The Return of Mr. Edwards

The California Ibex; or

Old Dan Fuck Yourself

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: The Return of Mr. Edwards

Airdate: November 5, 1979

Written by Arthur Heinemann

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: A beloved comic-relief character returns to this heartwarming family show and immediately attempts suicide.

RECAP: 

RAJA: You guys have a Charlie McCarthy with a Little House napkin around his neck? 

WILL: Yeah. He’s being strangled by Little House.

DAGNY: Just like us!

Yes, we were again joined by our dear friend and Original Groovester Raja, visiting from barbarous nearby Wisconsin.

First things first. A reader called Dan Tucker (no joke) has launched a delightful blog analyzing Highway to Heaven episode by episode. I know we have a lot of H2H fans out there, so please do check out highwaytoheavencast.com if you’re one of them!

It’s good timing, since I notice this week, for the first time, Highway made the Walnut Groovy tag cloud, or as I like to think of it, charted on the Groovy Hot 75.

Second things, well, whatever, whilst Raja was here, we took in an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, or “Mia,” the twee nickname by which they demand to be called these days.

Whatever you call it, it is an essential stop if you come to our fair city.

We were drawn to the exhibit because the artist’s name is Hend Al-Mansour.

You heard me right: Al-Mansour, the name from which Almanzo is (supposedly) derived! (Association explained here.)

Her stuff was good, if a little on the suggestive side.

All right, let’s plunge in. If you’ve never noticed, every Little House on the Prairie episode begins with an entertaining credits sequence.

WILL: “Violence”? That’s it? There’s some pretty disturbing shit in this one as I recall. . . .

RAJA: Ooh, Linwood Boomer’s in this one. I might need sweat management.

We begin our story with a close-up of some boots a-walkin’.

Well, a-walkin’, but with a hint of a-dancin’, too.

The boots have prominent bootstraps, which are a-flappin’.

We cannot see the person these boots are (presumably) attached to, but we can hear his voice. 

It’s a-singin’.

And here is what it (a-)sings:

RAJA: They aren’t wasting any time!

Yes, my dear friends, it is Mr. Edwards! 

Now, with a fiftysomething show which most of us have watched in its entirety at least once, there can be few surprises left.

But I would ask you to go back to November 5th of 1979. Imagine having watched the series to this point, quite logically assuming that, since Mr. Edwards was written off the show at the beginning of Season Four, we would never see him again.

A lot of people of my generation watched Little House sporadically on syndicated television, where you didn’t know what episode you’d get next. For us, then, the show is a nebulous, non-linear thing, with individual elements like Mary’s blindness, Granville Whipple, “Old Dan Tucker,” Hester-Sue singing, the cinnamon chicken, the wheelchair ride, Bunny’s death, Solomon Henry, Jason Bateman rising from the dead, Albert’s drug addiction and death (?), Mrs. Oleson telling the anthrax-stricken Nels she loves him, Mary’s glasses starting the fire, Annabelle, Mary getting kicked by the horse, Toby Noe, the fat handyman, the Winoka football game, Carrie in the balloon, John cheating on Mary, Nellie torturing disabled children, Caroline almost cheating on Charles, the blizzard, Fred the goat, Ernest Borgnine on the mountaintop, Nels decapitating Mrs. Oleson, Adam’s sight coming back, Carrie in the well, Ma cutting her leg off, “Oh, damn,” etc., etc., all melting together like a frozen margarita in a blender.

WILL: What are the first three Little House plots or moments that come to mind? Just answer quickly, no right or wrong answers. Raja first.

RAJA: Blind School inferno, Sylvia and the creepy clown, and “My Ellen.”

WILL: Very good. Now Dags?

DAGNY: The baseball game comes to town.

WILL: What? THAT?

DAGNY: Yeah. Then Frank dying.

WILL: Frank? 

DAGNY: Yeah, Laura’s baby brother.

WILL: Oh, of course. I forgot he was called Frank.

DAGNY: Number Three, “Doctor’s Lady.”

WILL: Ooh, now that’s a good one.

(Speaking of “D’s L,” today’s story was written by the author of that memorable tale, Arthur Heinemann.)

This Project is actually the first time I have ever watched the entire series in sequence, and I was surprised at the impact of seeing Mr. Edwards’s boots (or if you prefer, Mr. Edward’s boots), and more importantly hearing that song. Because it feels like forever since we’ve seen him. 

Nearly three seasons, 49 stories, 31 years in Little House Universal Time (LHUT) . . . however you want to gauge it, a long time.

Mr. Ed’s return is a surprise, and an exciting one. What kooky adventures will our favorite mountain man be having now? From this opening, it seems like we’re in for something light and fun, doesn’t it?

Not to be tiresome, and I’m aware you all know this, but some readers are just joining, and you know how I work to make this blog accessible even to the most casual visitor. So please indulge me the briefest of histories.

For three years, Mr. Edwards was arguably the most prominent series regular apart from the main cast. He first appeared in The Pilot, and continued on the show all the way through the end of Season Three.

Known for his sense of fun, nascent alcoholism and crude manners, Edwards was a surprisingly complex character, haunted by tragedy, serious addiction and violence.

He and Laura were particularly close.

Having married stick-up-her-ass Postmistress-General Grace Snider, Mr. Ed adopted three orphaned children.

He was Charles’s best friend, yet he and his family (minus effete libertine son John) moved to California in an untelevised adventure.

In real life, of course, Victor French, who in addition to playing Mr. Edwards directed a number of excellent episodes, left the show to launch his series, Carter Country, on ABC. (I never watched that.)

Apparently his departure pissed Landon off, but when CC was canceled after two seasons, they mended fences and French was invited to return. 

The rest was history, and the two remained very good friends until French’s death in 1989.

(This will give you an idea of how hard it was for them to work together . . . without laughing:)

Okay, so that’s over a thousand words from the very first shot of this episode. Let’s get on with our story, yes?

