The Lake Kezia Monster

Ahoy, Magnificent Kezia!; or

The Mercantile is Gonna Lose So Much Money This Summer

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Lake Kezia Monster

Airdate: February 12, 1979

Written by John T. Dugan

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Inspired by Kezia’s stories, Laura, Albert and Andy orchestrate a campaign of terror against Mrs. Oleson. There’s an enormous fish in this one, and also quite a lot of ham.

RECAP: First things first. R.I.P. to the great David Lynch, Roman’s favorite filmmaker, whose repertory troupe included our beloved Charlotte Stewart. 

Back in 2023, Miss Stewart talked with us about working with Lynch on Eraserhead, his breakthrough film. 

Condolences to Charlotte, and you can read our interview with her here.

Second of all, I’m sure you all heard about this.

I know what you’re thinking. I also hope they don’t shut Walnut Groovy down. Ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Anyways, we had a full house this week: the two of us, all four kids (Alexander joining us midway through), plus my little sister and childhood Little House-watchin’ bestie Peggy too.

WILL: Roman, I know you’re not watching much since you went to college. We’ll catch you up on the characters, though.

ROMAN: Thank you, Stepfather. I think I remember them pretty well.

Laura appears at the top of the hill.

ROMAN: Wait, is that Mary? 

Carrie falls.

ROMAN: Is that Laura?

We begin with the always-agreeable sight of Mustache Man driving down the thoroughfare, accompanied by kookier-than-usual “sailor’s hornpipe”-type music from David Rose.

The tune’s nautical character will be explained later. But its kookiness is explained right now, by the title.

You may have been wondering where Kezia went. 

We’ve not seen her in 36 episodes, which is a long time for a “local Grovester” to be absent, even by this show’s standards. (Joe Kagan, in comparison, was only missing from 23 episodes in a row, and five of those took place in Winoka.)

Kezia was not mentioned when our protagonists returned from Winoka in “There’s No Place Like Home,” Part Two. 

At the time, we theorized she’d tunneled deeper into the earth to wait out the crisis, and it’s unclear if her Groundhog Condo was filled in or preserved as part of Chuck’s cleanup effort. 

Regardless, Kezia’s return is a relief to those worried she was buried alive like the poor Sandleford rabbits in Watership Down.

Of course Kezia (a wily El-ahrairah if ever there was one) probably has an extensive warren herself, with tunnels, exits and blowholes all over Hero Township. 

At the very least, Carrie’s coal mine would make a useful “back door” should K need to escape from danger underground.

(Nothing to do with this episode, but I wish I had thought to title our “Little Girl Lost” recap “A Carrie in a Coal Mine.” Treppenwitz, story of my life.)

Sadly, this is Kezia’s final story – sadly for me, anyways. When I was younger, I didn’t love the character, whom I found too odd and sort of “un-prairie” for the show. I know some other fans share this view.

But this time around, I’ve really enjoyed her contributions, and, as with Joe Kagan, I think it’s a pity she never became a weekly regular.

Anyways, our story launches with Bandit waiting on the schoolhouse steps.

The doors open and kids come vomiting out. (See Vomiting Schoolhouse Openings.)

Today they include the principals, an AEK, Not-Linda Hunt, the Nonbinary Kid, H. Quincy Fusspot, Not-Ellen Taylor, Miniature Art Garfunkel and a kid we’ve never seen before who must be Miniature Art Garfunkel’s older brother, and the Misbehaving and Very Sour-Faced Little Girls.

Laura, Albert and Andrew Garvey are chanting, “No more pencils, no more books!/No more teachers’ dirty looks!” 

AMELIA: They’re quoting Alice Cooper?

(That episode terrified me when I was little.)

“No More Pencils” is probably an anachronism, but since its earliest known use in print, in 1932, called it an “old glad song that we hear every spring,” I’ll let it pass.

Okay, you guessed it, last day of school. For the moment, we’ll assume we’ve picked up in the spring of 1883-I, eight or nine months after the events of “The Sound of Children.” 

Then we get a funny little blooper from Matthew Labyorteaux:

ANDY: Oh, we got the whole summer!

ALL: [silence]

[ANDY gives ALBERT a look indicating “It’s your line, bro.”]

ALBERT [hastily]: . . . No homework!

Laura says, “We gotta see Kezia, come on!” and the three run off together.

DAGNY: “We gotta see Kezia”? Really?

Meanwhile, Harriet Oleson sits on the Mercantile porch, yawning and fanning herself.

But before Mrs. Oleson can do anything of significance, we cut to the Post Office, where Kezia is steaming open a letter.

The mailing address is just Harriet Oleson, c/o Oleson’s Mercantile, Walnut Grove, MN, and you can’t make out the return address.

The stamp looks like an 1883 2-cent stamp, so we’re on-target for guessing the year so far.

Sitting down, she says to Parrot Polly, “Now, let’s see who’s written what to old prune-face Harriet Oleson!”

PEGGY: This is what they did for gossip before telephone party-lines. Read the mail to animals.

The letter is from an underwear manufacturer, apologizing that the “French Courtelle corsets” Mrs. Oleson ordered are out of stock. (Courtelle is apparently an acrylic fiber, which wasn’t invented yet in the 1880s.)

Kezia chuckles that Harriet’s choice was “the Venus model.” (Harriet Oleson’s libido is a subtext that keeps giving, isn’t it?)

Kezia goes on to read a detailed product description. (Why would that be in the letter?)

It sounds more fitting for a battleship than an undergarment, mentioning “reinforced front steels and two side steels.”

Kezia rolls her eyes and tells Polly Mrs. O doesn’t need a corset, saying, “She’d do just as well with a roll of baling wire.” Ha!

AMELIA: She reminds me of Mrs. Clackett in Noises Off.

