The Godsister

Far From Heaven; or

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Carrie?

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Godsister

Airdate: December 18, 1978

Written by Don Balluck

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Two Carries? Utter insanity!

RECAP:

[UPDATE: It’s occurred to me that at no point during this episode did any of us make a reference to “Wichita Lineman.” Walnut Groovy apologizes for the omission. – WK]

AMELIA [looking at her phone]: Hey Pops, did you know Walnut Groovy made it to the Little House subreddit?

WILL: I’ve heard rumors.

AMELIA: Listen to this comment: “The blog is awful. It snarks up every little detail with its vulgar crass memes and jokes.”

WILL: Ha! Oh my God, what a perfect description! I should use that as a tagline and build it into the homepage header.

It’s a bit of an exaggeration, though. I estimate no more than 15 percent of my memes are vulgar and/or crass. (And you should see the ones I didn’t use!)

Still, that’s gotta be my favorite review we’ve received so far, with the exception of one that was just a single word. (“Assholes.”)

But enough tooting of my own horn. Needless to say, a very special program tonight, everybody.

Little House took a week off after “Blind Journey,” but unfortunately, the internet fails to document what NBC aired instead on Monday, December 11, 1978, at 8 Eastern.

At 9 Eastern they had A Woman Called Moses, a Harriet Tubman biopic starring (Melissa Gilbert nemesis) Cicely Tyson.

Anyways, you don’t come here to read about what was on TV instead of Little House, so I won’t let my failure to dig up NBC’s full schedule haunt me long.

Let’s begin.

We open with urgent-but-fun music as we see a man driving his wagon at top speed down the road. 

It’s Jonathan Garvey, or rather Mustache Man made up to look like Jonathan Garvey.

Don Balluck is back as our writer this time. Balluck’s scripts have ranged from insane and terrible (“The Aftermath”), to pretty good with an insane ending (“The High Cost of Being Right”), to charmingly dopey with hardly any insane elements at all (“Men Will Be Boys”). 

The question is, will the writer continue his trajectory away from insanity instead of towards it?

Ha, of course he won’t. For this is “The Godsister,” one of the most legendarily goofy Little House stories of them all!

Jonathan Garvey reports to Charles, who’s doing some roof repairs. 

DAGNY: That roof is always breaking. Didn’t Mr. Edwards have to fix it once?

WILL: That was because he shot it.

DAGNY: I suppose if somebody shot a hole in your roof, it might always be a trouble spot.

Garvey’s got good news. A telecom company is putting phone service in between Springfield and Sleepy Eye, and needs workers to erect the poles.

“I think there’s a way to get that Mill open after all,” Garvey says. 

I don’t know what he means by this. Obviously Mr. Hanson closed the Mill when Walnut Grove became a ghost town after the financial collapse of 1881(-G).

But Charles and Garvey restored the Mill to functionality the summer before Hanson died.

Since then – four years ago in Little House Universal Time, or LHUT – there’s been no indication the economic crisis has continued to affect the Mill, or any other Walnut Grove business for that matter.

So if the Mill is closed now, in 1885(-H), it must arise from some new problem.

Garvey hands Charles a copy of the Springfield Clarion covering the telephone story. 

(On the back, we can see an item about an S.S. Bedard – not sure if that’s a person or a ship – as well as advertisements for carriages and Mail Coach Plug Tobacco.) 

(Just think: if only somebody’d ordered some Mail Coach for Albert, Alice Garvey and that baby might still be alive today!)

(Not in 2024 of course, but you know what I mean.)

The lineman job is a one-month gig, but it pays well: $50 per person (over $1,600 today) plus food and lodgings.

Then aha, Garvey tells us the closing of the Mill was a practical decision – some essential components need replacing. 

Garvey says he’s planning to head out tomorrow. Charles complains that he’s got a hundred projects he’s working on around the Little House. 

He mentions the corn “needs harvesting,” suggesting we’re now in late summer or early fall.

Anyways, ultimately the opportunity is too plush to resist. Charles says he’s gonna wait till evening to break the news to Caroline.

But I guess it already is evening, despite the full sun. 

Because Ma appears and tells him supper’s ready (and breakfast cookin’, Old Dan Tucker just stand there lookin’).

Charles comes inside and lies outrageously to Caroline, who’s un-panning a fresh bread, about Garvey’s purpose in visiting.

He tells her Garvey’s going to work for the phone company for a month, but when he hints he wants to go too, Caroline gives us a skillfully executed wince/eyeroll combo. Bad sign for Chuck.

“Oh, Charles,” Ma says – not in her usual orgasmic way. Also bad.

Her voice heavy with emotion, Ma says she wishes Pa would quit it with the bullshit schemes and just concentrate on his own farm and family for once.

Charles, who of course began this conversation by lying to his wife, turns superior, saying, “Caroline, don’t make this harder on me than it is already.”

Ma looks at him in disbelief and says, “Why does it always have to be hard on you? Did you ever stop to think it’s hard on me?”

She throws down her dishrag – an emotional gesture by her standards – and storms out, shocking Laura and Albert.

Pa feels bad and tells the kids that he stepped in it before going after her.

Outside, where it’s still completely sunny, Ma is sitting on a log overhanging Plum Creek.

DAGNY: There are a lot of giant logs on this property.

WILL: They fall from the sky, I think.

David Rose gives us some experimental flute to emphasize the logs’ surreality.

Pa sits down with Ma and apologizes. 

As men have been known to be, he’s surprised his apology didn’t make his wife stop crying.

Her voice cracking quite harshly, Caroline says, “It’s just . . . it’s just that when you’re away, I get so tired, and . . . at night I’m . . . lonely.”

She puts her head down and sobs. 

WILL: We’re off to a good start with the acting today. 

AMELIA: Yeah, she’s perfect.

Then Charles says, quite cheerfully, okay, you’re right, I won’t go.

At this, Caroline sighs with relief, dries her eyes, and says, “You can go.”

She says she was just playing head games with him.

DAGNY: Dames.

Charles looks flummoxed. 

David Rose and his flute section, having considered the thing, decide this whole conversation has been a kick in the pants, and launch into some comic capering.

As Ma and Pa get off the log, David shifts gears again, setting the controls at last to “lush Viennese.”

This time his music seems suggested by Der Rosenkavalier, actually.

They go back into the house. 

DAGNY: That was dumb. I don’t like how they handled that. Thumbs down.

AMELIA: No, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Darkness falls – instantly. 

The kids are excited to hear about the telephone. To date, we’ve yet to see a phone on this show, though there have been a couple references to the technology.

Then Charles says something interesting.

WILL: You can tell he just dyed his hair.

DAGNY [as CUTTING CREW, singing]: “I just dyyyyyed my hair tonight!”

