Reviews

This episode is basically a lesson in judging others. It's a bit of a typical Hollywood trope to have a pastor that shuns their own child for some sin, but the lesson is still there, and certainly we tend to judge those close to us sometimes the harshest of all. Michael Landon pointing out to the father that he would do for strangers what he won't do for his own daughter is a good moment. I found it a bit unrealistic that the mother wouldn't tell her father the real reason she wanted them to take in her daughter, the reason given was pretty silly... but that's kind of what you have to do sometimes to drive a plot forward. Ultimately, as in all Highway to Heaven episodes, everyone makes up at the end and the pastor finds that his daughter wasn't the terrible person he had judged her to be.

This is certainly one of my favorite of the stand-alone kind of episodes (characters we see once and ever again) for a number of reasons. First, we see real growth in Laura's character, both in her taking on this teaching task, but also in how firm she is when, with the help of her Pa, she finally realizes that she has to rebuff Daniel's advances because she doesn't reciprocate his feelings. She stands firm and does this gently, but firmly.

Second, as a child, it was for me the first depiction of a deaf person I'd seen, and that deafness did not equate to a lack of intelligence. I went on to learn some sign language myself and having a friend as an adult that has severe hearing deficits and used a service dog, so this episode has special meaning to me. Hopefully other kids can watch it and come away with the same understanding, as far too often people with hearing disabilities do get treated very unfairly.

Finally, the secondary plot of Albert making a dog house is just really comical, but unlike a lot of other comedy elements in Little House, so much more believable. Especially if you are a dog (or cat!) owner and have experienced the same thing, bringing home some item for your pet that you are SURE they are going to love, and they just refuse to have anything to do with it, no matter what you try to convince them. I loved that in a later episode we do see Bandit has given in and started using the dog house, only to be chased out by Carrie who wants it for a playhouse!

The episode gets a bit unrealistic in the skill level of sign language that is learned in what is apparently a pretty short amount of time (particularly when we see the father and Daniel praying the *entire* Lord's Prayer by sign!) as at no time do we even see Daniel having learned to read or write at all. For someone completely inexperienced in teaching as Laura is to find a way to communicate such concepts as "love" so quickly seems rather unlikely, but as usual, we have to suspend disbelief a bit in regards to plot elements like this which are needed to further the story.

We've had our share of bullies on LHOTP, including perennial bully Harriet Olson, but one thing I liked about this episode is it sets up watchers to believe that Laura and Albert's werewolf ploy is going to work, ala The Lake Kezia Monster. But not this time! Now, I felt it was unrealistic and lazy writing to have Carrie come up (disobeying instructions, and just conveniently spilling the beans) when there were plenty of other much more creative ways to allow Bart to find out the truth (Albert tripping and the rock accidentally hitting Bart for instance) but I still liked that it didn't end up working.

It appears that some elements that explained Nellie's presence were taken out in syndication. You can catch the full aired episode on Amazon Prime and DVD rentals, where you'll see the scene where Harriet throws Nels off the school board and replaces him with Nellie in order to have her way. This still doesn't make much sense (why wouldn't the ENTIRE board be people that would vote her way??) but at least there's some reason for Nellie's sudden appearance.

It was sad to see Eliza Jane so powerless due to the failure of the school board, and sadly this kind of situation can still sometimes take place today. My own sister was bullied by a school principal to such an extreme as a new teacher (in special ed no less) she quit the teaching profession altogether. When I did student teaching I often experienced parents that would blame me for their child's failure to do well (it being common for a lot of kids to not work as hard as they would for their regular teacher). So a lesson for parents here as well.

Ultimately a good lesson again about strength in numbers and standing up to bullies.

Scanning some of these previous reviews, seems that the scene that explains why blind Mary had her glasses in the first place must have been taken out in syndication. If you get a chance to see the full episode, it's actually set up very cleverly with Adam's stage fright about giving his speech and kidding with Mary about her giving the speech. Mary told him a story about when she first got her glasses and all the kids called her "four-eyes" and how that was just another type of difficulty to overcome like his blindness is, and that's when he starts talking about her giving the speech instead. He asks if she still has those glasses so she could hold them up during "her" speech. And then to continue the joke, he even has Caroline give them to her as they are leaving. Pretty tricky writing to find a way for a blind woman to happen to have some eyeglasses with her!

The story clearly is about Mary again overcoming her fears and overcoming, but rather than let her totally be the hero, Michael Landon ties in another faith message as well, clearly intending the glasses and the starting of the fire as divine intervention. Granted, there's virtually no way glasses lying in the grass (particularly of these type, and not a magnifying glass) can start a fire, but certainly watchers will get the message. I found it a bit unlikely that knowing there was a fire right by her that Mary would just sit there yelling for help, and not try to escape the fire as well, but hey, it's TV. It's not going to always be realistic (any more than the fact that the bees were nice enough to wait until they were off the Ingalls property before they decided to swarm!) Or how quickly Adam recovers from what should have been a life-changing type of injury (again, par for the course on LHOTP, particularly with Charles who seems to have miraculous abilities to recover fully from almost anything).

Overall, I thought this was a good episode, but not one of my very favorites. The joking and banter between Mary and Adam is a nice illustration of how well suited they are for each other, and the story has multiple messages tied into it, particularly for people of faith.

There is always a strong thread of faith and Christian values running through LHOTP and this episode is a good example of that. Laura discovers her friend's secret: after temporarily becoming blind, and discovering that his disability has helped bring his estranged parents back together, he decides to continue to fake blindness so they won't go through with a planned divorce. Laura is torn between knowing that his deception is wrong, but also seeing that it's helping reconcile his parents. Ultimately she prays to God for help, and what happens next? He takes a fall from a horse that results in total amnesia of the events, so his parents never discover his deception, and stay reconciled, and Laura can keep his secret with a clean conscience. The message here is clear... turn your troubles over to God and you'll see how often he resolves things that seemed unsolvable. The genius of Michael Landon though is that he doesn't totally beat you over the head with morality, and while the intent is clear, the show is still entertaining regardless of if you believe in the faith message or not.

What kid hasn't thought about and perhaps tried to cheat on a test growing up? If you grew up in a family where good grades were expected, and not doing well was punished, you probably can relate to what Andy was going through here. I know I sure did, growing up in a family of overachievers, with two older brothers that got full scholarships to college. A lot of times, the pressure to do well just makes you stress out so much you can't help but do even worse on tests.

What baffled me about this episode was how Nellie could possibly have gotten away with cheating in this was for SO long. Having a story like this so far into the show doesn't say much for the competency of the teachers that she has had up to this point (Mrs. Garvey included who seems to not pay little to no attention to what the kids are doing during test taking). Or perhaps we're supposed to believe that such methods of cheating were not known then and Nellie was the one that came up with it? It otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense that she could have gone for YEARS undetected... let alone that this was the first time she needed to steal questions for a test to do well on it. It was only a few episodes ago that we saw her competing to win a spelling bee... how exactly would she have cheated to be one of the best in the school in spelling?? It's also really never explained exactly WHY Andy is struggling, or how he gets back on track. Just a lot of plot holes in this episode.

The best part of the show for me (other than Nellie getting beaten by Mrs. Olsen with the "cheating jacket") was Andy's parents admitting that they shared a lot of the blame for him having to cheat. Because they certainly did, and it's a lesson for other parents who pressure their children to do well in the wrong way. We've learned a lot since this show was on the air and most especially the benefits of rewarding children for doing well vs. punishing them for not... and how much anxiety and stress can sabotage a child's ability to do well in school. So I hope both kids AND parents watching this episode will learn from it.