The Enchanted Cottage

Always Look On the Bright Side of Life; or

Stupid Mary Rides Again

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Enchanted Cottage

Airdate: February 26, 1979

Written by Don Balluck

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Mary can see again! Actually, no she can’t. 

In other business, Michael Landon’s infatuation with the color pink continues.

RECAP: First off, the credits.

Carrie falls.

DAGNY: You know, I think Carrie might be the best Little House character of all. More than anyone, she’s the stand-in for the audience.

WILL: Like Watson?

DAGNY: Yeah, like Watson.

WILL: What if in the finale it turned out CARRIE was actually the one writing these stories, not Laura?

DAGNY: It would explain why some of them are so stupid.

The curtain rises on the Harriet Oleson Institute for the Advancement of Blind Children.

The title appears: “The Enchanted Cottage.” Are we in for some charming fairy-tale thing? You know, like “The Godsister”?

Or “‘Be My Friend’” – minus the attempted murder/suicide, child abuse, underage sex, religious mania, suspected incest, and so forth?

Inside, Schoolmarm Mary is teaching a class that today includes the Sharp-Dressed Blind Kid, Not-Quincy Fusspot, Thomas the Blond Freckle-Faced Moppet, Pigtail Annie, Sue Goodspeed, Freckles, Blind Princess Leia, Janis, and Distraught Polly.

We’ve had some cards and letters pointing out that Thomas has been recast. In fact, this happened way back in “Blind Man’s Bluff,” I just didn’t notice. (I hate when I miss things like this! Apologies all.)

Originally played by Ivan Wideman, Thomas’s role has now been assumed by Vince Tortell, who also appeared in everybody’s second-favorite Merlin Olsen vehicle (unless you count the FTD commercials), Father Murphy.

Mary asks, “Now, what was the territory called that Lewis and Clark were to explore?”

“Louisiana!” the kids scream with surprising enthusiasm. Mary must really have the magic touch teaching about states.

Then Mary asks when all this Lewis-and-Clark business is supposed to have taken place. 

Goodie Goodspeed correctly answers 1803, but not before you can hear one kid start to guess 19-something, which in 1884 would have been the far future. (This show is not subject to the normal laws of time, though, so who knows.)

We have readers from all over the world, but I’m going to assume you’ve heard of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark’s expedition through the wilds of North America on behalf of the U.S. government in the early Nineteenth Century.

Lewis and Clark were exploring “French Louisiana,” then an enormous territory including modern Louisiana as well as all or part of what’s now Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, and yes, Minnesota – including the future Walnut Grove.

This French territory was in the process of being purchased by the federal government, a move which would double the size of the country.

Lewis and Clark traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, traveling northwest through several states before taking a hard left in the Dakotas and heading all the way to what’s now Astoria, Oregon. (The setting for the Anne Ramsey vehicle The Goonies.) 

Lewis and Clark had many wacky adventures along the way.

(Which is also what happens in The Goonies.) 

Sue Goodspeed goes on to answer the next question too. She’s sort of becoming the Nellie Oleson of this school.

Mary shuts Sue up with a tart “Yes,” then dovetails into her prepared remarks.

Mary says Louisiana in those days lay between “the Mississippi River and the Continental Divide” – the latter being a “hydrological divide” that runs roughly north-south all the way through North and South America. 

It follows a bunch of mountain ranges, but whether they were created by the Divide or vice versa is beyond my understanding.

Mary is droning on when she stops suddenly, accompanied by a sort of magical ping from the orchestra.

DAGNY: Oh . . . it’s the Mary-can-see-things one.

WILL: Yes, it is.

Mary turns around a few times, and it becomes clear that she is trying to look at something.

She blinks a bit, then resumes droning.

Worried the audience will become as bored as Mary’s students, David Rose gives us a rich cello quartet, or something. It’s rather like the opening of the 1812 Overture.

But when Mary stops short again, so does the mock-Tchaikovsky.

Sharp as cheese, Nellie-Sue notices the change in her teacher’s demeanor immediately.

She asks about it, but Mary deflects the question by suddenly dismissing everyone early.

(This is an old trick of the Bead’s, of course.)

Unsatisfied, Sue grills Mary further. David gives us some uneasy “wah-wahs” in the higher strings.

But Mary just sends Sue away.

Once she’s gone, Mary wanders to the window and looks, yes looks, up.

As she does so, David has the cellos and basses play up a simple scale – a technique he’s linked to education once or twice already. Its use here is a bit opaque, though.

Mary is not looking out the window, exactly, but she breaks into a grin and it becomes clear she’s perhaps seeing something, possibly.

Not everyone is convinced she is, though – for instance, our composer friend in the pit.

