You know, a friend of mine from Iowa says there are farmers who raise livestock and let other people’s kids take them to the fair for money.

WILL: Really? After Walnut Groovy, should we do a podcast exposing the dark underside of the 4-H Club?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Rod Peterson is the Sharp-Faced Paranoid-Looking Brother we met a couple times in Season Three and Four.

Rod must have moved to Sleepy Eye at some point, which explains why we haven’t seen him since “The Creeper of Walnut Grove.”

And speaking of familiar faces, standing behind Pa and Albert in the stands is Not-Neil Diamond! Practically a regular in Season One, he’s not been seen since Founder’s Day of 1877 (A2 timeline).

In second place is Jesse Potter of Mankato. We haven’t seen him before, but I’ll note that Mankato is in Blue Earth County, about 45 miles away.

That leaves only Laura and Gelfling Boy in the contest. This seems kinda cruel, doesn’t it? Having a contest for children where there’s only one loser?

(Others have pointed out that in the previous scene, the judge only announced three finalists, not four.)

Of course, Fagin wins, and the judge invites Laura “to say a few words.”

WILL: I’m not sure they really let the kids who win these events make speeches.

Laura admits she didn’t really raise the steer herself, saying, “I’d like to accept this award for my brother, Albert.”

WILL: That should be an instant DQ, don’t you think?

On the sidelines, Albert bursts into tears. It’s an iconic moment.

DAGNY: Oh my God he’s good! This is hands-down the best child crying we’ve ever seen on this show.

Albert runs to Laura, and they embrace joyously.

In the crowd, Pa turns to Not-Neil Diamond and says, “My kids!” (I do know that feeling. I’m not completely heartless, you know!)

The camera slowly zooms out as the people clap and cheer.

DAGNY: They’re STILL CLAPPING? All these old farmers? Why would they give a shit?

WILL: A five-minute ovation for the pee-wee yearling event is hard to credit. 

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH:

In an inspired touch, the production team has put Albert in his own version of Pinky.

WILL: Is that a new skirt for Ma?

DAGNY: Looks like it. It’s nice.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: Heartfelt, if a little slow-paced and repetitive, “Fagin” has never been a favorite of mine, but there’s really nothing wrong with it. It’s sweet, Gilbert, Landon, Grassle and Labyorteaux turn in fine performances, and yes, Labyorteaux is a great crier. 

UP NEXT: Harriet’s Happenings