“Whatever Happened to the Class of ’56”

The Big Chill, Walnut Grove-Style; or

The Name’s Charles Ingalls, Motherfucker

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: “Whatever Happened to the Class of ’56” [sic]

Airdate: January 14, 1980

Written by John T. Dugan

Directed by Michael Landon

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Where do I begin? The Midwest regional Grange meeting in Milwaukee has overlapped with Ma and Pa’s twenty-fifth high-school reunion, even though they didn’t have high-school reunions back then and Ma and Pa didn’t go to high school in Milwaukee.

All their old friends are magically rich, but they’re also all depressed degenerates looking for a fix or a hookup.

In a side plot, Charles organizes a farmers’ union.

RECAP: First things first – I take back everything bad I’ve said about Elon Musk. (That covers some ground.)

Why? Well, I’ve learned that as of right now, our recap of the Pilot is included as a citation for an entry about the Little House TV series at Grokipedia! (I wonder if I can sue for royalties?)

I guess Groovy is one of the low-quality sources you hear people complaining about in articles about that site-clopedia.

Nevertheless, I’m honored to have been chosen by Grok itself. And, may I add as long as we’re talking about it: In your FACE, Wikipedia editors who didn’t find my Two Fat Ladies blog an acceptable source in 2014!

[UPDATE: Dagny just read that bit and said I should note that she said, “Readers, if you think he’s joking about this decade-long rage, he isn’t.” – WK]

Second of all, happy holidays! I hope those of you in the U.S. had nice Thanksgivings. We’d intended to visit my family in Wisconsin, but a series of snowstorms made us decide not to. (Despite my efforts to imply otherwise, Minnesota isn’t always a frozen hellhole. Our last couple of winters have been mild, in fact; but this year we’re getting an early start. It’s snowing again now, in fact.) 

Since there wasn’t time to defrost a bird, we made do with what we had in the house, fashioning a sort of “turkey” out of a lamb shoulder and a jumbo octopus we had in the freezer. It was delicious!

Anyways, we open to the pleasant image of the tumbling millwheel and the pleasant sound of the iconic 3/4 setting of the theme.

The Unknown and Dark-Bonneted Grovesters cross the bridge into a(n equally iconic) shot of the thoroughfare.

At Groveland Elementary-Middle, the U.S. flag flips in the breeze like a cat’s tail. 

It appears to be the 36-star version from the 1860s – wrong for this period, though quite attractive of course.

Inside, Charles Ingalls is addressing a gathering of men. Most of them wear hats, which seems improper since the venue is also a church.

Charles is chairing a meeting of “the Hero Township Grange.” 

We discussed the National Grange at length in the recap for “Times of Change,” in which Charles was a delegate to the annual convention in Chicago.

Disgusted by that meeting, which was an orgy of corruption as well as an orgy of sex, and by the horndog conduct of his former future son-in-law John Sanderson, Jr., Charles returned to Walnut Grove disillusioned.

The Grange also figured in the Mary Goes Blind and Winoka story cycles when its war with the rail barons made the Grove a ghost town.

Charles says the National Grange wants to streamline the way farmers buy materials.

A cynical farmer says they just want a cut of the transactions for themselves. (He’s Conrad Bachmann, who was on Highway to Heaven and in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Tremors.)

But Charles says actually, the proposal would prevent middlemen from taking such cuts. (I don’t know why he’s so trusting, given his history with the Grange.) 

Jonathan Garvey is also skeptical, but Charles doubles down and says a pilot program in Kansas is proving the benefits to the farmers.

“You got some fer-instances?” Garvey says, and Charles replies, “You bet I do, Jonathan.” (It’s possible Garvey was planted in the audience to ask this. Charles can be a web-spinner that way.) 

Charles says the going rate for a “reaper” is $275 (about $9,000 today – a little high for the period according to my research, but not out of the ballpark).

(A modern harvester today, of course, can run hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

But Charles says in Kansas, the new system is shaving off a third of that cost for purchasers.

DAGNY: Nice chest veins, Chuck.

The Grangesters, who include Mr. Penguin Man, Not-Richard Libertini, Mustache Man, and Not-Peter Schickele, are impressed.

Charles gives a few more examples, and Garvey exclaims, “Hey, I wanna save that kind of money! I think we all do!” (Like I said, an obvious plant.)

Charles calls for a vote.

WILL: Does Mrs. Oleson come in and vote against it?

No; and the resolution easily passes. 

“Now, the last thing we have to decide,” Charles says, “is who we’re gonna send to the regional convention in Milwaukee to represent our Grange.”

Guess who they pick.

Milwaukee has never been mentioned before on this show, but Bonnetheads and other wise persons will know it’s about forty miles from Concord, Wisconsin, the town where Charles and Caroline met as children on the banks of the great gray-green greasy Oconomowoc River. (This is covered in “‘I Remember, I Remember’” in Season Four, remember?)

Back at the Little House, Laura and Albert are doing homework. (Actually, Albert is playing with Baby Grace. It’s one of a few moments where we’ve seen how fond he is of her.)

Pa comes in and tells Ma they’re going on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Milwaukee. Ma rewards him with an “Oh, CHARLES!”

Pa says Albert and Laura (in that order) are old enough to run the farm.

DAGNY: Oh, of course, ALBERT and Half-Pint can do it.

As for Grace, Alice Garvey has volunteered to take care of her, and she is as we all know the consummate caregiver for small children.

Changing the subject, Pa hands Ma a letter “from Dillon Hyde.”

“Dillon Hyde!” Ma cries. “I haven’t seen him since the day he went to college.”

AMELIA: Caroline is beautiful.

WILL [smiling]: You always say that.

AMELIA: Well, she always is.

Ma explains her old classmate Dillon is now “Grand Master of the National Grange.” (The Grange originally used esoteric titles and rituals in imitation of the Freemasons. Still has a few, in fact.)

Dillon Hyde “was the richest boy in Concord,” Ma adds. “Handsome too.”

Pa looks up dubiously.

Laura asks if Ma also crushed on this Dillon, but she says she “only had eyes” for Pa. (A Seventeenth- or Eighteenth-Century expression.)

Ma says the note is an invitation “to the twenty-fifth reunion party of the class of 1856 – in Milwaukee, the last night of the Grange convention!”

(The title of this story was apparently inspired by What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, a bestselling nonfiction book that featured alumni at a reunion reflecting on societal change since they graduated.)

However, there are a number of questions raised by this invitation. 

First and foremost, if they went to school in Concord, why the hell is the reunion in Milwaukee, a city a full day’s drive away? (It’s about as far as Sleepy Eye is from Walnut Grove.)

