The Family Tree

Pin a Heart-Shaped Apron to Your Boobs, You’re Sure to Get a Husband; or

Walnut Steamy?

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Family Tree

Airdate: October 1, 1979

Written by Vincent R. Gutierrez

Directed by William F. Claxton

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: When his biological father surfaces, Albert devises a twisted strategy to get rid of him.

RECAP: This viewing was a special event in our house, since we had not one but two Original Walnut Groovesters over for a watch party.

They were Ruth and Daisy, who joined for our trip to the real Walnut Grove last year for the Fiftieth. 

They’re both dyed-in-the-wool Little House nuts – if I may mix dry goods metaphors – and both delightful people on top of that too.

Even though we’re finished with the cinnamon-chicken storyline, I thought it would be fun to try a recipe, since to my knowledge I’d never had chicken and cinnamon combined and I was curious about it after all these years. Probably some of you are as well.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, there are a number of Moroccan or Moroccan-ish chicken recipes out there using cinnamon, so we tried one where the chicken is rubbed with spices and served over couscous with some figs mixed in. 

Not bad! Or at least, nobody ran to the pump, stormed out or wrecked the kitchen after the meal.

With that as preamble, let’s begin. We open on the busy thoroughfare.

ALL: [singing/humming along to Albert’s Theme]

The kids are playing pickle again in front of the school. I need a new prescription for my glasses, but I think I spot Carrie, Willie, the AEK, the Midsommar Kid, the Non-Binary Kid, the Misbehaving Little Girl, and Not-Linda Hunt’s Little Sister. 

Mustache Man (I think) appears in a wagon and drops off the Gelfing Boy (maybe?), Not-Ellen Taylor, and Not-Linda Hunt. (I know, I also think it strange that Not-Linda and her sister arrived separately.)

(Again, I think this is who they are. I really do need new glasses! Scrutinizing Little House extras is a good way to tell it’s eye-doctor time.)

Meanwhile, on the porch of her hotel stands Nellie Oleson. (Does she live there now? Alone? I suppose someone would have to. What if a guest needed fresh towels in the night?)

Nellie’s once again stuffing her face, no doubt with Caroline’s baked goods. I wonder if she’s lonely now that she’s out of school. I’m sure she is, actually.

Early appearance aside, this is a Nellie-lite story – which is fine since she figured so magnificently in “‘Back to School,’” and since it’s nice to give somebody else a turn.

Laura, Albert, Andrew Garvey, and a boy we’ve never seen before join the other kids, and Eliza Jane rings the bell.

All the children head inside. Not-Carl Sanderson gets in just under the wire.

This episode was written by a Vince R. Gutierrez. He’ll contribute seven more stories to the show before he’s through. 

He also would write for Little House’s sister series, Highway to Heaven and Father Murphy.

However, Gutierrez was best known as a sound editor; in fact, he was this show’s sound editor beginning in Season Four and through to the end of its run. (This show’s sound work has always been excellent.)

Plus Gutierrez did sound for the final movies, one of which he also wrote. (Look Back to Yesterday!)

It appears Gutierrez used his middle initial for his writing credits, and mostly dropped it for his sound ones. 

He won a sound editing Emmy for a movie I’ve never heard of, called 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shootout, based on some real-life gun battle between cops and robbers that happened in 1997. 

He worked on Landon’s quasi-autobiographical The Loneliest Runner, and on his final project, Us – the pilot for a new series (on CBS).

(Shoutout to all you Finnish readers out there. I know we have a few.)

Us wasn’t picked up because Michael Landon died that summer. I wonder what his projects would have been like in the 1990s? Would he have been doing heartwarming cable TV shows and movies, or would he have moved into edgier territory like much of the rest of the world? Would he still star in them all? What else would he have acted in? I said somewhere else that he would have made a wonderful George Hearst on Deadwood. Gerald McRaney did it instead; he was amazing; but still . . .

Movies-wise, Gutierrez did Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House (I’m not sure if that was shown in theaters) and Oh, God! Book II (pretty sure that was).

(Dags loves Oh, God!, but prefers Oh, God! You Devil as far as the sequels go.)

Gutierrez’s TV projects include Saving Grace and The Dead Zone, a couple Stargate specials, a TV movie about the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion – with Karen Allen, Peter Boyle, and Barry Bostwick! – and of course, the aforementioned 44 Minutes.

Finally, much of Gutierrez’s work seems to have been on what we (I mean older people) used to call “Lifetime Movies,” whether they were on Lifetime or not.

His resume contains titles like Custody of the Heart, When Andrew Came Home, A Mother’s Fight for Justice, The Familiar Stranger, Sex, Lies & Obsession and Killer Instinct.

Nor did he neglect the Hallmark Christmas line, working on Santa Who?, Finding John Christmas, Karroll’s Christmas, and finally, 12 Men of Christmas. 

(Some pretty good actors in some of those.)

Ultimately, Gutierrez became a board governor at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Good for him! Hell, I’d have given him a seat on the strength of “The Family Tree” alone, but let’s not get ahead.

Anyways, once the class settles down, Eliza Jane announces “a new project which I hope you all will enjoy, as well as learn from.” (A very Eliza Jane way to put it.)

The project is on genealogy, a concept nobody in class is familiar with.

Miss Wilder pulls down a screen displaying her own family tree.

DAGNY: Who printed this? It’s very professional-looking.

DAISY: Yeah. How did she make it into a scroll?

The family tree identifies EJ’s ancestors as her parents, James and Angeline Wilder, and her grandparents, Royal and Angeline Martin and Parley Day and Alice Wilder.

It also lists her siblings, Laura Ann, Royal, Alice, Zaldamo, and Parley Day.