DAGNY: So, David Rose wants us to know right away she isn’t going to see again, huh?

The next thing you know, all the Ingallses plus Adam have Doc Baker surrounded in the Common Room.

Doc has just examined Mary’s eyes. “My knowledge in this field is very limited,” Doc says.

DAGNY: No shit, Hiram.

“But I must admit,” he goes on, “there are signs.”

WILL: Well, that settles it. She’s staying blind for sure.

Laura immediately and tactlessly shouts she never believed Mary would be blind forever in the first place.

Adam, however, looks stony-faced.

DAGNY: He looks like David Byrne.

Mary reacts with immediate excitement, crying to Adam that if her sight returns, everything will be different for them! In a good way!

Doc, who for all our jokes usually doesn’t oversell his misdiagnoses, warns Mary not to make assumptions.

Laura waves Doc’s concern off unhelpfully.

Mary wanders to the window and stands in the sunlight. “This is where it’s strongest,” she says. “I can see the light!”

Ma also doesn’t help matters much by saying, “It’s a miracle!”

If you’re feeling queasy at their optimism, again, you’re not alone.

Doc frowns, then turns to Charles and says, “The next thing is to get her to Dr. Burke in Mankato.”

All right! Mary’s unhappy optometrist Dr. Burke is one of my favorite minor Little House characters, mainly because he’s played by Ford Rainey, who was the drunk Dr. Mixter in Halloween II. Can’t wait to see him! 

One continuity issue, though. When he was introduced in “Four Eyes,” three seasons ago, Burke/Mixter was indeed said to be practicing in Mankato.

However, by the time Mary’s eyesight began to fail for good, it was suggested he had moved his shop to Sleepy Eye. I wonder why he went back to Mankato? Another casualty of the railroad wars, I suppose.

Even though Charles treated Dr. Mixter with uncharacteristic rudeness during their last encounter, now he smiles and says they’ll leave tout suite. I wonder if Dr. M will make him grovel before he’ll see her again.

Laura resumes effervescing about the “miracle,” whilst Adam stands there looking blank. Blanker than usual!

That night at the Oleson Institute, Mary sleeps under a nice quilt of the sort my mom and aunties would make when I was a kid.

Meanwhile, Adam sits up in a dressing gown quite similar to the one Jeremy Brett wore as Sherlock Holmes in Granada TV’s (mostly marvelous) adaptation of those stories.

Tumblrer (Tumblrist?) xserpx describes Holmes’s garment as “boring,” “un-cozy,” and “bad!!!” 

She’s quite right, but I would point out that, like all the art direction on the show (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, not Little House), the costumes are recreations of the original Sidney Paget illustrations for the stories, and this one for all its flaws is pretty close.

But never mind that for now. David Rose gives us moody music in the third octave of a piano. He’s used it a number of times already, but I don’t think we’ve named it. (“Adam’s Un-Cozy Dressing Gown”?)

The window is open, but Adam gets up and closes it with a shiver. We dated last week’s episode to September of 1883-I, so we could be picking up right where we left off.

Mary wakes and notices Adam’s not in bed. She asks if he can’t sleep, and he says, “No – I guess I’m too excited.”

(In close-up we can see Adam’s robe has stripes on it, which Sherlock Holmes’s doesn’t.)

Well, Adam doesn’t sound too excited. 

WILL: Adam is a well-developed character. Shrewd, manipulative. . . . He knows how to control people, like Mary when she was his student, or that blind football player he taunted about being a quitter.

WILL: So, he’s a strategic thinker, but! That’s only true when he has control over a situation. 

DAGNY: What do you mean?

WILL: When he feels powerless, he instantly goes emotionally transparent. He can’t hide his feelings. He gets depressed, throws tantrums, freaks out. . . .

WILL [as ADAM]: “The water, THE WATER!!!”

DAGNY: He is complex for a character who’s just a satellite in Mary’s orbit. I wonder if he was based on somebody Landon actually knew? 

DAGNY: He’s more multifaceted than Manly – though I don’t really like either of them.

WILL: Neither of them?

DAGNY: Yeah. Adam can be such a smug bastard, and Almanzo is a hothead. Both of them behave like babies when they don’t get their way.

WILL: What about John?

DAGNY: John is a wuss and a horndog, but otherwise he’s okay.

Ha! I don’t know about that. I was once a big John fan, but man, that “Times of Change.” . . . 

Anyways, Mary’s hair is big and poofy and 85-percent brown by this point, and she reaches out to touch Adam’s face.

“To think of being able to see your face for the first time,” Mary says gently. I suppose she does wonder. Everyone is always telling Adam how hot she is, but nobody’s said anything about his looks to her, that we’ve seen at least. (I’m sure Laura did in a deleted scene, though.)