Second, if you’re like me, you wondered if high-school reunions were a thing in the 1880s. The answer is no, they weren’t, though college reunions were emerging across the United States around that time. High-school reunions didn’t come around till decades later. 

Third, would Charles and Caroline even have graduated together? In real life, Charles was three years older, and remember, in “‘I Remember, I Remember,’” Caroline appeared to be about three years older than him.

I suppose it’s possible; but since in 1856 the real-life Charles was already twenty, it seems funny he’d still be in school.

Fourth, were there even enough kids in this “graduating class” to justify a formal reunion? There weren’t more than fifteen students in the Concord classroom, and half of those were Charles’s and Caroline’s own siblings.

Finally, and this admittedly is less a question than an observation, but if this is in fact the twenty-fifth reunion of the Class of 1856, that puts us in 1881, which means we’ve traveled in time again and begun a new timeline again (“M”).

More on these items later, perhaps. 

Anyways, we cut to the Mercantile, where Harriet Oleson is finishing a transaction with Mrs. Foster.

Mrs. O is in a good mood. She even says “You have a real nice day!” as if she’s Dolly Parton.

Caroline approaches the counter, and things get weird as Harriet takes her shopping list and starts complimenting her wonderful handwriting.

DAGNY: Oh my God, Harriet. . . .

Harriet says Mrs. Foster told her Dillon Hyde also has a “fine hand.” Mrs. F, she says, mentioned that Hyde “wrote to somebody here in Walnut Grove.”

WILL: Mrs. Foster’s professional ethics are as bad as Doc Baker’s.

Caroline dryly reports she was the letter’s recipient, and Harriet expresses comical shock.

WILL: This seems bizarre – is the Grand Master of the National Grange a celebrity or something? 

DAGNY: They’re rich, so she’s probably familiar with the family.

Caroline says she and Charles are Mr. Hyde’s old classmates, and are going to their twenty-fifth reunion.

Mrs. Oleson encourages Caroline to buy a new dress for the occasion, saying “We can work something out!” when she frets about the cost. 

“After all,” Harriet chuckles, “your credit’s good here.”

DAGNY: She’s like the clerk in Pretty Woman.

Really in an exceptionally good mood today (did Nels succumb to her advances last night?), Harriet says not only will she let Caroline buy on credit, she can have it half-price!

AMELIA: How much would those dresses be?

WILL: I don’t know – maybe five dollars?

AMELIA: How much is that?

WILL: Like, one fifty range?

AMELIA: Probably not that much. Those are clearly homemade.

WILL: No, I think she ordered them. Mrs. Whipple is dead, remember.

Then Harriet adds that “I can guarantee you, I will be dressed to the nines” – origin obscure, but probably around by 1881 – “when I have my twenty-fifth reunion!”

Caroline bursts out laughing at the idea it hasn’t yet been 25 years since Mrs. O was in school. The laughing is fine; her mistake is explaining what she’s laughing about.

Well, she asked for it.

At that moment, Baby Grace breaks a crystal pitcher. Looks expensive, but Ma just laughs. (You wouldn’t think she’d take this so lightly. They can’t afford anything but tin cups for their own home!)

Mrs. Oleson pettily says with that added expense, the Ingallses’ credit is no longer good enough to finance the dress.

Caroline, who didn’t want the fucking dress in the first place, keeps laughing, and Mrs. O says, “I suppose you think it’s funny! You know, you have no more credit!”

“Of course it does!” Caroline says – an answer which doesn’t make any sense. (We will need to watch her for signs of laudanum relapse. She really has been terribly giggly in this scene.)

In a strange insult, Harriet screams “You’re senile!” as Ma staggers out of the shop.

Next we see the ol’ Number Three train steamin’ up. 

A conductor who looks like Carl Gottlieb, who wrote the Jaws screenplay, shouts “All aboard!”

(He’s J. Edward McKinley, a veteran of Perry Mason, Bonanza, The Munsters, Batman, Gunsmoke, H2H, and Airport 1975.)

Anyways, Jonathan Garvey has taken Charles and Caroline to the train station in Springfield, but he doesn’t say or do anything of consequence. A number of readers have complained about the lack of significant action for the Garveys this season, and as usual when a number of our readers come to a consensus, they’re right.

Speaking of lack of substance, Ma and Pa then have a romantic but content-free conversation on the train, the only significant part of which is Ma saying she considers Pa more handsome now than he was as a teenager.

WILL: It’s true. I’ve seen I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Oh, and Charles also describes Dillon Hyde as “a pain in the butt.”

We then see what must be the site of the Grange convention, since it has a (semi-nude) statue of the Three Graces, the symbolic icons of the organization, in a fountain near the street.

AMELIA: Whoa, that statue.

DAGNY: Yeah. Big city, big titty.

AMELIA: How many nipples do we see on this show?

WILL: Counting Charles’s?

AMELIA: No, just women’s.

WILL: Well, there was that top the Bead used to wear. . . .

(If you want to find out what Charlotte Stewart said when asked about that, you can check out our interview with her here. It was the first question we asked.)

Anyways, this must be Milwaukee, although the statue of the Graces is identical to the one in front of the Grange headquarters in Chicago.

Standard issue for all regional offices, no doubt; only everything else in the shot is identical to that Chicago street too. 

Milwaukee also appears to be vivid in color, whilst Chicago looks dim and dingy. But you know, all the soot from the Great Fire.

Complicating the matter is that on the corner of the city block, there’s a sign which says Fleischmann’s Bakery – which was indeed a famous real bakery in the 1880s, but in New York City. (Of Fleischmann’s Yeast fame.)

I see there’s an art museum I didn’t notice when we did the Chicago story.

Also, there’s a wall painted the same color as the sky, which creates a sort of optical illusion if you look at it right.

DAGNY: Yeah, I see that. They should have painted it with a Laverne & Shirley mural instead.

WILL: Yeah. That would stop errant balloonists from flying into it also.

A snooty-looking hotel clerk is checking in Grangesters at the front desk.

He calls for a bellhop, saying, “Show Mr. Hawkins to Room 312.”

The bellhop leads Mr. Hawkins, who resembles a Happy Days–era Ron Howard, through the busy lobby and to . . . (wait for it:)

. . . an elevator!

I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did. (The elevator, I mean – not that 1880s Milwaukee should have a Ron Howard lookalike. He’s surely some ancestor of Richie Cunningham’s.)

The elevator did exist by 1881, and there’s no reason to think a cosmopolitan city like Milwaukee wouldn’t have one.

In a nifty shot, the elevator rises to reveal Ma and Pa gawping at it.

At the front desk, they talk to the clerk. 

WILL: They should be careful. In “Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City,” the desk clerk turns out to be the Purple Pieman in disguise. And he sort of talks like this guy.