There are some historical errors here, though. Almanzo and Eliza Jane Wilder’s grandparents were actually Abel and Hannah Wilder on their father’s side, and Justin Day, Jr., and Deidamia Day on their mother’s. (Deidamia!)

Also, the youngest Wilder brother’s name was Perley, not “Parley.” (The show will correct this when Perley Day Wilder himself appears down the road.)

Because she’s a TV character, as well as because anything goes in the Little House TV Universe, Eliza Jane remains unaware of these errors. Rather, she seems quite tickled to be sharing her family tree with the class.

She says students will need to make their own family trees by “the end of the month.” (We dated “‘Back to School,’” which spanned several weeks, to September of 1881-J, so presumably Miss Wilder means the end of October.)

Eliza Jane adds that siblings may work on their projects jointly.

Laura is excited – but realization dawns on Albert’s face that he knows nothing about his biological FT. (Family Tree.) 

RUTH: You know, Matthew Labyorteaux is really good.

He is. And at this point we intuit we’re probably in for a really good episode, because Albert begins to have a quick-flash hallucination that he’s behind bars. (Michael Landon’s creative garden bloomed with hallucinations, explosions, and the deaths of children.)

David Rose accompanies this with terrifying Klute–style horror music.

(It’s a great score. Scary!)

Back in corporeality, out spew the kids from school. It’s a pretty odd mix of students today, including some faces we haven’t seen in a while (Hangover Helen! The Blond Kid Who Looks Like a Weeble!). Some new ones, too. 

(The kids coming out of the school also don’t perfectly match the group we saw inside. But who cares, right?)

Laura tells Albert they should start the family tree project immediately. 

DAGNY: Who’s that kid?

WILL: Albert.

No, Dags is referring to the kid who arrived with Laura and Al earlier. He’s very freckly and might have the most obstructive bangs in the history of this show. (That’s saying something.)

DAISY: What messy hair.

DAGNY: Yeah. He looks like Peppermint Patty.

Addressing the kid as “Simon,” Albert invites him to go fishing. 

But Simon says he’s got chores. (The actor, Tiger Williams, was in a lot of stuff, including The Waltons, the disaster movie Earthquake, and The Love Boat!)

Albert won’t take no for an answer, though, and drags Simon along. 

They leave by the northern route.

DAGNY: Nobody ever uses that road. It’s in such ill repair.

RUTH: That’s probably why nobody uses it.

It’s true we almost never see anybody drive out of town past the school heading north. Most of the common destinations on this show (Mankato, Sleepy Eye, Springfield, Wisconsin, Dakota Territory, San Francisco, e.g.) are better accessed from the south road.

As for where exactly they’re going to go fishing, I’m not sure. To the immediate north of town lies feral goat country and the wasteland area where Mary used to pick up men before she went blind. 

We’ve never had indication that any of the many lakes we’ve heard mentioned were up in that region. Then again, Albert does imply it’s a secret spot, so maybe it’s a new discovery only he knows about. Remember, like Carl Sanderson was the only one who knew about the old mine Carrie fell into.

Laura is annoyed, but shrugs and then walks with Carrie to the Post Office. 

But before they get there, Pa comes a-Chonky-in’ along in the wagon, and the camera decides to let the Ing-Gals go and follow him instead.

Charles stops at the Mercantile and tells Nels he’s got a delivery.

Nels says he wasn’t expecting anything, then rolls his eyes as he sees it’s “three crates of pipe from Feldman Plumbing” – because Harriet has decided it’s time to put in a bathroom, a dream of hers since living in the hotel in Winoka.

The Oleson Institute also has a WC, of course. It’s a little surprising they got one before the Mercantile; but then again Mrs. O was feeling pretty slap-happy when she donated the school renovation.  

Anyways, it doesn’t seem like there really was a Nineteenth-Century Feldman Plumbing, though there are a few of them today.

Meanwhile, Albert and Simon have arrived at their fishing spot – a running river at least as large as Plum Creek. (Possibly larger.)

As I said, we’ve never seen anything like this up in the north before. Plum Creek in both the real and TV universes flows through town and towards the Little House (southwest to northeast), so it can’t be that.

Then again, in “‘Be My Friend’” Doc Baker shared a detailed map of all the little streams and creeks in the area, and there were zillions of them, so I won’t object.

Anyways, the fish are biting, wherever they are; but Simon is anxious because his dad’s expecting him to help with pullin’ stumps at home.

Simon refers to the body of water as a “pond,” though clearly it’s a running stream with a waterfall.

(Simon seems pretty dim, though, to be fair.)

Simon says he doesn’t like Miss Wilder, saying the workload was lighter under the Garvey Administration, even though we never saw him in those days. (He also doesn’t mention what happened to Alice.)

Then Simon casually says Albert has a free out from the genealogy project, “you bein’ a bastard.”

It’s obviously innocently meant . . . but Albert rises to his full height with a look of smoldering rage.

WILL: Rammin’ and thumpin’ alert!

Indeed, Al seizes Simon and rams and thumps him into the “pond.”

Simon quickly apologizes, but Albert still attacks. 

WILL: A lot of marine battles this season.

A man appears on the shore – Simon’s father.

Credited as “Jacob,” he’s played by Richard Lockmiller, whom we met relatively recently as the receiving clerk, Mr. Rawlings, who sort of flirted with Charles and Jonathan Garvey in “Mortal Mission.”

The town Rawlings worked in was never identified. It might be Boswell, where Bobbie Harris impregnated Anna Mears, and which, it was suggested (by me), was a mere six miles north of Walnut Grove. 

If the Rawlingses lived between Boswell and the Grove, it is possible the father worked in the one whilst the son went to school in the other. (Boswell seemed like a pretty big town, though, so you’d think it would have its own school.)