“You might be disappointed,” Adam says, lightening up a little. (We doubted she would be.)

Mary quickly clarifies that she can already see his face with her hands, which I think was a good thing to add to the script, since it suggests that being a blind person is only inferior to a sighted one in lacking sight, and since she and Adam have a long history of pawing each other’s faces to get the lay of the land where looks are concerned.

And while Mary went blind less than a season ago in real-world time, in Little House Universal Time (LHUT) it’s been about nine years since she lost her sight. I think it’s quite believable to have her feel that blind “seeing” is as good as her “real” vision was at this point.

Senses are relative, after all. In the animal kingdom, antennae, whiskers, etc., have all evolved to complement eyesight. (Even to replace it, among some horrible things at the bottom of the sea!)

Nature is weird. Snakes have no ears, yet they use their whole bodies to “hear” other creatures approaching. Dags and I often talk about the conventions of science fiction movies and TV, where most alien species are human-sized, biped, sit in chairs, wear slacks, feature females with mammary glands on their chests (even the reptiles), etc. 

Usually they can also operate each other’s technology easily, at least once they’ve figured out which buttons are which. 

Reality would be more complex. How could a human ever hope to figure out a control panel designed for a being who “sees” with antennae coming out all over their body, or who experiences sound as a vibration from the floor?

Oh, well, who cares, right? Anyways, Mary tells Adam she loves him, and he seems a little comforted.

DAGNY: Why on earth is this one called “The Enchanted Cottage”?

Next we get a very long shot of the Chonkywagon driving through a vista of large hills or small mountains.

DAGNY: There is nowhere in Minnesota that looks remotely like this place.

It’s true. The Scottish Highlands, perhaps, or maybe a Colombian coffee plantation.

DAGNY: The shot is beautiful, though. It looks like a painting.

WILL: Or a miniature. You kind of expect a giant hand to move the horse.

I note there are no leaves on the trees, supporting our fall-setting hypothesis.

Mary blathers foolishly about how her vision is coming back for sure. She fantasizes about the precise moment it will be restored.

Then she recalls a time when they “were visiting Grandpa” long ago. 

Presumably she means Lansford, Pa’s father, but if so it’s odd she doesn’t say “Grandma and Grandpa,” since “Dancing Grandma” Laura Colby Ingalls would still have been alive when Mary was a child.

She says she remembers a beautiful snow-globe in Grandpa Ingalls’s house.

DAGNY: Oh, of course! It IS supposed to look like a miniature! It’s to set up the snow-globe conversation. They wanted to make it look like a snow-globe! That’s brilliant.

I don’t know. This theory’s a bit out there, even by my standards.

Speaking of out-there, Pa then says Mary broke that snow-globe and tried to make a snowball from its contents, which no child would actually ever do. They might break one all right, but the water would run everywhere and then they’d just cry. 

I don’t know why Laura and Mary’s conversations with Pa about the past always move in such nonsensical directions. It’s like when Pa told Laura she once baked turnovers with rotten apples or whatever it was and he ate twenty of them.

Anyways, Mary doesn’t remember that part of the story, and Pa says, “Children don’t generally remember the bad things they do.” (I do. Therapy helps.)

Back at the Oleson Institute, Hester-Sue tells the kids to wash up for lunch. 

I don’t know if it’s racist or just sexist that we never see her doing paperwork. Mr. Ames, her predecessor, was always burning the midnight oil paying bills and the like. 

But Hester-Sue seems only to make lunch and take the kids out for recess. 

Caroline comes in through the front door wearing Stiffy, her sexy travel/funeral bonnet.

Hester-Sue greets Ma warmly. (By her Christian name; so you can tell H-S has well and truly been accepted into the Grovester community, if you had any doubts.)

They briefly discuss Mary’s sitch, and Hester-Sue wisely says all they can do is trust to God to decide what will happen.

WILL: It’s surprising Ma’s so supportive of Mary’s delusion. Ma is usually the killer of hopes and dreams.

DAGNY: It’s because it’s Mary. She’s much more sentimental and nurturing with Mary than with Laura.

WILL: But what about when Mary went blind and she just said, “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to go to Iowa, but you have to.” Or when they were leaving Winoka? She was a hardass then.

DAGNY: That’s true. I guess I’m thinking more about when the girls were younger. Laura always needed to be independent, and Ma was fine with that; but Mary needed her mother. That’s why she was so shocked when Mary figured out what was going on with that handyman. She didn’t realize Mary was growing up too, becoming somebody who thought for herself.