WILL: I’m sure she likes sardines.

The kids arrive, and K shrieks with delight.

DAGNY: She’s actually like something out of Disney.

WILL: Yeah. Another Pete’s Dragon reject.

PEGGY: Or maybe Oliver!

OLIVE: She a lesbian?

WILL: No. Well, I mean, we’ve never actually met any of her supposed husbands. . . .

We’ll never know if Kezia’s sexuality went deeper, but her attraction to men is not really in doubt. Remember, she drooled over Chris Nelson the hunky unky in “The Handyman.”

The kids say they’re looking forward to hanging out at Kezia’s “place” this summer, and she replies, “The welcome mat’s always out for you darlings at Lake Kezia!”  But we’re not sure what “Lake Kezia” means yet.

Albert asks, “How long are you gonna be fillin’ in here for Miss Foster?”

(The Walnut Grove Post Office has been nearly exclusively staffed by widows, of whom Grace Snider was the first.) 

(After Grace left town, Mrs. Foster started as a temp worker, then seized power while everybody was in Winoka.)

(And Mrs. Whipple, rest her soul, worked occasional shifts after retiring from seamstressery and closing her sweatshop down.)

(Alice Garvey, whose husband is still alive, of course, also angled for a job there once; but she would be an outlier in employee demographics.)

Anyways, Kezia says Mrs. Foster “comes back tomorrow” from wherever she is.

The kids say they’re looking forward to fishing, frogging, “singing sea chanteys” (discussed by us when Addie Bjornesen mentioned them in “The Collection”), and “listening to the stories about all your husbands.”

Now, in “Castoffs,” Kezia only mentioned two husbands, “Smilin’” Willie Horn and “Whiskey” Jake Curry.

But now she’s said to have had three additional ones: “Harpoon Harry Walsh” (dirty, Dugan), “Handsome Tommy Bane,” and “Dancin’ Danny Ryan.” 

Kezia muses a while about how her men were all lost at sea. (Not simultaneously, I assume.)

The kids exit, and Parrot Polly again does his trick where he brings Kezia an envelope (which impressed us all).

This letter, which Kezia opens with relish, is from “Nancy ’Ill’s” – that is, Hill’s – “beau.” (Hermione Baddeley’s accent stumps the transcriptionist, but I don’t blame them. I had to listen five times to get it myself.)

WILL: She’s kind of like a grungier Elizabeth Mapp.

DAGNY: She is.

At the Mercantile, meanwhile, Nellie and Willie are eating candy by the handful whilst Nels literally counts beans.

For possibly the first time in the series, Willie Oleson looks like his hair has been brushed.

Harriet enters and informs them she’s purchased “a summer place” for them, since “all wealthy people” have them. 

DAGNY: Are they gonna buy a house on Lake Minnetonka?

She says it will allow them to get away from “the heat and the bustle of the city.”

WILL/DAGNY/PEGGY/AMELIA/OLIVE/ROMAN: What city?

NELS: Well, I’ll grant you the heat, but what city?

WILL/DAGNY/PEGGY/AMELIA/OLIVE/ROMAN: Yeah!/You tell her, Nels!/etc.

Harriet says she’ll take the kids for the summer and leave the Mercantile for him to run.

We cut to ducks swimming near the Old Rustic Bridge, and we see a handmade sign reading “Lake Kezia.”

We’ve seen this bridge several times by now (not always in the Walnut Grove region). I had assumed it spanned Plum Creek rather than a stationary lake.

But let’s say “Lake Kezia” is a sort of river bay which pools immediately to the northeast of the bridge. 

In fact, it might also be “the Blue Pond,” a body of water Laura mentioned in “The Music Box”; Kezia probably renamed it after her arrival. 

The camera pans over to show us a quite nice if slightly ramshackle house on the shore. We also notice Kezia and the three kids in a rowboat near a fairly long dock.

“Kezia of the Shire,” Kezia’s Englishy, pastoral, nymphs-and-shepherds-ish musical theme from “Castoffs,” gets revisited on the soundtrack. 

Albert hooks a big catfish, which is real and very alive. (This show doesn’t give a shit about fish welfare.)

On the “beach,” Parrot Polly stands on Bandit’s back, crying “Time to eat!” and biting and pecking him on the head. (Poor Jeffrey.)

Later, Kezia cooks the fish over a campfire. (Or someone does. All the characters seem asleep or drugged, actually.)

“Oh, I’m so full I think I’m gonna bust!” Laura says. So I guess they’ve already eaten, and are just leaving the rest of the fish on the fire to burn?

“I ate like a horse,” Andrew Garvey says. (Origin unclear, but around by this time.)

“I usually don’t like fish at home,” says Albert, “but when I catch it myself, it’s delicious.” 

WILL: What bullshit! He ruined the fish when they were camping. Andy should laugh in his face.

The kids ask for a story, and Kezia obliges.

AMELIA: Is she drunk here? The actress, I mean? Her eyes aren’t even open.

WILL: She looks like Clarissa Dickson Wright in this scene.

Kezia tells the one about how her (third) late husband Harpoon Harry once rode . . . the Loch Ness Monster.

ROMAN [as BROTON THE ZYGON]: “Release the Skarasen!”

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what the Loch Ness Monster is, but you may not be aware how far back sightings go.

The first was allegedly in the Sixth Century – not the Sixteenth Century, the Sixth Century, A.D./C.E. (As in “the Dark Ages.”)

The tale concerns Saint Columba, an Irish cleric who traveled to Scotland in the 500s. (Full disclosure: We once lived across the street from a school named after him.)

Columba charmed the Picts and chummed with the Gaels and supposedly vanquished or tamed a maneating creature that lived in the loch.