Mr. Rawlings yells at Simon that he was supposed to come straight home for chores. (I wonder how he found them?)

DAISY: Not to be too gender-normative, but the dad’s shirt is really girly.

Out of nowhere, then, the dad takes off his belt and gives Simon a whipping.

RUTH: Is Albert gonna attack the dad now?

But no, Albert goes into another nightmare hallucination, where a gray-haired man in a suit is slapping his hand with a ruler and screaming “Responsibility! Tardiness! Responsibility! Tardiness!”, his voice rising in inflection like a Dalek’s.

DAISY: Is Albert Young Charles here, or is he himself?

Later, we see Pa adding hot water to Albert’s bath in the barn at night. I love a hot bath myself, and when I once lived in a house with a bad water heater, I also used the “add boiling water” method. (My own taste of the pioneer lifestyle!)

Albert is moody, and tells Pa about the fight.

He reassures those in the audience who are worrying about poor Simon that they’re friends again.

A flute solo comes up on the soundtrack. It begins innocently enough, but before you know it, it’s transitioned us into another horrifying flashback!

Albert is in a tub at the orphanage, where a faceless washerwoman scrubs him with a brush whilst the Dalek Man declaims scripture at him (First Corinthians 6:19-20, roughly).

Dalek Man instructs the washerwoman to waterboard the kid, witch-style. (I mean as if Albert were a witch, not the washerwoman.)

DAGNY [as JOSEPH in The Changeling, in a ghostly whisper]: “My medal! . . . Father! . . .”

Dalek Man continues ranting, saying, “You will learn the level of cleanliness that is expected here! You will learn our way, Albert! You must cleanse your soul! You will learn! You will learn!”

The Dalek-y headmaster is played by Orville Sherman, a familiar TV face from shows such as Rawhide, The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, Perry Mason, Hazel, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, I Dream of Jeannie, The Fugitive, and good old Father Murphy.

He was also in the movies My Fair Lady (bougie), Westworld (middle-class), and a 1950s Invasion of the Body Snatchers ripoff called The Brain Eaters (slummin’ it).

Back in the real world, Laura throws a towel at Albert from the doorway.

The next day, it seems, Mustache Man drives past the Mercantile.

Inside, Ladies’ Cut Pinky Harriet checks out Nels’s progress installing the toilet.

RUTH: I love Mrs. Oleson’s outfits. In later seasons, she just mixed and matched.

DAISY: Yeah. She rocked the power clash. She would have been great at the Met Gala.

DAGNY: Yeah. She could have carried her water closet on her back, like André 3000.

The Olesons hug and laugh pleasantly – always a nice thing to see.

WILL: Nels is getting pretty thin on top. That’s what my hair would be like if I let it grow.

Harriet starts clowning around, saying she’ll feel like Victoria upon her throne whilst . . . you know.

(Queen Victoria was of course the British sovereign in 1881.)

Then Harriet tries flushing the new toilet, and gets sprayed by an intense blast of water.

WILL: Ha! It’s just like our bidet.

Brief side story. Yes, we have a bidet in our downstairs bathroom – gentlemen, if you haven’t tried one, you really should – and once a plumber calling himself “Denny” who didn’t know how to operate it pulled the wrong lever and sprayed himself in the face. He started screaming, calling it a “motherfucking douche-hole” and other niceties, and I had to throw him out. The kids were home; it was all very awkward. 

Anyways, I was surprised at his unfamiliarity with what is after all an increasingly common, um, fixture in American bathrooms. It’s the Twenty-First Century, Denny.

Well, Mrs. Oleson doesn’t call the toilet a motherfucking douche-hole, but otherwise her reaction is much the same as Denny’s.

She storms off, leaving Nels behind.

WILL: You know, there was nothing MacG wouldn’t do for a laugh. She was right, Landon should have paid her more.

DAISY: Changing the subject, I wonder, is there Little House erotica?

DAGNY: There has to be.

WILL: I’m not sure. I think I would have stumbled on it by now. The closest thing I’ve found was that drawing of the characters as Disney mermaids.

(Ohmigod, not to get off-track, but GadgetGal has done some more Little House merpeople pictures since I last looked! I should reach out to her for an interview, maybe. . . .)

(But anyways, back to Little House erotica.)

RUTH: Oh, there is stuff out there. You just have to look in the right place.

Well, as it turns out, Ruth is right. I won’t tell you where, and I do not encourage you to look. Because what I found, dear reader, would be difficult for even the most irony-loving fan to stomach.

Of course, not everyone felt that negatively about it.

DAGNY: Oh my God, we’ve got to do our own and make it part of the blog! Who else would? I’ll come up with the ideas, and Will, you can write them up. We can call it Walnut Steamy! 

Walnut Steamy?

DAGNY: You know, I was just reading about how now women can go topless in Minnesota. That would be a good plot for a Walnut Steamy story – the ladies try to pass a topless ordinance.

WILL: It has possibilities. Mrs. Oleson and Jud Larrabee would be against it, of course.

RUTH: I doubt anyone has written Jud Larrabee erotica before.

This conversation put me in mind of how popular modern romance/erotica books written (mostly) for a (mostly) female audience are. I have a friend who writes some, and it does seem to me that, if tastefully done of course, some formula might be developed for a successful new offshoot of the Little House Universe.

(Haven’t given the pearl-clutchers something to be outraged about in a while. Ha!)

Anyways, enough of that. When school lets out, Laura says they need to get started on the family tree project. The Random Guy who cheered for Nellie at the horse race drives by in the background, I believe.

And speaking of Nellie, here she is again, in the flesh. Not a picture, as Bertie Wooster would say.

(Not-Richard Libertini and J.C. Fusspot also drive past.)

Nellie, too, has some new costume elements this season.

DAISY: Is that a new pinafore?

