Silent Promises

It Must Be Hard to Ghost Somebody in Walnut Grove; or

The Deafisode?

(a recap by Will Kaiser)

Title: Silent Promises

Airdate: January 28, 1980

Written by Carole and Michael Raschella

Directed by Maury Dexter

SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Laura teaches herself ASL in about ten minutes to help socialize a deaf teenager, who then falls in love with her.

RECAP: 

WILL: I’m struggling to come up with a theme for this year’s Walnut Groovy Awards.

DAGNY: What year are we on?

WILL: 1979 to 1980.

DAGNY: How about Caligula?

That has real possibilities. But first things first! By now I’m sure you’ve all heard about The Great Reconciliation!

I don’t have much to say about this except congratulations and warmest wishes to both Melissas. I’m sure I speak for many fans when I say we’ve been rooting for an armistice for a long time. What a gift, and the timing couldn’t be better. Merry Freaking Christmas, everybody, and a happy New Year to the world! 

All right, with that out of the way, we begin this week’s story with a disturbing image: Jake Brandywine has escaped!

I’m just kidding, of course. It’s actually the real Almanzo this time.

He’s loading what at first I mistook for one of those big “snake-charmer”-style wicker baskets onto a wagon. (The sort of thing you might have gotten at a Pier 1 Imports in the nineties, if you’re a person who might have gotten that sort of thing there.)

Actually, it’s a big spool of rope.

Mustache Man sails by, deflecting our attention to the school.

David Rose’s mood, by the way, is warm and contemplative.

The school vomits out all the kids – the first true Vomiting Schoolhouse Opening we’ve had since “The Lake Kezia Monster” last season.

The kids today are Not-Art Garfunkel, the Sharp-Faced Brother, Andrew Garvey, the Blond Kid Who Looks Like a Weeble, Not-Ellen, the Midsommar Kid, Not-Linda Hunt, Albert, the AEK, Willie, Carrie, Not-Gelfling Boy, the Misbehaving Little Girl, and assorted others.

Andy shouts an invitation to play baseball o’cat to Albert. 

Seventeen episodes into the season, Andy has only had a good part in a single story. Will that change today? 

(Spoilers: No.)

But before the game begins, Willie takes Albert aside.

OLIVE: Even Willie has a gross teenstache now.

Willie has procured a bunch of firecrackers, which he suggests using to frighten “Old Man Dunsworth,” an apparently nasty Grovester we’ve never met before – currently doing business in the bank.

Albert is sympathetic to Dunsworth, saying he’s miserable because he’s old, and that’s just what happens to old people. (You can say that again, bruh.)

OLIVE: Albert looks like Jess from Gilmore Girls.

But Albert agrees to help when Willie bribes him with licorice.

WILL: Albert operates according to a different moral code than the rest of the Ingallses. He’s more like Lampwick in Pinocchio.

Meanwhile, Andy throws the ball to Not-Gelfling Boy, addressing him as “John.” (We previously identified the actor as John Bisom.)

We also see Eliza Jane and Laura descending the steps, Laura clearly kissing Eliza Jane’s ass the whole way down.

Willie and Albert head to the Mercantile, where Willie starts rummaging through drawers. (For matches?)

But Nels catches them.

Improvising, Willie starts showing Albert an entry for a model train set in a catalog. (This one’s simply titled Mid-West Department Store Mail-Order Catalogue.)

Nels wanders off, and Willie’s search resumes whilst Albert flips through the catalogue.

We get a quick look at a page of hunter’s accessories (dog whistles, ammo bags, decoy ducks and the like).

Albert then glances through the pet supplies, which include doghouses, leashes, and “castrating knives.” (Good Lord.)

Also croquet sets, for whatever reason.

Albert points out the doghouses to Willie, who couldn’t care less, except to criticize the prices. (We don’t see what they’re asking.)

