Grieving Pa’s Ass; or
Dumb & Zaldumber
(a recap by Will Kaiser)
Title: The In-Laws
Airdate: November 24, 1980
Written by Don Balluck
Directed by William F. Claxton
SUMMARY IN A NUTSHELL: Pa and Manly have a funny or annoying wagon race to Sleepy Eye, depending on your taste. Along the way, Charles is surprisingly fucking unethical.
RECAP:
WILL: Can you believe Mary’s still in the opening?
DAGNY: It is weird.
We begin at the Mill, where the wheel is a-turnin’, and the regionally incorrect pampas grass is in full flower, looking like ostrich plumes. (Summer 1888-M?)
“The Island of Misfit Grovesters,” a David Rose tune we’ve not heard in some time, is playing on the soundtrack. (David himself hasn’t returned from the musicians’ strike yet, though.)
Two men in a buckboard cross the bridge. We can’t see their faces, but I’m prepared to say it’s Mustache Man and his brother Harvey.
Well whaddya know, Jonathan Garvey is back in town!
Garvey is picking up a delivery of lumber for somebody, but he tells Charles and Almanzo that his freight business is boomin’ so he’s “not gonna be able to service Walnut Grove anymore.” (That he ever serviced it is a stretch, since it’s a full day’s drive away.)
Almanzo expresses concern that they won’t be able to ship the Mill’s output anymore. (How did they do it before Garvey’s Freight opened six episodes ago?)
Garvey proposes that Charles and Almanzo open their own freight company. He dispenses with the question of who’s going to run the Mill and the Feed & Seed (Carl the Flunky?), saying seriously, “Let me know what you decide!” (Not sure why he cares, but I suppose so he can stop feeling guilty about suspending service to Groveland.)
Garvey departs, and without any discussion whatsoever about the, you know, actual merits of this idea, Charles and Zaldamo start brainstorming what to call their new business. (Dumb & Zaldumber?)
Later, at the Little House, Laura serves the men coffee in the Common Room. (My grandma had her daughters assist with serving the men, even if they were grown women who’d lived on their own for thirty years.)
Pa and Zaldamo, who’ve changed their clothes (different day – can’t get anything past me) are arguing about the fastest route to Sleepy Eye. (After all these years?)
They’re consulting a handmade map that looks like it was drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien, but which probably was either done by Pa or borrowed from Doc Baker.
Accepting the premise that they’ve never discussed the alternative route before, despite the many trips to Sleepy Eye they’ve undertaken since Almanzo joined the show, we learn that Zaldoofus believes there is a shorter, faster route than the main road.
DAGNY: You know, I liked this era when I was kid. Laura teaching, all the Manly episodes, Pa’s hair getting lighter and lighter . . .
AMELIA: Yeah, he’s kind of got a gray stripe. A fauxhawk. A Pa-hawk!
WILL: Yeah, he looks like Stripe the gremlin.
Pa wants to tak’ the high road, and Manly wants to tak’ the low road.
From their conversation, it’s easy enough to understand how the various routes would appear on the real map.
WILL: Ha! For a minute I thought Ma was holding a baby.
DAGNY: Oh my God, so did I!
(It’s actually a spoon.)
Albert pops in saying he’s got something for them to see outside, where Carrie and Baby Grace wander the farmyard vaguely, like chickens.
Albert has taken some lengths of two-by-four and scrawled INGALLS & WILDER FAST FREIGHT on them in green paint.
AMELIA [as CHIEF BRODY]: “Let Polly do the printing.”
The others are pleased, but it looks like a pretty shitty job to me, at least when you consider he used to hand-carve exquisite wooden coffins, whistles and the like.
Not to mention the giant basket he wove that one time.
I won’t even bring up the werewolf and sea monster costumes.
“Hey, Manzo!” Pa says – first time anybody other than Perley Day called him that – then proposes that they each tak’ their preferred road and see who gets there first.
DAGNY: Landon’s losing his butt, too. Those pants used to fit better. I bet the shirtless scenes are a thing of the past.
WILL: Don’t give up hope.
“Manzo” says they should set a target time of arrival by “one in the afternoon.” At forty miles away, a loaded wagon would take at least eight hours to travel the distance, but I suppose if they left at five in the morning, it’s just possible.
Pa wagers a “special supper” made by their respective wives (without consulting them) as a reward to the winner. (Since it’s established Laura is a horrendous cook, this hardly seems fair.)