Well, a millennium and a quarter passed without the Monster making many appearances. The next documented sightings were in the late Nineteenth Century – right around the time of our saga, in fact.

Some of these were claimed to be of a kelpie – a uniquely Scottish water-dwelling creature resembling a horse, but with the supernatural ability to take other forms, including human ones.

In the 1930s, there was an explosion of interest in the Loch Ness Monster, coinciding with publication of the first purported photographs of the creature. 

A number of them have been revealed as hoaxes, including the most famous one of them all, a 1934 picture debunked in the 1990s. (It was actually a toy submarine decorated to look like a dinosaur.)

There have been many more sightings, photos and videos over the years, none of them providing answers. 

Nevertheless, everybody has fun wondering if the thing exists, and, if it does, what it is. Because of the 1934 photo, most people imagine it to resemble a plesiosaur, marine reptiles that went extinct 66 million years ago.

But other theories abound. Some have suggested the Monster is not a reptile, but rather a whale or a monstrous seal (like a walrus). 

Others have proposed it’s a giant squid, a long “sea serpent”-type fish (like the oarfish), or an amphibian like a giant salamander or newt.

It doesn’t help that the size of the creature has varied radically from sighting to sighting – sometimes described as just four feet long, sometimes as over a hundred.

One theory that made me laugh out loud was that the Monster was a circus elephant that apparently took up residence in the loch and adopted an underwater lifestyle.

I’ve visited Loch Ness myself, in college. I got drunk with some Australian backpackers, some of whom were quite rude if I recall, in the ruins of Urquhart Castle. 

And the next day I did see a funny something in the loch, but it might just have been bubbles on the surface. I can’t find the picture I took, unfortunately. You’ll have to take my word.

Before turning from the subject, I will note that Lake Pepin, really just a swell of the Mississippi River near where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Wisconsin’s Big Woods, is also the supposed home of a monster. There’s a book on the subject, but I haven’t read it. (On the subject of the Lake Pepin Monster, I mean. I know there are books on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birth and life in the Big Woods as well; but I haven’t read those either.)

Apparently, sightings predate the arrival of white people in the region, but the most famous incident was in 1871, when witnesses reported seeing a fast-moving creature the size of a rhino or elephant in the water. 

Laura was born about ten miles from the lake in 1867, and by 1871 they had aborted their move to Kansas, which was documented in Little House on the Prairie the book, and of course dramatized in our show’s Pilot as well, and returned to Wisconsin.

However, they didn’t arrive back in Wisconsin until May, and the sighting had happened at the end of April. Laura was only four years old at the time, but Charles and Caroline likely heard about it.

Anyways, Pepie: The Lake Monster of the Mississippi River examines the lore in detail (let me know if you’ve read it, please). 

I’m tempted to say it’s telling that sightings of the creature increased dramatically after 2008, the year a local businessman offered a $50,000 reward for proof of “Pepie’s” existence in the hopes of stimulating tourism to the area.

But I won’t. Anyways, I could look up pictures of monsters all day, and often do. (My favorite creature from Wisconsin folklore is the hodag.)

Now we must move on. 

Laura says she’s familiar with the Loch Ness legend, saying, “I heard about it at school.” 

AMELIA: Don’t they all go to the same school?

DAGNY: Well, Albert hasn’t always gone there.

WILL: And Andy’s so dumb he probably forgot it already.

ROMAN: Maybe she chose it for a book report.

It’s pretty unlikely Laura would have studied this topic for a book report or anything else, since the earliest book on the topic I found wasn’t published until 1950. (Books were once the definitive repository of human knowledge, but somehow we’ve lived through the end of that period.)

Kezia says ’Arpoon ’Arry actually stabbed the Monster with his ’arpoon, which he later gave to her as a wedding present. 

OLIVE: Was her husband really a sailor?

WILL: Hermione Baddeley’s? No, he was a baron or something, so he wouldn’t have been on the sea unless he was First Lord of the Admiralty.

ROMAN: He might have been switched at birth with a common sailor, though. . . .

(Actually, Hermione Baddeley’s husband was the son of a baron. He was named David Tennant, but was no relation to the insanely awesome one who played Doctor Who, whose real name isn’t Tennant anyway.)

As David gives us some old-timey “movie-house organ” music, Kezia dates the Loch Ness incident to November of 1832. 

DAGNY: Tell me there’s a flashback. Who will play the young Kezia?

But her story is interrupted at this point by the arrival of a man in a buggy. Enraged, Kezia seizias her harpoon and screams at him to be gone.

This guy is Mr. Flint, the taxman, and Kezia screams that she hasn’t paid taxes on the property the past three years and has no intention of starting now. (Meaning she’s been living in the summer house since around the time the Oleson Institute was built.)

Mr. Flint, who has a mild, Eastern Seaboard-accented voice and a longish face, says it’s too late to discuss the matter, because the property has been repossessed and sold at auction.

DAGNY: Who does this guy look like?

WILL: The lawyer from Jurassic Park.

PEGGY: YES!!!!!

ROMAN: Another monster story.

Mr. Flint is played by John Miranda, who appeared on Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley, Murder, She Wrote, the Jason Bateman vehicle Valerie/Valerie’s Family/The Hogan Family, and ALF. (I have a friend, a very buttoned-up, ruthlessly ass-kicking corporate type, who’s a secret ALF junkie. We all have our weaknesses.)

Movies-wise, John Miranda was in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Innerspace.

Kezia stares at him, agog.

AMELIA: That’s mouth-acting if ever I’ve seen it.

Mr. Flint kindly but firmly says Keeze has 24 hours to vacate, and a sad bassoon/piano duo plays her back to the kids.

WILL: She’s gonna have to go back to her burrow now.

AMELIA: Nah, I’m sure Charles will offer her a room they don’t have.