Turns out Willie was actually searching for the licorice to pay Albert. Dammit, Willie, don’t waste time on that now! Your quarry is leaving the bank as we speak.

(We see some Blanke’s coffee on the shelf behind him.)

Losing interest in the plot, as it were, Albert says he’s going to go make Bandit a doghouse out of scrap wood.

Out in the thoroughfare, Not-Richard Libertini trudges along (he seems tired) as a wagon carrying an unknown man and teenage boy crosses the bridge.

We see this script was written by the Raschellas, with Maury Dexter at the helm for a third time.

The man driving the wagon stops the horse.

OLIVE: Is that Frodo?

DAGNY: I thought he kind of looked like Emo Philips.

The man taps the boy on his shoulder and loudly tells him to stay put. There’s something odd about the exchange.

OLIVE: Oh my God, is this the deaf episode?

WILL: Yes, it’s the deaf episode.

ALEXANDER: Deafisode?

(It’s not spoiling much to reveal this at this point, Reader. It’s the deafisode.) 

OLIVE: I love this one, but it’s so stupid.

Anyways, the boy watches the kids playing their game. (The Sharp-Faced Brother gets a hit.)

The boy, who is thin, perhaps ambiguously ethnic, and has an angular face like a carved chess piece or something, climbs down from the wagon and walks closer to the school.

The weather, as you probably guessed, is fair, suggesting we’ve made it through the winter and landed in the spring of 1882-M.

Meanwhile, an elderly man with mutton chops comes out of the bank – Dunsworth. (The actor gets no credit – not sure why. He does have a line in a moment.)

It becomes clear Willie’s plan was more deranged than we imagined, as we see him throw the firecrackers beneath Dunsworth’s horses.

Dunsworth isn’t even in his buggy yet when the fireworks go off and he’s thrown to the ground.

ROMAN: Now, would this be second- or third-degree murder?

[Actually, reader Vinícius reminds me the real-life inspiration for Willie Oleson, William B. Owens, was permanently blinded as a child when a firecracker exploded in his face. Horrible, but thanks,Vinícius!]

Dunsworth is okay, though, and we thank him for his contribution to this story, which is now complete.

Willie disappears, and we see Laura, Manly and Eliza Jane shooting the shit over at the Feed & Seed.

Laura notices the empty buggy is racing towards the new kid, who, quite tellingly, shows no awareness of the fact. 

Well, brave Laura leaps into the thoroughfare and saves him.

(I’m not sure how they managed this stunt without putting the actor in real danger. It’s very well done.)

The kid falls unconscious. I’m not sure why, since all Laura did was shove him out of the way.

But Zaldamo picks him up and takes him to Doc’s.

A little time passes, and we see the kid’s dad pacing in Doc’s reception area.

Laura and Almanzo are also there.

OLIVE: Why is Almanzo still there? Laura’s nosy, but wouldn’t he just go back to work?

DAGNY: Because Laura saved the kid, and Almanzo is saving Laura from BEING a kid.

Doc comes through his magic curtain and says the kid’s going to be fine. (This time he really will, though.)

We gather from their conversation that the boy, named Daniel, is deaf; but Doc is surprised to hear the dad (whom he addresses as “Nathan”) say his son “can’t think.”

Doc lectures the dad about how special education can benefit people with disabilities. (Would he really need to explain this to anyone local, given the largest operation in the town is a Blind School?)

But Nathan shuts Doc down. You get the sense Doc makes this speech every time he sees them.

WILL: So is Dean Butler, like, twice as tall as Melissa Gilbert?

Doc starts talking to Laura about sign language, and Daniel smiles at Laura shyly.

DAGNY: He’s cute. She should fall in love with him. He’s a much better match than Zaldamo.

OLIVE: Yeah. He looks like he could be a model. He’s very beautiful.

So, Daniel is played by Alban Branton, who really was deaf. He did a little acting in the early eighties (this is his most notable appearance), but was better known as a beloved teacher at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, where he himself had been a student.