Reading from the paper, Charles says, “The first interstate telephone call was made between New Jersey and New York five years ago.”

I can’t find whether this is true or not. The first long-distance calls were made in 1876, but they were intra– rather than inter-state (or in one case intra-Canadian-provincial).

Well, if we assume the first inter-state call happened the same year, that means we’ve traveled back in time – this time to 1881(-I). (I was wondering when we’d time-jump again; it’s been a while.)

Then Pa excitedly says he’s even heard of a “family in Massachusetts who has a telephone right in their house!” 

This shouldn’t be so novel to him. Mary told her host family in Willow Prairie they should get one for their barn, and that was twelve years ago (LHUT), so it can hardly be fresh news at this point.

Well, everyone is dazzled by this tech talk, except Carrie, who doesn’t want Pa to go. “Who’s going to read me fairy stories at night?” she slurps.

“Eh, somebody will,” Pa says, without real interest.

But when she persists, Pa smiles and takes her to read a story right now. 

Pa brings her into the bedroom and opens a book. The page we can see is obviously a poem, not a prose story, and features an illustration that I think is of a duck looking in the mirror?

Anyways, Pa is not reading this poem, and since we can’t see the facing page in the book we’ll assume it contains both rhymes and stories.

We haven’t had a good Landon/Greenbush moment in a while either, so this is nice.

I am unfamiliar with the tale he reads, which involves two sisters whose parents have been abducted by a giant, and which is probably a Don Balluck original. (When I heard Pa mention the two sisters, I got excited, thinking it was Lucy Clifford’s “The New Mother,” unquestionably the most horrifying and depressing story ever written for children, but no such luck.)

(Seriously, I read that one to the girls when they were about seven and four, and they screamed and screamed and cried and cried! Oh, to relive those precious days. You should read it, too.)

Well, the giant appears (in the story, not the bedroom), but the show cuts away at that point, so we never find out what happens. Balluck probably just ran out of steam.

Writing fairy tales is harder than you’d think. There are a lot of boxes to check, yet it can’t be the same old crap you’ve heard a million times either. It’s not like if you stick a princess in a tower, then have a ladybug turn into an elf or whatever, the rest of the thing will just make itself up.

The next day, Pa kisses the kids goodbye. He’s wearing his heavy-ish jacket, but remember he’s going to be gone about a month, so I think we’re probably in September here. (We spotted a rose on a bush during Ma’s don’t-go-just-kidding-do-go scene, but that’s still possible in September here if it’s a warm one, and hey, it certainly appears to be.)

Garvey arrives and the two head out – on foot. I suppose with all the money they blew on ten thousand trips to Winoka and back, they couldn’t afford rental horses this time.

Ma says that’s that, and the remaining family members split up to work on some projects.

But Carrie stares after Pa, her eyes dripping with glue.

She trundles up to the horse gate and screams, “I love you, Pa, I love you!”

By this point we’re realizing Carrie has had an unusual prominence so far, but before the implications fully sink in, we cut to the top of a train, and then inside it.

Charles and Jonathan Garvey are sitting on the floor of a boxcar, asleep.

I assume this is the train from Springfield to Sleepy Eye, since that’s where they’re supposedly installing the line?

There’s a hobo sitting next to them, though I suppose we could give him the benefit of the doubt and say he might be another new lineman.

The hobo keeps cuddling up to Charles, but he pushes him over.

Back at the Little House (shot from behind, a rare thing), Laura is holding a ladder for Albert, who’s climbing it whilst carrying way too many two-by-fours or whatever.

Carrie waddles over trying to help, but she only just avoids being killed (again) when Albert drops the lumber.

Albert’s decision to carry the wood was obviously careless, but when Ma appears, Carrie slurps, “Mama, Mama, Albert tried to kill me!” 

No stranger to creative exaggeration myself, I understand this makes a compelling narrative; but it is an overstatement, Carrie.

Equally inaccurately, Laura says it was Carrie’s own fault just for being there.

Ma sends Carrie off to pick strawberries – an impossibility if it’s harvest time for corn.

AMELIA: Karen Grassle is so beautiful.

DAGNY: Yeah, she’s a Hottie McHotterson.

Carrie wants Ma to come along, but she says, “I have to take care of the baby.” (Who’s barely appeared in the last five episodes, by the way. Ma should have Carrie check the well for her.)

Ma says she should swing by the Garveys’ and see if Andrew wants to go with her. At close to a mile northwest of the Little House, the Old Sanderson Place seems a long way for Carrie to go by herself; but I suppose they are trying to get rid of her for a while.

Very sadly, Carrie slurps, “I hope Andy’s not workin’ too. At least he doesn’t have a baby.”

At the OSP, we see that Alice Garvey is not shirking the “men’s work” in Jonathan’s absence: She’s greasing the axles of the wagon.

DAGNY: She’s hot too.

WILL: Yeah. Sexy Bandana Alice Garvey.

DAGNY: This is why so many ladies in comfortable shoes love this show.

Alice is unsurprised to see Carrie alone, so she must be pretty free-ranging by this point.

Andrew is doing some work in the Barn of Garve.

And when Carrie asks if he wants to go berry-picking, he answers “Nope” with cruel indifference. 

So Care Bear wanders the creek, just like the poor sasquatch in The Legend of Boggy Creek.

It’s not always clear in this story whether Carrie’s speaking or we’re just hearing her thoughts, but whichever it is, she thinks/slurps that she’s having trouble finding strawberries. (The fact that she’s looking for them in some sort of waist-high bush rather than in a strawberry plant is the likely reason.)

She sits down, and now she does slurp aloud that she wishes she had a friend – “even for picking too-small berries.” (Why doesn’t Carrie have any friends? The Misbehaving Girl looks about the same age.) 

(Or what about the new blind kids?) 

(On second thought, I’m not sure Carrie supervising the blind kids is a great idea.)

Suddenly we hear a familiar voice slurp, “Are they really too small?”

Carrie looks up and sees . . . herself.

This other version of Carrie is wearing a simple but pretty white dress with puffed sleeves. She’s got a crown of flowers on and carries a pink carnation.

DAGNY: Where would she get the carnation?

WILL: From Heaven. That’s where she lives. I mean, spoiler alert.

Carrie Two also exists in a reality where everything is slightly blurry.

“Where did you come from?” slurps Carrie One.

“Anywhere I want!” slurps Carrie Two. This doesn’t really make sense as an answer; so yep, definitely another Carrie.

“Who are you?” slurps Carrie One.

Carrie Two introduces herself as Alyssa, Carrie’s “fairy godsister.”

“Really?” slurps Carrie.

“Yes,” slurps Alyssa.

AMELIA: Was “Alyssa” a common name in the 1800s?

WILL: I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so.