“Always a castle,” Kezia slurs. 

AMELIA: What?

DAGNY: I think she said, “Where’d my cat go?”

“. . . and now they’re gonna cast me off the place,” she finishes.

The kids are sympathetic, but Albert asks, “Why didn’t you pay your taxes, Kezia?”

Kezia says, “Taxes is like jobs. They’re for the young.” (Ha! That might be the best Little House epigram so far.)

Next, in Mrs. O’s boudoir, we see Harriet and Nels are quarreling. Harriet’s got cold cream on and her hair is up in curlers.

AMELIA: Why curl your hair if you wear it up ninety percent of the time?

Nels is trying to persuade Harriet not to evict Kezia, but she just screams at him.

DAGNY: Katherine MacGregor’s a little much in this one.

Harriet returns from behind a screen and asks Nels to cinch up her corset.

She then makes the ludicrous claim that her corset cost $50. ($1,600 in today’s money? What are they, the J.W. Diamond family? Ned “Uncle Rich” Ingalls?)

Nels snarks that he’ll be glad she and their young will give him a break from them for a while, and when Harriet lunges at him, she realizes he’s tied her corset laces to the bedpost.

“I see you’re finally fit to be tied, Harriet,” Nels says drily (but probably not anachronistically), and exits.

WILL: Ha ha ha!

OLIVE: I don’t like that.

WILL: Do you like it, Roman?

ROMAN: No, I don’t.

WILL: You can tell me what you really think when Olive leaves the room.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Garvey is hanging a moose head over the mantel at the Old Sanderson Place.

AMELIA: Are they opening a Wisconsin supper club?

Garvey loves the moose – one he shot himself for meat – but Alice thinks it’s gross.

WILL: I don’t know why characters on shows always hate taxidermy. I love it!

OLIVE: We know you do, Dad.

Well, I do. Minnesota still has moose, but they’re very rare these days. They live in the far north of the state, but warming temperatures and competition from deer have driven most of them into Canada. (I have seen them in Manitoba, but never here.)

According to the Minnesota DNR, in 1885 moose lived as far south in the state as Chisago County (beautiful area), which is still about 200 miles from Walnut Grove. 

I suppose Garvey might have shot the moose when the family was (possibly) visiting Wisconsin in last week’s episode. But again, it’s probably going on a year since that story took place.

Jonathan asks Andrew for his opinion about the moose.

WILL [as JONATHAN GARVEY]: “You can tell me what you really think when Ma leaves the room.” 

But Andy says, “I just can’t stop worrying about Kezia!”

DAGNY: Nice teen-stache, Andy.

Jonathan and Andy agree that old people shouldn’t have to pay taxes, then they head off to do some frogging.

Alice gives the moose a miserable look.

PEGGY: She’s so mean. Is she ever happy about anything?

Alexander appeared at this point.

ALEXANDER: What did I miss?

ROMAN: Nels tied Mrs. Oleson to the bed.

ALEXANDER: Oh. Popcorn Night?

Then, outside the Casa dell’Ingalls, we get a closeup of somebody we haven’t seen in a while: Reverend Alden’s horse, Jehoshaphat!

The Rev is just finishing up dinner with the family, and Ma offers him some more pie. (Alden’s love of pie is well-established.)

(Oh, I wanted to mention, the other day I happened upon the series premiere of The Brady Bunch on Pluto TV. (I like The Brady Bunch, but Dags doesn’t.) Anyways, I don’t know the show very well, but if you do, you probably remember that Mike and Carol get married in the pilot. Well, guess who marries them!)

Alden and the Ingallses are chatting about the Kezia situation, though it’s unclear if that’s the reason he came. (I think it’s likely he wanted a free meal and is now just gossiping.) 

Aldi says he plans to accompany Mrs. Oleson when she takes possession of the summer house, to ensure the ladies don’t kill each other.

DAGNY: His hair is very 1950s with that swoop.

Laura says she wants to go along. Pa says he doesn’t understand why, but Aldi says having the kids there might make the transaction go better.

AMELIA: That makes sense.

Rev. Alden says to Laura and Albert, “I will pick you two up at seven.” Why not Carrie, too? Oh, well. I guess she can just fall back on the Old Reliable for summer fun.

And the next thing you know, Jehoshaphat, Alden and the gang are crossing the Old Rustic Bridge.

OLIVE: So Mrs. Oleson decides after twenty years she wants a summer house a mile down the road?

They find Kezia on her balcony. She’s bird-topped, a-brandishing her ’arpoon, and ranting. 

“I won’t leave the ship without a fight!” she cries.

WILL: How did Kezia wind up so far inland in the first place?

I hate to be that guy, but it’s entirely possible that Kezia is genuinely mentally ill and that none of her stories about the old days are actually true. Remember, this is somebody who insists that people close imaginary doors and thinks her pet crow is a parrot.

Sad as it is to say, maybe she was just hit the head whilst reading Treasure Island one day and was never the same again. She’s probably not even British.

WILL: That’s a bigger crow than they used before. They must have recast Parrot Polly.

ROMAN: The first one probably quit to break into the movies.

Well, wherever she’s from, Kezia fantasizes about “running through that old sea cow – like a pig on a spit!”

ALL: [laughter]

DAGNY: Is this the one where Kezia kills Mrs. Oleson with a harpoon?

ROMAN: Yeah. Then she marries Nels.

WILL: I wish I’d had her on my side in the State Fair waffle line!

Mrs. Oleson, Nellie and Willie arrive in the Yellow-Wheeled Buckboard.

Kezia comes down and says she won’t vacate, saying, “Possession is nine points of the law.” (This expression probably goes back as far as the Renaissance, possibly originating in Scotland. Perhaps Harpoon Harry picked it up there in 1832?)