Sadly, Branton died in 2016 of cancer at just 53.

Anyways, the moment Daniel and his father leave, Doc produces two books on American Sign Language, or ASL.

DAGNY: Doc would just have these books?

WILL: He has books and papers on every topic. That’s why he had that map of all the little creeks.

WILL: And where do you think Eliza Jane got that werewolf book?

Actually, Doc tells Laura he ordered them for Daniel’s dad to use, but he wasn’t interested.

That night, Little Architect Albert is drawing up blueprints for Bandit’s doghouse.

Ma is terribly upset to hear that Laura jumped in front of a runaway buggy.

DAGNY: Why? She’s done more dangerous things than that.

Without actually mentioning the Blind School, Ma and Pa reflect on how sad it is there are no local deaf schools to provide Daniel with a proper education.

ROMAN: You’d think Adam might have some connections, wouldn’t you?

WILL: Yeah. He just won Disability Educator of the Year.

(Actually, it’s strange Laura doesn’t consult Mary and Adam at all during this adventure, but I’m getting ahead.)

Then Pa goofs on Albert, saying his doghouse obsession is the dumbest subplot yet this season. (Paraphrase.)

Next we see somebody nailing a board to a fence – barely.

DAGNY: Has he ever hammered a nail before?

ROMAN: Maybe he’s blind.

ALEXANDER: Maybe it’s Mary!

It isn’t, though – it’s Daniel’s dad, whom Laura addresses as “Mr. Page.”

Laura is offering her ASL-teaching services to the family, but Mr. Page is as dubious as we are about her abilities to do such a thing.

He points out, Danforth-style, that Daniel’s state of being is God’s own will.

ALEXANDER: Is that a bullet hole in his hat?

But Laura argues back, saying God gave people their own wills as well. (A sensible view. I’m reminded of the old joke about the drowning man who declines to be rescued because the shipwreck was God’s will. When he gets to Heaven, he asks why God took him, and God says, “Took you? I sent the fucking Coast Guard!” )

(My dad likes that one.)

Mr. Page sighs and says well, it can’t hurt to try.

That night, Albert annoys everybody (audience included) by hammering his doghouse whilst others are trying to sleep.

ALEXANDER: Maybe he should build it outside the deaf guy’s house.

Laura comes downstairs blathering about her new tutoring gig.

She mentions she’ll stop by the Wilder Farm to tell Eliza Jane about it, but Pa’s hip to her jive.

Laura frowns, and Pa makes a goofy frowning face back at her. Ha!

But when Laura realizes he’s just teasing her, she bares the fangs happily.

OLIVE: What did they use for makeup in those actual times?

WILL: Sheep poop and pig blood.

The next day (again), Albert is working on the doghouse (again).

Laura comes out, and Albert notices she’s wearing Ma’s perfume.

DAGNY: Lemon verbena?

WILL: I don’t think Ma wears that. . . .

Laura tells Albert to mind his own beeswax, an expression we discussed when we recapped “At the End of the Rainbow.”

The two bicker for a while, but their conversation is mostly idiocy.

OLIVE: I can’t believe they have her wearing that much makeup.

WILL: Well, that’s what they’re doing this season instead of giving her an actual coming-of-age arc.

Laura heads to the Pages’ place as David gives us a frolicky pastoral arrangement of her theme tune. (Well, maybe more of a gambol than a frolic.)

Daniel sees her coming and admits her to the house. He seems pleased but oddly unsurprised to see her.

Laura wastes no time, greeting him with the sign for “hi.”

Strangely, she seems disappointed at his (non-)response.

OLIVE: Huh? Did she think he would already know ASL?

ROMAN: Yeah. It’s latent in all non-hearing people, didn’t you know?

Then she tries to teach him “good morning” – again with no context whatsoever.

Finally, she teaches him “window,” and he starts to understand.

