HAPPY (late) NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
day 7
This is the episode where Laura adopts a troublesome goat and he keeps being very troublesome to all of the townspeople.
The beginning of this episode is a billy goat in a field chewing hay. You then see the goat's owner, a man named Luke, feeding a horse in his barn. Shortly he bends over and the goat charges him and puts him through the wall of the barn. Laura has been working for this man's wife since Monday, and a slightly confused Luke is about to pay her (While his wife fetches his rifle to shoot the goat), but he finds that he only has one cent less than what he owes her. Laura proposes that she take the troublesome goat instead, since he is going to be killed, and he doesn't seem too mean to her. Suddenly, Luke changes his tune, and starts singing (not literally) the goat's praises, saying that he's not so mean, and he's really taken to Laura ("like a hornworm to a tomato, and that's a lot of tooken!" as he puts it), and he's the last of his kind, and would she really save him from death like that? Laura takes him home, naming him Fred, and her family is not too thrilled. Charles, who has spent all day harvesting rushes to sell to a man named Jenks, makes the awful mistake of bending down in front of Fred, and, just as Ma was about to tell him about Fred, he came flying out of the barn, butted by Fred. That night he tells Laura that Fred has to go because of the extensive damage that he had done to the barn, unless she can think of a reason to keep him. The next morning Fred has eaten lots of the rushes that Pa worked so hard to harvest. While Laura, Mary, and Fred set off to town, Pa sets off to gather more rushes. Before school, Laura convinces Willie Olsen of how wonderful goats are, including the delicious cheese that they make, and Willie buys Fred on the spot. Fred, who is tied to a post in the Olsen yard, eats the wash AND butts Mrs. Olsen who falls in the mud (YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY HA HA HA). After nobody will take Fred including Mr. Edwards, who gets butted, Carl and Laura put him in Mr. Edwards' secret thinking spot (it's a still), where he promptly gets drunk. They take him to the doctor, who gets butted, then to Reverend Alden, who gets.... guess what... butted! Then they decide they have to let him go. He runs off and gets in the wagon of the cheater Jenks, and eats all the rushes, so Jenks comes to Pa and pays him $12 to harvest more rushes. Ma, Mary, and Laura all agree that that is a good reason to keep Fred, so Laura goes out to find him. After five minutes of searching, she gives up in hopeless defeat, until she hears the bleat of a goat. She chases down Fred and tries to take him home, but is surprised when he runs away. Then (to slow jazz stripper music) she discovers that he has a whole herd of Nanny goats now. She leaves him to that and goes on with life.
Doc Baker looks grim:YES
Pa broke a bone: NO
Somebody cries: YES ( Laura)
Pa cries: NO
Crop failure: NO
Runaway Wagon: NO
"Oh, Pa!": YES (Fred didn't mean to!)
Pa punches someone; someone punches Pa: NO (but he did do smiley sarcasm to a big fat jerk, so that's close enough)
Reality Check: All those people getting butted by a goat with enough force to go through a wall would be a lot more sore than they were portrayed to be. Also, Nanny goats + Billy goats does not equal women + men, so the stripper music when Fred is with the nannies is a bit.... strange.
Mr. Olsen bullies Mrs. Olsen into behaving like a human being: NO (The goat does bully her, just not into acting like a human being)
Carrie can't act: YES (sorry, Lidnsay Sidney Greenbush, but saying 'I.... LIKE.... Fred...' when you are supposed to be talking normally is just plain not-acting.)-:. )
All the people who got butted:
Luke
Pa
Mrs. Olsen (HA HA HA)
Mr. Edwards
Doc Baker
Rev. Alden
Jenks (tackled)
Quote of the Episode:
"That was quite a fiery sermon the reverend gave. I thought he was going to preach on 'love all creatures, great and small'" ~Ma.
My personal feelings about this episode:
One of the. Funniest. Episodes. Ever. I seriously love this one. I am only dissapointed that the goat didn't trample Mrs. Olsen after butting her. That would have made this my favorite episode by far.