WILL: So, it would make more sense for Ma to be optimistic about Mary’s prognosis if it were the Ma from two seasons ago? 

DAGNY: Yeah. Before Mary got kicked by the horse and everything started to go to hell.

WILL: You may be onto something.

Caroline offers to help out at the school in Mary’s absence, but Hester-Sue says they’ve got it covered. In fact, she says, Adam’s even helping to make lunch right now.

She doesn’t sound optimistic about Adam’s culinary efforts, saying, “I don’t even like to go in a kitchen when a man’s there.” I love to cook, as a lot of men do, but as a generalization about the American gender divide, she may have a point.

Seeming nervous and a little giggly, Ma heads to the kitchen, where High-Waisted Adam is indeed cooking.

“Hi,” she says. (Yes, just “hi.”)

She and Adam make smalltalk for a bit, only then Adam knocks a bowl of onions to the floor.

Ma says she’ll pick them up – not an unusual offer from a woman of this time period under the circumstances.

But Adam takes it personally, snarling “No, I can manage by myself!” at her.

Ma looks surprised, and even though he can’t see her face, Adam apologizes instantly.

Then he says in grumbling tones how “excited” he is Mary might be getting her sight back.

WILL: See? Completely transparent.

Grinning madly, Ma chirps, “You’re sure I can’t help?” then exits with a cheery “Have a nice day!”

WILL: That was an awkward scene. Not sure I like how Grassle did that one. She was too chipper, it was like Ma wasn’t thinking at all. It was like a Ma robot.

Speaking of robots, back at the Little House Laura is feeding the KOW-1900 whilst Albert mucks the auld byre.

David Rose gives us a surprising fresh syncopated waltz arrangement of the main theme.

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Laura says.

“How would I know what you’ve been thinking?” Albert replies. Ha! I love Albert.

Then the sibbies have a weird conversation about the useful- or -lessness of rhetorical questions generally. (There’s a lot of filler in this script.)

Laura, braids thicker than ever, suggests they fix up Mr. Edwards’s old house for Mary and Adam to live in when she comes back.

DAGNY: Wait . . . Laura and Albert are gonna FIX UP A HOUSE? Come on. They could never do that on their own. Fix up a house? Neither of them knows what they’re doing. It’s the blind leading the blind! That should be the title of this episode, actually.

Laura says the house’s proximity to the Blind School makes it the perfect choice. (We actually had the Edwards place situated on the opposite side of town from the Oleson Institute – not far, but not especially near either. If I remember, you can actually see it from the back of the Mercantile.)

DAGNY: This is such a bad idea! What construction projects has Laura actually done?

WILL: Well, mostly they’ve built clubhouses. And they made that monster.

DAGNY: Renovating a house is a big leap from putting a moose head on a stick.

Albert, who you’ll remember has an advanced degree from the School of Hard Knocks, gently suggests they wait for Mary’s diagnosis before actually beginning such a project. 

But he soon gives in.

Then, to Albert’s signature tune on the marimba, the kids start cleaning the junk out of the old cabin.

This is yet another strange incident in the history of the property. Originally lived in by Mr. Ed, the house was purchased (but not paid for) by the evil Brothers Galender.

After they were evicted, Mr. Edwards reclaimed it to use for an infirmary.

But somewhere along the way, Jonathan and Alice Garvey acquired the property, since Jonathan lived there whilst they were separated. Is it a communal shack that anyone can use for any purpose?

Laura seems to think so. She suggests they deal with the leaky roof by covering it with sod.

DAGNY: Cover it with sod! That’s a huge undertaking! How are they gonna get it up there, in their pockets?

Then she suggests they solicit a donation of house-paint from the Mercantile.

DAGNY: Why would the Olesons donate it?

WILL: Because Nels gives them everything for free.

The kids run off.

DAGNY: They’re both wearing Pinkies today.

Whilst the trees in the “mountains of Mankato” were bare, Walnut Grove’s foliage seems in good shape.

At the Mercantile, the kids are attended by both Mrs. Oleson and Nels.

DAGNY: She’s wearing Pinky too. This might be the pinkiest episode ever. 

WILL: Just wait!

Because Nels says they can have some cans of pink paint Harriet bought. He says the color was too hideous for them ever to use.

You know, when the girls’ mom and I split up, I repainted some rooms in the house, and was going to do one in purple. But when I told my brother-in-law Bruce about it, he said, “Oh, Vikings fan?” and I realized I must return the paint. I’ll be damned if I have people thinking I’d decorate my house out of allegiance to a sports franchise! 

(Also, I’m not sure the purple would have gone with the framed picture of a Dalek I wanted to put in the room. Allegiance to Doctor Who is another story.)