Laura teaches Daniel a few more words as David gives us tinkly piano music of the sort they use when lovers are under the moon on Love Boat.

Perhaps “hearing” this romantic music in his head, Daniel leans in and smells Laura’s neck.

OLIVE: Whoa! Boundaries, Daniel.

Even though they’re less than three minutes into this “class,” Laura gives Daniel a pop quiz.

DAGNY: This is a bad way to do this. They should watch The Miracle Worker. There’s a lot more slapping.

@timfilm11

The sound of that slap makes my face hurt.LOL.,,,#HELENKELLER #HellenKeller #fyp #legend #realstory

♬ original sound – timfilm11

Slapping or no, The Miracle Worker is an obvious influence on this episode, and fans will remember that Melissa Gilbert played Helen in a 1979 remake of that story. 

Also filmed at Big Sky Ranch, the remake received a number of Emmy nominations, including for Gilbert and for our beloved cinematographer Ted Voigtlander. (Ted didn’t work on “Silent Promises,” though.) 

Daniel does so-so on the quiz, leading Laura to say, “Oh well, nobody said it was gonna be easy.”

DAGNY: Ha! That’s rich, considering she learned it herself in about five seconds.

But back to the (even?) stupider plot. Albert is working on the doghouse, jabbering to Bandit the entire time.

“Not even the Wish Book has a doghouse like this,” he beams.

The Wish Book! That’s a term I’ve not heard in a long time, a long time. 

For those of you in other lands or too young to remember, Sears’s famous Christmas catalog was styled a “wish book” and for over sixty years was consumed as literature by children with a ravenous greed.

Like many of our contemporaries, my sister Peggy and I would use markers to circle the toys we hoped to receive as presents. Sometimes we’d tear whole pages out and leave them under our parents’ pillows to aid decision-making.

(I was extremely jealous of my friend Tommy Corncobb, who on average received twenty Star Wars toys for every one I did, it seemed.)

As far as I can gather, the regular year-round Sears catalog may have been referred to as a “wish book” by some, but it was the Christmas “spectacular,” which debuted in 1933, that was most identified with that nickname. (Sears, which wasn’t founded till 1892, formally adopted the Wish Book title in 1968.)

Anyways, Carrie comes in to call Albert for supper, and without even trying he manages to convince her that Bandit can talk. 

ROMAN: Isn’t Carrie, like, twelve? She shouldn’t be this stupid anymore.

Then, out in the wilderness somewhere (it’s not clear how much time is passing), Laura makes a breakthrough with Daniel over a civilized picnic lunch.

DAGNY: He kind of looks like Cousin Balki. Is he from Mypos?

Laura’s fluency with ASL seems pretty advanced; or, to put it another way:

OLIVE: Gimme a fuckin’ break.

It starts pouring rain, but Daniel and Laura hug and start doing this weird twirling dance. I got seasick just watching it.

After a break, “Laura’s Theme” again brings us back to Page Place, where Laura is giving Daniel’s dad a progress report.

In ASL, Laura instructs Daniel to get his father some coffee. (Their stove is a Majestic.)

(We see here that the ASL books include an alphabet chart and a vocabulary book. ASL appeared in the 1810s as a synthesis by the American School for the Deaf (until the 1890s known as “Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons”) of earlier sign languages. By the 1880s, ASL would have been well known, though educators were deeply divided about whether sign or lip-reading was the best communication mode for non-hearing students.) 

Laura tries to show Mr. Page some signs in the book, but he says he needs his glasses; so Laura asks Daniel to fetch them for him.

When he does, Mr. Page says Daniel was simply being helpful, not responding to Laura’s signs. Finally he says he’d like Daniel to bring him his mother’s photograph from the mantel, a task impossible to intuit.

ALEXANDER: Why are they so obsessed with disabilities on this show?

WILL: It was the Great Blind-and-Deaf Craze of the seventies and eighties.