Speaking of Laura, she idiotically asks, “Well, what if you both lose? What if neither one of you makes it to Sleepy Eye by one?” Seems obvious to me that whoever gets there first would take the prize – in fact, I don’t understand why there’s a set arrival time at all, as long as they leave at the same time.
But Zaldamo runs with it, saying if neither wagon arrives by one, the men will cook dinner for the women. (Laura’s bad enough, but since with the exception of Nels and Percival, every time a man on this show is depicted working in the kitchen it’s a complete fucking disaster, I don’t see why anybody would suggest this either, or agree to it.)
The couples separate. We get a little snatch of conversation from each one, but it’s nothing of substance or use to us.
That night, or one night, Chuck smokes (quite hobbitishly) whilst studying the Lord of the Rings map at home. He’s looking for a shortcut, he says.
Ma thinks this is as ridiculous as you and I do, asking logical questions like if this supposed shortcut is so great, how come they didn’t build the road there in the first place? And if his “low road” is so fast, why take the risk with a new shortcut?
(Some would argue that without men’s “unnecessary” innovations, such as shortcuts to Sleepy Eye, the world wouldn’t be what it is today. I agree with that – but let me remind you, if more men sat around watching Little House on the Prairie instead of spending their time productively, we wouldn’t be on the verge of extermination by killer robots by 2030.)
(I know the Daleks are killer cyborgs, not killer robots, it was just a convenient comparison. No cards and letters, please.)
That’s about it for this scene. (This could be a short recap, with this plot).
Karen Grassle makes a cute sort of spicy sexy face at one point, though.
Well, the day of the race comes. At the Feed & Seed, it does not look like five in the morning to me.
Pa jokes about the wagon loads being different weights, but I don’t see what’s so funny about it. That could make a big difference . . . couldn’t it?
Almanzo says there’s plenty to ship since the Feed & Seed is doing so well. (Why start a new freight company, then? Just so he can make partner?)
The race begins at a moderate pace, the two drivers going in opposite directions at once. Charles departs via Southgate whilst Zaldamo heads north.
WILL: Is that the fence from the Blind School? It’s in the wrong place.
DAGNY: Must have been another house that burned.
Well, on the road, Charles and the Chonkies seem to be having fun. (It’s gotta be boring driving such a long way by yourself. I would talk to the horses the whole way.)
WILL: Did you hear that?
At 8:35, there is a terrible, glaring edit in the music, probably the worst we’ve had so far. There might as well be a record scratch.
DAGNY: I do hear it. David probably shot his TV at home.
That morning, I presume, Laura and the Grovester children raise Old Glory.
In an unexpected and atypical piece of continuity from last week, Albert yells, “Come on, let’s play some football!” (So it’s still fall of 1887? I guess we can assume that we’re picking up right where we left off last time, pampas grass be damned.)
Ma appears out of nowhere, saying to Laura that they need to get groceries “for the feast that your father’s planning tonight!” Oh, so it’s not just a race to Sleepy Eye, but a race to Sleepy Eye and back, the same day?
Ma is giggly and strange in this scene. I’m afraid she may be back on the laudanum.
In fact, Ma starts laughing so hard she can barely talk.
Laura bares the gopher fangs and starts shrieking with laughter, too.
In the background, Not-Gelfling Boy gives these insane women a look of pity. Eventually the other kids start staring too.
WILL: This is definitely the craziest laughing scene we’ve had since the one where the Garveys got divorced.
DAGNY: Well, this is religious-lady humor. Laughing at how stupid the men are behind their backs, then doing everything their way anyway.
WILL: We’re gonna get hate mail for that comment.
DAGNY: Well, all I’m saying is the women of rural Manitoba would love this episode.
One point of interest: I’m pretty sure one of the spectator-children is “Little Alex,” who up to this point on the series has been blind.
(You’d think a medical research team would converge on southwest Minnesota, considering how frequently people become un-blind on this show.)
And Laura continues laughing as she very slowly lumbers toward the school. She even half-falls at one point.
One senses Don Balluck’s script for this was thought a bit weak, so Landon had to add scenes like this as filler.
Elsewhere in Minnesota, Manly drives the trail, accompanied by buzzing agitated strings. (Sounds a bit like the Igor Stravinksy of The Rake’s Progress.)