Mrs. Oleson says Nels is just a philistine, and he blows dust from the top of a paint can into her eyes.

DAGNY: Hey! That was pretty mean, even for them.

They scream at each other for a while, but Nels wins and starts giving the kids the pink paint.

DAGNY: Look how they’re holding those paint cans! They would be so much heavier.

WILL: Yeah. You can actually hear how empty they are.

Suddenly we’re back in Winoka! It’s identifiable by signs for Kelsay’s Dry Goods, Hans Hergert Watchmaker, and good old Amos Thoms the gunsmith.

But actually, identical businesses aside, this is meant to be Mankato.

(It borrows the Grand Hotel from Sleepy Eye, too.)

Plus there’s an airplane contrail.

In a hotel, Pa is helping Mary get oriented to her room.

DAGNY: Don’t you think he should take that lantern with him, for safety? She doesn’t need it. 

WILL: No. How else is she supposed to burn down the hotel?

DAGNY: Are you serious?

WILL: . . .

Mary and Pa have their own rooms again.

WILL: How are they gonna pay for this? Charles was just wiped out last week by Jud Larrabee’s predatory pricing scheme.

Pa heads out, and Mary starts to unpack . . . only once again she’s interrupted by a ping from David Rose.

David then gives us a reprise of “Mary the Psychopath” (!) as Mary wanders to the window, through which beams a fantastical white light.

DAGNY: You can tell this isn’t Landon. It has its own style.

(She’s right, it’s Clax.)

As Mary bathes in the light, the music becomes less scary and more shimmery. 

In fact, it sounds a bit like the famous “Forest Murmurs” scene in Richard Wagner’s Siegfried.

Mary prays to God to get her sight back, adding that she wants this “for Adam.”

Next we see Pa coming down a long and rather frighteningly slanted staircase to the street. (What kind of hotel is this?)

People are bustling around, and Ben Slick, whom we haven’t seen since they put the telephone poles in, is reading the funnies over a friend’s shoulder. (Pretty sure the friend is Mustache Man, too.)

I don’t recognize any of the other Mankato townspeople, though we do see a Medieval Peasant Woman on the boardwalk.

DAGNY: What’s with all these huge pointy witch bonnets this season? Would you even be able to see anything wearing one?

WILL: It’s a subtle point that vision isn’t everything.

Pa notices a snow-globe in the window of a shop and stops to look at it.

Next door is a sign for Adams Express & Freight Company, a (real) national firm whose signage we’ve seen before. (In Chicago.)

Pa goes in and buys the snow-globe, so I guess not only does he have money for two hotel rooms, he can afford expensive souvenirs as well. Some time must have passed between “Barn Burner” and this week’s tale, during which his fortunes improved.

Pa heads back to the hotel, saying he made a stop at the optometrist’s. (So maybe that was the place with the scary staircase? Doesn’t seem like you’d want people with vision problems climbing it, but maybe the rent was cheap.)

Pa says Dr. Burke is out of town, so Mary will be seeing another doctor in his office, Dr. Fromm.

Mary seems upset that the man who diagnosed her as blind is gone.

DAGNY: Why do they need to explain this? They’ve never worried about continuity before. Do they think the audience is even going to remember Dr. Burke?

WILL: Of course they are! He’s Dr. Mixter from Halloween Two!

Pa gives Mary the snow-globe. Mary shakes it up, saying she’s going to “pretend I can already see it.”

DAGNY: Does this all turn out to be a dream, like the end of St. Elsewhere?

Both of them get dewy-eyed.

Back in Hero Township, Mustache Man is riding Fancy the horse past the Old Edwards/Galender/Edwards/Garvey/Kendall Place.

But Fancy takes one look at the hot pink exterior of the house, freaks out and runs.

DAGNY: This isn’t working the way they want it to. The light’s too bright, you can’t really even tell it’s pink.

It’s true.

DAGNY: And would the horse really care? Can horses even see colors?

Apparently they can, but not “shades of red,” which I assume is an umbrella covering pink. (Interestingly, the color yellow can upset them.)

Laura and Albert are wearing burlap sacks for painting, and Carl the Flunky, Not-Neil Diamond, and a couple ladies are pointing at the pink house and giggling.

Laura says Mary’s going to love the pink house, but Albert is still uneasy.

Laura just tells him to shut up, though.

Back to Mankato, then, where we see Mustache Man (no question about it this time) coming up the street.

At the eye doctor, Mary is being examined by Dr. Fromm, a balding man with a German accent and shaggy sideburns.

Mary is sitting next to the window, and she says she can tell she is, because “the light I’m seeing has never been brighter.”