(Actually, given this show is something of a thieving magpie when it comes to borrowing ideas from contemporary pop culture, I think this story was probably inspired by … And Your Name is Jonah, a 1979 CBS TV movie about a kid whose deafness is mistaken for an intellectual disability.)

This time Laura makes the dad learn the signs himself . . . and when Daniel brings him the picture, the truth of what’s happening dawns on Mr. Page’s face. 

“Dear God,” he says.

We’ve already met Lou Fant – he was the pleasant Winoka minister who almost married Mary and Adam – and I did up his bio for that earlier story. 

But apart from acting, he was best known as an ASL writer, teacher, interpreter and coach to the stars (including MG, obviously). 

While Fant was hearing, both his parents were deaf, and his book Ameslan: An Introduction to American Sign Language was the first text to define ASL as a true language and not merely a system of visual cues and symbols.

Fant was also a signing poet, known in the deaf community for his entertaining translations of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and songs from Fiddler on the Roof. (I myself once played the tailor Motel Kamzoil in a high-school production of the latter. I mean, I didn’t sign it.)  

Finally, Fant consulted on Children of a Lesser God, arguably the crowning triumph of the Great Blind-and-Deaf Craze I mentioned above, though you don’t hear a lot of talk about the movie these days. 

Deaf actor Marlee Matlin won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in the film, delivering her acceptance speech in ASL.

Well, Lou Fant is very good in this story, I think, so let’s return to him. 

His eyes wet, Mr. Page asks Laura to tell him how to say I love you.

She tells him, and he and Daniel say it to each other, and then Page embraces his child, weeping.

DAGNY: They should have had Laura slap the kid, and then he slaps his dad.

Laura cries and laughs to see the joyous sight.

OLIVE: It is touching. It’s not believable, but it’s touching.

Next we get a musical montage of Mr. Page studying the books.

He even neglects his farmwork to do it.

WILL: I’m glad they had the dad get on board quickly, unlike some of the dads on the show. 

ROMAN: Yeah. Charles would be proud.

Again, it’s unclear how much time passes – I think it would have to be a lot – but next we see Mr. Page and Daniel kneeling at bedtime and signing the Lord’s Prayer together.

But back again to the Stupid Plot! As Laura sets the Little House breakfast table, Albert calls everybody outside to see the doghouse he built.

ALEXANDER: So Laura became fluent in a whole language in the time it took to build this?

Ma and Pa compliment the workmanship, but Bandit has no interest. (The scene goes on forever, but that’s the only point to it.)

Next we see Laura and Daniel in the Mercantile. 

Mrs. Oleson stares at Daniel signing as if he’s Br’er Terrapin cuttin’ the pigeon wing.

WILL: Daniel kind of looks like David Copperfield.

Daniel thanks the Olesons (Laura translates).

DAGNY: I think he looks like Sam the American Eagle.

Hilariously, Mrs. O attempts to sign back, turning it into a “wave bye-bye” when she remembers she doesn’t know sign language. (My first mother-in-law was like this, but benignly.)

Daniel waves back and gives her a sideways smile. It’s clear he’s got Mrs. Oleson’s number just like everyone else.

When they’ve gone, Harriet makes some tasteless remarks about Daniel’s “wiggling fingers,” adding, “If God had wanted me to talk with my hands, he wouldn’t have given me a mouth.”

Nels looks right into the camera and says, “Even God can make a mistake.”

ALEXANDER: Nels, breaking the Fourth Wall.

Indeed, this is the first time a character has looked directly into the camera, not counting animals or Carrie.

That same day, Laura and Daniel find a studyin’ spot by the creek.

I think we must be into the summer now, since Laura doesn’t seem to have any school obligations to conflict with her tutoring gig.

Before they begin, Daniel produces a piece of jewelry that belonged to his mother and gives it to Laura as a present.

Then he tells her he loves her, and tries to kiss her.

Laura flips out and Daniel runs away.