Among the Grangesters in the lobby is the Alamo Tourist from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. I don’t know why he’s there, since Charles is representing the Hero Township grange.

Then again, we’ve seen the Alamo Tourist in a number of other places, including Mankato, Sleepy Eye, Rochester, and both Winoka and Columbia, Dakota Territory. 

He has Springfield connections too. He was amongst the team who installed the phone lines between there and Sleepy Eye.

And he was implied to be a fan of the Springfield Green Stockings. That in itself doesn’t prove anything, of course, but I think he may move around a bit.

And, of course, he was at the national convention in Chicago in 1877-E. So that checks out, I guess.

The next bit is rather disturbing. As Charles is checking them in, a man’s voice screams “CAROLINE QUINER!” 

The next thing we see is a large, wavy-haired man with a wide-open mouth rushing toward the camera. He looks like Tucker Carlson crossed with the Great Goblin from The Hobbit.

The man brays “CAROLINE!” again. Ma looks amused, Pa looks confused, and the Purple Pieman looks, as I was . . . disturbed.

Ma then recognizes him as “Arnie Cupps,” a name I find vaguely coarse for some reason.

This Cupps man, who’s also a Grange delegate and who speaks in such an exaggerated American accent that I thought the actor must be British, hugs Caroline and they laugh together. (Would etiquette of the time allow a man to touch a woman other than his wife like that in public?)

“I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, CAROLINE!” the man brays. (Bruh, if you know her so well, you know she pronounces her name Caro-len, not Caro-line.)

WILL: So can I just put “bruh” in where people used to say “dude”?

AMELIA: Yeah.

Caroline brings this Cupps over to see Charles, whom he also remembers from childhood.

All of Cupps’s dialogue is brayed or screamed, but I’m not going to continue styling it all-caps, for the sake of readability. Take the tone as a given.

Anyways, Cupps brays that his wife, Hattie, will be so pleased to see her.

Then he (outrageously!) kisses Caroline on the cheek and says goodbye, walking backwards and braying that he’s selling a large piece of property and he CAN’T WAIT FOR THAT REUNION! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the all-caps for very long. Bruh.)

I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be drunk or just “colorful,” but he staggers a bit and actually smashes into some people as he’s leaving.

This alarming person is played by James Gallery, whose resume is filled with all these TV shows that defined my youth: Salem’s Lot, M*A*S*H, Benson, Bosom Buddies, Diff’rent Strokes, St. Elsewhere, Perfect Strangers, ALF, Mr. Belvedere, and more.

Caroline says Arnie must have married Hattie Simpson, another classmate of theirs.

“Well, he hasn’t changed,” Charles remarks with amusement.

The Purple Pieman tells the Ingallses their room is ready, adding “Have a nice day!” 

As they follow the bellhop, Caroline says, “Arnie Cupps was voted most likely to succeed!” I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this, but I’m pretty sure that just like they didn’t have high-school reunions in the Nineteenth Century, they also didn’t have contests for “most likely to succeed,” “biggest flirt,” “most likely to drop their phone in the toilet,” etc., like they do today.

Then Pa says he’s afraid to take the elevator. The bellhop assures him it’s perfectly safe, and Ma says she’s so excited to try it.

AMELIA: Is that the guy from The Haunting?

DAGNY: I thought it was the guy from West Side Story.

WILL: Both those guys are Russ Tamblyn! And no, but it does look like him.

No, actually it’s Lynn Philip Seibel, who went to prison here in Minnesota years after the series was over. (Unpleasant story, sorry to bring everybody down.)

Anyways, Pa says he’ll never trust a contraption like that, and Ma sadly tells the bellhop they’ll climb the seven flights of stairs instead.

AMELIA: No, come on, Ma!

DAGNY: I hate when she does that. I hated it when I was a kid and I hate it now. “Oh, you want to walk? Then I’ll walk.”

WILL: But Charles is at fault here, really. It’s fine he didn’t want to take the elevator, but he should have said, “No, no, you SHOULD do it!”

Ma and Pa’s hotel room is very grand. In fact, you’d think they’d be a little more wowed than they are.

WILL: Kind of a garish color scheme. Even I can see that.

There are a dozen roses in a vase on the table, as well as a bottle of real French champagne – compliments of Dillon Hyde for Caroline.

Chuck raises an eyebrow at this.

Another bellhop appears at the doorway (this actor was called “Woody Tracy” and never went to prison for anything, as far as I can tell) with a message. 

And saying, “Compliments of Mr. Dillon Hyde,” Charles hands the wine to him! 

AMELIA: He gave it away? It was a present for HER!

DAGNY: Yeah. He didn’t even ask her.

We know Pa is a teetotaler, though he will take strong spirits if medically necessary, and once appeared to be on the verge of having a glass of hard cider with Baker Makay.

And I suppose we’ve never seen Ma drink alcohol. There was that time Adam’s ass of a father brought some wine to the Little House, but we didn’t actually see anyone drinking it.

(Again, I assumed that was because they have no glassware, though.)

Well, Charles reads the message, which is an invitation to a “soy-ree” hosted by “Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus Sawyer.”

WILL: I don’t buy him not knowing how that was pronounced. He reads Emerson, for God’s sakes.

The party is to be in the “Gold Room” of the hotel. (Just like in The Shining!)

Caroline doesn’t recognize their hosts’ names, but there’s a note at the bottom saying Mrs. Sawyer is their former classmate, Amy Phillips. 

Ma notes Amy had a huge crush on Charles, but Chuck quickly says Amy had a scrawny, ugly body and was nicknamed “String-Bean Amy.” (A little too quickly, I might suggest.)

Caroline says she needs to pick out her dress, and Chuck says, “I don’t think you have to wear anything. . . . It says right down there at the bottom, ‘dress optional.’”

DAGNY: This is just like that Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray doctors Robert’s wedding invitation.

Pa heads to the steam room and Ma starts getting her rust-colored number ready to wear.

AMELIA: I want to see this handsome Dillon Hyde.

DAGNY: Me too.

WILL: Don’t get your hopes up.

After a break, a shot of the street establishes the hotel is near a used-furniture shop.

Cut then to the soy-ree already in progress.

There’s a string quartet and a cadre of red-jacketed waiters (the jackets looking suspiciously similar to Nels’s ringmaster outfit in “Annabelle”).

And the whole thing is well attended by people dressed in finery.

The camerawork in this scene is well done. You really feel like you’re walking amongst these partygoers. (Haskell B. this time.)