WILL [as DR. FROMM]: “Mein Gott! She’s cured!”

Actually, he just continues the examination. Mary remarks that it’s harder to move her eyes than it used to be. 

Dr. Fromm says them’s the breaks when you’re blind. (Paraphrase.)

DAGNY: Is that Wallace Shawn?

WILL: Inconceivable.

Actually, he’s Nathan Adler, who also appeared on Father Murphy. And his German accent here must have impressed somebody, since in 1982 he was recruited to play Albert Einstein on Voyagers!

Dr. Fromm, who’s quite nice, asks Mary to describe her symptoms, then says he’d like her to come back the next day for some more tests.

Back on the street, Pa and Mary discuss what great news it is that they’re holding her over.

Pa says he wants to send a telegram home. Behind him we see a poster for a national meeting of the Cattle Ranchers’ Association.

Back in Walnut Grove, a small crowd has gathered around the pink house.

Harriet Oleson appears, chomping an apple (Granny Smith) and greeting the Max Headroom-bonneted woman and Mustache Man as “Lily and Josh.”

J.C. Fusspot is also there, as is Mrs. Foster, whom Mrs. O greets as “Matilda” in a fruity swoop not unlike Julia Child’s.

Mrs. Foster’s true first name is a mystery we’ll begin tracking now. Fan consensus has it that her Christian name is Melinda, but this is actually the first time anyone has addressed her as anything but “Mrs. Foster.” (The actress, of course, was Ruth Foster.)

The two women stand there evaluating the building as if it’s an art installation in a museum. Mrs. Oleson finds it “interesting,” but Mrs. Foster hates the color.

Harriet pretends to agree with her, but Laura comes over and exposes her.

WILL: I don’t think this subplot is as funny as they want it to be.

DAGNY: No.

The Great MacG does get points for talking with her mouth full again, though. In fact, she actually picks her teeth during the conversation.

Later, Carl pilots the Yellow-Wheeled Buckboard over the downtown bridge.

Laura and Albert, still wearing their pink gunny sacks, are coming the other way.

As they pass the Post Office, Mrs. Foster comes running out with a telegram.

Yes, a telegram. In this episode we get official confirmation that the Walnut Grove Post Office now has a telegraph.

As far back as “Harriet’s Happenings,” we speculated that there was one, but we’ve never seen the machine, and there was always another way to explain how telegrams got to Walnut Grove. (It usually involved Mustache Man riding into town with the mail.)

Pretending she hasn’t read it, Mrs. Foster hands it over to Laura.

To sweepingly emotive music from the orchestra, the kids and their reflections run to the Institute to tell Adam they’re doing additional tests on Mary’s eyes.

They burst into the Kendalls’ bedroom, startling Adam.

DAGNY: He should have been naked.

Again, Adam doesn’t sound happy at the update.

Neither does David Rose, who gives us that “Binary Sunset“/”Top Hand”-in-a-Minor-Key thing in the score again.

Then we get a weird little scene at the Little House. Laura says she doesn’t want Ma to see the pink house until it’s finished. “It’s got a special look,” she says.

Ma chuckles kookily for a while, then says in a strange voice like Yogi Bear, “I should think so.”

A moment passes awkwardly, then Laura asks what Adam’s problem is. She says she’s noticed he’s not actually excited about Mary’s vision coming back.

Ma suggests that he’s probably just so excited he’s trying to keep himself from getting carried away, or something.

Laura seems doubtful. (And Melissa Gilbert seems to realize she might have to carry this scene.)

Ma takes forever to say the obvious, which is that ordering additional tests probably isn’t bad news. (At least the fourth time in this story that observation has been made.)

She also says Dr. Burke knows what he’s doing, which some people on the internet have interpreted as a mistake because he’s out of town. But the telegram didn’t mention that, so she has no way of knowing. 

Then Albert falls asleep whilst sitting up at the table (Alexander did this all the time when he was little), and Ma sends him to bed (to a lullaby arrangement of his theme, of course).

Ma laughs weirdly again, and goes back into her Yogi Bear impression, saying, “You too, young lady.”

WILL: This script isn’t very good. It’s like the writer doesn’t know what to have anybody say.

DAGNY: Yeah. And something strange must have happened on set before they shot that scene. Ma never talks like that. It felt like a John Waters scene.

The next day, I suppose, a melancholy oboe pipes Boobilicious Boo Berry Ma to the O Institute.

Apparently affected, or infected, by Laura’s observation, she goes straight to Hester-Sue to ask if Adam’s okay.

Hester-Sue, a good observer of human behavior, says she’s not sure what’s up, but Adam has been “sad and moody” since the whole “I see the light” business began.