Then the war did soon engage, woman to woman and man to man! Harriet takes a swipe at Parrot Polly (not literally), then Kezia comes out of the gate strong, calling her a “beached whale.” 

But Mrs. Oleson parries and scores with “You little silly toad!” (Forgive the mixed metaphor. I don’t know anything about sports.)

Rev. Alden tries to intervene, but he only turns what’s so far been a purely verbal altercation into an outright brawl. 

PEGGY: He’s probably dreamed of a moment like this his whole life.

WILL: He does like older ladies. He always had a thing for Amy Hearn.

(And he likes catfights, if you recall.)

Laura, Albert and Nellie are alarmed, but Willie and Polly egg on the fighters. (You can tell once again it’s Landon doing Polly’s voice.)

The Rev decides on the spot to conduct a mediation between the two women.

ROMAN: Just make her the housekeeper. Problem solved.

After a quick chime-in from Nellie, that’s exactly what Mrs. Oleson does.

OLIVE: This is ridiculous.

Mrs. Oleson says, “But I’m afraid there’s nowhere for her to sleep, except in the shed.”

ALEXANDER: “In the shit”?

It does sound like that.

Kezia agrees, musing, “I’ve been movin’ on for eighty years, now I’ve got nowhere to go . . . except me grave.”

PEGGY: Eighty years?

AMELIA: I don’t believe that.

(I didn’t either, but Hermione Baddeley was actually 72, which I suppose isn’t so far off.)

To a sinister echo of the Wolf’s Theme from Peter and the Wolf in the horns, Kezia shambles over to say goodbye to the kids.

The Rose returns to Kezia’s hobbit theme (sounds quite similar to Gustav Holst or Ralph Vaughan Williams) as Kezia tearfully says they can still visit. (Aaron Copland, who basically invented Hollywood Western music and who is frequently referenced on this show’s soundtrack, supposedly said Vaughan Williams’s “rural” British music was “like staring at a cow for forty-five minutes”).

David then crosses the Atlantic again, giving us something along the lines of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” as Kezia then stumps away into her “shit.”

AMELIA: They’re really going to make her sleep in the outhouse?

OLIVE: Does Kezia even know how to cook? I kind of assumed she ate out of dumpsters.

ROMAN: She cooked that fish.

We get a break, then, and a little time must pass because the first thing we see is a brand-new painted sign declaring the spot “Lake Harriet.”

OLIVE: Oh, is this how Lake Harriet got its name?

There is a well-known Lake Harriet in Minneapolis which hosts a fun kite festival in the winter and interesting musical performances in the summer.

(I myself once performed in the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance there. I majorly fucked up one part, but that’s a story for another time.)

I also once accidentally served non-vegetarian Vichyssoise to a vegetarian on a picnic there because I forgot I used chicken stock in it. I didn’t mean to! Please don’t hate me. 

She didn’t notice and I never told her, not to shirk my responsibility, but because I simply couldn’t imagine a scenario where it would make things better for her to know.

The very same night, I screamed at some idiot who was blocking everybody’s view of the stage (so he could film it) at an “opera by the lake” performance of La Bohème. (Concert version.)

That went over better than the State Fair incident did. The guy sat down, and I got very appreciative nods from several old ladies for my bravery. It was a more civilized time, though.

Anyways, that Lake Harriet is named after the wife of a military commander who was stationed in the area around 1820, not Harriet Oleson. (Though they looked quite similar!)

Anyways, Mrs. Oleson is giving a garden party.

OLIVE: It’s like the Hamptons.

ROMAN: Yeah, or Newport, Rhode Island.

WILL: Or an E.M. Forster novel.

DAGNY: Or that Monty Python sketch where everyone bleeds to death.

David accompanies this with “Cutesy-Poo Recess,” which we haven’t heard in a while.

Willie and the Non-Binary Kid are fishing from the dock, and there are a number of other kids running around. Even though this is supposed to be an elite party, it appears to be just the same bunch of kids as always.

Mrs. O is demonstrating her archery skills to some friends, a rather stiff-looking woman and man. Harriet addresses the woman as “Muriel.”

Mrs. Oleson manages not to kill anyone, mainly because she can’t get a shot off. “Only an Indian can shoot these things anyway,” she sniffs.

Then Muriel has a go and gets a bull’s eye.

WILL: Is that Cynthia Nixon?

Annoyed, Harriet summons Kezia for service.

PEGGY: Mrs. Oleson’s makeup looks great. 

WILL: It was done by the same guy who did Marilyn Monroe’s.

PEGGY: Really? Wow.

The door to Kezia’s shed opens, and the lady herself emerges, wearing a maid’s uniform and followed by . . . well, a friend.

ROMAN: Wait, there’s a giant draft-horse in there with her? In that tiny box?

This cracked us all up. It might have been the funniest visual of the season, if this season didn’t also include “The Godsister.”

Mrs. O gives Kezia a bunch of orders, including starting dinner for twelve.

WILL: Could you just designate somebody a servant and expect them to make dinner for twelve people?

DAGNY: If they’re lower-class and British, sure.

Here in America today, we are all middle-class, thank goodness!

Across the lake, or creek, or whatever, Laura, Albert and Andrew Garvey are watching the party sadly to the sound of Albert’s theme.

A quick Chonky shot brings us back to the Little House at night.

Boobilicous Ma is reading an Uncle Remus story to the kids.

OLIVE: Grace has to be the quietest baby in TV history.

Written by Joel Chandler Harris, the Remus stories are based on real traditional folktales brought to North America by African slaves, though how faithful they are to them has been debated.

Today considered “problematic” by some because a white author wrote them as an impression of Black people’s speech, the Uncle Remus stories are clever and entertaining but can be hard going for a modern reader. We were taught them in school when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure they don’t use them anymore today.