The camera pulls back, and we see Mr. Edwards is dancing his way through some sort of lumberjack camp in the woods.

DAGNY: One thing they never talk about on this show is ticks. 

RAJA: Yeah, they only care about lice and typhus fleas.

Edwards calls out “Shorty!” and a little man scurries forward.

Shorty is played by our old friend Eddie Quillan (fourth appearance). 

Shorty addresses Mr. Ed as “sir” and says the lumberjacks would speed their efforts if it meant he’d stop singing.

RAJA: Why isn’t he wearing his Mister Edwards shirt?

Indeed, Mr. Edwards wears a nice new shirt in a muted check, fairly clean, though his beehive hat appears unchanged from Season Three.

A little girl appears from the forest, and why, as Laura herself might say, it’s Alicia Sanderson!

Alicia was never a favorite of mine, but I’ve come to like her better this time around. (This is true with a number of the regulars, actually. But of course Landon knew what he was doing with casting, I don’t know why I doubted him.)

Alicia is Kyle Richards, by now a veteran of the immortal Halloween. (She’s quite likable in that movie.)

Curiously, Richards came back for a guest appearance last season, but as a different character.

Anyways, Mr. Edwards gives Alicia a big squeeze, calling her “Button.”

RAJA: If that isn’t a 1979 ribbon, I don’t know what is.

Alicia says Mr. Ed was supposed to come home for lunch, but he says it’s been a busy day.

But he adds not to worry, soon he’ll be taking a whole month off so they can go visit Walnut Grove.

DAGNY: A month? Where are they?

WILL: Well, the last we heard, they moved to California.

Alicia scampers away, dawdling to pick up some enormous pine cones.

RAJA: Have you ever seen a pine cone that size in the Midwest?

WILL: No. So maybe they are still in California.

DAGNY: Or she could be in Carrie’s dream.

Someone shouts “Timber!” and a tree starts tipping over, you know, the way they do.

Mr. Edwards sees that Alicia is a-pine-cone-pickin’ at ground zero. 

(I feel the fault of this incident lies not with her, but with the lumberjack who didn’t safety-check. Dags has a Canadian first cousin once removed who is a lumberjack, actually, and we’re sure he’d agree.)

Well, Edwards screams for Alicia to run, and she does.

But then he falls, still screaming, as the tree comes down on him.

RAJA: Nice epiglottis.

Suddenly, we cut to the Harriet Oleson Institute for the Advancement of Blind Children at night. There are crickets chirping, suggesting the warmer parts of the year. (Likely summer 1884-J.)

Ma and Pa are sitting with Mary and Adam at one of the children’s worktables. (Do they not have a lounge or the like in this gigantic Victorian house?)

Charles is reading a letter from Grace, who says Mr. Ed survived, but has fallen into a black depression since the accident.

“It seems like only yesterday he came banging through the door on Christmas!” Mary says, not particularly helpfully, or relevantly.

She’s referring to the events of The Pilot in Kansas (sixty years ago LHUT).

RAJA: What is Mary doing with her hands? 

DAGNY: She’s giving Adam a handy.

WILL: Oh, good Lord. . . .

DAGNY: I suppose it could just be feminine itching. It was the seventies. 

WILL: Yeah. Even Karen Grassle got gonorrhea once.

(She wrote about it, so no cards and letters accusing me of libel, please.)

DAGNY: If Ma the character even suspected an STD, she’d go down to the Creek and wash herself out.

RAJA: Yeah. Or do a lemon verbena douche.

(When I was young, some people believed women had a more refined sense of humor than men, but it wasn’t true then either.)

“From the letter, it sounds like [Mr. Edwards’s] mind is more crippled than his body,” Adam says sagely.

WILL: To be fair, you say that in every situation, Professor Kendall.

WILL: Plus he should talk! If running water had been invented yet, he’d hide under the bed when someone turned it on!

Adam continues his analysis. “Well, take Mary,” he begins.

RAJA: Did she also lose her ability to speak for herself?

Adam says an intervention is warranted, saying, “Heaven knows you both love [Mary], but when she lost her sight, it took an outsider to help her.”

RAJA [as ADAM]: “She threw fuckin’ potatoes at me!”

Pa asks Ma if he can travel for “a week or so” to visit the Edwardses. (Their whereabouts are still unknown, but they can’t be in California – a three-week trip away by train – in that case.)

DAGNY: Are those plastic clips in Ma’s hair?

RAJA: I don’t know, but they did miss some details.

Pa says Albert will run the farm in his absence. 

WILL: Oh yeah, Albert the perpetual ten-year-old.

Ma says no worries. Sometimes she flips out about such things, but not today.

Reminding Pa that Mr. Edwards is Laura’s original Old-Man Bestie, Ma suggests he take her along.

Pa is worried what kind of state they’ll find their friend in, but agrees.

Back in the Great Forest of Wherever, Shorty is bringing the mail to the Edwards compound whilst Mr. E sits in bed sulking.

RAJA: Do they explain what happened?

WILL: The tree fell on him.

RAJA: Yes, but what kind of injuries?

WILL: Tree injuries. Tr’injuries.

Shorty is apparently accompanied by someone called “Hap.” (The irresponsible lumberjack himself???)

I’m trying to remember what kind of mental-health issues Mr. Ed experienced when he was on the show before. 

He came to the Grove after Charles found him in disastrous shape, blind drunk and fighting bar patrons in Mankato. 

Turned out he had been undone by grief following the death of his daughter and first wife.

John Junior was a problem for him. Mr. Ed struggled to understand his aesthetic tendencies and general wussery, and bungled things when he received a university scholarship. 

(Ultimately, though, he was right to advise John to stay in Walnut Grove and marry Mary, since if he had he’d be unlikely to be murdered in Chicago, or at least less likely. But we’ve already gone over all that.)

WILL: I wonder how John would have handled the whole going-blind thing. 

DAGNY: Something tells me not great.