One of the waiters picks up a tray of champagne glasses and a large ornate beer stein. (We see a keg of beer labeled Platz, and we can make out the words GOTT and WEHR on the stein. Could it say Gott zur Ehr, dem Nächsten zur Wehr?, a little German rhyme celebrating the bravery of firefighters? I found a few steins online that bear the slogan.) 

The waiter, an efficient-looking little bald man, conveys us to a group of partiers that includes the braying Arnie Cupps.

The other members of the group are three women, one of whom says she drinks nothing but champagne, and a man in a rather loud check jacket.

After distributing the champagne (in French), the waiter offers the stein to the man in the loud jacket, saying, “And the beer you ordered, Monsieur Platz.”

The man, who’s large and ruddy-faced and speaks with a German accent, says, “You are sure this is Platz beer?”

“Oui, certainement, Monsieur Platz,” the waiter says.

(The actor playing the Efficient Little French Waiter manages to inject a lot of personality into a tiny role, I think. He’s Damian London, an American who had a recurring role on Babylon 5 and who also appeared on Get Smart, Highway to Heaven, and Seinfeld.)

The woman who said she only drinks champagne, apparently Mrs. Platz, says in an affected “upper-class” drawl that “Jacob won’t drink anything except his own product.”

Herr Platz is proud of his beer, quoting his own slogan, “When you drink Platz beer,/You’re always full of good cheer.” Everyone laughs.

Herr Platz takes a long pull from his stein, which is very large. (I’m pretty sure it is the firefighter slogan. Perhaps Herr P is a volunteer fire chief in his free time, and received the stein in thanks for his service during the Great Fire?) 

Mrs. Platz makes a disapproving face at her husband’s drinking as the others watch him in amusement.

Jacob Platz is probably a satirical combination of several German-born Milwaukee beer barons of the time, including Valentin Blatz (maker of Blatz), Joseph Schlitz (maker of Schlitz, “the beer that made Milwaukee famous”), and Jacob Best (the founder of Pabst Brewing Company).

(I was never much of a beer drinker, but I always thought Schlitz wasn’t bad for how cheap it was.)

Herr Platz is played by John Lawrence (who’s not German, as you might have already guessed). He was on Ben Casey, My Three Sons, Family Affair, The Doris Day Show, and Fantasy Island.

He was also in some interesting movies, including John Carpenter’s They Live, the Michael Mullins/Lisa Reeves vehicle The Pom Pom Girls and the John Furlong vehicle Supervixens.

He was also in a horror movie oddity from 1972 called The Asphyx. I liked that one –  about a Victorian scientist who tries to discover the secret of immortality and winds up killing his whole family, more or less. Not scary, but plenty weird.

Well, in come Ma and Pa, and one of the women from the Platzgruppe rushes over exclaiming “Charles Ingalls!”

She’s blond, very attractive, and richly dressed: Amy Phillips Sawyer.

She’s very friendly, and seems like a nice enough person to me.

She looks like she’s about the same age as Charles and Caroline, too. There’s a lot of bickering on the internet, it seems, about the age gulf between the actors who play all the classmates. Suspension of disbelief, fandom, I beg you!

Besides, if you’ve reached a certain age and look at pictures of your old chums, you’ll find the spectrum runs from Baby Finster to Mumm-Ra and everything in between. I have reached that age.

Back in the Platz collective, Arnie Cupps is relating an hilarious anecdote. We don’t get to hear the story, but the punchline is “I just stuck a foot in each wheelbarrow!”

Platz laughs his head off. I think these two are okay.

WILL: He’s kind of like if somebody gave Mr. Hanson a muscle relaxant.

Amy P-S brings Ma and Pa over to meet her husband “Thad,” a tall, rather grim-looking man who nevertheless greets them quite pleasantly.

There’s another man there too, a “Winthrop Morgan.”

Amy steers the Ingallses over to meet the Platz faction. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Caroline hugs Arnie Cupps’s wife Hattie, who also looks and seems like a pleasant enough person. (Hattie barely has a part, but the actor playing her, Jean Howell, was on You Are There, Dragnet, Schlitz Playhouse (hey, Schlitz!), Gunsmoke, Dennis the Menace, Perry Mason, Days of Our Lives, The Waltons, and Eight is Enough.)

Amy also introduces the champagne-loving lady as “Florence Garner,” a not-so-pleasant alumna who as I guessed is now married to Herr Platz.

“Florence, it’s so good to see you!” Caroline says, to which Mrs. Platz gives Caroline the up-down and hilariously responds, “Thank you.”

(Lynn Cartwright plays Mrs. Platz like a Disney villainess. She’s quite aware she’s the real star of this show.)

(Cartwright had a very interesting life history, which an unusually thorough bio at the IMDb will tell you all about.)

(She’s probably best-known, to people my age anyways, as “Old Geena Davis” in A League of Their Own.)

(I once met somebody who was in that movie. At the time, she was doing a play where she portrayed a British person, and she wouldn’t drop her fake accent when she talked to you. No, it wasn’t Madonna.)

(I actually won’t say who it was, to protect her privacy. Some really crazy people read this blog, you know! You should see some of the notes I get.) 

Moving on, Cartwright was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Schlitz Playhouse, and Adam-12, and in the movies The Wasp Woman and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.

But the most wonderful thing I learned about her is that she was married to Leo Gordon – Milo Stavroupolis in “The King is Dead”!

(He also wrote the Wasp Woman screenplay, incidentally.)

The two made a good-looking couple. Charles-and-Caroline-level good-looking, practically.

Suddenly a “silver fox” appears in the room. 

He runs straight to Caroline and kisses her.

WILL: This is the handsome Dillon Hyde.

AMELIA: Oh, I see. Well, he’s about as attractive as Dick Van Dyke.

WILL: Yeah. Or Alan Alda crossed with a weasel.

Hyde is played by Liam Sullivan, who was on The Twilight Zone (twice – both good ones), Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lost in Space, Star Trek, Daniel Boone, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, The A-Team, St. Elsewhere, Highway to Heaven, The Young and The Restless, The ABC Afterschool Special, and Dallas.  

Then he shakes Charles’s hand, saying, “Nice to see you, Charlie-Boy.”

AMELIA: Nobody calls him “Charlie.”

WILL: There was that one prostitute. . . .

Mr. Hanson, of course, also called him Charlie when they first met, but soon settled on “Sharles” as a better nickname.

Meanwhile, over at the booze table stands a woman in a gorgeous gown covered with roses.

She’s actually dressed a bit like Carmen from the opera, with black lace and the whole bit.

She’d look, as Captain Corcoran said of Little Buttercup, like “a plump and pleasing person,” were it not for the fact she’s clearly drunk. And no wonder, since she’s literally double-fisting it.