RUTH: It’s a little saucy. It’s shaped like a heart.

DAGNY: Yeah. It’s almost French maid-y. It says she’s DTP. 

DAISY: Pin a heart-shaped apron to your boobs, you’ll get a husband?

DAGNY: Exactly.

Nellie says to Laura it must be fascinating researching her background and “having to spend all that time in the forest, or wherever it is you’re from.”

Nellie then claims that “the Oleson family goes all the way back to royalty.” You may think she’s lying, but remember, Nels’s cousin Olaf Lundstrom did live in a grand European chateau, possibly as the widowed husband of a Countess. (Count Olaf wasn’t much financial help during the great economic crisis of 1881-G, though. Perhaps European markets were also affected.)

Laura knows all about the Lundstroms, but she still makes a joke about Nellie’s ancestors being the Emperor Nero and Ivan the Terrible.

DAGNY: Look at that, her sleeves are rolled up to the elbows.

DAISY: Yeah. You thought Nellie’s outfit was risqué . . .

Nellie says she’s helping Willie with his family tree, and isn’t simply bringing the subject up with them because she desperately misses her old school frenemies. (Paraphrase.)

Then Nellie starts taunting Albert about not being a biological Ingalls, a fact she and her mom have already used to get at him and Laura in the past. (A few times.)

Very cruelly, then, Nellie hands Albert a broken stick and says, “This is about as much of a family tree as you’ve got!’

DAGNY: Albert should punch her.

DAISY: He should push her in the creek! A different character should do it every week.

Actually, Albert gets up to stomp away, but Laura tells him not to worry about Nellie’s idiocy.

That night, Albert has another Dickensian nightmare in which some fussy people (“Mr. and Mrs. Tilley”) consider adopting him, but ultimately don’t because of concerns he’ll be genetically “deranged” or inadequate in some way.

Mr. Tilley, Ken Letner, bears a resemblance to Kevin Spacey.

Letner had recurring roles on Falcon Crest and General Hospital, also appearing on Lou Grant, Father Murphy, and Santa Barbara.

Mrs. Tilley is Dolores Mann, who acted on Highway to Heaven, Emergency!, and Here Come the Brides. (Mind you, not the uproarious Little House episode.) 

Anyways, Albert wakes up drenched in sweat.

DAGNY: Why is he feverish? From a nightmare? I don’t know if that’s ever happened to me.

DAISY: Maybe it’s his first morphine trip.

RUTH: Yeah, he’s gonna start spewing white milk.

He literally screams out in the night, but what seems like a long time passes before Laura says, quite calmly, “Albert?”

DAGNY: I still find it unlikely they’d have them share a room. 

RUTH: Why wouldn’t they have him out in the soddy?

DAISY: Then he wouldn’t feel like part of the family.

WILL: Yeah. But on the flip side, he could have “gentleman time” whenever he wanted.

In one of a number of odd tricks with mirrors in this episode, the camera zooms in on Albert’s reflection as Pa climbs up to check on him.

Pa apparently considers putting on pants a prerequisite to checking on his screaming child; seems doubtful, but we’ll have to accept it.

Albert is fine, and apologizes for waking them. Laura says, “That’s fine, I was having a dull dream anyway.”

DAGNY [as LAURA]: “They were just hanging me again.”

Albert then wishes them goodnight . . . but he stays up thinking.

Commercial!

WILL: I can’t believe they’re still doing these disgusting Charmin commercials.

RUTH: Yeah. I liked Mr. Whipple better.

DAISY: They are disgusting, but there’s no denying Charmin is a superior product. I used to buy Kleenex-Cottonelle, but then I went to a party on Lake Minnetonka and was blown away by the toilet paper there, which was Charmin. I never looked back.

WILL: Huh! I have a friend who used to answer the complaint line for Kleenex-Cottonelle as a temp. It’s made in Wisconsin. He said it was all old men calling in saying, “Feels fine, but leaves too many damn fartleberries!”

DAISY: Well, I’m sure that was the seed for the Charmin campaign. They did their homework.

I know, I really didn’t intend on going down so many bathroom . . . avenues in this recap. But blame Vince R. Gutierrez! I’m not the one who introduced a toilet subplot.

When we return, Pa and Bandit are walking out to the barn. Looks like morning, as far as it’s ever possible to tell such things on this show.

Pa climbs up to the hayloft, where Albert is sitting sadly.

DAGNY: Have they ever filmed up here?

DAISY: Yes. The wild dogs.

WILL: And Laura hid up there from the Scientist.

RUTH: And Mr. Edwards talked about killing his family up there.

DAGNY: Wow. It’s fun to have a bunch of experts here. It’s like a SME panel at a conference.

Pa sits down to talk about Albert’s feelings.

Albert says the fact that he’s not a biological Ingalls is giving him Imposter Syndrome, and he feels like a hypocrite pretending to be one. 

(Seems weird, but remember, the name Ingalls in this Saga implies responsibility as well as privilege. It’s a name to live up to.) 

DAGNY [as PA]: “Don’t worry, Ma and I have enough sex, we can just pretend we made you.”

Albert makes an agonized little speech, then asks Pa if he would adopt him legally.

There’s no need to quote it line by line, but the conversation eventually degenerates into a cry-off between the two actors.

DAGNY: Albert is the best crier on the show.

DAISY: I don’t know, Pa’s pretty good.

WILL: They’re both Olympic-level. This is like Battle of the Network Stars.

(Melissa Gilbert actually was on Battle of the Network Stars in 1979.)

In his new-ish book, or maybe on his podcast, Dean Butler mentioned how Michael Landon would conjure tears by remembering the death of Dan Blocker, his friend and costar on Bonanza. (And real-life dad of Dumb Abel.)

Still weeping, Pa and Albert embrace.