OLIVE: This is horrible! She should end up with him!

ROMAN: Yeah. Effin’ Laura  . . .

Laura stares after him, and we get a good look at Daniel’s gift for the first time. It’s apparently his mother’s wedding ring, suspended on a chain.

Back at the Page house, Daniel stares angrily into the fire, and shoves the book away when his father suggests they study together.

Next, we see Laura pouring her heart out to Almanzo at the Feed ’n’ Seed.

OLIVE: Ugh . . .

(We get a better look at the book she’s holding. It’s David O. Watson’s Talk With Your Hands, a reference book not written till the 1960s.)

But no sooner have they started talking when another in Zaldamo’s seemingly endless string of girlfriends appears. This one’s called “Sara.”

She barely has a part, but the actor does get a credit. She’s Gaye Nelson, who also appeared on an episode of The Waltons.

As Z and Sara walk away, Laura sadly signs “I love you.”

OLIVE: . . . ugh.

Laura then reappears at the Page farm, where Mr. P tells her Daniel has lost all interest in learning. “Might as well burn these books,” he says.

ROMAN: Well, that’s an extreme suggestion.

OLIVE: Yeah. Isn’t this the same day?

Laura says she needs to talk to Daniel, and his pa says he’s “in the pasture.”

DAGNY [as LORETTA LYNN]: “One’s in the pasture, and a one needs a-changin’,/One needs a cookie and a one needs a spankin’ . . . .”

By the time Laura finds Daniel, the autumn has arrived.

Surprisingly, Laura doesn’t give him his ring back, but puts it on!

Daniel’s pleased. I mean, obviously.

In the A plot, the seasons may be passing, but back at the doghouse, it’s definitely still the same day.

Pa yells out the doorway that it’s “almost ten o’clock.”

WILL: Thank God he got his watch back.

Again, endless scene, but that makes for a shorter recap, actually.

Stock sunrise shot, then Pa finds Albert stayed the whole night in the doghouse.

ROMAN: Wow, it’s windy.

WILL: Yeah. Usually that means something terrible’s going to happen.

OLIVE: Does Laura stay in love with Almanzo?

WILL: Yes.

OLIVE: Then something terrible’s going to happen.

Ma comes out and says Laura’s also missing. (What is going on at the Little House this morning?)

Pa says he’ll go find her.

Pa finds Laura in the woods. “It’s not Saturday, young lady,” he says. “You ought to be gettin’ to school.” (Autumn!)

Laura spews forth a cloud of words like ink from an octopus, but the gist is, Should people ever get married just for practical reasons? 

Pa says no and tells her to break up with Daniel. 

OLIVE: Why is Pa giving her relationship advice? This is something a girl would talk to her mother about.

DAGNY: This show gives Caroline the shaft over and over again.

Pa then makes some rather devastating personal observations about her, including implying she’s too weak and sentimental to be a teacher.

OLIVE: What the hell does he know about it? What’s this one called?

WILL: “Silent Promises.”

OLIVE: Oh my God. . . .

(Myself, I think “Silent Promises” sounds like a Gothic vampire novel.)

Laura says she’s going to go see Daniel before school, so he can’t live far. Lake Ellen Zone?

Well, Laura goes and breaks up with Daniel.

ROMAN: How do you say “Zaldamo” in ASL?

DAGNY [as LAURA]: “You need to stay with your own kind. My sister Mary’s husband is blind. As it should be.”

WILL: Yeah, for now. . . .

OLIVE: This is a tragedy.

ALEXANDER: Yeah. It’s sadder than Romeo and Juliet.

WILL: Does he throw the ring in the fire, like Lord of the Rings?

No, but he does rip his ASL book.

ALEXANDER: Doc’s gonna be pissed.

Very upset by his reaction, Laura tearfully says, “Goodbye, Daniel.”

DAGNY [as ELTON JOHN]: Must be the clouuuuuds in my eyes. . . .