She’s also talking to herself, saying “Edith Ross married a midget.” (That’s the second story in a row where this offensive term has been used in the script.) 

Well, this is Mrs. Hyde. “Clementina!” Mr. Hyde says. “This is Caroline Quiner!”

AMELIA: He’s weird and he needs a haircut.

(Some people have questioned whether these people would have known Ma as Caroline Quiner or Caroline Holbrook, since (remember) as we saw in “‘I Remember, I Remember‘” and “‘Author! Author!’”, she seriously identified with the Holbrook family.)

(But I don’t know. Probably she experimented with different names in her teenage years, like Amelia did going back and forth between her full name and “Mimi.”)

Clementina Hyde puts down her drinks and embraces Caroline with a vigor which surprises her.

Clementina slurs, “Help me do my homework, Caroline, please?” and laughs sloppily.

She turns her attention back to drinking, muttering that she never understood algebra. You’re not the only one, Clementina.

Finding the champagne bottle empty, Clementina crosses the room and seizes another from a waiter.

Dillon Hyde then asks Caroline to check out the terrace with him.

Clementina, meanwhile, refills her glass and starts muttering about Edith Ross again. The camera stays with her a long while, though.

A waiter carrying a very 1970s-looking platter of fruit and vegetables aids in the transition to a different corner of the soy-ree.

Does anyone else remember the eighties infomercial that was selling knives, narrated by a man who got progressively more excited as he watched what they could create out of foodstuffs, culminating in him screaming “THE COLORFUL JOLLY HEN!” when that creature was introduced as a sort of grand finale. I’ve looked for it online for years; no use.

On a couch, Thaddeus M. Sawyer is boring Mrs. Platz by talking about his successful farm machine manufacturing company.

(There actually was a major farm equipment company at the time named L.D. Sawyer and Company; but in the real world they were based in Canada.)

They briefly discuss the Grange co-op proposal, which Arnie Cupps says is of interest to him because he owns fifteen thousand acres of farmland.

Then, in one of those moments I dread in work meetings, Cupps asks Charles to compare his accomplishments to his own. Actually, I dread being asked any question in a work meeting, comparative or not.

Charles must admit he only has 160 acres – not far off from the size of the real-life Ingalls property in Walnut Grove.

Florence Garner Platz judges this icily.

Charles is embarrassed, but shrugs her opinion off.

[UPDATE: Reader Leslie writes:]

Why doesn’t Charles mention that in addition to his modest farm, he is the owner of the most successful mill and freight business in Walnut Grove? Plus all of his many side hustle carpentering jobs? When you go to your high school reunion, you have to play all of your good cards. And was there any mention of their daughter and her husband running a school for the blind? (Everyone knows you need to keep your wealthy friends apprised of potential philanthropic opportunities. I’m sure Harriet wouldn’t mind.)

[Couldn’t have put it better myself. – WK]

Speaking of acreage, out on the balcony Dillon Hyde is bragging to Caroline about his 2,000-acre estate, which he calls “The Willows.” (It’s not impossible, but it’s rare even for grand properties in this part of the country to have names.)

Arnie Cupps appears then, and in a side conversation asks if he can borrow $100 (about $3,200 today). He claims he was pickpocketed and assures Hyde he’ll pay him back when “the bank opens.”

He doesn’t say what he needs it for. Since the weekend is all-expenses paid, I’m not sure what it could be. I doubt he needs $3,200 to tip the waiters.

Inside, Morgan Winthrop (or is it Winthrop Morgan?) is trying to convince Charles to oppose the co-op proposal. He notes that a change would compromise the existing harmonious relationship between the manufacturers and the hardware cocksuckers who sell the equipment.

Charles is annoyed, and, finding Caroline alone, he asks if they can leave.

WILL: I always get excited to go to formal events like that, but it’s true, they are very rarely fun.

(I got to go to our regional Emmy Awards once. Our project won, which was great! But it really wasn’t fun at all, unless you like seeing local TV meteorologists and the like getting super-drunk. Which does have its points.)

A little surprised, Ma says she hasn’t even talked to Hattie yet; but Pa, who isn’t always likable in this story, says she can do that over the next couple days.

Charles says he can’t stand “all the pomp and circumstance.” (This expression is from Shakespeare – Othello – but it’s unclear if it was already being used to mean “fussy formality over nothing” until the Twentieth Century.) 

We then see Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer talking to someone Sawyer addresses as “Senator.”

Apparently a U.S. Senator, since he mentions “the new Farm Bill,” this is likely Angus Cameron, since he looks just like him. 

A Republican, which meant something quite different in the 1880s than it does today (and how), Cameron had intended to retire from the Senate in 1881, but opted to continue in that body when the senior Senator from Wisconsin, Matthew H. Carpenter, died in office.

Technically, there was no Farm Bill until the Great Depression, though.

Clearly a wily old fox, Sen. Cameron jokes about flirting with Sawyer’s wife whilst letting Sawyer pay for his campaign. (Cameron was married in real life, but obviously he isn’t here. As W.S. Gilbert observed, married men never flirt.)

Then Cameron spots “the Governor” (at that time, William E. Smith, another Republican) and excuses himself.

(In a nice touch, a guy turns to his wife and points out the Senator as he passes.)

Ma and Pa approach the Sawyers, and Pa says what with travel, they’re tired and are going to withdraw.

Dillon Hyde appears out of nowhere and says “Charlie-Boy” can go, but Caroline should stay!

Ma seems to consider this, but ultimately declines.

Not to be put off, Hyde invites them to “The Willows” for an afternoon of country pursuits the following day.  

DAGNY: “The Soiree Party”? Isn’t that redundant?

WILL: It says “The Sawyer Party.”

DAGNY: Oh.

“And bring your riding clothes!” Hyde calls after them as they depart.

Strangely, the camera does not follow any of this characters at this point, but rather returns to Clementina Hyde, who’s still drinking alone.

AMELIA: Huh? Does she wind up being really significant to the story or something?

WILL: You’ll have to wait and see.

Up in their room, Caroline is making some unfortunate comments about how fat Clementina has gotten.

Then she gently asks Charles why he’s so moody.

AMELIA: Yeah, Pa’s been a complete dick since the moment they got here.

Charles annoys me a bit in this episode, too; but now he’s true to character and starts talking to her about his feelings.

AMELIA: Aw.

WILL: You like that, huh?

AMELIA: Yeah. I’m back on Team Charles.

He admits to feeling jealous of their old friends, noting that Arnie Cupps said he owns 15,000 acres of land.

Caroline says, quite sincerely, that she wouldn’t change anything about their lives.

Charles calls Hyde a “pain in the butt” again, and they laugh.