DAGNY: Ma’s bonnet looks like a Victorian collar.

Hester-Sue says she doesn’t feel it’s her place to pry into his personal life, but as his mother-in-law, Caroline might have more luck.

Ma finds Adam at the church, sitting in the front pew with his head bowed.

DAGNY: Why’s the cross up? Did Aldi forget to do his teardown?

WILL: I don’t know. And why isn’t class in session? It must be the weekend?

Ma approaches Adam, who’s snuffling loudly.

She sits down next to him and asks if they could pray together, which is nice.

Adam immediately begins blubbering and tells Ma he’s ashamed, because he fears if Mary gets her sight back, she’ll abandon him and the world of the blind.

WILL: Linwood Boomer’s not at his best when he has to emote like this. He’s better yelling at people.

DAGNY: He must find it easier to get in touch with that.

Also, it appears to be suddenly night for some reason.

Ma reassures him that his blindness isn’t why Mary loves him.

Then she says, “Do you honestly believe if YOU could see again, it would change that?”

(I guess we’ll find out!)

Ma says, “What you don’t understand is that for Mary, the greatest gift of regaining her sight would be that she could give MORE to you. Sighted or blind, Mary would be lost without you.”

DAGNY: Of course she would. . . .

The scene closes with the two of them praying together. My heartless bitching aside, it is probably the best scene in the episode.

Back in Mankato, a buckboard drives by.

DAGNY: Why is that guy standing? That looks dangerous, it isn’t a chariot.

Dr. Fromm has set up all of Dr. Mixter’s mirrors and other paraphernalia and is looking into Mary’s eyes whilst Charles watches.

DAGNY: Why is Charles even there? There’s no need for him to be. She’s an adult woman.

WILL: Yeah. She’s sixteen, for God’s sake!

Fromm has her walk towards the window, and she indicates the light gets brighter as she does so.

Then he says he’s going to test her vision by shining a bright light in her face.

DAGNY: I remember this part. This is awful.

Well, what happens is this. Dr. Fromm shines the light in her eyes three times, and she says she can see it every time. (To more Forest Murmurs.)

[Reader Maryann writes: “How do you think MSA kept from blinking?” It’s a great question. . . . I have no idea!]

Only then, Fromm turns the light away, but tells her it’s still on her. As the optimism on Pa’s face dissolves into horror, she again says she can see the light three times.

Then Fromm shines the light back in her face and says, “Now I’ve taken the light off you. Describe to me exactly what you’re seeing.”

Mary says the light has gone.

Dr. Fromm asks Mary to step out for a moment.

DAGNY: What? Why? 

As the camera zooms in on Pa, David’s music overboils like an exploding turkey fryer.

DAGNY: My God, David!!!

Dr. Fromm tells Charles some blind people “see” light even when nothing’s happening, whilst others take cues from their environment – such as standing in sunlight – and imagine they can.

WILL: He and Mary have the same eyes, actually.

Pa says he’ll talk to Mary. He’s so shaken, he can barely speak.

DAGNY: Landon’s good in this one.

WILL: Agreed.

Dr. Fromm, who seems like a decent guy, or at least takes no direct pleasure from his patients going blind, touches Charles’s arm and departs.

DAGNY: Would Doc Baker do this? Hide the diagnosis from an adult patient and just tell her dad?

WILL: I don’t think so. Doc can be blunt. He WOULD talk to Pa, but he would talk directly to Mary too. But that might just be because he socializes with this family.

Charles is actually shuddering slightly, but he collects himself and brings Mary back in.

From his shaking voice, Mary can tell the news is not good, and Pa confirms that her vision is not returning.

Mary begins gnashing her teeth and says she wants a second opinion from Dr. Mixter.

DAGNY: Does she trash the place?

Not quite, but she does react pretty violently.

DAGNY: Oh my God! She claws the window?

As David Rose goes absolutely bonkers, Mary collapses into Pa’s arms.

DAGNY: Mary’s good in this one too. A-plus.

Back in Walnut Grove, Alice Garvey appears at the Little House door.

Listening to the background music, I’m realizing for the first time that the main Little House theme, “Top Hand,” bears some similarities to the “British version” of “Away in a Manger.”

Alice bears another telegram.

WILL: Why would Alice have that? She doesn’t work at the Post Office anymore, she’s the teacher.

DAGNY: It must be summer.

WILL: But the Blind School was in session at the beginning.

DAGNY: Well, Mary’s gone to Mankato, some time has passed.

Indeed, with Alice’s cold-weather cape, the bare trees, the apple, the Blind School being in session but Groveland Elementary not, and Chuck being flush with spending cash, it’s hard to date this story precisely. But I think Dags is right. Presumably the story began in the spring of 1884-I towards the end of the school semester. A little time passed, coinciding with the end of the school year, after which Charles and Mary began their journey.