WILL: No . . . I suppose he’d be checking out every hot woman in Walnut Grove right under Mary’s nose.

Edwards also came to an emotional crisis when Charles underwent personality changes whilst building the railroad with the Chinese workers, even going so far as to punch him in the face and abandon him to finish the job himself. (Not my favorite story, but one of French’s best performances.)

Anyways, I’m getting away from the story, or ahead of it. 

Grace comes in, and Edwards immediately snaps that Shorty should quit it with his stopping by out of pity.

Grace says she appreciates Shorty’s support, and points out “he’s keeping the mill going for you.” (It’s unclear what Mr. Edwards’s role at this mill is. Clearly he’s in a position of authority; some fans speculate he owns it. I don’t know why, but that seems unlikely to me. He’s a terrific guy and a hard worker; but he seems more like a follower than a leader to me, he’s mercurial even when sober, and of course he can’t read or do math. Could he run a business?)

Grace changes the subject then, saying Charles and Laura are coming to visit.

DAGNY: Grace’s dress is so unflattering. The color is bad for her, and it looks like cheetah print.

Edwards immediately starts snarling at his wife, accusing her of luring their friends with tragic tales of her crippled husband.

“Maybe I did,” Grace says in exasperation. “Lord knows I can’t cope with what you’re doin’ to yourself!”

They argue, with Grace breaking down and saying, “Isaiah, please don’t do this to me! You’ve turned Carl away, and you’re making Alicia miserable!”

WILL: Carl LEFT? How long ago was the accident?

Carl’s absence in this story is never fully explained. Brian Part was thirteen when we met him in “Remember Me,” which would make Carl about seventeen by this point (and conceivably as old as 62 LHUT). 

It’s certainly plausible that a seventeen-year-old could set out on his own in those days. (Recall Johnny Johnson!)

Still, seems a hasty move.

For that matter, John isn’t even mentioned in this story. I guess he couldn’t have been much help.

Mr. Edwards says he told Grace and Alicia they should go too, and when she refuses he says, “Get out of here, go on, I can’t stand to see you cryin’.”

DAGNY [as MR. EDWARDS]: “I can’t stand seein’ you like this! That color is so bad on you, and it looks like cheetah print!”

As Grace leaves, he shouts at her to send Charles and Laura away when they arrive, but she refuses this “request” too and slams the door. (Grace’s part is a little underwritten in this one, but Bonnie Bartlett, who I’m noticing for the first time has a Barbra Streisand-ish quality about her, certainly brings it.)

We then see Alicia outside the house, which is a large and charming frame house that looks quite new.

Alicia, whose ears are definitely pierced by the way, sees the Chonkywagon approaching and happily calls for Grace.

Now, Charles said earlier that they would be gone for “a week or so.” Since they traveled by Chonky, they can’t have gone as far as Dakota Territory, since we estimated a trip to Winoka (which is relatively close to the Minnesota border) would take about a week each way.

It makes the most sense that they’d be fifty to 75 miles away from home – closer than Mankato, actually. But this makes it difficult to guess at a location, since Walnut Grove isn’t that close to logging country in any direction. 

So, I’m going to guess they’re in Little Falls, about 150 miles away to the northeast. Too far to get there and back in a week, I know; but this gig is full of tough calls that way.  

A logging hub since the 1840s, Little Falls would later become part of the Weyerhaeuser lumber empire.

Little Falls was also the childhood home of aviator, isolationist, antisemite, and Nazi-cozy-up-to-er Charles Lindbergh, whose middle name was also Augustus, curiously.

Anyways, Laura and Pa hug Alicia, and then Pa embraces Grace.

WILL: Did Grace change her outfit?

RAJA: Yeah. She probably sweat through it.

DAGNY: Or realized the color was terrible.

(Actually, watching closely, I think this is a different day. I mean, I guess it would be strange, though not impossible in those days, for the letter and the visitors to arrive the same day.)

(But if it is a different day, I think David Rose could easily have suggested that with the music. El Capitan asleep at the wheel???)

This is Bonnie Bartlett’s final appearance as Grace. Incredibly and wonderfully, or maybe incredibly wonderfully, she still turns up at Little House conventions at 96! A much-loved figure in fan circles.

(She’s a delight, huh?)

We didn’t do Bartlett’s full bio when she was introduced all the way back in the fourth episode-proper of Season One. I wasn’t quite as thorough in my researches then, but over time I learned I was missing a lot of interesting shit to talk about by keeping things so high-level. (Lucky for you I figured that out, huh?)

Anyways, reading through her C.V. is like reading through the history of TV from its origins almost up to today. She made her first splash on a 1950s soap opera called Love of Life, and she went on to act on The Doctors, The Patty Duke Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, Emergency!, The Waltons, Gunsmoke, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Hart to Hart, Eight is Enough, The ABC Afterschool Special, Knots Landing, Barney Miller, Lou Grant, North & South, Murder She Wrote, L.A. Law, I’ll Fly Away (I remember that), SeaQuest, ER, Stargate SG-1, The Practice, Firefly (!), Touched By An Angel, NCIS, Boston Legal, General Hospital, Grey’s Anatomy, Parks and Recreation, Key & Peele, and Better Call Saul.

WILL: You never told me Bonnie Bartlett was on Better Call Saul.

DAGNY: I didn’t know she was.

WILL: You watched the whole series, right?

DAGNY: Yeah.

WILL: And you didn’t notice her?

DAGNY [shrugging]: Well, Roman didn’t either.

WILL [shaking his head wearily]: I work so hard to train you guys . . .

Bartlett had recurring roles on Home Improvement and Boy Meets World, and played an antisemitic upper-class harpy on a memorable episode of The Golden Girls.

Scary-stuff-wise, she was on V and also Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, the noted Ronnie Scribner vehicle. (Both good, if I remember.)

She was in the movies Dave (my first wife loved that one) and the Olaf Lundstrom vehicle Twins (in which she played Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s mother), and the TV movies Tuesdays With Morrie and Perry Mason: The Case of the Grimacing Governor.