Well, Zaldamo approaches one of the hills Pa warned him about. To urgent yet farty driving music, he starts up.
DAGNY: Those horses are really working. It wouldn’t be as much of an effort for the Chonkies.
WILL: Well, these are Zaldamo’s horses. They’re Zalda-mules.
But at the top, the horses start walking in circles, and one of the wheels won’t turn. I don’t really understand what’s happening, but Zaldamo jumps Zaldown and apologizes to the animals (which seems weird).
DAGNY: Almanzo is so nice in this scene. Why is he always such a dick to Laura?
The wagon being too heavy, Manly muses that he’s no choice but to unload half the cargo and make two trips over the high ground.
DAGNY: This music is crazily edited too.
Meanwhile, Chuck and the Chonkies are clippety-cloppin’ along on the normal road.
(Anybody know that song? I love it.)
Soon he comes upon none other than Eddie Quillan in his fifth appearance on the show, dead or asleep on the ground.
As you probably guessed, he isn’t dead, just insane.
AMELIA: He talks like the Lollipop Guild.
Charles picks up this little old guy, who introduces himself rather unfriendlily as “Kavendish.”
Back on the high road, Almanzo, looking sweaty and fairly seventies-sexy, finishes unloading all his crates and barrels.
WILL: “Cash for the sugar barrel, pickle barrel, milk can!”
Almanzo was right, the horses seem more enthusiastic about the trip with the lighter burden, and they take off a good pace, clippety clop, clippety clop, clippety-clippety-clippety-clippety-clippety-cloppin’ along.
This segment is accompanied by music quite a bit lamer than the earlier music, and certainly less fun than “Mule Train,” but still pretty wacky. (Edited errors notwithstanding, we agreed whoever picked the music for this one shows some flair.)
Zaldumbass nearly loses a box he’s improperly secured.
Back on the Chonkywagon, Charles makes smalltalk, and the little guy rolls his eyes as if talking to this sappy friendly Grovester is an incredible bother.
DAGNY: Ha! About time somebody reacted the way a normal person would.
Admitting he’s traveling to follow through on a job offer, Kavendish gets alarmed when Charles departs from the main road. “If there was a shorter way to Sleepy Eye, why ain’t there no road?” Kavendish asks.
“You sound like my wife,” Chuck replies drily.
At this point, Kavendish’s insane comments start to turn insulting.
Cutting back to Almanzo, we see he’s unloaded the rest of the wagon at the foot of the hill, and he heads back over to get the rest of his stuff.
Then we see yet another wagon on a road, this time carrying a couple named Horace and Emma, who are having a very sad conversation about how difficult it is to find work in these dark times. (The wacky cheerful music undercuts the pathos a bit, though.)
Their dialogue, it must be said, has a hokey quality to it. It reminds me of the “tragic” script for everyone’s favorite Little House in-universe play, Abandoned Daughters.
HORACE CHOATE: Be home soon, Emma.
EMMA CHOATE: Home. . . . And what’s there for us?
HORACE CHOATE: I can’t believe we could be gone this long and still not find work.
EMMA CHOATE: You tried, Horace. The good Lord can’t ask more than that.
HORACE CHOATE: Tryin’ don’t fill our stomachs.
EMMA CHOATE: Times are hard. But if we starve, it’ll be under our own roof.
AMELIA [as MRS. CHOATE]: “Gas prices bein’ what they are. . . .”
Sad stuff, but as I say, the music is goofy, and the actors have clearly been directed to read their lines in a light, almost satiric way. (Horace Choate in particular sounds like one of the grumpier Muppets, like Bert.)
Horace is played by Terrence Evans, who was in a ton of exciting and interesting things. On TV, he had a recurring role on Days of Our Lives and did Gunsmoke, Quincy, The Dukes of Hazzard, Disney’s Bride of Boogedy, The A-Team, Perry Mason, Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III: The Legend Continues, Monsters (!), Alien Nation, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, ER, and Cold Case.
He was on both Voyagers! and Star Trek: Voyager. (Deep Space Nine, too.)
He has a bit part as a Minnesota police officer in a very memorable Golden Girls Mother’s Day episode.
He was in a lot of horror movies, including Phantom of the Mall, Curse II: The Bite (don’t remember that one, but Curse I was pretty good), Tobe Hooper’s Crocodile, The Pumpkin Karver, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series in the aughts starring Jessica Biel.