WILL: The Albert/Pa relationship is a little too intense for me. Knowing Albert’s problems down the road make this feel like an evil omen.

Then we cut to a busy street in a city which will be revealed to be Redwood Falls, the county seat of Redwood County.

Some Ingallses have come to town, including Ma, who has left Baby Grace in the care of Laura and Carrie, despite Redwood Falls being as far away from the Grove as Sleepy Eye is (a full day’s drive).

So has Not-Richard Libertini.

Inside, the family is greeted by a receptionist we’ve met before – a couple times, actually.

She’s Naomi White (sometimes credited as Naomi Ross), who first appeared as Nurse Johnson, an attractive female nurse at the Mayes Clinic in Rochester who tended Mary after she got kicked by the horse.

Next, she played Miss Bennett, secretary to the asshole Giles Kendall, Esq.

Miss Bennett was in New York City, so let’s assume this receptionist is Nurse Johnson, who’s had a change of vocation and moved to Redwood Falls from Rochester. (Perhaps this was also related to the Great Crash of ’81. Or she might have fallen in love with a patient from Redwood Falls and moved here to marry him. Or maybe she just got tired of the runaround her patients were getting at Mayes.)

Nurse/Receptionist Johnson directs them to the office of a Judge Adams, down the hall.

(She also totally checks out Charles as he’s walking away.) 

In his chambers, Judge Adams hears the knock on the door, grabs a law book and pretends to be reading from it. (I do the same thing sometimes with Charlotte Stewart’s autobiography.)

We quickly learn that he’s not a comedy judge, but also not a particularly stern one. More kindly – even grandfatherly, I’d say.

He’s played by John Zaremba, whom I probably don’t have to tell you was in loads of shit, because if you’ve ever seen any television produced between 1952 and 1986, you probably recognize him from something.

He had recurring roles on Ben Casey and Dallas.

He was a regular on a short-lived time-travel show called The Time Tunnel. (I don’t know it. Sounds good.)

And he was on Dragnet, Zorro, Dennis The Menace, Sea Hunt, Donna Reed, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, Rawhide, The Invaders, Days of Our Lives, Lassie, The Munsters, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Batman, All in the Family, Bonanza, Columbo, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, and so many others.

Anyways, Pa gives the judge a brief summary of the first half of Season Five, leaving out Toby Noe, the football game, Mr. Ames, and the sad tale of the fat handyman, among other incidents. 

Albert chimes in once or twice as well. We all noticed that Matthew Labyorteaux has some sort of cut or scrape on his chin that they’ve covered with makeup.

Charles says the name of Albert’s institution was the Dakota Orphanage, Albert adding that it was located in the city of Pierre (which he correctly pronounces “PEER.”)

Today Pierre is the capital of South Dakota. Since the Winoka stories were all set in the 1880s, it’s not anachronistic to feature the town in this episode, though the Dakota Orphanage would have had to exist before the city’s founding in 1880, if Albert was left so long ago he can’t remember it. (Which probably means 1876 or earlier.)

And in fact, Pierre is not too far from where we located (the fictional) Winoka on our map of Dakota Territory. (Little House making perfect sense – like always!)

Judge Adams says legally, he’ll have to contact the orphanage and run the deal by them first.

WILL: Would he? Dakota Territory wasn’t even part of the United States, it didn’t really have laws.

DAISY: No, but this judge is a stickler. He’s like my dorm RA freshman year.

Ma, who’s wearing Stiffy, her sexy travel/funeral bonnet, asks the Judge to cut through the shit and give it to them straight.

Judge Adams assures her the notification is just a formality.

DAISY: This reminds me of Annie. Are Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters gonna show up with half a locket?

(You do investigate family at your own risk. I have a friend who did a genealogy project and learned his dad wasn’t his biological father. His parents were not overjoyed!)

Back at home, Nels marches up to the Harriet Oleson Institute for the Advancement of Blind Children.

Inside, Brown-Haired Mary is complimenting Hester-Sue on some “good idea” she’s had. (We never find out what it was.)

WILL: This is Mary’s first appearance this season. For the first time ever, she wasn’t in the opener.

RUTH: No! Really?

Uh-huh.

Nels comes in, and Hester-Sue says, “Oh, Mr. Oleson! What are you doing up here today?”

(“Up here” suggests the Oleson Institute is north of town . . . again, exactly where we have it on our map!)

Nels politely asks if he can use the bathroom, which cracks the ladies up, but he explains he wants to compare the toilet setup with his own. 

RUTH: This is what they did before YouTube.

Hester-Sue laughs and says, “Well, Professor, this way to the lavatory!” (Or perhaps laboratory? It’s funny either way.)

That night, Laura is working on the family tree project, and she asks if her grandmother Laura Colby Ingalls was older than her grandfather on the other side, Frederick Holbrook. (Grandma Ingalls was actually older by nine years. She was still alive in 1881 – not on this show, though.)

Ma says she has all the family birthdays written down. (Like the proper mom she is!) 

She keeps this data in the family Bible, and Albert calls down from the loft apartment that he’s borrowed same to work on the family tree project.

WILL: His hair is starting to look a little more Alberty again.

Albert implies he’s no longer uncomfortable with the project, now that he’s going to be a legal Ingalls. 

He says he wanted to prank Nellie by saying he was related to celebs like George Washington and Abe Lincoln. Ma giggles at this.

DAGNY: This is nice. These two don’t get a lot of moments together.

We get a glimpse of the family tree, which includes a lot of people we’ve already met or heard mentioned (Lansford, Laura Colby, Peter, Lydia, Polly, Docie and George Ingalls; Charlotte Quiner and Frederick Holbrook; and Henry and Eliza Ann Quiner).