“I never heard a name like that before,” Carrie slurps.

AMELIA: See, even Carrie thinks it’s weird.

In fact, it appears the name Alyssa was almost completely unknown in the United States until the 1950s. Increasing in popularity through the 1970s, it saw a sudden spike in the eighties and nineties until about 2005, when it suddenly declined.

The most famous Alyssa in world history is Alyssa Milano, TV’s Samantha.

Carrie and this Alyssa, of course, are played by Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush, though if you think you can tell which one is which, as Dagny does, you’re ahead of me for sure.

But Dags is not alone. A number of people online make the same claim.

Apart from Little House, the twins didn’t actually do a lot of acting, but they did some advertising work, and they were both in what sounds like a very sad TV movie called Sunshine, in which Christina Raines is dying of cancer. (Costarring Alan Fudge!)

Now known by their birth names, Rachel Lindsay and Sidney Robyn, the Greenbush twins are the daughters of Billy Green Bush, a longtime Hollywood actor who was a side player in some interesting things, including seventies classics like Five Easy Pieces and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore as well a diverse range of horror films that includes The Hitcher (disturbing), Critters (funny), and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (abominable).

He was also on Bonanza and Gunsmoke, M*A*S*H, The Incredible Hulk, and Hill Street Blues.

Although “Green” was actually just Billy Bush’s nickname, he eventually started using it professionally, and when his kids started acting he compressed it into Greenbush for them.

The girls’ brother Clay is also an actor, who was also in Five Easy Pieces (as a baby), and who later appeared on episodes of Doogie Howser, M.D., Saved by the Bell, Melrose Place, JAG, and The Practice.

But you and I know him best as our very own Midsommar Kid!

Like the Ambiguously Ethnic Kids (AEKs), the Midsommar Kid has been around since the very beginning – according to our records, 46 episodes and counting.

A fan favorite, he notably made a grotesque face at Johnny Johnson, danced with Carrie at the Spring Dance in 1878(-A2), and went to Winoka during the economic downturn (but has now returned).

He’s not in this episode, though. 

Moving on, Alyssa tells Carrie she can take her to the land of giant strawberries, which got the older members of our commentary gallery nostalgic for the animated masterpieces representing the canon of Strawberry Shortcake in the 1980s.

Of these, Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City, a special nearly as hallucinogenic as “The Godsister” is, is probably the best. (It’s racist towards Latinos, but I guess nobody really minds that anymore.)

Anyways, it’s a little easier to tell the Greenbushes apart when they’re talking to each other, but only, in my view, because Lindsay’s teeth are a little scarier than Sidney’s at this precise juncture in time and space.

Alyssa tells Carrie to close her eyes, and when she opens them, sure enough, we’re in a land of giant fruit. 

Grapes mostly, but also some oranges or maybe peaches, and what appear to be raspberries and pineapple tops just dumped in a heap. 

DAGNY: Is this Scavengers Reign?

Alyssa and Carrie wander through this giant produce department, in a scene obviously influenced by Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is another clear inspiration.

They pass the raspberries and pineapple tops – I’m not sure they actually are raspberries. Loganberries, perhaps? Cloudberries?

Well, whatever they are, Carrie approaches one, slurping, “It’s the biggest berry in the world!”

She then walks towards a pile of big pink grapes, only there’s a sudden terrifying snarling on the soundtrack, as of a dog.

A yellow garden spider about the size of a pit bull appears and chases them.

DAGNY: It IS Scavengers Reign!

Carrie runs, screaming, “Don’t let it catch us! Don’t let it! Don’t let it catch us! Don’t let it!” over and over and over again.

And then we see the unblurred Carrie capsized near the creek bank. 

She’s kicking her legs in the air and pumping her little fists at her sides.

DAGNY: Most kids stop moving like that at twelve months.

All the while, she’s continuing to scream, “Don’t let it! Don’t let it catch us! Don’t let it! Don’t let it catch us!”

Carrie wakes suddenly and starts hysterically looking for Alyssa.

Crying and huffing “It was only a dream, a dumb old dream!”, she stomps off.

After a commercial, we switch gears radically, though anything would be radically different from the phantasmagoria we just witnessed.

A man holding some kind of surveyor’s tool is standing by a very large river. This must be the Cottonwood – much closer to Springfield than Sleepy Eye, and the only river of any real size in the area.

In a brilliant shot, the camera turns and we see first another surveyor marking down coordinates, or whatever it is surveyors do.

The camera keeps turning and we see a crew of workers and the ten or so telephone poles they’ve just put up!

In the foreground, one of the workers scrambles up to the top of a pole.

AMELIA: This music is great.

DAGNY: Yeah, the French horn is the best part.

Then we hear a gruff voice shouting, “Come on, come on, put your backs into it! Your laziness has already put us behind schedule!”

A shortish man (well, compared to Garvey) with a husky build and bulldog face wanders through the worksite yelling at people, including Charles and Garvey, who are making sure the base of a pole is secure, or something.

As the French Maitre d’ and Mustache Man pass by with a giant spool of wire, this foreman, Mr. Swaggart, yells that if the crew finishes the work by the first of the month, every worker will receive a 25-percent bonus.

WILL: Do you recognize him?

DAGNY: Yeah, it’s Tony Soprano.

It isn’t Tony Soprano. If you ever liked Gimme a Break! (which I did), you’ll recognize the actor as Dolph Sweet, who played the Chief on that show.

Gimme a Break! used a number of different theme songs and arrangements during its six-season run, of which Season Two’s is unquestionably the finest:

Dolph Sweet was a World War II airman who spent two years in a German POW camp, then became a college professor before turning to acting full-time. He costarred with Zero Mostel in the famous Broadway production of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (a play that has a lot of relevance for today).

In between that and Gimme a Break!, he was on Dark Shadows, Hill Street Blues, and King (the miniseries about Martin Luther King, Jr.) on television, and in The Swimmer, Finian’s Rainbow, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Out-of-Towners (a film referenced in Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City), Heaven Can Wait, and Reds, all of which were notable in their day. I’m not sure how well-remembered they are now, though.

Sadly, Sweet died during the run of Gimme a Break! As is so often the case, the show wasn’t the same without him. ([sob] Mr. Hanson!)

Anyways, my favorite Dolph Sweet movie is Brian De Palma’s Sisters, a scary, disturbing and funny film that’s also about identical twins! In fact, I think you could fairly call it the “Godsister” of horror movies.

We see somebody is driving a (yellow-wheeled) wagon around the camp. 

At the cookfire, an Irish stereotype is ladling out some “foine nourishing food” to a man I at first thought was the graverobber Ben Griffin from “Gold Country.” I know this show is all about middle-aged man redemption, but that would be a little much, I think.