Finally, he was in Fletch, Terminator 2, the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It?, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (remember that?), and a softcore porn flick of the type popular in the 1990s called The Last Embrace.
Anna Choate is Patricia Herd, who did voices on The Wild Thornberrys and was in Summer Rental, Bird (the one about Charlie Parker), and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Herd, who was married to well-known character actor Richard Herd (he was Mr. Wilhelm on Seinfeld), wrote a memoir called Junkies, Hookers, Dykes . . . and Others I Have Known. (Sounds positively Charlotte Stewart-esque!)
She’s still alive as of this writing, at 92!
Horace stops the wagon when they come to Almanzo’s cargo sitting by the roadside. (We see the Choates have three sons, all filthy, in the back of the wagon.)
The Choates say the goods may be a gift from God. (When I was a kid in Wisconsin, my rotten little school chums and I used choat as slang for the perineum. I don’t think the term is all that broadly used, though.)
Most of the crates apparently contain pantry items, and Horace Choate exclaims, “Food! More food than we ever seen!”
So they grab the stuff. As I say, this is all handled fairly lightly and jokily, which I find in slightly bad taste. Starvation-level poverty isn’t all that funny.
Well, “Manzo” drives his wagon back over the hill and starts loading back up. Well, someone does.
DAGNY/AMELIA [simultaneously]: Who the hell is that?
It’s true, the stunt driver in the hill sequences is not a very convincing Zaldoppelganger.
The important thing is, he loads the goods back up.
But then we see the Choates driving off with the same (?) goods!
Zaldunderhead drives up what looks like the original hill once again and finds the goods gone. This confused us a bit, Almanzo unloading the wagon and driving away empty, then finding the goods and reloading, and now surprised that they’ve disappeared. Did we miss something? Did he unload the goods in two separate locations? Why?
Well, no matter. The facts of the case are the goods are gone, and instantly, “Manzo” sleuths it and begins following the trail of the thieves.
AMELIA: Let me guess, Pa also gets in trouble.
WILL: Well, I can’t tell you that.
AMELIA: You don’t have to tell me. Just let me know if anybody gets raped or burned alive.
WILL: Not this time.
Meanwhile, Charles, Kavendish and the Chonkies arrive at a Pilot-ish/“Blind Journey”-ish river crossing.
This gives us a good sense of Pa’s intended shortcut, I think.
Chuck and Mr. K bicker pointlessly.
DAGNY: I’m with this guy.
AMELIA: Me too! Love him.
WILL: You guys like cranky old men, huh?
AMELIA: Why do you think we spend so much time with you?
The music briefly quoting Chopin’s Funeral March, the Chonkywagon advances into the river. (I suppose this would have to be the Cottonwood River or its tributary Sleepy Eye Creek, both of which run near the main road from Groveland to Eyeland.
They immediately get stuck, and Kavendish refuses to help Charles. In fact, he makes Pa carry him to the shore whilst a twee bassoon provides droll accompaniment. (This part goes on a long time.)
AMELIA: Hey, that’s actually them!
Yes, this stunt was at least partly performed by Michael Landon and Eddie Quillan themselves. (Quillan was 73! Pretty old to be riding on somebody’s shoulders, even if that somebody’s The Great Michael Landon.)
DAGNY: Don’t tell Olive about Pa’s ass. She’ll be grieving it.
Next we cut to the Choate residence, which in a nice piece of continuity we see is the mill-like former home of the horsemeat-eating villain Hank Slade in “Mortal Mission,” depicted in that story as being on the outskirts of Springfield.
The property looks even more run-down now than in the earlier story. (I wouldn’t have thought it possible either.)
Inside, the Choate family tucks in to a feast, Mr. Choate first remembering to thank God properly for the windfall.
He also tells the children to eat slowly to prevent vomiting. (For those of us tracking vomiting references on this show.)
To more intensely weird music (I’m pretty sure the Rose isn’t back yet), Almanzo arrives at the house, and springs through the door at the terrified family. (Dean Butler’s quite funny here.)
“Manzo’s” shocked that the Choates have cooked the ham. “It was already cooked – just needed heatin’ up,” Mr. Choate explains helpfully (and hilariously).
The Choates tell Manly their sob story, and he melts.
Next thing you know, he’s sitting down to have dinner with them.