(Though whether the character depicted in The Pilot is truly George Ingalls is debatable/doubtful.)

There are also a few relatives we haven’t heard of: Henry Newton Quiner, Caroline’s sailor father who died in a shipwreck; Charles’s brothers Lansford James and Hiram Ingalls (Albert misspells Hiram’s name on his chart); Martha Jane Quiner, Caroline’s sister; Joseph C. Quiner, Caroline’s brother who was killed at the Battle of Shiloh (odd he’s never been mentioned on the show, not even when Shiloh vet Granville Whipple came to town); and Tom Quiner, her youngest brother.

Albert’s family tree includes two babies who died in infancy: Baby Freddie (Charles Frederic[k] Ingalls) and a child of Lansford and Laura Colby’s simply called “Our Babe” in Ingalls family documents.  

Albert has left out a few people, probably in the interest of space: Charles’s sister Ruby, whom we (supposedly) met in The Pilot; and Caroline’s sister Martha Morse Quiner (who also died as a small child) and half-sister Charlotte Elizabeth Holbrook (who didn’t).

(As I was saying to a reader recently, to me it would make sense if the little group from The Pilot comprises (left to right) Lansford Ingalls, Polly Ingalls Quiner and her son Charley, and Laura Colby Ingalls. They’d be closer to the right ages – and they all lived in the Big Woods, unlike Charlotte and Frederick.)

Albert’s work also provides us with his other siblings’ full names: Mary Amelia, Laura Elizabeth, Caroline Celestia (I always forget Carrie is really a Caroline), and Grace Pearl.

Finally, and sadly, if you hoped to learn where Edward Warren “Uncle Ned” Ingalls, founder of the Ingalls Carriage Company empire, fits into the picture, you’ll be disappointed.

(A super-huge shoutout to Nancy Cleaveland, Janilyn Kocher and Gina Terrana, the brilliant brains behind the Laura Ingalls Wilder A-Z at pioneergirl.com/blog. I look stuff up there all the time, and I’m grateful for their hard work and superb research. Thank you!)

Now we see the thoroughfare through the Mercantile windows. (Are we getting Nels’s point of view, like with Michael Myers?)

There are lot of Grovesters doing various things in the street, but unfortunately (?) I can’t make out who they are. (Glasses?)

Charles comes into the store, but finds Nels gloomy.

Nels says Mrs. Foster is visiting her sister, who’s just had a baby, so he’s volunteering at the Post Office. (Nels? Why? For the love of God, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ALICE GARVEY???)

Charles buys some poster-board for the kids, and Nels hands him a letter from Redwood Falls.

Harriet suddenly screams offscreen, and we see a huge fountain of water gushing down the stairs.

Charles shrieks his kookaburra laugh.

But he stops laughing when he opens the letter from the county. (Wouldn’t they telegraph? The Judge said they would.)

DAGNY: Is that a new hat for Pa? It’s very crisp-looking.

After a commercial, we see Pa arriving home, after dark.

Ma asks if there was any mail, but he lies and says no. Then he immediately says he’s going to go tend to the Chonkies.

Smelling a story, Ma follows him out.

Pa hands her the letter, and in a very well-acted scene, they discuss the news: that Albert’s bio father has contacted the orphanage looking for him.

Pa says he’s going to travel to Redwood Falls tomorrow to meet him, and they hold each other.

And suddenly, here we are! 

There’s not a lot of signage in the town, but we can see a Chamber of Commerce sign on the window, and another, conveniently reading Redwood Falls, up on a wall.

Walking down the street is That Blacksmith Who Looks Like Matthew Labyorteaux As An Adult. He must have county business as well.

Not-Richard Libertini is also still in town.

In the courthouse lobby, Pa is greeted by Nurse Johnson, who, just like the judge did earlier, says she received his “telegraph.” (This show uses the terms telegraph and telegram interchangeably.)

In the judge’s chambers, we see some pictures on the wall. One appears to be Charles Darwin, and the other Charles Manson.

Judge Adams introduces Pa to Albert’s father – or would have done so, if the man didn’t interrupt him and say “Quinn’s the name” in an aggressive Southern-tinted voice.

WILL: Do you recognize this guy from another story?

RUTH: Hm. Was he a racist?

WILL: No. 

WILL: No, he was nice, but had bad luck.

RUTH: Hm. The guy with the crows? “Money Crop”?

WILL: Nope.

RUTH: Did he have an accent?

WILL: YES.

RUTH: Was it the guy who falls off the roof and causes Doc’s mid-life crisis?

WILL: Ding ding ding! [as STANLEY NOVACK, screaming:] “I’m gonna have BIG BEAUTIFUL BABY, aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Yep, this is a repeat appearance by Michael Pataki, whose resume we did up in detail for the earlier story.

Mr. Quinn doesn’t look like Albert, and I don’t know what to say about his clothes, except that it’s clear he and Charles are of roughly the same social class.

Charles flat-out asks for proof of his parentage, and Judge Adams says Quinn knows “the exact date and time” Albert was dropped off at the orphanage. (The time?)

The Judge then tells Charles that since it would take too long to research this case adequately on a one-hour TV show, he should pretend it’s already proven and move ahead with the story. (Paraphrase.)

Even so, Charles looks through a little pile of papers somebody’s put on the table for him.

Charles’s expression actually doesn’t change much – Michael Landon is wonderful that way – but his eyes become wet and he says, “How come it took you so long to find the boy?”

Quinn, who gives no explanation why he left Albert at the orphanage in the first place (and Pa doesn’t ask), says he’s done a little looking, but as a busy farmer he hasn’t had time to search for him. (And yet he had time to travel all the way to Redwood Falls from Pierre now – a week’s journey at least, probably two?)

Quinn then says, Albert “be goin’ on eleven years pretty soon now, huh?”

