The Hunters etc.

So, I’ve kind of been dropping the ball on blogging Season 3.  I know someone mentioned “Bully Boys” being one of their favorite episodes from this season- I watched this episode when I was sick, so it was kind of not the time for a recap, but I do have this to say: it was the best, most dramatic thing in the world when the Bully Men cornered Ma and GRABBED HER ARM AND TOUCHED HER FACE, OMG.  Might as well get raped right there in front of the mercantile, Caroline.  So of course Pa is none too pleased that some hooligans were touching HIS woman, but instead of taking care of the sitch, he just gets some of his ribs broken instead.  And THE FREAKING REVEREND is all “I can’t respect what you did, Charles” and says they shouldn’t judge the whoevers, because really they didn’t mean to steal all that lumber and then sell it, or violate other people’s women/property.  What a dick.

In “The Hunters,” Laura displays what a little weirdo she is.  She and Pa convince Ma to let her go hunting with him and Mr. Edwards (who complains about her going the whole way into the woods, because a woman on a hunting trip is bad luck no matter how old, and then he puts a giant rock in her backpack so she can barely hobble along after them- uh, how rude.  But honestly how did she not immediately be like, hey, wtf is in this thing.)

Laura tells Pa, while they are sitting around the campfire, that she used to think she would grow up and marry him.  And then later that she would grow up and be a boy.  I had no idea there were gay, incestuous, transgendered people on the prairie!

Then the next day Laura knocks over Pa’s loaded gun and it shoots him in the stomach.  Then while she’s dragging the horse and Pa up an especially steep and rocky hill to get him back to this trapper guy’s cabin, the horse loses its footing and they tumble down the hill.  And the horse dies.  I am gonna take a time out here and say that there is far too much horse death in this show.  I was DEVESTATED when Bunny fell and Pa had to shoot her.

Basically, there is a ridiculous series of events that follows where Laura has to run back to the cabin, cajole the trapper’s blind dad into helping her get Pa back home, and then trapper guy not coming back in the morning like he’s supposed to because oh no, sometimes he runs both trap lines, so then blind dad has to be convinced to leave the house AGAIN so he can help Laura get to Mr. Edwards (because the directions are all in his MIND, y’see) and Laura tells him they’ll be afraid together.  So they go, and leave dying bleeding Pa by himself?  How is he gonna go pee?  Seriously, I really think he would be dead by now.

BUT THEN.  All the landmarks blind man knows in his brain are different now.  And he wants to go back!  So he and Laura yell at each other again and she convinces him to keep going- meanwhile, Pa pulls back the covers to look at his bandage and there is bright red paint all over it, so you know it’s bad.  And he knocks over his water so he stumbles outside to get some (bad move, Pa) but just goes right on by the big water barrel thing and like, into the creek, and falls on his face?  What even is this.  And then Laura and blind man aren’t at the creek (or, “crick”) they thought they were.  But then they find Mr. Edwards anyway, and this must have been an extra special TV night because it’s been an hour and three minutes at this point.

So they get back to the cabin (Mr. Edwards brings a doctor,)  find Pa in the creek/crick, and I know this is really killing you guys, so I’ll just come out and say it: Pa lives.

Related note: Is anyone following Melissa Gilbert (@MelissaEGilbert) on twitter?  She will tweet like, twenty times in a row, and then be done for the day.  Also she twitpics her dogs all the time.  It’s kind of cute.