A Promise To Keep S8,E19
This episode Mr. Edwards returns to Walnut Grove after Grace throws him out of the house due to his drinking. I’ve seen some previous posts where the discussion centers on the characters of Grace and Carl Jr. being changed. However, I didn’t see anything mentioning what a self-righteous jerk. Charles was in this episode.
Mr. Edward has a big drinking problem to which he ends up driving the buckboard too fast and Albert is thrown into the street where he is potentially going to lose his legs. Yes, of course this is a serious situation and it was Mr. Edwards fault but within the next scene we learn that Albert is gonna be fine.
Charles does come back asking for forgiveness after the Reverend Alden speaks to him but what if that hadn’t happened? Would Charles have continued to be angry and have ostracized Isaiah for the rest of his life? I seem to remember Isaiah being an extremely good friend to Charles and even sacrificing his own life and his family‘s well-being when Mary was a girl needing an operation. Mr. Edwards took that dangerous mining job with Charles working with dynamite when they had no experience doing it. He put himself in harms way so he could help Charles pay for Mary’s operation. Now, if anything had happened to him. Charles was certainly in no position to take care of Grace and the children. And when Charles screwed up and was trapped, Mr. Edwards made all of the Chinese workers helped him out…. I bring this all up just to say I feel that Charles was very harsh with Mr. Edwards despite the seriousness of the accident.
It seems to me that whenever Charles or any of his kids screwed up. It was viewed as just a simple mistake and no one really got punished (like Albert burning down the blind school that killed two people) but Pa had no problem overreacting with everyone else.
Anyone else agree?