(I’ve had that song stuck in my head the entire time I’ve been working on this one. Most annoying!)

OLIVE: It must be hard to ghost somebody in Walnut Grove.

After another break, Eliza Jane takes center stage.

She asks Laura to hand back some tests, but Laura’s sulking and doesn’t notice.

ROMAN: Even Midsommar Kid’s growing up.

“I’m not saying the results are bad,” Eliza Jane says, “but if this class ran the government, we’d be in a state of anarchy.”

Willie asks if the state of Anarchy is near the state of Massachusetts, and gets sent to the corner.

Eliza Jane nicely says the whole class can do a retake, then dismisses them.

She stops Laura, though, to observe that she seemed distracted. Laura asks if Eliza Jane has ever had a student fall in love with her.

Eliza Jane’s response is marvelous. She blushes and giggles, saying, “Oh, how kind of you to ask!” 

Her face changes, then, and she says, “But no.” (Lucy Lee Flippin’s acting needs no “wah-wah” accompaniment to make this funny.)

WILL: She is such a scene stealer.

Laura departs, and Eliza Jane tells Willie to clear the chalkboard.

OLIVE: Oh, does Willie pretend to be in love with her so he doesn’t have to do it?

Back at the Page farm, Mr. Page heads up to the house from the barn. (I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the farm is the same one that belonged to those late purveyors of rotten meat, the Fenton brothers. We can even hear a sheep bleating in the background.) 

Mr. P goes inside, where he finds the torn book and the wedding ring. (I doubt he knew about the latter.)

In his bedroom, Daniel is crying, and he and his pa have a gentle conversation about the sitch.

OLIVE: He reminds me of Grandpa One.

(“Grandpa One” is Olive’s grandpa on her mother’s side of the family. A lovely, decent man. A bit stubborn.)

Mr. Page says Laura accepted Daniel’s ring because she didn’t want to hurt him – the same reason he himself kept Daniel hidden away. But he says God sent Laura to them so they’d learn that approach was wrong, and that Daniel is just a normal person like anyone else – capable of learning, and capable of recovering from a broken heart.

Daniel dries his tears and hugs his pa.

DAGNY: The dad is pretty lovable.

At the Little House, Ma climbs up to the loft to talk to Laura.

OLIVE [as MA]: “Oh, I actually get a scene?”

Ma puts her arm around Laura and says, “You cahn’t blame yourself.”

OLIVE: “Cahn’t”?

WILL:  Ye canna blame yerself, lassie.

Ma makes some generic remarks about how “you can’t get through to all your students.” It’s unclear if she’s actually fully aware of the situation.

Then Daniel appears at the door.

He signs something to Laura.

DAGNY: Was that “Can I see you naked”?

But no, it was I’m sorry. They agree to keep their relationship strictly teacher/student – and friend/friend, of course.

Voiceover Laura comes in to imply this led to a long and fruitful educational relationship – though of course we never see or hear of Daniel again.

Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum!

STYLE WATCH: Olive liked Daniel’s belt.

There’s a little pronghorn antelope figurine on the Pages’ mantel.

Daniel’s bedroom curtains look like a scarf I wore when I was Hercule Poirot for Halloween in 2022.

Charles appears to go commando again.

THE VERDICT: 

ROMAN: I don’t understand, why doesn’t she consider this her calling?

OLIVE: No shit. She should marry Daniel, found a deaf school, and merge it with the Blind School!

ALEXANDER: It would put Walnut Grove on the map.

Actually, that might not have turned out so great either.

Preposterous but undeniably heartwarmin’, “Silent Promises” features a star turn from Gilbert, but it really hinges on the great performances of Branton and Fant. Though it doesn’t take us anywhere new, and the doghouse plot is rubbish, it’s Little House in a very confident mode, and it’s nice to see Laura in a story that isn’t wholly about Almanzo-worship.

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