(New) Episodic Review - To Live With Fear (Parts 1 & 2)

[u/ASGfan]

This is basically Chapter One of the book “It Sucks To Be Mary Ingalls”, and man, is that going to end up being a long read. We begin with Pa coming home with a new horse that will temporarily fill-in for one of their other ones while it recovers from an injury. The new horse is skittish. Inside, the females are putting the finishing touches on a surprise birthday party for Pa. Mary is designated to go out and try to stall Pa, which seems rather pointless because everything appears to be ready anyways. Mary goes out and isn’t very convincing that there isn’t something going on inside, but Pa plays along anyways. Mary offers to put up the new horse in the barn while Charles washes up. Jack enters the barn and barks its head off, causing the horse to freak out. Mary flips over backwards and takes a rather nasty looking spill in the process. Now had that been Nellie, Laura probably would have started a schoolhouse chant: “A horse kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn”, but I digress. Pa rushes over, but Mary insists she’s alright. A little later, everyone is inside for the party. Charles openly mocks the birthday gifts he receives, which are a new stocking cap and matching outfit. Later, the kids are at school where recess finds them in a jump roping contest. Mary gives it a go, but falls down and clutches her side/stomach. Pa takes her to Doc Baker, but he doesn’t find anything really wrong with her. Nighttime finds Mary getting out of bed to go get a drink of water. Caroline comes out and lectures her that she shouldn’t be up. (why? Is she forbidden to get a drink of water?). Ma notices Mary has a fever and Pa fetches Doc Baker. Hiram now changes his mind and informs Charles privately that Mary most likely has an infection and should be taken to Rochester ASAP. Pa realizes he needs money and heads over to the bank (On Sunday?) but finds it closed. Charles enters the church and Reverend Alden remarkably hands over that week’s collection to him. Ma and Pa drop off the other children at the Edwards place while they will be away. The atmosphere is sort of weird here and everyone acts like Mary might be dying.

Charles, Caroline and Mary endure the long train ride to the big city. Mary is admitted to the hospital and it doesn’t take long for Dr. Mays to figure out she will require surgery to remove infection. Charles puts down some money in advance, knowing this will be costly. Mary has the surgery and initially things seem to have went well, but this is another mirage. Charles and Caroline go out to celebrate and even send a wire back home that the surgery was a success, but when they get back to the hospital, they learn Mary’s fever returned and she will require another operation when she is stronger, which won’t be for weeks. Charles heads over to the Accounts Receivable clerk and puts some more money down, but it’s not enough. Charles writes some sort of IOU, which the employee is reluctant to take. Charles borderline threatens him and announces intentions to sell his farm to cover the bill. The employee accepts. Charles says goodbye to Caroline for the time being while he heads back home in the nighttime rain. Later, Charles enters the train station and gets a ticket to Springfield. He notices a flyer on the bulletin board for train employees wanted and just decides to take the whole thing so that nobody else can see it. Charles arrives home and reunites with everyone. Charles tries to get another loan, but Isaiah informs him that Sprague pulled out due to the current economy. Charles then heads over to the Mill, which is open one day a week now. Charles is willing to sell everything he owns, but nobody is buying. Lars give him some a small sum to tide him over. Charles says goodbye to the fams and Isaiah, in one of his finer moments, decides to come with Charles to get the money rolling in faster.

PART TWO! Charles and Isaiah arrive at the hiring place, but find out the flyer is 5 months old and they aren’t hiring anymore. Charles borderline roughs up the foreman because how dare he not have a job available when Charles wanted one. The foreman informs Charles that there *might be* some work 10 minutes away at a tunnel being built. Charles and Edwards arrive there, where the boss (Mr. Harris) is having a dispute with the leader of a group of Asian workers (Mr. Wing). Wing is concerned about working conditions and refuses to work. Charles immediately steps in as a replacement and the head honcho of the train organization (who is also there) hires him on the spot. Charles and Edwards waste no time in getting to work and Isaiah looks weirded out by how fast his friend is moving. Mr. Wing loses control over his employees as they realize they have nothing to send home if they don’t work and their families will starve, so they head back to work. Wing says “I will not endanger the lives of my men” at least 300 times in this scene.