As for the bad weather and dead trees, I think we all know the reason for those.

Unlike that smiling liar Mrs. Foster, Alice’s face betrays that she knows the contents of the message.

Caroline’s breakdown when she reads it, while not as violent as Mary’s own, is deeply felt.

She tells Alice she’d even gotten out the spectacles so Ol’ Four Eyes – excuse me, I mean Mary – could read when she got back.

Alice embraces her.

Just like she was in the “pray with me” scene, Grassle is great here, so I’m not sure why she seems to be struggling in some of the other moments.

Well, Laura and Al come bursting in, but Ma is so overwhelmed she retreats to the bedroom.

Alice gives them an unhappy look, though whether it’s because of the news or because they haven’t invited Andy to participate in the pink-house project is a matter of conjecture.

Like mother like daughter, Laura runs away too.

David Rose cuts loose yet again.

DAGNY: This music is great. I almost can’t believe it’s David. He’s really making use of all the instruments in the orchestra this week.

Camping along the way home, Pa extinguishes a campfire with some leftover coffee. (We save all our leftover coffee for Olive, who won’t drink it hot.)

Mary, prettily dressed and rather formally posed, stands near a cut tree trunk.

DAGNY: That’s a huge tree, eh?

Dags is right, this one has to be commended for its visual style. (Ted V is the cinematographer this time.)

Mary is still upset, but she surprises Pa by saying it’s because Adam will be so disappointed.

Suddenly angry, Pa challenges her, telling her to “stop pretendin’ it’s Adam you’re feelin’ sorry for!”

Shocked, Mary says she is sorry for Adam.

Verging on sarcasm, Pa says, “It’s Adam, huh? All right . . .if you had a choice and only one of you could see again, who would you pick? . . . Come on! Who would you pick? Would you pick you or Adam!”

DAGNY: This is like the Sophie’s Choice of disabilities.

Pa goes on screaming, saying, “Oh, come on, Mary, you’d pick yourself and you know it! . . . In the name of God, just say it one time! ‘I wanted to see again for me!’”

WILL: This is like an Adam speech. [as ADAM:] “I CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT MY SON! SAY IT!”

Mary breaks down and says it, and in tears, they hold each other.

WILL: Can you interpret this scene for me?

DAGNY: You mean, why does her father need to push her to the edge like this?

WILL: Yeah.

DAGNY: I have no idea.

When the Chonkywagon arrives back at the Institute, Adam is waiting, along with the Ingallses and Hester-Sue.

Mary turns to everybody and says, quite sincerely, that she’s decided to look on the bright side. (I suppose that’s not the best way to put it, actually.)

Ma tells Mary Laura was so upset, she didn’t even come to welcome her back.

DAGNY: That seems improbable.

As Liberace-style piano chords crash in waves on the soundtrack, Albert takes Mary to the pink house.

DAGNY: So, they really expected Mary and Adam would live in this monstrosity? It looks like Squid Game.

Laura burst into tears.

DAGNY: There’s a lot of crying in this one.

Mary is initially supportive, then she starts yelling at Laura, just like Pa yelled at her.

WILL: Now Laura will yell at Albert, and Albert will yell at Andy, and Andy will yell at the moose head. . . .

Mary says when life gives you poop, make poop juice. (Paraphrase.)

She gives Laura the snow-globe as a present, and Laura lies and tells her they’ve been fixing up the cabin as a new clubhouse for the kids.

And when she tells her it’s painted pink, Mary says she’s glad to be blind! Ha ha ha!

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: There’s a lot of pink in this one for sure. I believe Laura and Albert’s pink outfits are new.

Interestingly, though, Pa never wears Pinky at any point.

Also interestingly, Mary, who’s well-dressed throughout, wears Caroline’s old brown dress in Mankato. (It was always a favorite of ours.)

And her ensemble at the campsite has style.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: 

DAGNY: Well, I thought that one was pretty bad. It was like a Little House parody. C-plus at best.

I’m afraid I have to agree. The script is very weak, with an air of running out of new ideas and redoing old ones. (Mary thinking Adam wants her to see again is a reverse of him assuming she wanted to move to New York a mere three episodes ago.) 

Then again, while Boomer and Grassle are a bit uneven, Anderson, Landon and Gilbert are all very good, and the score is particularly strong. Mary fans are sure to be pleased, and even the bad Little Houses are worth watching, as I always say. (Well, except “Circus Man.”)

But the title definitely should have been in quotes this time. See you again soon.

UP NEXT: “Someone Please Love Me”