Anyways, it isn’t him, just a similar type. The real character of significance is the Irish cook, who seems friendly, and who gives Charles a helping of Oyrish stew or colcannon or what have you.

The driver of the Yellow-Wheeled W yells, “Hey, Shaughnessy! Where do you want these potatoes?”

Shaughnessy suddenly becomes angry, shouting at the man that he should have just put them in the barn rather than stopping to ask.

But the conversation attracts the attention of Mr. Swaggart, who comes over and asks why they’re receiving a wagonload of potatoes he knew nothing about.

The driver, another dude with a heavy Seth-Bullock-style mustache, watches with interest.

Shaughnessy explains that Swaggart works the men so hard they need four times the amount of potatoes as normal humans. “It’d be false economy indeed to be skimpin’ on nourishment!” he says.

The actor playing Shaughnessy is Tom Clancy – no relation to Tom Clancy the clanking military novelist.

No, he’s even better – so much better! A gentle Irishman mighty odd, this Tom Clancy was a member of the legendary folk quartet the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem!

I’m a huge fan, though I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t recognize him at first.

I was lucky enough to see Tommy Makem in concert in the 1990s, but sadly Tom Clancy had already passed away by that time.

Clancy had the unusual distinction of having served in both the IRA and the RAF (not simultaneously), and while primarily known as a folksinger, his background was in theater, and he continued to act a little bit, including on Father Murphy.

Well, Swaggart rolls his eyes, insults Shaugnessy’s cooking, and fucks off.

Charles and Garvey look out upon the landscape, which suddenly looks like a bleak wasteland.

WILL: Can they have gone as far as Manitoba???

DAGNY: Oh, very funny.

Well, Manitoba or not, they seem to have arrived in a different season of the year from the one they left in Walnut Grove.

Our heroes sit down on what’s gotta be a very soggy edge of a quagmire.

Charles doesn’t think much of Shaughnessy’s cooking either, but Garvey says maybe all the extra potatoes will help.

DAGNY: Have we ever had a potato-based storyline on this show?

WILL: Yeah. Carrie took a side job potato-picking to pay off a debt at the Mercantile once.

Charles and Garvey also mention they’re exhausted, and we cut to Shaughnessy (also apparently an Office Manager of sorts) getting the men set up in the bunkhouse. So must be their first day. Or since they’re moving between Springfield and Sleepy Eye, do they have a different camp every night?

Anyways, this bunkhouse is nothing fancy, just mattresses on the floor augmented with some clumps of straw. (I once slept a whole night in hay when I was a kid, and if you’re considering trying it yourself I can tell you it’s not worth the experience.) 

(This was at a French and Indian War “re-encampment” I was compelled to attend. I’ll never be able to donate my lungs when I die, because they’re still full of particulate matter from the straw.)

Shaughnessy tells them never to go through the door marked Quartermaster, because it contains a mysterious treasure and is always locked. If it’s always locked, why would he draw attention to it like this?

Back at the Little House, Albert comes in from tending the animals, and they all talk about how exhausted they are from having to do Pa’s work as well as their own.

AMELIA: Why would they be so exhausted? We never see Pa feeding the horses or helping with the other chores or housework.

WILL: Yeah, he just works at the Mill all day, or goes out of town.

DAGNY: He fixes a lot of wagon wheels.

Carrie comes in requesting a story, and Laura draws the short straw.

Laura, who has an attitude best described as “piss-poor” about the task, asks Carrie what she wants to hear, and she slurps, “the one Pa read me last night.” (Last night? Carrie is suggesting Pa and Garvey walked to Springfield, took the train from there to Sleepy Eye, and did a whole day’s work on the telephone lines in just 24 hours?) 

(I think we can chalk this up to her spending time in a hallucinatory shadow world lately, though. No doubt causes a little time/space disorientation.)

Laura opens the book, which we now see is Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes. 

If we examine the book’s cover – briefly visible when Pa put Carrie to bed earlier – we see it’s an edition put out by McLoughlin Brothers, Inc., in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century. 

The book was published without a date, but some sources say it came out as early as 1880, so we’ll assume it’s legit, if a bit hot off the presses.

McLoughlin Brothers was apparently known for publishing unauthorized versions of famous children’s rhymes and stories.

The passage we can see in this shot is a rhyme unfamiliar to me; but I was able to identify it as “Life and Death of Rich Mrs. Duck.”

While not exactly up there with “Three Blind Mice” in the pantheon, the poem is worth considering in its entirety.

When Mrs. Duck waddled out she kept wheezing and puffing,

Which her friends said arose from over-eating and stuffing;

She observed other ducks, as she passed along, stop,

And make vulgar remarks on the size of her crop;

Every day she added something very rich to her dinner,

But to her friends she declared she got thinner and thinner.

One day she had scarce returned from the gutter a minute,

Having found and gobbled up many rich morsels in it, 

When she felt very queer—her head swimming round—

And could hardly help falling quite flat on the ground.

She tried this and that, but was compelled in the end,

As she kept getting worse, for a Doctor to send.

Dr. Drake kept a shop, of dimensions not large,

In a hole in the dung-hill by the side of the yard, 

Where he dispensed certain small stones, and one or two gravels,

With sundry rare herbs he’d found in his travels:

And this Dr. Drake, by very good luck,

Was called in to prescribe for rich Mrs. Duck.

So brushing his clothes and putting his feathers in order,

He waddled off to advise for the lady’s disorder.

On entering her house he found his patient extended

Quite back in her chair, and her crop much distended.

“Dr. Drake,” she exclaimed, “I feel greatly depressed:

Dizzy sight, very faint, and such a load at my chest.”

The Doctor looked wisely—then shook his learn’d head,

And, taking her cold flabby paw in his own, he thus said,

“Permit me, dear Madam, your tongue now to see”;

Then feeling her pulse, “I’m thinking,” said he,

“Your disorder arises from over-eating and drinking,

And your pulse is so low, without care you’ll be sinking!”

But the Doctor at once, without more ado,

Commenced blistering and bleeding, with an emetic or two;

And, just as he thought his patient looked better,

She gave a roll of the eyes and a terrible flutter—

Then fell on her back, and then on her side,

Gave an awful loud quack—a struggle—and died.

Her friends all assembled near a neighboring swamp,

And buried the rich lady with much funeral pomp.

On her tombstone, I’m told, this inscription they placed on

“Here lies Mrs, Duck, the nasty old glutton”;

And old Ducks oft bring here their young Ducklings to see

The disgrace and sad end of filthy gluttony.

WOW! The scansion and some of the rhymes are abysmal, but still, it’s not every day you get a story for children which includes fat-shaming, the death of the main character, induced vomiting, and medieval “medicine”/torture. (The bleeding and blistering are probably what really killed her, right?) 