RUTH: Wait, Albert is ten?

Ah. Given Quinn’s established mastery of dates and times, I think that yes, we have no choice but to conclude that Albert is ten years old in this story.

Now, in “Blind Journey,” Albert actually says that he’s ten. This is an incontrovertible fact.

That story was set in 1885 of the H timeline. Since then, Albert has a) learned the art of coffin-making to the point where he could complete one alone; b) engineered Toby Noe and Amanda Cooper’s long courtship; c) orchestrated an attack on Mrs. Oleson’s vacation home (over an entire summer); d) survived anthrax; and e) took a six-week trip to fucking California! 

That’s not even to mention the events he wasn’t directly involved in (but which still took time), like Mary’s pregnancy and miscarriage, the Lar[r]abee trial, and Pa going away for months at a time to erect telephone poles and resist the advances of love-starved horse-traders’ women.

Matthew Labyorteaux was twelve in the fall of 1979, but if the show says he’s ten, then ten he must be. In fact, for the moment we’ll assume that whatever strange force keeps these characters stuck in the period between 1876 and 1885 no matter how many summers pass is also keeping Albert at the age of ten no matter what he looks like.

(Speaking of Matthew L, I wonder what he thought about the substance of this story, since of course he and his brother Patrick were adopted as well? I wonder what Melissa Gilbert thought of it?)

(I doubt Jonathan Gilbert gave much of a shit.) 

Anyways, Pa is so horrified by what’s happening that he spaces out completely, ignoring Quinn’s questions about how good a farm worker the boy is.

Trying to pull himself together, Pa starts talking about Albert’s personality and intelligence, but Quinn says, “As long as he’s a good worker, that’s all I care about.”

Charles snaps and starts shouting that he can’t believe doesn’t care about these things. But Quinn says he also doesn’t care if Charles likes that he doesn’t care. (Paraphrase.)

Fed up with this shit, Charles turns to Judge Adams and says, “What if my son doesn’t want to go with him?”

He and Quinn go on yelling at each other, with Quinn at one point shouting “I’m his papa!”

WILL: Tradition!

Finally Quinn shuts down the conversation and says he’ll head home with Albert tomorrow. (Which would be quite a trick, since it would take at least two days for Charles to drive home and bring him back.)

When he’s gone, Judge Adams says gently, “I’m sorry. He’s got the law on his side.”

I’m really not so sure. Set aside the loosey-gooseyness of the Territory not having state laws about such things, and it still doesn’t make much sense. Do parents often come back to orphanages ten years later trying to reclaim the kids they left? Would Quinn seriously expect Albert to be there after all that time? I’m not a lawyer, but these days parental rights are terminated when a child is given up, in Minnesota at least, and it’s quite hard to get them back, especially if the kid has been living with a family that wants to adopt them.

But in Little House TV Universe, apparently the state of Minnesota bows to the practices of Dakota Territory, which guarantees parental rights to birth parents with no statute of limitations.

DAISY: Why doesn’t Charles just follow him back to Dakota Territory and kill him? There are no laws there.

WILL: Yeah, feed him to the pigs, like on Deadwood! Then Pa comes back and struggles inwardly with what he’s done.

RUTH: That would be a really intense Little House.

Back at home, Albert is running around under a gorgeous sky of deepest azure or whatever it is.

DAGNY: Is this one Landon?

WILL: You know, I didn’t catch it.

DAGNY [looking it up]: Oh wow, it’s CLAX! It’s really beautiful for him.

(We also noticed the Kow 1900 has given birth to a little cowlet.)

Pa has apparently already arrived back, since Albert overhears him talking to Ma in the barn.

DAGNY: I love how Ma and Pa always sneak out to the barn to have difficult conversations.

Ma and Pa are both worked up and shouting angrily. (About the situation, not at each other.)

RUTH: Ooh. Ma rarely raises her voice.

WILL: Yeah. Not since Mary almost burned down the barn.

Pa makes his disgust at this Quinn person quite clear, saying Albert was better off back under the coffin factory. (The Winoka one, not Isaac Singerman’s.)

Pa breaks down, crying, “Dear God, they’re going to take my son away!”

David Rose layers on the perfect arrangement of Albert’s theme as Ma and Pa hold each other, sobbing.

Appalled, Albert Suddenly Runs Away. He doesn’t even drop his fishing pole – a safety no-no.

DAGNY: Those pants are pretty tight.

DAISY: Well, they’re pants for a ten-year-old, but he’s actually thirteen.

Later, Pa finds him fishing in the creek. (We’ll assume it’s good ol’ Plum Creek this time.)

In a painful scene (painful in a good way), Pa tells Albert the news, trying to spin it as a positive development. (Landon is superb in this one.)

He also says his meeting with Judge Adams was “today,” which is ridiculous, but never mind.

Albert is expressionless as Pa blathers on, which should tip him off he already knew.

“What’s my father’s name?” Albert asks finally.

RUTH [as PA]: “Isaiah Edwards.”

No, of course the name is actually Jeremy Quinn.

WILL [as ALBERT, horrified]: “I’m IRISH?”

Pa goes on about how great it is for a father and son to be reunited. It’s actually nice that Albert overheard him talking to Ma, because we aren’t worried he believes Pa’s bullshit.

Then Pa admits that in this case, he isn’t happy they’re being reunited.

Both of them are heaving and panting with emotion by now.

Overcome by his feelings, Pa Suddenly Runs Away. (A first, possibly.)

Albert stays by the creek, the tears welling.

DAISY: The thing that makes Albert a great crier is he has great crying lips.

RUTH: Yeah. They’re like a baby’s lips.

WILL: Yeah, with like a little baby turkey wattle hanging down in the middle.

DAGNY: . . .

After a break, we see Pa sadly loading the wagon.