There’s no doubt Harris’s approach was well-intentioned, though, and some big celebrities were fans, including Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt.

The star of the stories, as those of us of a certain age remember, is Br’er Rabbit, a “trickster” archetype . . . and I’ll point out the inspiration for El-ahrairah, the rabbit “folk hero” of Watership Down that I mentioned above.

The passage Ma reads is from a story called “Brother Rabbit Secures a Mansion” in Nights With Uncle Remus. (The reference to Nights supports this episode being set in 1883, since that’s when it was published.)

In the story, Br’er Rabbit tricks a bunch of other animals out of ownership of a house they just built.

Anyways, Karen Grassle is reading a modernized version of the text. Here’s the passage in its original form:

Den Brer Rabbit, he squall out:

“‘Dis de way a big man spit!’ en wid dat he tilt over de tub er slop-water, en w’en de yuther creeturs year it come a-sloshin’ down de sta’r-steps, gentermens! dey des histed deyse’f outer dar. Some un um went out de back do’, en some un um went out de front do’, en some un um fell out de winders; some went one way en some went n’er way; but dey all went sailin’ out.”

“But what became of Brother Rabbit?” the little boy asked.

“Brer Rabbit, he des tuck’n shot up de house en fassen de winders, en den he got ter bed, he did, en pull de coverled up ‘roun’ he years, en he sleep like a man w’at aint owe nobody nuthin’; en needer do he owe um, kaze ef dem yuther creeturs gwine git skeer’d en run off fum der own house, w’at bizness is dat er Brer Rabbit? Dat w’at I like ter know.”

I’m not wildly fond of dialect stories; I find sustained phonetic spellings tedious and distracting, I’m afraid. (The Geordie-accented fox in Richard Adams’s The Plague Dogs ruins an otherwise interesting book, if you ask me.)

Anyways, Grassle’s accent as Br’er Rabbit is mild, but it was still enough to make our younger commentators raise an eyebrow or eight.

The Ingalls kids, however, are delighted by the story. 

“I love Uncle Remus,” Carrie slurps. “Read another story, Ma, please?”

PEGGY: Did they really have to give her a line?

DAGNY: We never see Carrie wearing a hat like that.

OLIVE: It’s cute. I just got one.

AMELIA: What?

OLIVE: I did.

She did.

Ma tells everybody to go to bed, and flirty Pa says, “Not unless you tuck me in and read me a story.”

Pa kisses the kids goodnight.

ALEXANDER: He calls Albert “darling”?

AMELIA: I like that.

Up in their loft apartment, Albert and Laura discuss the plot of the Br’er Rabbit story.

Just like my mom and dad after watching a movie, they bicker about it.

Then Albert comes up with an idea to pull a Br’er Rabbit on Mrs. Oleson.

OLIVE: Albert is very clever. It’s too bad he becomes a heroin addict.

ALEXANDER: . . . What?

All this in a little conversation every bit as idiotic as the ones Laura used to have with Mary at bedtime. Takes me back, actually.

Then we see Carl the Flunky rowing a lady to the summer house.

ROMAN: Is Carl Mrs. Oleson’s chauffeur?

WILL: He was half a servant already.

Since the house isn’t on an island, why any local would approach it by water is beyond me.

The boat, we see, is named the Harriet.

Then, from a distance, we see not Katherine MacGregor but a body double, wiggling and dancing in old-timey swimwear and jumping from the dock.

(In the closeup, you can really see it’s not really Katherine MacGregor. In fact, I think it might be Mrs. Foster!)

Ruth Foster, whose vivacious character Mrs. Foster’s first name is rumored at this point to be Melinda (a conversation we’ll save for another day), was indeed a stand-in for several female cast members.

I wouldn’t have thought that duty would extend to stunts. I totally think it’s her, though. She was a professional dancer as well.

Watching from afar, Kezia mutters, “Thar she blows.” 

Kezia appears to be knotting a sheet, perhaps in anticipation of escaping out a window after strangling Mrs. Oleson in the night.

PEGGY: She reminds me of Mama from Mama’s Family.

WILL: Yeah, I thought of her when we talked about the young Kezia. Young Kezia hell, she could play the old Kezia in the Netflix version!

(I’m really not sure what to make of that new series announcement. I might have to do a special post where I try to predict the cast.)

“She swims like a pregnant penguin she does!” Kezia goes on. There are some good insults in this one.

Laura, Albert and Andy Garvey sneak onto the property, and Albert tells Kezia they’re brainstorming ideas to spook Mrs. Oleson and her brood away.

He brings up Kezia’s monster story. “What was his name?” he asks.

“Loch Ness,” says Kezia.

“Yeah,” Albert says, smiling. “The Lockness.” It’s kind of cute.

Well, Albert wants to know, “what if there were a monster in this lake?”

He bares his cruel fangs as the others consider the possibilities.

PEGGY: Is Albert’s hair a wig?

DAGNY: It might be. If it was real, it would have to be carefully styled to avoid continuity errors.

That night, Mrs. Oleson is gently snoring when she’s awakened by a hollow burst of bellowing/Like bulls, or rather lions!

Mrs. O sleepily says, “Nels, stop!” and slaps the pillow next to her, pretty hard.

Nellie and Willie come rushing in, roused by the monstrous roaring. The sound effect is pretty good – it sounds like some huge cow dying of constipation.

The Olesons head out to the yard, where they find Kezia staring mysteriously into the lake.

“It’s ’im,” she says.

“Who him?” Mrs. Oleson says hilariously.

Kezia tells Mrs. O that this lake is home to a monster, just like the famous one in Scotland.

PEGGY: Maybe she’s more My Fair Lady than Oliver!