And speaking of blistering, the final line could have come straight out of Harriet’s Happenings. I know “Rich Mrs. Duck” is not really part of our story, but I fear we have no choice but to count the whole poem as Fat Joke #29.

Laura begins the story – though it’s also worth noting that she isn’t on the same page Pa was. In fact, you can see that “Mrs. Duck” continues onto the next page – complete with an illustration of Dr. Drake!

That should have been an easy enough blooper to avoid. William Hartnell, the first Doctor Who, was known for having a detailed explanation in his mind for every button on the TARDIS console. If he was inconsistent in how he used them, he said, “the children will notice.” INDEED WE DO, BILL!

Carrie snarks up every little detail of Laura’s performance. (There’s no pleasing some people.)

Then, before she can help herself, Carrie slurps, “I wish you were more like Alyssa.”

Laura, who in all fairness was not really putting much effort into her reading, snaps to attention. 

AMELIA: Now Carrie’s gonna have to kill her.

Instead of killing her sister, Carrie just grunts “She’s nobody,” and tells Laura to get the hell out.

Relieved she doesn’t have to continue, regardless of the reason, Laura shrugs and exits.

“Goodnight, Alyssa,” Carrie whispers, presumably thinking as Mr. Rochester does in Jane Eyre when he says there’s an invisible sort of umbilical cord binding him and Jane together. And since Carrie and Alyssa are identical twins, I suppose she isn’t far off.

Back in the AT&T bunkhouse, someone is coughing loudly. (See, what did I tell you about that hay???)

Charles and Jonathan Garvey are snuggled up with each other again, just like in “Men Will Be Boys.” 

Garvey complains that the other workers all stink. (I bet he doesn’t smell like peaches from the Georgia State himself.)

He and Charles go out to sleep in the open air, only a thunderstorm immediately erupts. They’re not having luck with the weather recently.

Back to Walnut Grove again. Boo Berry Ma is washing clothes, and Carrie is again slurping that nobody wants her to help with anything. 

Ma says okay, she can help with the laundry. 

Carrie gives her the three-second TikTok version of yesterday’s hallucination.

Carrie continues blathering her idiocy, then drags clean laundry through the dirt.

Ma controls herself, but she’s quite pissed, and tells Carrie to go fishing unless she’d like to be murdered by her own mother. 

So she trundles off to the barn, where Bandit is sleeping.

WILL: Is he gonna be dead, like Jack?

DAGNY: Don’t say that. I love Bandit.

But even Bandit blows her off. Our dog Nyssa can be annoying that way too.

“Either everybody’s busy workin’, or sleepin’,” Carrie slurps.

So she goes fishing, which I think is a first on this show, for her.

And what do you know, smeary hazy Alyssa soon reappears! Carrie actually shoves her to make sure she’s real.

Carrie demands that Alyssa come to the Little House and prove she exists, even though she didn’t really tell anybody she existed in the first place.

DAGNY: The bad dubbing of the twins adds to the ethereal quality of this one.

Alyssa slurps that only those who truly believe in fairy tales can see her. This seems to be a common trope in fantasy stories, though I suppose we have no way of knowing if it’s really true or not. (Or I don’t, anyways.)

But Alyssa suddenly runs off, and Carrie chases her . . . in slow motion.

On the soundtrack, David Rose gives us what sounds like a hint of “Someone to Watch Over Me.” I may be wrong about that, but I suppose it would fit the content.

Dandelion seeds and who knows what other kind of filth comes raining out of the sky. With that and the hay, I hope they gave everybody on the shoot an Allegra.

Carrie loses Alyssa, and immediately threatens to cease acquaintanceship with her.

Then she stands there like a statue, screaming “Alyssa!” over and over and over again.

After a break, we’re back on the worksite. Lumberjacks are draggin’ trees around, accompanied by fittingly rugged music from the Rose.

A Ralph Fiennes-type man with a mustache shouts something up to Climbing Guy, who’s at the top of one of the telephone poles.

The transcriptionist heard it as “Are you ready up there, Allen?” but to me it sounds more like “Are you ready up there, Aunt Helen?” Judge for yourself.

Aunt Helen, who might have the darkest thickest fakest sideburns we’ve seen so far on this show, adjusts some wiring, then climbs down.

Not-Ralph Fiennes, another Irishman apparently, starts shouting into a mouthpiece attached to the wire.

Charles and Garvey wander over, amazed to see someone actually using a telephone.

They’re stunned to witness him talking to somebody in Springfield – it’s a nice moment. I’m sure everybody did feel like that the first time they experienced it.

One of the other workers asks “Harry” (the character is credited as “Watkins”) if he can try talking on it, and yells that his name is “Tom Henderson.”

Not-Ralph is Burke Byrnes, who was in many, many things, including Police Woman, General Hospital, Falcon Crest, Dallas, The Fall Guy, Highway to Heaven, and Tales From the Crypt.

He was also in Prophecy, one of my favorite bad horror movies. In it, Ellen “My Ellen” Taylor and Henry McGinnis (the little blond kid from “Blizzard”) both get killed by a genetically (or chemically, or something) mutated bear.

AND BURKE BYRNES PLAYS THEIR DAD, who also gets killed!

What are the odds of that? Three Little House guests playing a family in an unrelated horror film? Did the director even have auditions, or just ask Michael Landon to send a list of people who deliver the goods? 

(It is the best scene in the movie.)

Finally, Byrnes was in Curly Sue. (Anybody remember that?)

Tom Henderson, on the other hand, is William Wintersole. He was in even more things, having had long-running roles on General Hospital and The Young and The Restless as well as appearances on Star Trek and Gunsmoke plus Peyton Place, The Fugitive, The Invaders, Voyagers!, and many more.

The athletic Climbing Guy, Aunt Helen, sadly does not receive a credit.

Tom H says into the telephone that he comes from “over in Sanborn.” Sanborn’s a real place, just twenty miles east of Walnut Grove.

Garvey says he wants to try the new toy too, and he immediately starts asking whoever’s on the other end if he knows his good friend, Springfield resident Ron Hatfield or Hadfield.

AMELIA: Garvey’s the greatest.

Unfortunately, Mr. Swaggart appears at this point, shouting, “What in thunder’s going on here!”

“Uh, goodbye Springfield!” Garvey says hilariously, and drops the phone.

“What is this, a party?” Swaggart bellows. He roars at them for a while and says if they waste any more time it’ll come out of their paychecks.

AMELIA: He talks like Cam in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when he does the funny phone call.

Back at home, poor Care Bear lies awake in her bed, wondering if she’s becoming mentally ill.

She gets out of bed to some rather pretty music on the celeste. Sounds a bit like the beginning of “Wig in a Box,” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Carrie wakes Ma gently and says she’s afraid Pa might never come back. It’s easy to forget that that was a real possibility in those days.