DAGNY: So all this stuff was canned?
WILL: Well, the ham was probably smoke-cured, but otherwise, yeah.
DAGNY: I suppose canning technology was advanced enough. Like, Sir John Franklin and all those explorers looking for the Northwest Passage. [Editor’s note: Canadians are nutso about the Northwest Passage. – WK]
WILL: Yeah. I think botulism was a problem until the Twentieth Century, though.
“You can have my seat!” the eldest filthy Choate child says nobly. (He’s Chad Cowgill, who went on to the Landon projects Sam’s Son and Highway to Heaven, and who starred in a little known horror film called The Power from 1984. Looks great from the trailer.)
(Strangely, he appeared multiple times with Jim Antonio, who earlier this season played Mother Marge’s husband in “Portrait of Love.”)
Their acting partnership didn’t last very long, but a lot of good things don’t.
The other filthy children smile with relief and resume chewin’. One of them, about half cute and half mutant, resembles the kid in the famous Diane Arbus picture with the hand grenade.
Well, the show choates us, or rather cheats us haw haw, out of showing how Pa got the Chonkies out of the water, since by the time we return to Sleepy Eye Creek they’re already high and dry and ready to go again.
Kavendish complains and complains, having got more than he bargained for with Pa’s “help.” I realize they couldn’t just have Pa dealing with the problems in silence, but I’m not sure adding a constantly bitching Eddie Quillan character was a maximally entertaining choice. (Dags and Mimi cackled throughout, though, so what do I know?)
But I can relate to Kavendish’s situation, somewhat. When I was in high school, my friend Greg accidentally locked his keys in the car when we were goofing around in town. “Fortunately,” an acquaintance of his from junior high (I didn’t know her) happened to be passing and offered us a ride back to Greg’s house.
All seemed to be going well for a few seconds . . . until the girl noticed a squad car driving behind us. Just driving, no lights, sirens, etc.
Suddenly Greg’s friend screamed, “FUCK!!! I DON’T HAVE A LICENSE!!!!!”, promptly ran a red light, then hit the gas to escape the police, who otherwise surely wouldn’t have even been aware of us.
This was all in the middle of the day, it wasn’t as if anybody was drunk or anything, even though we were in Wisconsin.
Well, we did not escape. The cop eventually let Greg and me leave on foot, after keeping us in the car for about an hour, calling in our information on the police radio and learning we were musical-theater nerds with no criminal history.
The police took the girl away, but I don’t remember what happened to her. (She may be in the jailhouse still. She would deserve it!)
The icing on the cake was by the time we got to Greg’s house, his parents already knew about the situation, since Greg’s grandma had been listening to her police scanner (older American readers may remember those) and had notified the rest of the family of our “arrest.”
The moral of the story is, beware of smalltown Midwestern weirdos offering help.
Anyways, back at the Old Slade Place, “Manzo” has given up on the race and is submitting to a grand tour of the property by Mr. Choate.
Choate says he started out trying to mine the place, but ran out of money to maintain the operation.
Almanzo says well, let’s just crack open the rest of my crates, I’m pretty sure there’s some new mining equipment in there as well.
DAGNY: He could go to jail for this.
WILL: Yeah, how is it any different from Tim Mahoney and his gang? Calling Sheriff Garvey!
DAGNY: It’s like if the Amazon driver decided to give your stuff to some poor people.
WILL: Exactly! I have a John Updike book arriving tomorrow . . . HOPEFULLY!
Back in Walnut Grove, Carl the Flunky and the Unknown Grovester are driving wagons past Nellie’s in opposite directions, so clearly they have been left in charge of the Mill and the Feed & Seed, respectively.
In fact, it’s possible the Unknown Grovester is S.E. Miller, Feed & Seed owner and Groveland kingpin, himself.
It’s never occurred to me before, but do you suppose the S.E. stands for Sleepy Eye?
For its part, and in another odd Little House Universe blip, Nellie’s has reverted to its original pre-Caroline’s branding.
D.L. Dawson is also sitting on the porch, for those of you who care about such things.
Inside, Caroline is on the phone with Jonathan Garvey, who reports neither Charles nor Almanzo arrived in Sleepy Eye by the appointed hour.
Then, in keeping with the rest of this story’s subtle sophisticated humor, Preggo Nellie is revealed to be eating pickles and ice cream. (As others have noted, it’s unlikely the ice cream cone would have reached this community by 1887.)