WILL [as DADDY WARBUCKS, singing]: “And I know I’ll forget/How much he meant to me,/And how he was almost my . . . baby . . . /Maaaaaaaybe. . . .”

Upstairs, the weep-athon continues as Albert and Laura say goodbye.

DAGNY: Albert’s the one she should have married.

WILL: Yeah, not Stupid Zaldamo. [as STUPID ZALDAMO:] “Well, gaw-lee, Beth!”

RUTH: They wouldn’t even have to change their names.

DAISY: Well, they could hyphenate. Laura and Albert Ingalls-Ingalls.

We noticed that, much like Solomon Henry did when he left, Albert wishes Laura good luck on the school project.

DAISY: Actually, this whole thing is Eliza Jane’s fault.

I suppose that’s true. There is a whole thread on this show where teachers’ ideas lead to catastrophe.

“No matter where I go, or what I’ll ever do . . . you’ll always be my sister, Laura,” Albert says.

DAISY: Oh my God, this is so sad!

WILL: He defeated Michael Landon in the cry-off, now he’s working through the rest of the cast.

RUTH: Yeah. Give him the Groovy Award this year.

And the next thing you know, Pa and Albert are back at the courthouse, as Not-Richard Libertini walks by yet again. Does he work there or something?

(He’s dressed a bit like Tevye himself.)

(I’m also pretty sure that’s Mrs. Foster ahead of him on the sidewalk. That tracks with her being out of town visiting her sister the new mother. But why on earth wouldn’t she say hello to Charles and Albert?)

(You can see the sign on the window actually reads Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce – not Redwood County.)

(You can also see a carved brick stating that the building was built in 1893! Some weird fluctuations in the Little House time/space continuum today.)

They meet Judge Adams at the foot of an interesting spiral staircase.

But Albert surprises Pa by immediately taking control of the situation, asking if he could meet his father privately before the paperwork gets signed.

Albert slowly climbs the stairs.

DAGNY: Clax!!! Look at that shadow. And you know, you can tell it’s not Landon. It has its own style. It’s like Clax spent his summer watching arty horror movies.

WILL: Yeah, it’s like Vertigo. Or something by Mario Bava.

(The Spiral Staircase may also be an influence.)

Albert quietly enters the courtroom, where Jeremy Quinn is looking out a window.

The famous Athenaeum portrait of George Washington hangs on the wall.

DAISY: Oh my God, I just remembered what he does!

WILL: Yep. Albert is a fucking genius.

Quinn turns around and notices Albert. He asks him to come meet him.

And Albert does . . . but the little fucker reaches out his arms, pretending he’s blind!

ALL: [applause and cheers]

WILL: The writers probably made bets about who could use faking blindness best in a story.

Albert even walks into a chair on the way, Mary-style.

DAISY: He beat Pa and Laura at crying, now he’s going after Mary in the blind category!

Quickly appraising the situation, Quinn says he’s “been doin’ a lot of thinkin’” and he’s decided Albert would be better off with the Ingallses after all.

RUTH [as QUINN]: “I hear Walnut Grove’s got a real good blind school. . . .”

DAISY [as QUINN]: “They even got a water closet!”

Quinn wormily characterizes his decision as stemming from compassion. And I suppose his behavior could be worse. It’s not like he yells or embarrasses Albert about his “blindness,” after all.

Albert just stands there like a little robot, staring blankly.

Quinn makes to leave, but Albert stops him.

DAGNY [as ALBERT]: “Can I touch your face?”

WILL: Yeah . . . [as QUINN:] “I’ve never seen you either, Albert!”

But no, Albert asks for a kiss goodbye, which Quinn gives him – not unkindly.

WILL: This is a consistent thread in Albert’s character. He’s not afraid to lie. He’s the only person in town besides Nellie who does.

DAGNY: Well, he had to, to survive. He hasn’t been privileged like the Ingallses.

DAISY: Yeah. No prairie privilege for him! He lived in the real world.

Albert turns and actually watches his father go, a mix of emotions on his face.

Quinn returns to the judge’s chambers and says he’s changed his mind.

We get a better look at the Charles Manson picture. Actually, I think it might be Alfred Packer, the Nineteenth-Century prospector who ate (and probably murdered) five of his traveling companions whilst crossing the San Juan Mountains in 1874. (Hung in the courthouse to deter would-be cannibals?)

Just like that, Quinn signs the paperwork terminating his parental rights.

And when Charles asks what happens if he changes his mind, Quinn says with a touch of irony, “Just like the boy, you’ll never see me again.”

He leaves, and the Judge, also surprised, says, “I guess there’s some good in everybody.”

Charles runs to Albert, who says, “I guess you’re stuck with me . . . Pa.”

“I guess I am, son,” Charles says, smiling, and they hug, disintegrating into tears yet again.

Under another beautiful Claxian sky, then, they return home.

Everyone comes running, Ma flailing her arms crazily with joy.

Voiceover Laura gives us the sign-off, and that’s it for today, friends. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum.

STYLE WATCH:

Hester-Sue has a new blouse in a beautiful pattern, and pretty new apron too.

Albert wears his great textured coat again.

Our panelists found the styling of Superior Court on the door a little kooky.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: Somewhat underrated amongst The Big Classics, “The Family Tree” is deceptively simple. Matthew Labyorteaux is magnificent; all the main cast are, actually (except MSA, who’s barely in it). There’s a lot of suffering, and the story has an unusual element of tragic irony, since of course if Albert hadn’t asked to be adopted in the first place there never would have been a problem.

It’s the rare Little House that also has a sting in the tail; Albert tricking his bio-dad into giving him up and never telling Pa is pretty twisted for Little House. Ten thumbs up!

UP NEXT: The Third Miracle