Ma says there’s nothing to worry about, and tells her to go back to bed. Why doesn’t she let her sleep in the big bed with her, I wonder? You’d think that would be a nice treat for Carrie, plus it would help with that terrible loneliness Caroline was moaning about earlier.

Well, Ma thinks she’s gotten rid of Carrie easily enough, but she comes back again, slurping, “Ma . . . do you believe in fairy tales?”

Except for maybe Mary, anyone else in the family might have humored her; but ol’ turd in the punchbowl Ma flatly says, “No, Carrie.”

She essentially says they’re not real and Carrie shouldn’t believe in them either. (Good grief, Ma.)

Carrie points out Pa believes in them.

DAGNY [as CAROLINE]: “Your pa is a dreamer and an idiot.”

Finally, Ma just starts ignoring Carrie’s stupid questions.

Concluding only her own inquiry can provide satisfactory answers, Carrie returns to bed.

The next morning, Swaggart rudely rouses the phone company workers from their slumber.

He announces he’s added an hour to the workday so they can get the bonuses.

Then we see Aunt Helen once again climbing down a pole, whilst Swaggart yells at Not-Ralph Fiennes, apparently his second banana, that the men must work faster.

David is really outdoing himself with the music today.

Swaggart stops to hassle Garvey and Charles about their pace, and Garvey sasses him.

Swaggart puts him in his place pretty quick and stomps off.

Charles and Garvey fantasize about all the exquisite potato creations they can expect now that Shaughnessy’s shipment has arrived. (Julia Child noted that France alone has over 200 standard ways to prepare potatoes.)

As if on cue, we see Shaugnessy scampering around the camp, singing “The Praties They Grow Small,” a traditional Irish song apparently dating to the days of the Potato Famine in the 1840s. (No doubt subconsciously aware he’s performing for an American TV audience, Shaugnessy sings “potatoes” rather than “praties,” but they’re the same thing.)

Also known as “the Famine Song,” it’s a sad ditty of tragedy and horror, but Shaughnessy sounds quite cheerful singing it.

Shaughnessy grabs a big sack of potatoes from the barn.

AMELIA: Does he run into Alyssa?

DAGNY: Actually, everybody in the story should have their own magical fairy twin. 

No, the haze we see around Shaughnessy is due to a haze of smog belching forth from the bunkhouse. Those of you who remember a character from this show called “Mr. Edwards” may intuit where this is going.

Later, Charles and Garvey stand in the chow line. Garvey notes that there are no potatoes in the stew, but Shaughnessy waves this away, saying he hasn’t opened the bags yet.

Not to be packed off so easily, Jonathan Garvey suggests he’ll eat Shaughnessy himself if he keeps skimping.

Shaughnessy changes his story then, shrugging and saying, “Somebody’s pilferin’ the potatoes.”

Garvey immediately organizes a revolt, and the men storm to the Quartermaster’s door.

Shaughnessy won’t open it, but Garvey simply pulls the padlock off the door like it’s a loose button and leads the militia group downstairs.

There they find a gigantic whiskey pot-still burbling away, converting the potatoes into moonshine.

Shaughnessy immediately switches tactics and says he’ll sell them the whiskey at the discount price of $1 per bottle ($30) if they don’t turn him in.

Charles may be a teetotaler, but understanding alcohol’s value as cultural capital he shrugs that he won’t tell.

Garvey, who we have seen enjoys a tipple now and then, takes it a step further, saying he prefers whiskey to potatoes any old day.

The men all cheer, and Shaughnessy immediately launches into “Whiskey, You’re the Devil” – an “Irish” song of American provenance, but not anachronistic.

Here’s Tom Clancy with his brothers and Tommy Makem doing it:

The transcriptionist gets some of the lyrics wrong, but since the titles are usually excellent I’ll let it pass.

We then cut to a shot of Glopfacia Awkwardus in the wild, baying across the wetlands to its mate.

Thinking Alyssa has forsaken her forever, Carrie sits on a rock and slurps that she’s sorry.

Alyssa immediately appears, and Carrie slurps that she dreamed in the night that Pa was killed in an accident.

Alyssa slurps breezily, “If something did happen to your pa, that means he’d go to Heaven, and Heaven’s a wonderful place!”

I know many people find this a comforting sentiment, and it is in its way, but please do not say this to somebody if they’re worried a loved one will die soon.

Carrie immediately forgets her concerns about Pa when she hears Alyssa’s been to Heaven.

Alyssa slurps that all she has to do is close her eyes and she’ll be there herself.

So she does, and so she is.

Heaven is here depicted as a dry ice spill before a seventies puke-colored backdrop, with a giant winged door out of Triumph of the Will rising from the clouds.

Alyssa shows Carrie that by sweeping some of the floor fog away, she can look down to the Earth, glass-bottom-boat-style.

“Let’s see if Saint Peter’s in!” slurps Alyssa.

They march up to the gate, but instead of it opening, we get the shocking sight of a giant angel, probably fifty Carries tall, popping up from under the clouds.

The angel greets Alyssa by name, asking how she is, and she replies, “Fine, Saint Matthew! And yourself?”

“Oh, heavenly,” Matthew says. I wonder if “heavenly” is an all-purpose word in this Heaven, you know, like “smurfy” in the Smurfs’ village, or “berry” in the world of Strawberry Shortcake.

This angel is depicted as an elderly man with a long white beard wearing a white robe and fake angel wings. I always wondered what angels looked like.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this Saint Matthew’s “look” seems styled quite deliberately after Guido Reni’s Saint Matthew and the Angel! I love the research that went into this show; I’m sure I only notice the half of it.

Well, Saint Matthew the Apostle or Evangelist was another of Jesus’ core groupies. Supposedly the author of the Gospel of Matthew (though that’s disputed by scholars), he’s been quoted several times on the show but has never appeared. 

Matthew was the disciple who was an Imperial tax collector initially. When I was a kid, we were taught in church this meant “even the worst people in the world” can be converted to Christianity. (I know, God forbid anybody should pay their taxes or care about the common good.)

(I have to say, I’ve fallen in love with this AI Bible Art site. Its images are weird, its text is always garbled, and AI is destroying the distinction between art and not-art, but Bible Art does seem to capture the essence of the verses in question, in my half-remembered catechism class view anyways.)

There are a few interesting stories about Matthew.

Like many of the other disciples, he traveled the world after Jesus’ death/resurrection/ascension/disappearance. He ended up in Ethiopia, where he convinced a beautiful princess, Ephigenia, to convert to Christianity and become a nun. (Sometimes known as “the Black Virgin,” Ephigenia is reverenced as a saint by the Catholic Church.)

When a king declared his intention to marry Ephigenia, Matthew told him she was already married to Jesus, so the king had him murdered in his own church.