Suddenly they hear Percival approaching, and Nellie hides on the back porch.
When Percival arrives, Caroline, who looks as uncomfortable as ever peeling an apple, bluffs for Nellie, Grassle practically winking at the camera as she does so.
Percival is complaining about finding pickle and ice cream containers scattered all over the place. Rather rottenly, Ma instantly rats Nellie out, and Percival hides in a pantry to spy on his wife.
Nellie comes back in, musing that she’d like to try the pickle with maple syrup. (A nod to Arngrim’s Canadian heritage???)
But when she tries it (actually dipping the pickle into the syrup pot itself, gag barf), Percival springs.
He tells his wife her weight gain is regrettable both medically and aesthetically. (Fat Joke # 52.)
DAGNY: Even pregnant women aren’t safe from fat-shaming on this show.
Percival cites Doc Baker as an authority.
DAGNY: Oh, Doc’s gay, what does he know about pregnancy? In fact, I don’t think any of these men have grown a baby in their body, so their opinions aren’t really relevant.
Then he orders her away, and takes a bite of Nellie’s sweet pickle. (As simple as the writing is, Arngrim and Tracy are likable as always. Or so I thought, anyways.)
AMELIA: Percival can fuck off.
But back to the race. Chuck and Mr. Kavendish find Pa’s “shortcut” blocked by a fence. They do a lot of off-roading on this show. Don’t they worry that whoever owns the field might shoot them?
Apparently not, because Pa instantly produces a wire cutter out of nowhere and makes to take the fuckin’ fence down.
AMELIA: Oh my God!
DAGNY: WHAT! No way would Charles Ingalls do this.
As it turns out, he should have worried, because an armed farmer has apparently been stationed there all day, awaiting such a moment.
(Credited as “Cooley,” the Armed Farmer is played by Donald Brenon, who apparently retired from acting to open a successful Western store in Sonoma, California.)
The Armed F and Mr. Kavendish unpack the situation, agreeing Charles needs to go back to the main road, which any normal person would have stuck to in the first place.
The weaselly little Kavendish, who seems like a character you’d more likely find in a 1940s Western than a 1980s TV show, insults Chuck some more and weasels away on foot.
DAGNY: I liked him. It’s like Landon was paying homage to classic Western tropes, as the ancestor of Little House.
Meanwhile, Almanzo and Mr. Choate share a touching farewell in which “Manzo” wishes the family the best of luck. “Goodbye, Mr. Choate,” he says.
DAGNY [as MR. CHOATE]: “Goodbye, Zaldumbshit.”
AMELIA: Does he go back and find all the OTHER goods were stolen?
You probably assumed the little weasel Kavendish was out of the story by now, but now we see him lurking by the tracks as the ol’ Number Three approaches.
Kavendish slathers what appears to be shaving cream all over his face as the train approaches. Perhaps he hopes he’ll be mistaken for Santa Claus and taken aboard.
The train stops, and our old pal Horace the Silver-Haired Train Ticket (SHTT) Guy (also on his fifth appearance) gets down.
Kavendish begs him for a free ride, and Horace agrees – quite surprisingly, considering he’s been shown in the past to have rather fierce anti-hobo prejudices.
Still lathering his face, Kavendish asks if he has time to shave before the train departs, and Horace mentions that he saw an “idiot driver” unloading a wagon a ways back. Kavendish assumes he means Dumb Chuck, but of course it was actually Zal Dumb Fuck.
And speaking of Dumb Chuck, now we see him driving into Sleepy Eye Proper. (J.C. Fusspot is also there.)
Charles looks glum, assuming Almanzo’s beaten him. But when he stops at Garvey’s Freight, Garvey tells him he hasn’t.
DAGNY: Garvey on the other hand hasn’t lost any tone.
Pa convinces Garvey to pretend he arrived at noon.
AMELIA: I don’t like Pa at all in this one.
Pa calls Ma and tells her he stopped to visit Mary before checking in at the finish line.
Ma reports this to Laura, noting Pa failed to mention getting in late.
Well, when Almanzo finally arrives, Charles is sitting on a bench whittlin’.
“Manzo,” again nicer than he ever is with Laura, admits defeat like a good sport.
Chuck, on the other hand, uses Almanzo’s lateness to scam him out of dinner.
