Waltons 2.18: The Gift

Airdate: 1/24/74

Ron Howard guest stars in this episode, playing Seth Turner, Jason’s best friend who longs to be a country music star in his father’s band. When he, Jason and John-Boy go up the mountain to get some apple tree wood to make recorder, he collapses from exhaustion and is later diagnosed with leukemia, giving him only one year to live.  Initially distraught, he comes to accept his illness and ultimately helps those around him (his mother, John-Boy) do the same; only Jason can’t come to terms with Seth’s, or anyone else’s, mortality, and so Grandpa comes to give him a talk about life and death, the way only Grandpa can.

Another real tearjerker here, and this one’s a doozy. Ron Howard, fresh off his big-screen triumph in American Graffiti, plays Seth with all the adolescent angst you’d imagine, but some supporting performances here are also impressive, most notably from Pat Quinn as Seth’s mom, a counterculture film actress (Alice’s Restaurant, Zachariah) who returns later in Waltons 5.3 (“The Comeback”). The show’s title refers to the musical recorder that Seth finally makes, which he gives to Jason at the end. The episode’s score is beautiful and also features a recorder, marrying diagetic and nondiagetic music for evocative effect.

Pop culture alert: the famous Grand Ole Opry is first listened to in this episode (the show Seth’s father, Red, plays on) If you don’t know, this is the weekly country radio show almost as old as radio itself; it essentially made Nashville the home of country music in America.