Matthew got the last laugh, though. The king still wasn’t satisfied after killing him, so he set Ephigenia’s home on fire . . . only Matthew himself appeared as a ghost, put out the flames, and set fire to the king’s palace instead.

The king then got leprosy and killed himself, and his son got possessed by the devil. 

It remains to be seen whether Matthew will mention this bloodbath here.

Another story says that whilst in Ethiopia, Matthew pissed off a sorcerer who sicced a pair of dragons on him, George R.R. Martin-style.

But the beneficence of Christ saved the day, and Matthew was able to convert the creatures to Christianity. (Paraphrase.)

On another note, the Book of Revelation (always reliably trippy) depicts four “beasts” or “four living creatures” interpreted to be high-ranking angels who have the power to summon the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and send plagues to the Earth. 

Johnny Cash referenced the passage in “The Man Comes Around,” one of my favorite songs:

One of these “beasts” has the form of a winged man, and though Revelation doesn’t specifically say so, tradition associates this angel with Saint Matthew. 

The others are an eagle (Saint John), a winged lion (Saint Mark), and a winged ox (Saint Luke).

And here’s Bible Art’s take on it:

It’s too bad Landon didn’t pick one of these more visually interesting angels to depict, but when one considers the budget implications, it’s understandable.

Well, credited only as “Head Angel,” Matthew is played by Patrick Sullivan Burke, an American-born Jew (born Merrill Levine Buchert) who apparently had the bad fortune to return to his ancestral homeland in the 1930s and wound up in Auschwitz.

But he survived and came back to America again, adopting the name Patrick Sullivan Burke for his acting career. In addition to Little House, he appeared on Bonanza and in a few well-known fantasy films, including Darby O’Gill and the Little People, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (also hallucinogenic), and Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings.

Now back to our story. Alyssa and Carrie pass through the gate, where they find Saint Peter at a desk, surrounded by giant white books of no particular character whatsoever. Looks a bit like a tax preparer’s office, in fact.

Don’t worry, I already wrote up Saint Peter’s history in a previous recap, so I’ll spare you another Sunday school lecture. I’ll just remind you that he is traditionally regarded as the keeper of the keys to Heaven.

And wouldn’t you know it, in this case he’s played by our old pal E.J. André!

This is André’s fourth guest appearance on the show so far. That might be the most of anybody so far (playing different characters every time), but I’m not going to bother looking it up. It’s a double episode, which is taxing enough!

Saint Peter doesn’t seem to find it odd that Alyssa and her new “friend” are identical.

When Alyssa tells him Carrie’s name, he looks her up in his book (conveniently, he was holding the right volume), and says gently, “I don’t think it’s your time yet, Carrie.”

Alyssa says she just gave Carrie a backstage pass.

DAGNY: Do they not have anyone in the makeup or hair departments to trim these old guys’ eyebrows?

Then Saint Peter looks thoughtful and says they do have an Ingalls with them.

DAGNY: Oh my God, is it going to be the dead baby brother?

No. It’s Jack.

DAGNY: Oh no! Oh no! This is the worst!

Carrie is delighted to see him. “Jack, Jack, how I missed you, Jack!” she slurps.

DAGNY: No one misses you, Jack!

One of the twins (I can’t see her teeth) flubs a line then, slurping, “Pa misses you, and Ma misses you, and Laura misses you, and so does Ma.”

Realizing she said Ma twice, then she says, “And so does Mary.”

AMELIA: She butchered that dialogue.

Carrie slurps, “Everybody misses you.”

DAGNY: I don’t. I don’t miss you.

WILL: It’s kind of macabre to bring Jack back from the dead.

DAGNY: Well, it does make sense. I dreamed about my dead pets all the time when I was a kid. Still do, sometimes.

And I guess this puts to rest once and for all Alicia Sanderson’s constant worrying about whether her dog Mine went to Heaven.

In a cute transition then, Landon’s camera, or Ted’s I suppose, backs out from the sky to bring us back to Earth.

Carrie is again lying supine on the forest floor, making jerking movements and muttering deliriously.

WILL: So, do you think it’s implied that Carrie ate a magic mushroom out in the wilderness?

If you were hoping we would get to hear Carrie screaming “Alyssa!” over and over again before the episode is over, you’re in luck, because she wakes up and does.

She only screams it nine or ten times, though, then changes to screaming, “Thank you, Alyssa! Thank you!”

Then she runs home, screaming, “I’ve been to Heaven! It’s wonderful!”

After a break, we see Carl the Flunky driving up the thoroughfare.

Caroline appears and pops over to the Post Office to get the mail from Mrs. Foster. (Nels mentioned in “There’s No Place Like Home” that Mrs. F had seized control of the postal service whilst everyone was in Winoka.)

For the second episode in a row, Ma gets to be excited to learn Pa is coming home.

Presumably heading home herself, Ma runs southward, which is strange. It’s true that they often drive home from Walnut Grove via the southern route; but I’m not sure why anyone would ever walk it, since the shortcut by definition would be faster. (I assume they drive it because the road is better for vehicles than the shortcut is.)

That night, Ma reads the letter to the kids. Pa says the unexpected 25 percent bonus definitely makes the decision to go worthwhile. (It is an improbably large sum.)

Back on the job site, Aunt Helen is climbing again.

David Rose is doing his thing again too.

WILL: This is kind of like the music in Slugs.

(Slugs is definitely worth seeing, if you like that sort of thing. Fairly gory trailer below.)

A red-wheeled buggy, coincidentally similar to Doc’s phaeton, approaches.

Jonathan Garvey says to Charles that Mr. Swaggart must be sick, since he hasn’t yelled at them yet.

DAGNY: I LOVE that jacket of Garvey’s.

WILL: Well, it’s the Canadian dinner jacket again.

The buggy is delivering a rep of the phone company, Mr. Perkins.

Swaggart tells him they’re on schedule to complete the job in time, and Perkins says the Governor is looking forward to making a phone call from Minneapolis (even though St. Paul is the capital, ahem).

The Governor of Minnesota in 1881 was John S. Pillsbury, founder of the Pillsbury flour company (now owned by General Mills, but still based here in Minnesota).

Perkins is played by George D. Wallace (no relation to the segregationist Governor of Alabama). 

Wallace has one of those gigantic resumes that are almost impossible to fathom: classic movies including Night of the Hunter, Forbidden Planet and The Towering Inferno as well as The Stunt Man (we had to do that one in film class), Postcards From the Edge and Minority Report, and TV shows like Dragnet, Rawhide, The Virginian, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Brady Bunch, Days of Our Lives, The Waltons, Fantasy Island, Hill Street Blues, Night Court, Knots Landing, Remington Steele, The Young and the Restless, Fresno (remember that?), Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Monsters, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Practice, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Suddenly, a familiar voice shouts “Mr. Swaggart!” and Carl the Flunky comes riding up on horseback.

