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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Waltons 2.15: The Awakening


Hi, I'm back!! (Darn those pesky vacations.) As I mentioned earlier, we're picking up the pace here, blogging two episodes per day, and soon, as I promised earlier, we'll be adding another show to the roster. Stay tuned, fellow Rocketeers!

Airdate: 1/3/74
 
Grandma’s hearing starts to go, affecting her both physically and emotionally (she even lashes out at FDR during his radio address). Meanwhile, Mary Ellen is approached by a dark, handsome stranger out in the woods, who praises her beauty and then proceeds to kiss her smack on the lips, just like in a classic romantic movie. Lovestruck by this “brief encounter,” she now considers herself a grown woman and lobbies her mother to turn the old shed out in the back into own private bedroom; only problem is John-Boy got his father’s approval to turn the same shed into his own private den. After all is straightened out, Mary Ellen gives up her dibs to the shed back to her brother, and Grandma’s hearing problems turn out to be an ear infection, which she gets taken care of by the family physician.

“Mary Ellen’s Growing Pains – Part III.” Actually, the whole family seems to be going through the same pains, as even John Boy indulges his neuroses and frustrations in a blow-up oration worth of Jan Brady. And speaking of The Brady Bunch, John Boy and Mary Ellen’s wrangling over the shed seems more than a bit derivative of the classic attic episode on Bunch; they even end the same, with the older brother ultimately winning out!

Mary Ellen’s woodland admirer, Kevin Sturges, sure does cut to the chase. He’s so forward he comes across as a rapist compared to the prim, proper men and women on the show abiding by the uber-strict rules of courtship in the 1930s.

In this episode, the Waltons listen to FDR on the radio, outlining his plans for the Social Security Act. This puts the timeframe at around August, 1935, roughly the same period as when “The Ceremony” (1.9) takes place.

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