Airdate: 11/16/72
John’s old World War I buddy, Tip Harrison, visits the Waltons, sharing old memories of days gone by. As John Boy is the first to notice, Tip isn’t all as he appears, for beneath his classy, fun-loving exterior lies a depressed, alcoholic man who can’t live in the present. He starts a fire and lets Jason takes the blame for it, and drunkenly shoots Reckless, the Waltons’ dog (gasp!), before finally admitting his transgressions when his conscience gets the best of him. (Don’t worry, the dog is ok.)
Another lost soul stops by the Walton’s abode and sees the error of his ways. This time it takes the form of John’s old army buddy, allowing us to learn a bit about John’s military past. Tensest scene: Reckless gets shot and we wait, eagerly, to find out if Tip will admit what he did. Most maddening scene: John gives Tip a long-winded earful about his sins instead of going to find and help the dog!
I think this episode has resonance because we all know a Tip Harrison: someone who’s a gaggle of laughs but doesn’t quite have it together. I like to think we have part of this within us, an id as Freud pointed out, balanced on the other side (the superego) by the ego in the middle. We'll see more ids stopping by as the years go on, some more unbalanced than others.
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