Carl’s hat is pulled down over his eyes and ears, as if to disguise his identity.

It works, too, because Swaggart says, “What’s the matter, Len?”

Carl/Len describes a horrific accident: a team of horses pulling the final wagon of telephone poles had a terrible wreck, with four having to be put down and two more being unable to work anymore.

Mr. Perkins says he’s sorry, but he can’t give them the bonus if the job isn’t finished today.

DAGNY: Can’t they get him drunk? Buy him off with booze?

Perkins is quite nice about the whole thing, but Jonathan Garvey speaks up, saying, “We ain’t quittin’ yet!”

Garvey says they have enough manpower to carry those goddamn poles themselves. (Paraphrase.)

Perkins says he’s fine with that, and Swaggart says let’s do it!

We get a shock cut, then, to a closeup of one of the dead horses, crushed under a telephone pole and half-submerged in a bog.

It looks like it’s been dead about a week rather than half an hour if you ask me, but never mind.

WILL: You don’t see a lot of dead horses on this show. Well, actually you do see a lot of them, but not, like, bloated and rotting.

The men right the wagon and reload it, then grab ropes to tow it along themselves.

AMELIA: I don’t think this and the Alyssa storyline go together very well.

Back in the woods, Alyssa! Alyssa! Alyssa! Alyssa!

Carrie’s running through the woods. She’s carrying a penny (30 cents) with which she intends to buy some candy to celebrate Pa’s return, but she trips and drops it.

Alyssa appears, and Carrie snuffles her sad story to her.

Well, Alyssa uses her magic powers to shrink them both to a tiny size, and they find the enormous penny.

DAGNY: You can tell Landon loves The Wizard of Oz. This is his Wizard of Oz episode.

The penny is an 1862 “Indian Head.”

The girls try to move the penny for, like, one second, then they get tired and take a nap.

After who knows how much time has past, Carrie wakes up, full-size, with her penny in her hand.

Then it’s Alyssa! Alyssa! Alyssa! once again.

AMELIA: Oh my God, enough.

Carrie runs to town, where, oddly, we see both Carl and Mustache Man going about their daily business. (Odd, since they’re both currently pulling logs between Springfield and Sleepy Eye.)

Speaking of which, back on the road, the men are straining to pull the wagon.

WILL: Somebody should be whipping them, like the orcs in Return of the King.

It’s worth pointing out that in addition to Carl, Mustache Man, Aunt Helen, and the rest of the guys we’ve seen, we recognize a few more faces among the crew.

Darkness falls again, and later, we see the men have erected the final pole.

Aunt Helen scrambles up the pole with the wire, with David Rose giving us some epic Citizen Kane-type music over the top. (Over the top of the scene, I mean, though the music itself is also a little over-the-top.)

Perkins himself tries the line, and the call goes through to Minneapolis, with just a few minutes to spare.

The next day, Swaggart pays the men their bonuses.

WILL: That money looks terrible.

It does – usually it doesn’t look so fake.

Shaugnessy accepts his payout, and whispers to the workers in the line that “the batch should be ready in a few minutes, lads.”

In a final delightful surprise, in the line we see Benjamin, the Youngish Whitish Grovester who raised the alarm when Little Crow and His Merry Men visited Groveland! (“Then what in the heck are THEM?”)

Shaugnessy heads down to the boiler room, where he cranks the machine up.

The pressure gauge rises rapidly – it’s an Ashcroft, a company that was founded in 1852 and still makes gauges today.

Outside, Garvey claims his pay. In a nice moment, he tells Swaggart “I can’t remember a time when I enjoyed workin’ for a man that I disliked as much as I dislike you.”

Then he sticks his hand out respectfully, and Swaggart takes it.

Garvey smiles and says, “When you finish this payroll, I’ll be buyin’ ya a drink.”

Swaggart smiles too – for the first time in the episode.

Downstairs, Shaughnessy is filling bottles and singing “Whiskey, You’re the Devil” again when the boiler starts making terrible sounds and rocking on its feet.

He runs out of the bunkhouse screaming “It’s gonna blow!”

In slow motion then, Shaughnessy jumps into a water trough as the other men run into the dead horse bog.

And the bunkhouse explodes – shatteringly, hugely.

The shockwave knocks Swaggart over and sends money flying everywhere.

It is the most amazing explosion we’ve had so far on the show – eclipsing the saloon fireworks earlier this season, and foreshadowing more big explosions to come.

WILL: They should have brought Adam along, he could have gotten his sight back.

DAGNY: Yeah. They should have brought all the blind kids.

Shaugnessy pokes his head up from the trough, but submerges again when Swaggart roars his name.

That night at the Little House, they play the Hedwig music again. Carrie goes to bed, telling Ma he can’t wait for Pa to meet Alyssa.

The next day, at the Old Sanderson Place, Alice Garvey draws water from the well, and Andrew says, “I’ll carry that for you, Ma.”

Alice snips, “I can certainly bring water into the house.” God, does she actually hate her own child, or what?

Andy says he notices that she’s dressed up and put on lemon verbena for Jonathan’s return, and thought she wouldn’t want to get sweated up. “I know I’m just a kid, but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb,” he says.

WILL: He is dumb. They just did a whole episode about it.

And sure enough, here come Jonathan and Charles over the hill.

Then we get a saucy exchange you might miss if you’re not paying attention.

Pa arrives back at the Little House, and Carrie immediately drags him off to meet Alyssa.

Down by the creek, she screams her name again (and again, and again).

But Alyssa doesn’t come.

WILL: Did she go down to Hell today?

Somewhat unexpectedly, Pa confesses he doesn’t really believe in fairy tales, which explains Alyssa’s failure to appear.

Blah blah, who cares, none of it matters now that Pa’s home.

And we close on a closeup of a wild pink carnation. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH:

DAGNY: I always was so jealous of the girls’ stockings and boots.

Somewhat surprisingly, Aunt Helen wears a pinky ring.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: 

WILL: Well, that was “The Godsister.” What did you think?

AMELIA: I loved it. I actually think you couldn’t do much better if you had to do a story about Carrie.

Agreed. The source of 46 years’ worth of mockery and mirth, “The Godsister” really is just 10 percent awful and 90 percent fun. And it’s true that as an imaginative way to deal with “the Carrie problem,” it’s a masterpiece. The twins might not have the natural dramatic abilities of their costars, but they are certainly at the top of their game here, and I love it too.

(P.S. Don’t tell Dags, but I even enjoyed seeing Jack again. Shh.)

Longest recap ever, I know. See you next time!

UP NEXT: The Craftsman