(I know what you’re thinking. I also was surprised she wasn’t on Love Boat.)

(Ronnie Scribner was, though.)

But of course, apart from Little House she’s best remembered as Dr. Craig’s wife Ellen on St. Elsewhere, a show I loved as a kid, but didn’t really understand.

She was great on the show, but one reason people remember that role so well is that she and Dr. Craig were married in real life – and still are. 

She and William Daniels, also known to those of my generation as the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, were college sweethearts who married in 1951.

In 1986, they made history by becoming only the second married couple to win Primetime Emmys on the same night. (The famous Lunts were the first, in 1965.)

Just like some other characters (including the Bead), Grace is one I like better now than I did growing up. Ultimately, she’s a nuanced character who underwent genuine growth on the series (another rare thing).

But I guess now it’s so long and farewell, Bonnie Bartlett! Grace Snider E will eventually return, but you won’t. (Next time Grace will be portrayed, in a choice I always find disturbing, by Ellen Taylor’s insane mother, Corrine Camacho.)

Anyways, Grace sends the girls in so she can pick her favorite prairie social worker’s brain.

But she doesn’t get past “how are you?” before breaking down sobbing. It’s sad.

Well, inside, Mr. Edwards is sleeping, or moping, face-down on the bed.

But he stirs when he hears Charles’s voice say quietly, “I always said you looked best hind-end up.”

Edwards sits up and says, “You’re lookin’ well.”

“I’m feelin’ good,” Charles says 1970s-ishly.

Chuck tries making smalltalk, but Mr. Ed is blunt.

Charles says oh, no reason, except to bring you a literal cartload of get-well presents.

RAJA: Do you think they kept these two apart on the set so it seemed authentic that they hadn’t seen each other in years?

Mr. Edwards says “Uh-huh” or sort of chuckles or something, then accuses his friends of giving him “charity.”

WILL: Head-Up-His-Ass-Man Refuses Charity.

Then, with no real warning, Mr. Ed throws off his blankets and exposes himself!

ALL: Whoa! Oh my God! Mr. Edwards!, etc.

RAJA [as CHARLES]: “They told me you had a peg leg, but this is ridiculous!”

Actually we don’t see anything, of course, though I’ve heard some viewers assumed, not illogically, that he was missing a leg here.

Mr. Ed snarls “Let me show you how I get around!” Charles tries to hand him the crutch we see leaning against the wall, but Edwards refuses it, instead hopping around on one leg knocking things over until he crashes heavily to the floor. 

Charles jumps to help him, but he won’t have it.

WILL: Was his hair really that curly, or is it a perm?

DAGNY: I bet it was a perm.

Edwards then literally crawls back to his bed, making sarcastic self-pitying comments the entire time.

DAGNY: He kind of reminds me of Mike Sheldon. You know, crawling.

“Now you can go home and tell everybody how good I crawl!” Edwards sneers, then tells Charles to go away.

It’s an ugly display, and Charles’s expression subtly turns from disbelief to one of contempt. (Landon’s very good in this one.)

RAJA: This music is epic. It sounds like Tchaikovsky. 

Pausing before he exits, Charles says, “Laura’s going to be in to visit you soon. I’ll ask you not to put on that act for her.”

His head still at the baseboard, Mr. Edwards pounds the floor impotently.

WILL: I don’t understand. Adam’s legs were crushed under the stagecoach for days, and he was fine.

DAGNY: Yes, but he was much younger and hotter.

After a break, Charles tends to the Chonkies whilst Laura has Alicia try on a pinafore she made for her. (Laura’s amazing seamstress skills again.)

Quite charmingly, Laura says even a blind person could do a better job sewing than she does, and that blind person is Mary.

Laura says they should go show Mr. Ed the pinafore, but Alicia shakes her head.

RAJA: She’s pretty in this one.

WILL: Yeah, this might be her best episode.

Kyle Richards is really good in this scene – the way she sort of has this attempt at a smile on her face. Alicia doesn’t want to upset Laura or make her feel like something is really wrong here. Maybe she’s trying not to believe something’s wrong herself. Her expression captures that.

“He doesn’t like me to go in his room,” Alicia says. “I don’t like going in either.”

Sometimes, reader, I wish I had kept track of which characters drop their G’s with present participles and gerunds (“goin’,” “runnin’,” ‘’’frigeratin’” – though no one ever says that last one) and which don’t.

Both Mr. Edwards and Grace are in the former category, but Alicia is in the latter, I’ve noticed. (The don’t-ers.)

But that makes sense, I suppose. Julia Sanderson had exquisite diction in that slow Southern style, and John usually spoke with refinement, until he decided to quit “writin’,” that is.

Carl never gave a shit about his pronunciation, though.

Maybe that was a youngest-son phenomenon in the 1880s. Willie Oleson doesn’t give a shit about it either.

Alicia goes on that Mr. Ed gets so upset when she looks at him that he yells at her.

Heartbreakingly, she says she expects he blames her for his accident, but Laura wisely shoots down that idea before she can say she blames herself, too.

WILL: It could be worse. It’s not like she killed a baby and Alice Garvey. That would be harder to live with.

Laura tries again, but Alicia politely stands her ground.

Back in the bedroom, Mr. Edwards is again lying ass-up, and now we can see he still has both legs.

Grace brings in Laura, who looks at him quietly a moment.

DAGNY: This is a Smart Laura episode. She knows what to expect, so she’s approaching with caution.

Laura then says steadily, “If you were a gentleman, you’d say hello.” (As a character, Laura is most impressive when she’s channeling Pa, and as an actor, Melissa Gilbert is amazing here.)

Drily, Mr. Edwards replies, “Well, if you was a lady you’d’ve knocked.”

He asks Laura to turn her back so he can adjust his position without impropriety. It doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with his legs.

