Airdate: 10/19/78
Mary Ellen will graduate from nursing school if she passes
her finals; to this end she starts popping uppers and downers – with
predictably disastrous results. When she sinks to breaking into the cabinet of
her own office for more pills, she crawls back to the family for help, who stay
awake with until she goes to sleep- without sedatives. Meanwhile Sissy has had
enough of Yancy’s grungy, Podunk lifestyle, and considers a divorce.
Legal-eagle wannabe Elizabeth thinks she can handle the case, but she is
secretly using her wiles to bring the two back together again.
Drug abuse/addiction was fast becoming a hot-button topic by
the late-seventies (see the TV Trope “Drugs Are Bad”), particularly as a
warning to the Afterschool Special set, which included myself. The Waltons climbs on board, delicately
addressing the highs, lows and withdrawal period as simply and obliquely as
you’d expect from such a wholesome clan (although rival Little House on the Prairie would cover the territory more graphically
in an episode five years later). In the end, Mary Ellen is a registered nurse,
which makes her happy because she can now be with her hubby who is about to be
stationed at… Pearl Harbor. Doh!
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