DAGNY: Or Herman’s Hermits. [singing:] I’m ’Ennery the Eighth I am. . . .

Willie, who apparently also chose the Loch Ness book report project, says he’s heard of it.

Kezia says this monster only comes to the surface on the night of the full moon. She dresses the story up with details about it eating people and being angry about its mate being killed “over a hundred years ago.” (Surely a reference to Ray Bradbury‘s “The Fog Horn” (published in 1951), in which a sea serpent wants to mate with a lighthouse. It’s one of my favorites. It’s sad.)

OLIVE: This is actually a good plan. It’s not like Mrs. Oleson could just look on the internet to see if there was anything to the story.

Kezia says the monster is why the previous owners, the Clark family, “pulled up stakes and went to Californy.”

(The only Clarks we’ve met on this show have been “Little Women’s” Ginny “Gelfling Girl” Clark and her widowed mother, Della, whose first name was actually never given in that story.) 

(They of course lived in The House of Evil, but at the end of that story the Widow was implied to be cruising towards marriage with the kindly Harold Mayfield, and I suppose it’s possible they moved in with him at this address.)

(“Little Women” took place just three years (LHUT) before Kezia arrived in town, so on the one hand, it makes sense that these would be the Clarks she’s referring to. On the other, wouldn’t she refer to them as “the Mayfields,” not “the Clarks”?)

(Evidence inconclusive.)

Mrs. Oleson wants to know why the monster never attacked Kezia, and she replies, “He did! Slatherin’ and slurpin’ every month!”

DAGNY: Is that a euphemism for something?

AMELIA: It’s called a period, Kezia.

But Mrs. Oleson is not fooled, and she tells Kezia she’s going to have to try harder if she wants to scare them off their own property. (Willie backs her up, which is odd because he was quite friendly with Kezia in “Castoffs.”)

Kezia trudges back behind the house, where Albert is creating the noise by blowing into a ram’s horn. (A shofar willed to him by Isaac Singerman?)

Kezia tells the kids their plan didn’t work and bids them goodnight.

PEGGY: How did they all get out of their houses in the middle of the night?

Albert says it’s time for Phase Two.

WILL: Peggy, I often talk about how you hated Albert when we were kids because he took too much focus away from Laura.

PEGGY: Huh? I don’t remember that.

WILL: You gotta be kidding.

Reader, please trust me that it is the truth.

In bed, Nellie and Willie, who are slightly underused in this story, talk about whether the monster might be real. It ends predictably with the second go-the-eff conversation of the episode, which I guess is a bonus of sorts.

We go to commercial with a dark shot of the house.

PEGGY: That looks like a valet parking sign.

When we come back, a trumpet is playing clever variations on the Little House theme in a triple meter.

AMELIA: This is a fun arrangement.

Laura runs to the Mercantile (crossing the Pagan Stone Circle) and tells Nels she wants to buy 15 cents’ (about five dollars’) worth of glue and tacks. But Nels says she can have them for nothing, as well as some burlap and expensive fireworks.

PEGGY: He’s the best.

ALEXANDER: Yeah. The Mercantile is gonna lose so much money this summer.

Meanwhile, Albert and Andrew Garvey help themselves to some wood scraps at the Mill as their fathers chuckle sweetly.

For the kids are planning to build a monster, to make its debut at the lake on the night of the full moon. (To go along with Kezia’s no-doubt-improvised story.)

As they cross a field discussing their plans, Andy gets an idea for how to make their creature extra-scary.

Time must have passed, because when he arrives at home, Alice tells him his father has gone to Sleepy Eye, even though it’s less than a minute since we just saw him at the Mill.

Andy suggests to Alice that since Jonathan’s away, they should take that stupid moose head down from the wall.

OLIVE: I was trying to figure out what the moose head had to do with it.

Alice agrees, laughing cheerfully.

PEGGY: That’s the only time she’s ever smiled – taking away someone else’s joy.

Back to the lake, then, where Mrs. Oleson and the kids are having fun in the water.

AMELIA: Did they steal her swimsuit design from Minnie Mouse?

On the shore, Kezia snaps green beans (so we’re probably in July?) and mutters that Harriet’s swimwear looks like “a hot-air balloon.”

Mrs. O asks what she said, and she replies, “Just that I’ll have snapped all these beans by noon!”

WILL: Rappin’ Kezia!

On the other side of the lake, Albert gives some instructions, and the three kids swim across, breathing through reeds as David gives us his riff on the Jaws theme.

Then we get a riff on the Jaws cinematography, which is a hoot.

The kids swim up and bite the Olesons’ feet.

Kezia ominously intones that the moon will be full in two days’ time – a Friday.

This allows us to precisely date this story, since in July of 1883, the full moon fell on Friday the 20th! 

Anyways, Harriet orders Willie to go back to town and get Nels’s shotgun.

WILL: Well, she has handled firearms before. She once shot Nellie’s husband.

Parrot Polly adds to the urgency by squawking, “Monster’s coming! The Monster’s coming!” and Mrs. Oleson threatens to shoot him as well.

That night, Jonathan Garvey returns home, exhausted from his long trip. Alice tells him Andrew’s gone froggin’ with the other kids again – apparently this is how they’ve been explaining their nighttime work on Operation Lockness.

Also in the room, I notice, are our old pals John Wilkes Booth and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Jonathan tells Alice he’s going straight to bed . . . then pauses and roars, “WHERE’S MY MOOSE HEAD!”

OLIVE [laughing]: This one’s so stupid!

Then we see Kezia and Polly in the shed, listening to more monstrous bellowing, which this time is augmented by David Rose’s trombones. (Fans of Don Giovanni may remember the trombone’s use as a supernatural omen in that opera and nod approvingly to each other.)