Once he’s settled, Laura turns around. Grace remains in the room warily for a moment (Bartlett is so good here), but she relaxes when Mr. Ed smiles and Laura rushes to hug him.

Victor French really was a wonderful actor. Edwards behaves so horribly through this episode that there’s a real risk the show could have turned us against him; but moments like his smile, and the anguished look on his face when he hugs Laura, keep him in our hearts. 

“You’re lookin’ real good, considerin’,” Mr. Ed says.

Laura replies, “You too . . . I was afraid you’d be real sick.”

Mr. Edwards looks at her, unsure whether to believe she’s this ignorant of his state of mind and body. Either that, or whether to believe his pain isn’t apparent to people from his appearance. Or both. You can tell he wants to break down crying and talk to her about his feelings . . . but like a lot of men, he can’t let himself.

But he quickly says, “Well . . . I reckon you’re all the medicine I needed.” You can tell he doesn’t really believe that; and yet, you want him to, don’t you? I do, badly. This story is full of pain.

“Look at you there,” he says, “still wearin’ them braids. When are you gonna put your hair up?”

WILL: I wonder what he’d think of how Mary’s changed.

Laura gives a little smile, and Mr. Ed asks if she’s dating anybody.

RAJA [as LAURA]: “Sure, I’ve got a boyfriend who’s twenty-five years old.”

Laura skillfully turns the conversation around, saying if anybody was interested in her, they wouldn’t be “as special as you.”

RAJA: Wouldn’t they be more awkward after not seeing each other so long?

DAGNY: I don’t know. Laura never saw him as a parental or authority figure. They were just friends.

WILL: Plus, with some people you can just pick up where you left us – like us, Raja!

RAJA: Aw.

(Raja and I are school chums.)

The old pals take a walk down memory lane, again reciting some plot points from The Pilot.

But there are tears in Laura’s eyes by now. Mr. Ed gets uncomfortable then, and says he feels tired.

Laura smiles radiantly and says, “I feel much better seein’ you now, because I know you’re gonna get better.”

After she’s gone, Edwards looks out the window and sees Charles doing some work in the yard.

Grace comes in, again with forced smile, and says Isaiah should get ready for supper. Meanwhile, David us “Old Dan Tucker” on a flute in the background, almost tentatively.

But Mr. Ed points out Charles and says bitterly, “Ya see, Grace, that’s what you need – a whole man, not me.”

Grace’s face changes from faux-cheerful to sincerely aghast. (Bonnie Bartlett being no slouch in the changing-expressions category herself.)

David Rose changes just as quickly to a sour, worried-sounding minor chord.

When we return from another break, Charles is washing his face whilst David gives us “ODT” again, this time in a sentimental, Stephen-Foster-ish arrangement.

DAGNY: That hair.

Grace has decided to bring Mr. Edwards’s dinner in to him.

RAJA: Where did they get all this fancy stuff?

WILL: Grace had widow money.

DAGNY: Yeah, Grace had a widdle money.

But when she calls out “Isaiah, supper’s ready,” she finds the bedroom door locked.

RAJA: He should make her say “Supper’s over and breakfast cookin'” whenever she calls him.

Charles says they shouldn’t worry about him. Then they hear glass breaking, and Grace says with a tragic, apologetic shrug that “sometimes he throws things.”

They hear another alarming crash.

WILL: This is like the beginning of Amadeus.

But suddenly Edwards himself appears in the door, wearing his Mr. Edwards shirt at last and supporting himself on the crutch.

Sounding like his old jovial self, he says, “Now, what I’d like to know is how come you’re eatin’ without me!”

RAJA: “And God bless us, every one!”

He sits, or it being him I suppose sets down at the table, and we notice there’s a taxidermied deer watching the proceedings. Mere decoration, or potent foreshadowing? Eh? Eh? 

For me to know and you to find out, reader.

Mr. Edwards starts going on about how good the food smells, and Charles, after all a believer in middle-aged man redemption and also something of a sucker, grins widely at this sudden change.

Grace, also pleased but I doubt as naive as Chuck, tells Mr. Edwards to say the blessing, but he passes the torch on to “sometimes preacher” Charles.

Charles gladly accepts.

WILL [as CHARLES]: “We thank you for bringing me to this family, Lord, to help them heal and become whole.”

“Now what are you starin’ at over there?” Mr. Edwards says. “You didn’t think I was gonna spend the rest of my life in bed, didja?”

Even Grace smiles at that; but Alicia just looks uncertain.

Then Mr. Ed suddenly declares he’s got “a taste for some real good venison.”

Pa says back home, “the huntin’s not too good anymore,” and Mr. Ed says, “Reason for that is there’s too much civilization around there.”

WILL: Ah yes, the bustling metropolis of Walnut Grove.

RAJA: Yeah, thank God they have an anthrax epidemic every few years to keep the population down.

Charles says, “Maybe I’ll take a day off and go huntin’ around here.” (Day off?)

Mr. Edwards then surprises everybody by saying he intends to go along. 

Grace, who’s no dunce, can’t believe he’s going straight from being bedridden to a hunting trip, and Mr. Ed insults her sexistly.

DAGNY: What can she see in him?

RAJA: I don’t know. 

WILL: I bet it isn’t that he smells so great.

Laura excitedly asks if she can join the adventure, but Mr. Edwards objects. This story has a lot of commonalities with Season Three’s “The Hunters,” in which Laura goes hunting against Mr. Ed’s recommendation and winds up shooting Pa in the chest. (In fact, it’s surprising nobody mentions that incident during this episode.)

Pa says Laura can come along, and Mr. Ed complains, but doesn’t actually seem upset about it.

Pa says they’ll need somebody to do the cooking. Like Laura’s sewing, this is apparently a talent she magically acquired in between seasons Five and Six.

Of course, it’s all part of a thread we might call “The Womaning of Laura Ingalls.”

Then Grace says, “Well, I just wish everybody’d stop talkin’ and eat the food that’s in front of them while it’s still hot!”