AMELIA [as CHARLES]: “Hello, room service? Send a big bucket of popcorn up to Room 702.”

In fact, they do appear to be getting amorous.

DAGNY: That’s pretty good foreplay, just shaking and rolling around.

The next morning, Charles receives a message that the Minnesota Grangesters are having a confab before the start of today’s session to meet with Winthrop Morgan (Morgan Winthrop?), the man who tried to get Charles’s attention last night.

Ma says she and Hattie are going to see the town today.

(I haven’t been to Milwaukee in years, but it has a special place in my heart. There’s a wonderful zoo and lots of arts offerings, and I adore their IrishFest.)

(I saw Tommy Makem perform in Milwaukee once, and Doc Severinsen, and the Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch, and Mannheim Steamroller.) (Not all together, of course.)

Then we see Morgan Winthrop (Winthrop Morgan?) finishing up a presentation to a large full room of farmers. I wouldn’t think there would be that many Minnesotans there, but I guess if each of Minnesota’s 1,700+ townships has its own “subordinate Grange,” this is only a small slice of their representation.

While Winthrop/Morgan is speaking, we see Thaddeus Sawyer slink into the back of the room. 

Charles demands to know who Morgan/Winthrop represents. 

AMELIA: Those are some eyebrows.

Indeed they are. Winthrop/Morgan looks a bit like Ian Holm playing Ernest Borgnine.

He’s Phillip Pine, who was on every TV show in the Twentieth Century at least once, including Superman, Gunsmoke, Schlitz Playhouse, Peter Gunn, Wagon Train, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, The Fugitive, Lassie, Star Trek, Hawaii Five-O, Ironside, Mannix, Police Woman and Story, Barnaby Jones, Quincy, and Santa Barbara.

There’s a wonderful quote of his at the IMDb: 

My career has given me the chance to live out many facets of my own character. Two years ago I had the role of a judge on a crime series. While on a break, my mind wandered and I realized I had played, at one time or another, every character represented in the room – the young hood, the defense attorney, the D.A., the accused, etc. And I had found satisfaction in playing each one.

How wonderful! It may seem boring to list out all these old shows and movies for these character actors, but I really love their accomplishments, and this quote is one reason why.

Anyways, Morgan/Winthrop admits he works for the Loyal Order of Hardware Cocksuckers, and Arnie Cupps screams “WE’VE BEEN FLIM-FLAMMED!”, which made us all laugh. (So Arnie’s part of the Minnesota delegation? Where does he live?)

Winthrop/Morgan says if the farmers vote against the proposal, the retailers will give them a 10-percent discount on all goods.

Arnie Cupps points out this offer is meaningless, since they can set the prices at whatever they want.

Morgan/Winthrop warns them that if they fail to comply, the retailers will start yet another trade war. (I don’t know much about the Nineteenth-Century agriculture industry, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the politics actually could be cutthroat like this.)

Sawyer, who we notice has one drooping eyelid, watches the back-and-forth with a sinister look.

AMELIA: Is that John Lithgow?

No, it’s Ken Norris, who was involved in making some strange horror films, including Bizarre and Too Scared to Scream. (I don’t know them, but Bizarre looks interesting.)

There’s also a Ken Norris who was on Doctor Who in 1965 (“The Space Museum”). The IMDb is confused on this point, but I think that’s a different person.

Again according to the IMDb, our Ken Norris was also an “aeronautical engineer who, with his brother Lew, designed Donald Campbell‘s record-breaking Bluebird CN7 car and hydroplane Bluebird K7.” I’m pretty sure this is a different Ken Norris too. (Just as well, since Campbell was killed racing the K7.)

Quite idiotically, Winthrop/Morgan explains his association’s strategy to control the stupid, dumb farmers.

But as self-appointed leader of the SDFs, Charles leaps up and says fuck you, man! (Paraphrase.)

All the farmers then rise in a body, roaring “Together! Together! Together!”

WILL: Do they tear that guy limb from limb?

Thaddeus Sawyer, obviously Morgan/Winthrop’s client, gives him a look of displeasure.

Next we see Ma and Pa arriving at “The Willows.”

We don’t get a good look at the house, but I think it’s the same one they used for the Burton School for the Blind in “‘I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away.’”

All this is accompanied by a sweepingly noble melody from David Rose. I think we’ve heard this one before, but I’m not sure where. Sounds a bit like the theme to an eighties primetime soap. Falcon Crest, perhaps.

They’re having a sort of Room With a View–style garden party behind the house.

It’s unclear what time of year it is – the trees appear to be in full foliage, but later we’ll see bare branches and Ma and Pa all bundled up.

Dillon Hyde and Amy Phillips Sawyer appear on horseback, the actors apparently doing their own riding (though Liam Sullivan seems to struggle with his horse a bit).

Hyde greets the Ingallses, and Charles at last tells him he prefers Charles to “Charlie.” 

Hyde is surprised Caroline isn’t dressed for riding, but she says she doesn’t, “at least, not that kind of a horse.”

AMELIA: “That kind of horse”? Saucy!

WILL: Oh my God, child.

Actually, we’ve never seen Ma ride a horse on this show, though presumably she would be able to.

Hyde calls Charles “Charlie” again, and Charles corrects him again. (I’m of the opinion people don’t need – or get – to approve their own nicknames, but I understand that’s an unpopular view these days.)

Charles pokes at Hyde for being surprised at his informal attire.

AMELIA: He’s very Grandpa Kaiser in this one.

WILL: Yes.

Amy Phillips Sawyer calls for Charles to join her and take Dillon’s horse. (Chonky-model.)

Charles climbs aboard and off they go.

And, to goofy music, Dillon Hyde says he’ll show Caroline around the property in a surrey.

DAGNY: What’s with this silly, sloppy music, David? It doesn’t match the circumstances in the least.

The leapfrogging melody abruptly morphs into weird horror chords on the organ. It’s possible David Rose was altered when he scored this scene.

We see Clementina and Thaddeus Sawyer, then, sitting together and drinking. They see the couples heading off and give each other inscrutable looks.

Meanwhile, Charles and Amy Sawyer race across the countryside. 

It does look fun, but I don’t know. I once went on a riding tour of a rain forest in Central America, only my horse split off from the group and took me on a long and terrifying solo ride through muddy, slippery, mountainous jungle in the pouring rain. It was very Romancing the Stone.

It turned out the horse knew what he was doing, and I survived. It was the best and worst experience of my life! 

Anyways, they stop briefly at a duck pond.

WILL: A lot of ducks this season.

Sitting on the grass, Amy and Charles make smalltalk, with Amy saying she always wondered what became of him.

In a sudden turn, she then starts talking about how unhappy her marriage is.

WILL: She looks like Lynda Day George.