The horror music turns into the sailor’s hornpipe again, and Kezia smiles in anticipation of the finale.

The afternoon before the full moon, Parrot Polly stands on the garden furniture shrieking “Full moon tonight! Full moon tonight!”

PEGGY: So all this white patio furniture everybody’s still got today is from the 1800s? 

Mrs. Oleson, who’s wearing Ladies’ Cut Pinky, accuses Kezia of teaching the bird the phrase, but Kezia says, “You can’t teach an old parrot new tricks.” 

“That is not a parrot!” Mrs. O screams.

(“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” dates back to the Renaissance.)

Then Mrs. Oleson asks what’s on the menu for tonight, and Kezia, who’s sharpening her harpoon, says, “Fish. A very large fish . . . an enormous fish.”

Nellie, who’s wearing a stripey pink top of her own, says since rumors of a monster began circulating, they can’t get Grovesters to come out and visit anymore.

OLIVE: This one could have been a half-hour episode.

At the Mercantile, then, Willie is demanding the gun from his father (and stealing candy).

Laura comes in just in time to see him leave with the gun.

PEGGY: Is her dress on backwards?

Nels says Harriet intends to kill the monster.

Laura realizes things are getting serious, but before she can confess, Nels tells her he preemptively loaded the shotgun with blanks.

OLIVE: Why would he even have blanks?

ROMAN: He probably does film production on the side.

That night, the full moon rises, and we see the Lake Kezia Monster – in three pieces – come whiffling through the tulgey wood.

It’s got sharp spines running down its back, a spotted hide like a giraffe, and, of course, the head of a moose.

Inside, Kezia is making snarky remarks as she serves dinner.

PEGGY: Is that a vase of milk?

Outside, the monster assembles itself.

DAGNY [laughing]: This is what every kid dreams of doing but never does.

WILL: Yeah. The closest I ever came was throwing a rubber snake at the girls’ mom when she was coming up the stairs with a laundry basket.

And then, the universe turns inside out and a chaos erupts as the monster attacks! (Just like when a bat gets into your house, if that’s ever happened to you.)

AMELIA: This is like The Legend of Boggy Creek!

(I know I’ve mentioned this one to you before, but it’s an old favorite of ours. A very scary G-rated movie about bigfoot, it’s tame enough for all ages, but is a great vehicle for introducing small children to horror entertainment, as we all must do. Using the toilet in a lake cabin will never seem the same to you again!)

The Oleson rush outside with the gun as the creature bellows and David lays on some horror synthesizer (an instrument rarely used in his oeuvre).

As they stare in horror, the monster approaches from the lake. We see the kids have fixed some sort of stalked eyes on top of the moose head and draped seaweed all over it. It’s a very pleasing effect. 

DAGNY: Those kids were talented to put this together.

WILL: Well, Albert. He’s a genius.

(Dagny and I once built a full-size Skeksis puppet from scratch, so we appreciate such attention to detail.)

The monster actually looks a lot like the Whingdingdilly, a friendly creature (actually a dog cursed by a witch) in a book of the same name by Disney animator Bill Peet that I loved as a little kid.

Mrs. Oleson starts screaming “Shoot it!” and “Kill it!”, but just stands there until Nellie shrieks, “You’ve got the gun!!!”

So Mrs. O shoots at it, but all that seems to do is make sparks fly from the creature’s mouth.

WILL: The Jabberwock with eyes of flame!

In all seriousness, it’s a very bad idea to light fireworks inside a costume. Don’t try this at home, kids!

With much hammy screaming, the three Olesons exit together.

In an epilogue, Laura, Albert and Andy abandoned the costume and run inside to hug Kezia. They’re all in their long-johns, I guess because they were swimming, but none of them seem wet.

All’s well that ends well . . . only then a horrifying seaweed-covered zombie appears in the doorway, groaning.

It’s quite scary, actually! It very much anticipates the end of the “Something to Tide You Over” segment of Creepshow, if you know that one.

But it’s actually Nels, who said he saw all the action from the shadows, “and I got to laughing so hard, I fell in the lake!”

Everyone screams with laughter, Nels laughing the hardest of all.

Kezia invites him to stay for supper (which is “a large fish . . . an enormous fish”), and Nels screams, “I don’t mind if I do!”

ROMAN: Is he drunk again?

WILL: Probably is.

Nels has had a few incidents of suspected drinking since returning from Winoka.

Well, we never see Kezia again after this. Since she gives her age as eighty, presumably she might have died.

But I like to think she’s still out there somewhere, and that if you listen carefully, you might hear her bellowing from the water when the moon is full.

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH:

The costumes are outstanding in this one. Mrs. Oleson wears some great outfits.

Muriel’s dress is also quite beautiful.

Even Kezia’s maid outfit has a lovely pattern.

Albert wears his fancy robe again, which I recently noticed is the same one Willie wore in “The Race.”

But Willie gets to wear another cool one too.

One musical style point: Somewhat surprisingly, David Rose declines to take the score in a “Scottish” direction at any time.

Charles appears to go commando again.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Harriet Oleson probably says “Oh, for heaven’s sakes” more times in this story than in any other.

THE VERDICT:

WILL: Okay, give it a grade.

AMELIA: B-plus.

PEGGY: B-minus.

DAGNY: C.

OLIVE: C-plus.

ROMAN: D-plus.

ALEXANDER: PG. 

ALL: . . .

ALEXANDER: Pretty Goofy.

It is pretty goofy, no question about it. I don’t know if I ever saw it when I was a little kid – if I had, I’m sure I would have found it very frightening (especially Zombie Nels).

But there’s also no question that it’s big fun. In fact, you might even say it’s enormous fun.

So, to borrow a line from Laura, ahoy, magnificent Kezia!

UP NEXT: Barn Burner