DAGNY: Oh, Jesus Christ. What a line. . . .

Mr. Ed goes on and on, but Alicia, who apart from her pathological belief that dogs don’t go to Heaven is also no dunce, does not seem convinced at his sudden transformation.

He does manage to get a smile out of her, though, which is nice.

And the next thing you know, the hunting party is setting out, Mr. Edwards singing “ODT.” 

RAJA: It’s weird his ability to sing “Old Dan Tucker” wasn’t affected by his depression.

DAGNY: Was “Old Dan Tucker” Victor French’s contribution, or did David Rose suggest it?

WILL: I don’t know. 

RAJA: Either way, match made in Heaven.

Unusually, Mr. Ed is singing a verse from deeper into the number than he normally does. Many versions of “Old Dan Tucker” (a song that originated in the blackface minstrel shows we touched on last week) have existed throughout history, but here are the full lyrics for the one I know:

Old Dan Tucker came to town

Ridin’ a billy goat, leadin’ a hound.

Hound gave a yelp, goat gave a jump,

And threw Old Dan a-straddle on a stump.

Get out the way for Old Dan Tucker!

He’s too late to get his supper.

Supper’s over, breakfast cookin’,

Old Dan Tucker just stand there lookin’.

When that night he went to bed,

He pulled a nightcap over his head.

He tried to sleep, but it wasn’t any use,

‘Cause his legs hung out for the chickens to roost!

Get out the way ,etc.

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man.

He washed his face in a fryin’ pan,

Combed his hair with a wagon wheel,

Died with a toothache in his heel!

Get out the way, etc.

Dan wore his shirttails outside his coat,

Buttoned his britches up ’round his throat,

His nose stuck out, his eyes stuck in,

His beard grew out all over his chin.

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker went to the mill

To get some meal to put in the swill.

The miller swore by the point of his knife

He’d never seen such a man in his life!

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker the other day

Took a ride in a one-horse sleigh.

Horse ran away, sleigh upset,

And I haven’t seen anythin’ of Daniel yet.

Get out the way, etc.

As Dan came down the new-cut road,

He met Br’er Terrapin and Br’er Toad.

And every time Br’er Toad would sing,

Br’er Terrapin cut the pigeon wing!

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker climbed a tree.

He climbed so high he couldn’t see.

Stuck his head in a woodpecker’s hole,

Couldn’t get out to save his soul!

Get out the way, etc.

I went to town the other night

To hear the noise and see the fight.

All the people were jumpin’ around

Cryin’ “Old Dan Tucker’s come to town!”

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old soul

Who lived nine days in a tater hole.

Gobbler got him by the snout;

He hollered for his friends to help him out!

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker went out shootin’.

There he spied a wild hog rootin’.

Hog whistled up and set them shakin’;

That was all that saved his bacon!

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan began in early life

To play the banjo and the fife.

He played the girls and boys to sleep,

And then into his bunk he’d creep.

Get out the way, etc.

Old Dan Tucker’s still in town,

Swinging the ladies all around.

First to the east and then to the west

And then to the one that he likes best.

Get out the way, etc.

The legendary folk-music expert Alan Lomax and his family of musico-ethnologists reported there were “hundreds” of verses to the song in the folk tradition.

That includes a number of dirty ones, of which this is a pretty mild example:

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old soul,

Buckskin belly and a rubber asshole.

Swallowed a barrel of cider down

And then he shit all over town!

DAGNY: That is the best verse of the song I’ve ever heard.

Indeed. It sounds like one Mr. Ed would reserve for singing at the Silver Slipper or some such establishment. 

I won’t share the others I found with you, but I will note that in some versions, it isn’t his head Dan sticks in the woodpecker’s hole.

Anyways, David’s lush score rises to overpower the singing as the riders follow a river. (Likely the Mississippi, if they’re in Little Falls.)

We thought this music sounded a little familiar too.

RAJA: [sings “Tara’s Theme”]

DAGNY: Why do they have an extra horse?

WILL: It symbolizes Carl. They’ll always travel with a riderless horse until his return.

The party makes camp. After Laura falls asleep, Charles comments that he’d have thought Edwards would be “pretty tuckered out.”

DAGNY: Don’t say “tucker” around this guy, Chuck! You’ll trigger the song again.

“Must be the good mountain air,” Mr. Ed says, though there are no more mountains near the real Little Falls than there are near the real Walnut Grove.

Mr. Edwards then launches into an anecdote about an old friend, a Dakota man named “Seize A Black Crow,” who told him the region was an ancient hunting ground known for the odd behaviors of its deer.

Mr. Ed says “Blackie” came to an unhappy end when he grew too old to hunt properly anymore.

The next morning, the shooting party gets ready for the hunt.

WILL: Mr. Edwards’ limp is not as good as Granville Whipple’s.

Mr. Ed wakes Laura up by hitting her on the head with his crutch. Ha!

Mr. Ed calls her “Sleeping Beauty,” and we noticed she slept the night in her red dress. Why would she wear that? I suppose maybe Pa made her wear something bright for safety.

Laura wants to join the hunters, but the men say she should make breakfast and then come with them in the afternoon.

As they head out, Laura says, “No matter where they are or what they’re doing, women always end up in the kitchen.” 

DAGNY: The women’s dialogue in this one fucking sucks. “End up in the kitchen,” “I wish somebody would eat up this food!”

Charles and Mr. Edwards walk quietly through the woods. Edwards is a little slower, but doesn’t seem to be having that much trouble getting around.

Charles notices something on a tree that he describes as “fresh spoor.” I grew up in deer country, but I wasn’t familiar with that one. I guess it simply means evidence of an animal passing by.

Charles says he believes the creature to be “a pretty big buck.”

Mr. Edwards suggests that Charles try to flush the deer back to where he can shoot it from cover – an idea Chuck loves.

But there’s no love in the single dark note David Rose gives us the second Edwards is left alone.