Actually, she’s Lynn Benesch (sometimes spelled Benish), who was on Gunsmoke and had substantial parts on One Life to Live and The Young and The Restless.

It’s a bit odd there are so many Lynns in this episode. Isn’t it?

Amy says she envies Caroline’s life, then takes Charles’s hand and begins stroking it.

AMELIA: Whoa. Women are always throwing themselves at him, aren’t they?

Amy says his hand is “so strong,” then presses it to her face.

WILL: This music’s weird too – it seems like sincerely romantic stuff. Are we supposed to be hoping he’ll dump Ma?

Charles looks at her dispassionately, and says the strength of his hands comes from muckin’ the auld byre. (Paraphrase.)

Actually, despite its neutral tone, his delivery is pretty devastating. Amy gets the message and releases his hand. “I think the horses have had enough rest,” he says, again dryly.

A flood of emotions is spewing from Amy’s face. Well, perhaps that’s not the best way to put it. Anyways, Landon lingers here too; my point is he seems unusually interested in the emotions of female characters in this one.

Whatever the reason, Lynn Benesch knocks it out of the park with her subtly changing expression.

Meanwhile, Dillon Hyde stops the carriage in a remote spot as Caroline smiles rapturously.

He asks Caroline how often they get “up to Milwaukee.” (Since the city is southeast of Minnesota, I’m not sure how that’s “up.”)

Caroline says, “I haven’t been here since my folks went through on their way to the Big Woods.” (This is even more confusing. In real life, Caroline was born in Brookfield, a Milwaukee suburb, and her family moved to Concord when she was six.)

(In the Little House TV Universe, it’s suggested that the Holbrook-Quiners relocated to the Big Woods at some point, but in actuality they stayed put, and it was only Charles’s family that moved. Either way, Milwaukee is forty miles in the wrong direction if one is traveling from Concord to the BWs.)

Dillon then scootches over closer to Caroline and makes an extremely clumsy pass at her. 

With a subtle change of expression (we’re overflowing with subtle Cs of E this week), Ma quotes Charles, calling Hyde “a pain in the butt” yet again.

DAGNY [as MA, hysterically]: “Charles Ingalls is the most amazing man who ever lived! I don’t need any money! I will live in poverty with him the rest of my days!”

Looking embarrassed, Hyde gets the horses going again. Obviously, this scene could have taken a much nastier turn, and I’m pretty surprised there’s no element of fear in Grassle’s performance. Ma must not get that vibe from him, though.

Anyways, both these failed seductions happen awfully quickly, but I do give this one points for how much ground it covers in a timespan of a single episode. (I would not have wanted to see it as a two-parter.)

Back in their hotel room that night, Charles makes some standard “working-class Joe” complaints about rich-people food. Come on, Chuck, you haven’t lived till you’ve had mock tur-kraken instead of boring old Thanksgiving turkey!

Needless to say, it’s clear neither of them told each other what happened at The Willows.

Charles notices Caroline is far away in her mind, and when he asks what’s the matter, she bursts into tears.

AMELIA: She’s that upset that somebody made a pass at her?

DAGNY: Well, he wasn’t hot like that handyman.

Still without saying what happened, the two have a little conversation about how all their old friends have been changed for the worse by their wealth and success.

DAGNY: This is a common theme on this show – success and riches not equalling happiness. Michael Landon must have struggled with that.

Charles says the reason their marriage is more successful than the others’ is because it’s founded purely on love, not earthly accomplishment. 

“Without you, I’m nothin’,” he adds. “I’m a farmer and I love it, and I’m a father and I love it.”

DAGNY: If you’re happy and you love it, clap your hands.

Very sincerely (and wonderfully), Pa tells Ma how much he loves her, and asks her to marry him again. “I thought you’d never ask,” she says, laughing.

The proposal may seem to come out of nowhere, but as a literary device I think it’s an excellent way to express that these two, had they the option, would choose their own life over any other. Indeed, that is a rare thing in this world.

Pa turns off the light, and yes, I think we can presume this is one of the rare times a “Popcorn Twofer” is implied.

DAGNY: This show.

Now, you’d think this might be the end, but of course there’s still the formal reunion to get to. As with “The Angry Heart,” Landon the showman can’t leave well enough alone, and needs to tack on a crazy chaotic over-the-top coda to remind us we’re watching Little House.

That coda begins with a shot, finally, of the exterior of the hotel, which is named Sherman House.

There was a famous Sherman House hotel in Chicago, but apparently in the Little House TV Universe it was built in Milwaukee instead.

The final session of the Grange convention lets out with all the farmers cheering. “You won’t be celebrating for long!” snarks Winthrop/Morgan.

Civilly enough, Thaddeus Sawyer says to Charles, “So, you voted for the co-ops, despite the odds?”

WILL: Now he looks like a Boris Karloff character.

DAGNY: Yeah, or somebody from a David Lynch movie.

Restating the theme of last week’s endorsement of socialism or mob justice, depending on your taste and interpretation, Charles says with the farmers united as one, the odds are on their side.

“Come on, Charles!” Arnie Cupps brays. “That reunion party tonight should be a WING-DING!”

Morgan/Winthrop scuttles after Sawyer as he heads for the elevator, protesting that he can still change the farmers’ minds.

Sawyer boards the elevator, gives Winthrop/Morgan a cold look with his good eye, and says, “Good day, Morgan.” (Some PR clients are never satisfied.)

The elevator floats up, with Sawyer staring down the entire time.

DAGNY: Landon director?

WILL: Yes. You still got it.

DAGNY: Actually, I think this whole episode would be better if David Lynch directed it. Think of it – the elevator, the desk clerk, the parties. . . .

Now comes the reunion. 

AMELIA: This is so bougie.

WILL: Yeah. Is that JD Vance?

Everybody is there: Clementina dances by herself as Arnie Cupps gives her a worried look, the Sawyers chitchat with each other, and Herr Platz slurps from his stein.

DAGNY: That cutlery sound in the background is too much.

Now, before you get your hopes up, no, Sorrell Booke does not return as Mr. Watson of deportment!-deportment!-deportment! fame.

Perhaps now is the right time to tell you, though, I think I’ve matched up all our dramatis personae with their childhood counterparts.

Dillon Hyde is there too, sitting alone, and drinking. No champagne for him tonight – hard liquor only.

Charles and Caroline are dancing happily. She’s wearing Boobilicious 2, which she’s augmented with a peach-colored bow.

DAGNY: I hate how they infantilize Caroline by giving her such a huge bow.

Florence Garner Platz remarks that they provided all the beer for the party for free. “I like to be generous!” Platz himself says cheerfully. He really seems not a bad sort.