DAGNY: Did Charles get hit on the part of his brain that controls his ethics?
WILL: How is Almanzo gonna explain the missing goods?
DAGNY: Oh, I’m sure a few crates bounce off the wagon every time anyway.
Next we see Pa, Manly and Mary approaching a restaurant, Mary mentioning simply that Adam is “gone.”
DAGNY: Oh, Mary!
Pa says the restaurant is “the most expensive place in town,” though it’s clearly not Chez François.
No sooner have they sat down than a waiter approaches – Weasel Kavendish. “Good evening, Mr. Smartbrain,” he says.
DAGNY: Ho ho ho ho ho ho!
Kavendish says he’s amazed he didn’t lose his waitstaff job since Charles brought him to town so late, and tells the whole story.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Mary says.
WILL: I take back what I said about Mary never having good parts anymore.
Almanzo laughs triumphantly and says now Pa will have to pay for the extravagant dinner.
WILL: Could EITHER of them afford this dinner?
DAGNY: No.
After a final commercial, we see Pa doing an inventory of the goods Almanzo gave away, which total up to $11.80 ($416 – seems a bit low to me).
But Pa says not to worry, at least they won’t have to admit to their wives that they didn’t make it in time.
DAGNY: So will Ma and Laura find out? I suppose Mary will call.
WILL: How? Do you think they have a braille telephone?
Since he didn’t eat anything at the restaurant (to save money), Pa goes creeping around Garvey Freight to find food, but there isn’t any.
He accidentally wakes up Jonathan, and Andy.
DAGNY: Andy! Oh my God, is he naked?
Embarrassed, Charles says he was just looking for the outhouse. Andy says, “What are you tryin’, Mr. Ingalls . . . another one of your shortcuts?” and he and Jonathan scream with laughter. (It is the funniest line of the episode.)
WILL: Sadly, the glory days of the Garvey family are over.
AMELIA: What was your first clue, Alice getting burned to death?
The next day, at school, Albert, who may actually have a shittier part this week than Mary does, spots the wagons returning. (From the south.)
Alb calls for Laura, who stares at him until he corrects his form of address (which is cute).
Laura runs to the Feed & Seed, and Albert says, “I’ll go get Ma.”
DAGNY: Who’s watching Baby Grace?
AMELIA: Who cares.
WILL: No, I wondered that myself. I don’t know. Hester-Sue is in Sleepy Eye now. Mrs. Whipple is dead.
DAGNY: Mrs. Oleson, I suppose.
ALL: [giggling]
Pa and Manly make up a ridiculous story that they arrived simultaneously, but the ladies just smirk.
AMELIA: Yeah, get ’em!
Ma says she called Garvey Freight at one and was told neither of them were there yet.
DAGNY: Oh, Ma called.
WILL: See, I told you Mary couldn’t make a phone call.
That night, the Ing-Gals wait for dinner at the Old Wilder Farm.
AMELIA: This one is taking too long.
Well, it won’t surprise any of you, but whilst waiting at the table, the ladies smell smoke.
WILL [as MA]: “Smells like burning baby!”
Well, every course (of course) is burnt to cinders, literally.
DAGNY: This show has more burned food on it than any other show in history.
WILL: I think if I were blind, I’d probably talk on the phone all the time.
Laura and Ma abandon ship.
DAGNY: I guess it’s Girl Dinner tonight.
No mere Girl Dinner from them, since Nellie’s is still open. Bum-Bum-Ba-Dum.
WILL: They should have ended with a freeze frame.
STYLE WATCH: Almanzo wears his “feminine” ruched shirt again.
Dags liked Mary’s bonnet.
Charles appears to go commando again; so does Jonathan Garvey.
THE VERDICT:
WILL: You liked that better than I expected, Dags.
DAGNY: Yeah, it was good. Quality!
AMELIA: No, I disagree.
WILL: Really? I thought you liked it?
AMELIA: I did at first, but Pa just is so out of character, and it’s twice as long as it needs to be. I did like the weird guy. D-plus.
I don’t know, I watched this one about five times while writing this recap; I disliked it at first, but I enjoyed it more each time. It’s pointless, but harmless, the Choates are delightful, and even Zaldamo is likable for once. Your enjoyment will depend on your taste for comedic Little House fluff, of course.
BIG STORY next time! Hope to see you then.
UP NEXT: To See the Light, Part One