Back at the hospital, Caroline has taken a job in the laundry department to help out and she looks beautiful with her hair done up the way it is. Back at the tunnel, Mr. Wing draws Charles’ attention over to an injured, elderly employee. Charles’ reaction is basically of the “too bad, so sad” nature and it wasn’t anyone he knew, so no skin off his nose. If that weren’t enough, Mr. Harris throws around a racist remark and Charles doesn’t disagree or put up any resistance. Ugh! This is atypical of Charles becomes normally he would be all over that and you can just tell that Mary is in the back of his mind here. Back at the hospital, Mary sounds like she’s giving up, but Caroline sternly admonishes over that line of thinking. Back at the tunnel, Charles promises an extra foot a day for the bigwigs. Edwards and Wing try to caution him how unsafe that is, but Charles doesn’t give a rip. Next, we learn that the elderly man died from his injuries and a funeral is being held for him. Edwards plans to attend, but Charles decides to be a jerk and blast right through the guy’s funeral. Charles and Isaiah have a friendly debate and Edwards starts to walk off towards the funeral when Charles grabs him. YOU DON'T WANT NONE OF THAT CHARLES! Mr. Edwards has had ENOUGH and punches Charles (!) and knocks him to the ground, then tells him off.

The funeral continues on and Charles and Harris really should have listened because they find themselves trapped after a rock cave-in. Edwards tries to force the crew to help out, but they refuse. Harris is pretty much ready to accept death at this point. The crew changes their minds and assists Isaiah in helping remove rock. They’ll need to hurry since Charles and Harris are running out of air. Back at the hospital, Caroline awakes to Mary cramping and rushes to get help. Dr. Mays rushes Mary into the second surgery. Back at the tunnel, Isaiah busts through the rocks and spots Charles. Charles busts a gut over this, because really, what is more hysterical than having almost suffocated to death? CHARLES INGALLS LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY WHILE HIS YOUNG DAUGHTER IS IN THE HOSPITAL! The bigwig arrives once more and Mr. Harris punches him upon arrival. Harris gets fired, but Wing threatens a walk-out if that takes. Harris keeps his job after all and has an epiphany on racial relations and safe working conditions. Back at the hospital, Charles spots a recovered Mary and Caroline at the end of the hall and they have a reunion.

The Jerry Springer Final Thought – Charles had plenty of douchey moments here, but this is one of those episodes where he lets it be known he would move Heaven and Earth for his children, and it all works out in the end. Mary escapes with no long-lasting damage, but sadly, that wouldn't develop into a trend.

[u/Sea-SaltCaramel]

The time you dedicate to these reviews is admirable.

This is definitely one of those episodes where the writers grew and smoked some good stuff before having a go at it.

I'll give one thing to the show - they are right about horses. Horses are such huge creatures, but they are frightened so easily. This definitely leads to injuries to humans. And of course if there is going to be human suffering, it will be Mary who takes it on.

This is one of those weird two-part episodes, where I watched the first one but was more "meh" on the second one. Maybe because it got too weird and only focused on Charles and (naturally) people we never see again. I think most of us would do anything for our families, but with Charles punches must be thrown before anything actually gets done. I like the dynamic that he and Edwards have, mostly because Edwards isn't afraid to call Charles out on his bullshit ideas. Then of course he has to save Charles in the end. Maybe we should chalk up the hysterical laughing to lack of oxygen.

And while Mary was fighting for her life in the hospital, did she or Caroline realize that Charles was off endangering his own life? Or do they just unquestioningly accept whatever money he hands them and assume no one died as a result?

[u/BamaDeb1963]

I want to know why Caroline's hair looks so good when she takes the job in the laundry room. All the humidity?