But Dillon Hyde looks up nastily and says, “Free advertising.” He’s clearly quite drunk.

Then Hyde leans in and says to Platz that his beer is awful.

Poor Platz looks around in dismay.

Walking carefully, Hyde crosses the room, ignoring his own wife, who’s standing next to an enormous eagle carved out of ice, watching him.

Hyde walks straight up to the dancing Ingallses and says, “Mind if I cut in, Charlie-Boy?”

Charles gives him a small smile and says, “As a matter of fact, Dillon, I do.”

Hyde starts to lecture Charles about the etiquette of a formal dance, but Charles simply says, “I never said I had etiquette,” then adds, “Why don’t you dance with your own wife.”

AMELIA: Yes, Charles! Ma’s so into him.

Hyde watches them unsteadily as they dance away.

DAGNY: Now he looks like Mr. Humphries.

Clementina watches this scene with interest, then smirks, then starts laughing.

Hyde looks at her with disgust. He heads over to her and, saying, “You are making a fool of yourself,” drags her off the dance floor.

Arnie Cupps reports that the insulted Platzes have gone.

Hyde shoves Clementina onto a chair, saying, “Sit down and stay down!”

“Hey, take it easy, Dillon!” Arnie says.

Hyde rounds on Arnie, saying he hasn’t repaid him the hundred dollars, and announces to whoever will listen that Arnie is a “four-flusher” (that one was new to me) who claims to own thousands of acres when in fact his farm is even tinier than Charles’s.

Very alarmed, Arnie says he’ll pay him back, but Hyde sneers at him, then shoves him into the little efficient-looking waiter.

DAGNY: Oh!

Broken dishes go flying as Arnie falls to the floor.

The musicians, who have added a few players since the soy-ree, stop suddenly. (Unprofessional, guys. You’re being paid to keep things groovin’.)

Dillon Hyde stares furiously at Arnie, and, saying “You son of a -” (this is very strong for Little House), staggers forward as if to attack him again.

But he’s stopped by Charles, who tells him to cool off.

In response, Hyde grabs him by the arm and says, “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, Charlie?” 

In a quiet voice, Charles says, “Watch what you’re takin’ hold of, Dillon. I been workin’ hard for twenty-five years.”

AMELIA: Ooh hoo hoo! Boom, Charles!

Hyde considers the size of Charles’s bicep and releases him.

Charles helps the humiliated Arnie Cupps to his feet.

Clementina Hyde, who’s wearing another gorgeous gown, gets to her feet and approaches her husband.

DAGNY: They shouldn’t have put her in that necklace. It’s too small for her neck and I’m sure it hurt her terribly.

In a voice dripping with contempt, Clementina observes that “the great Dillon Hyde is scared of a poor dirt farmer.” (The actor is Mary Elizabeth Corrigan, who also appeared on an episode of Maude.)

Dillon spins around, hissing, “Shut up!” Clearly this is not how he pictured this party going.

But Clementina stands her ground. 

“You’re nothin’,” she says quietly, then makes a short, devastating speech about how despite his wealth, he’s a failure as a human being. 

“We’ve got nothin’,” she continues, voice breaking. “We’re nothin’!”

And Dillon slaps her across the face with the back of his hand.

DAGNY: OH!

Instantly, Charles steps forward and punches Hyde in the gut as hard as he can.

DAGNY: Oh my God!

Or maybe not quite as hard as he can. I notice that Charles, famously a lefty, hits Dillon with his right fist.

Hyde crumples and stares, shocked by pain of a sort he’s surely rarely experienced.

“The name’s Charles, Dillon,” Charles says. 

AMELIA: Yeah. [as CHARLES] “Charles INGALLS, motherfucker!”

Then he takes Ma by the arm and they leave.

AMELIA: He should have made sure the drunk lady got out of there safely.

The musicians, who didn’t stop this time, continue playing, and the party goes on.

AMELIA: Everybody just resumes talking and laughing?

DAGNY: Yeah. “Oh, whatever, it’s Wisconsin.”

It’s true that the people of my home state have a high tolerance for alcohol and alcohol-related behaviors.

Then we see a stagecoach driving through what’s presumably the Minnesota countryside. (The Little House theme is playing again, you see.)

Charles calls out to the driver, a mustached man but not the Mustache Man, telling him to drop them off at the “next farm on the right.” That seems strange. I doubt stages made personal dropoffs at people’s homes.

But what do I know? And either way, it means the body of water the stagecoach just passed must be Lake Ellen.

Charles wakes Caroline, who’s been sleeping.

DAGNY: My God, how could anyone sleep in that bumpy carriage?

The coach drops them off, and they stand at the head of the driveway looking at the Little House.

WILL: What time of year is it? It looks cold, suddenly.

It does – the wind is blowing hard and everything’s brown. Moreover, Ma and Pa are wearing their winter coats. . . . Oh, well, let’s call it late fall of 1881-M.

The kids come running out and everybody hugs. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

AMELIA: Yay! And who gives a shit about Mary?

DAGNY: Yeah, it’s as if she isn’t on the show anymore.

STYLE WATCH: The Bead’s old hotsy-totsy red dress is on the rack in the Mercantile.

So is Boobilicious 2!

I like the cat figurine on the shelf in the store.

I’m not sure if it’s perfect for the period, but I love the elevator design.

Dagny and I had a thorough discussion of whether Caroline’s dress is rust-colored or deep red. Evidence inconclusive.

Dags also commented on the hotel’s “vagina wallpaper.”

A lot of stiff detachable collars in this one.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Clementina Hyde’s headpiece seems to have John Bevins’s carved rose beads in it.

Ma’s elegant headscarf got high praise from our panel.

Dags liked Dillon Hyde’s black jacket.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT:

AMELIA: I have to admit, I really liked that one.

DAGNY: Yeah. The fight scene was pretty good.  I bellowed three times at it, which is a good indicator of quality. It brought it up to about a B for me. Plus I liked Mrs. Oleson.

I have a hard time getting past the absurd premise myself, but as with many of the stories I’ve “always disliked,” I found it actually full of things I do like. (Here’s a tip: If there’s a Little House story you hate, watch it six times in a row. I guarantee you’ll like it better by the end of the process! You’d think it would be the opposite, I know.)

It packs quite a lot of plot into a single episode, the “proposal” scene is lovely, and Landon and Grassle are both perfect in it. Mary Elizabeth Corrigan’s Clementina is complex and surprisingly sympathetic, and Lynn Benesch is terrific as the unhappy Amy.

That said, it’s pretty twisted for a kids’ show, what with all the implied swinging.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time. And again, happy holidays!

UP NEXT: Darkness is My Friend