The music builds gradually as we cut to Charles marching through the forest in a long tracking shot that manages to surprise and delight us when a velvet-antlered deer suddenly traipses through.

(The velvet, of course, confirms that we are in summertime.)

Meanwhile, Mr. Edwards is sitting on the ground snapping twigs, an action which seems innocuous, but which an unlikely alliance of oboe, brass, and gong (!) conspire to tell us is actually very bad news.

Looking grim and nervous, Mr. Edwards bites a forked piece of twig . . . and reaches for his rifle.

And just a second or two later, we see him point that rifle at his own face.

DAGNY: Holy shit.

In the orchestra pit, David Rose begins experiencing a psychotic break, and who can blame him.

Mr. Edwards reaches down, and, after closing his eyes for courage, cocks the rifle.

WILL: This needs a literal trigger warning.

As Mr. Edwards drips sweat, die Rosenmusik builds and builds. 

It’s possible, however unlikely, that this score inspired the tense “present unwrapping” motif in Clue.

Mr. Edwards takes the twig out of his mouth, and starts lowering it to the trigger.

He steels his courage, positions the stick, and aims.

This sequence goes on for two minutes and fourteen seconds – an astonishing length of time for television.

It’s terrifying, excruciating, gut-wrenching . . . and perhaps above all shocking considering this is pretty much a kids’ show.

I don’t remember seeing this one when I was a child, but I bet this traumatized a lot of you, am I right?

WILL: You know, deer-hunting expeditions never go well on this show.

It’s true. We’ve already alluded to “The Hunters,” where Laura nearly puts a bullet in her father’s heart. 

But of course there’s also “His Father’s Son,” in which John’s fears of deer, bears and guns combine to get Mr. Edwards nearly mauled to death.

Then there was the doomed Papa Delano’s successful deer hunt in “Gold Country.”

Finally, there was Charles stranded in “the mountains of Mankato,” whose attempt to forage food in a blizzard went well until it didn’t.

Well, anyways, of course Edwards does not succeed in killing himself here, because suddenly the boot of Charles Ingalls kicks the rifle out of his hands, and it fires harmlessly into the air.

(Well, harmlessly, unless it hit a raccoon or the like.) 

Charles is shaking and panting with fear. “What in God’s name are you doin’?” he says, though he clearly knows the answer.

Equally horrified, Mr. Edwards stares at Charles, then says, “Leave me be. Go on back to camp. Let me die.”

Mr. Ed’s plan clear at last, Charles snatches up the guns and says firmly, “All right, we’re going back home now.”

Edwards refuses, and Charles says, “I’ll tie you to the horse if I have to!” 

Appallingly, then, Mr. Edwards begs Charles to let him kill himself. (Forgive all the italics. It’s an intense scene!)

(I’m sorry to say, but I find all this quite believable, or at least I find the emotions, er, buttressing it very believable.) [UPDATE: Underpinning was the word I was searching for. – WK]

(If there’s one thing this show consistently gets right, it’s middle-aged man depression, a thing not everybody is lucky enough to work through by writing about Little House on the Prairie.)

Without another word, Charles turns suddenly and stomps off into the woods. 

WILL [as CHARLES]: “You can Old Dan fuck yourself!”

He takes the crutch too, presumably to immobilize his friend.

We return to camp, where Laura is fixing breakfast. She greets her father cheerfully when he returns. But he’s in no mood, ordering her to prepare for departure at once.

Surprised, Laura stands and stares at Pa, thinking. “Is [Mr. Edwards] hurt?” she asks.

“No,” Pa says. “I don’t want to talk about it now!” It’s very unlike Pa to lose control of his emotions like this. (I mean, he blubbers a lot, but this is different.)

Charles leads a horse to where he left Mr. Ed, but he’s gone.

He begins searching, with Laura tailing him a ways behind.

Then we see Mr. Edwards, who’s improvised a crutch out of a tree branch.

He’s hustling by the river, but falls down the embankment.

Charles finds him, and approaches as David gives us the All Things Considered theme in a lower octave of the piano, somewhat surprisingly.

(Here’s the 1970s version, which I’ve never heard before.)

Sounding nastily parental, Chuck dresses his old friend down.

Then Mr. Ed attacks him.

Laura comes running out of the woods, and, stunned, screams for them to stop.

Pa rounds on her, shouting, “What are you doing here, I told you to stay in camp!”

“No you didn’t,” Laura shoots back.

DAGNY: Ha! That was the best line so far.

“Well I’m tellin’ you now!” Pa says, then throws the mic to Edwards to explain what’s going on.

Ignoring Laura, Edwards just growls at Charles.

At the end of his rope, Charles says fine, he’ll leave him to die, but he’s not going to make it easy, so he’ll be taking the guns with him.

DAGNY: His hair’s limper than it was earlier.

WILL: Well, you always say it’s like a mood ring.

Laura can’t believe what she’s heard, and tries to stop Pa from leaving.

And just when you think this one couldn’t get any more traumatic, Pa slaps Laura across the face.

Twice.

The effect of this can’t be overstated.

Laura runs away, and Charles, breathing heavily, gives Mr. Edwards a look of disgust before following her.

Pa finds Laura at the riverbank and says, “I’m sorry I had to slap you back there.”

DAGNY: “I’m sorry you made me do that,” ugh. And people wonder why the women of our generation are so fucked up.

He tells Laura to ready the horses, saying he’ll stay back for Mr. Ed.

Laura embraces him, crying, and says, “Oh, Pa, I was so scared.”

Pa says he’s scared too, which is nice.

Laura says she’ll pray for him, which is also nice. 

Pa wipes the glue from his daughter’s face, and turns back to find his friend again.

Mr. Edwards is again sitting by a tree. “Why’d you come back?” he says.

“I don’t know,” Charles says simply.

Mr. Edwards then says he recently spoke to a man “from Albany, New York,” who told him about “a new invention they got there”: the electric chair.

The electric chair was in development in 1884. It was conceived by a dentist in Buffalo, and first used in Auburn, New York, in 1890. (Neither city is especially close to Albany.)

The chair is “supposed to be more humane than hangin’,” Mr. Ed says – and indeed, that was the rationale for its creation.

“Isn’t that somethin’?” he goes on. “They got somethin’ like that for folks who don’t want to die, they ain’t got nothin’ for folks that do.”

DAGNY: Wow. I never thought we’d have a medical-aid-in-dying Little House.

Charles, whose religion casts suicide as one of the worst possible sins (because it is irredeemable), looks at him grimly.

Eventually, Charles says he’s going to go shoot them something to eat.

But when we see him next, he’s just sitting on top of a huge boulder by the river, staring into space.

RAJA: Did he make that rock? Is it a giant altar?

WILL: He laid it. It’s a giant egg.

DAGNY: Nah. It’s a giant hemorrhoid.

It’s-a-Wonderful-Life–style, Charles prays for God to help his friend.

“Please show me the way,” he concludes – and the deer we saw earlier appears at the water’s edge.

Despite having said he was going hunting, Charles says, “You’re safe today, Big Fellow,” and tosses a stone to shoo the animal away.

But the deer only comes closer.

RAJA: That deer looks ridiculous. That’s not a Midwestern deer. Looks like some sort of California ibex, or something.

I don’t know about a “California ibex,” but she’s right that it doesn’t much look like the white-tailed deer we have here in Minnesota. I expect it’s a mule deer, which are more common on the west coast.

Bemused, Charles tries firing a shot in the air to frighten the deer.

DAGNY: This one’s so masculine. A lot of horns and guns and crutches. It’s drowning in phallic symbolism.

But the deer stays put.

Awestruck, and obviously interpreting this as a sign, Charles says, “Show me the way.”

Back up the river a-ways, Mr. Edwards hears a second shot, followed by Charles shouting for help.

Grabbing his makeshift crutch, Mr. Ed quickly moves to find his friend.

And find him he does – lying on the ground, his shirt all bloodied.

DAGNY: Another Pinky down the toilet.

Charles tells Edwards he accidentally shot himself and needs a doctor.

He says his only hope is for Mr. Ed to make it to Laura and the horses on foot.

Mr. Ed doubts his abilities, but immediately takes off.

DAGNY: He’s only doing this because he loves Laura.

RAJA: Yeah, otherwise I’m sure he’d let Charles die.

He falls a few times, but gets right up again, accompanied by – if I’m not mistaken – the same “forest quest” music the Rose used when Charles and Bobbie Harris were searching for Anna Mears in “‘Be My Friend.’”

WILL: This music’s intense.

RAJA: Yeah. It’s kind of like David Rose’s Boléro. He keeps adding to it.

Back at camp, Laura is worrying.

DAGNY: The writing for the women is bad in this one, but Gillie is great.

She is.

Laura hears Mr. Edwards shout her name – he’s found her.

Mr. Ed quickly tells her about the accident, saying, “I don’t know how it happened.”

And, with a note of obnoxious triumph in his voice, Charles Ingalls appears behind them, laughing, “That’s right, you don’t!”

Pa is carrying the California ibex on his shoulders. Dead, I mean.

DAGNY: He shot that poor deer? Why?

WILL: Well, as a sacrifice, like Abraham and Isaac.

RAJA: Yeah, but Abraham didn’t actually kill Isaac in that story.

WILL: That’s true – darn close, though.

(Raja and I did go to Sunday school, you see.)

WILL: It’s also like that other story, where the one brother smears dead goat over himself to trick his blind father into blessing him. Jacob and Esau?

RAJA: Yeah. Isaac’s sons, actually.

So yes, Charles smeared himself with the deer’s blood to fool his friend into helping him.

DAGNY [as CHARLES, to the deer]: “I’m sorry you made me have to shoot you.”

Mr. Edwards is astonished, apparently having no memory of how devious and sanctimonious Chuck is.

Mr. Ed looks at him for a moment, then nods without smiling.

“Laura,” he says, “as soon as your pa rests up, we’ll head back home.”

With frowning irony, he adds, “Like I say, I got a taste for venison.”

Laura and Pa burst out smiling, if it is possible to do such a thing.

As for Mr. Edwards, he shakes his head with-friends-like-these-ishly; but it’s clear he’s realized his life can still have purpose after all.

And the next thing you know, they’re arriving back at the house, Mr. Ed “Old Dan Tucker”-ing away again. (I’d say this shows how much better his mental state is, but since he’s sung the song in every situation under the sun, good, evil and in-between, I’m not sure one can make this claim.)

As the arrive in the yard, Mr. Ed gets down, saying, “I’ll walk from here.”

Then, shaking his head once more, he says, “You know, Ingalls, one of these days I’m gonna tell ya what I think of ya.”

Charles just grins.

Grace and Alicia come out of the house, and Mr. Ed embraces them.

In a gloriously cheesy final exchange, Laura say, “It’s almost like a miracle, isn’t it, Pa?”, and Charles replies – once again 1970s-ishly – “Not almost, Half-Pint. Not almost.”

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum! And farewell, BB.

Oh, one final note! The IMDb says that Vince Tortell has an uncredited appearance in this episode as Thomas, the Blond Blind Freckle-Faced Moppet, but seeing as Thomas died eight stories ago, that’s quite a surprise. He must be hiding behind a tree, or something.

STYLE WATCH: Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: Some readers have written that Season Six is where the series begins to lose its way, but if you ask me we haven’t had a weak story yet – except last week’s, of course, and even that one gets points for style, despite the jokes having aged horribly.

This one, for instance, is a triumph in every way, with sustained emotional tension that’s almost literally painful at times. Great acting, both big and subtle, from all three principals, as well as from Bonnie Bartlett and Kyle Richards.

But it is also black as night, and if there isn’t something in it that disturbs you, reader, well . . . you’re sicker than I am!

UP NEXT: The King is Dead