This is, by most accounts, considered to be the worst episode of Little House on the Prairie ever made. The show was by no means perfect and had it's share of awful, insufferable episodes like "The Halloween Dream", "Fagin" and "Divorce, Walnut Grove Style" to name a few. Anyway, "The Godsister" is the only Carrie-based episode of the series and this is because the Greenbush twins, Lindsey and Sidney, cannot act! Carrie Ingalls' portrayal was shortchanged because the actresses they hired could not act at all. So as our story begins, Charles and Jonathan receive a job offer setting telephone poles. The pay was more than considerable so it looks like they're going to take it. So when the man of the little house leaves, each Ingalls family member was expected to tow the line and keep up the farm. Caroline tended to washing, Albert clumsily tended to repairing the roof with Laura holding the ladder, and Carrie constantly got in the way. After nearly being killed by a pile of falling wood (you missed, Albert!) Carrie is sent to pick strawberries. She tries inviting Andrew Garvey along, but he blows her off. Loneliness soon overcomes Carrie as she longs for a companion. One soon comes as her exact double, Alyssa. Together they travel to a magical land full of large fruits and bright colors. But uh oh, a giant spider is coming right for her! Thank goodness it was only a dream. Meanwhile, Charles and Jonathan are finding the work of setting up telephone poles to be a hardship. Not so much in the work of hauling the logs and planting them, but because of the boss, Swaggert, who motivated his men by yelling at them to work harder. The only reason they decided to endure this abuse was because a bonus was promised if they all could complete the line by the first of the month. The camp cook, Shaughnassy begins getting double orders of potatoes, which raises suspicion in Swaggert. What was ol' Shaughnassy up to? We have to wait on that because now we return to the Ingalls', with Carrie searching frantically for Alyssa. Unable to find her, she tries to help Caroline with the laundry, but a simple mistake makes the Ingalls matriarch flip out and angrily send Carrie away. But all is not lost, she meets up with Alyssa again and takes her to the magical kingdom of Heaven... wait, what? She meets St. Peter and even gets reunited with Jack, the dog they lost in Season 4.
Back to the telephone subplot, conditions are getting worse, and where are the potatoes? According to Shaughnassy, they've been stolen, but Jonathan soon discovers the cook's secret, as to why he's been getting so many potatoes. Breaking into the basement, he uncovers Shaughnassy's top secret laboratory where he's got a hooch parlor going. Yep, he's making his own moonshine, with potatoes as the main ingredient. Promised to get in on it, Jonathan swears secrecy, as does Charles and the rest; well, with another day of toil and strain, they got the telephone system successfully wired. They managed to put in a call to Springfield before Swaggert orders them back to work. Meanwhile, Carrie tries to find Alyssa again...and that's it; when word comes that the wagon bringing the rest of the poles has crashed and ruined their hope of making their proposed deadline, it looked as though the workers would be out their bonus, as per company policy. Jonathan rounds up the men and decrees they could do it if they worked together as a team. So all together, they tow the wagon themselves, set all the poles, and successfully wire the phone system to Springfield! All in one night! This here calls for a celebration! Where's Shaughnassy's hooch? Well unfortunately the nitwit left the machine on too long, rising the temperature to unspeakable heights and as quick as you could say "faith and begorah", the hooch mill, the laboratory as well as the whole freaking building exploded into a pile of splinters. Swaggert was not pleased; Charles and Jonathan return to their families in triumph and in the dough, and Carrie is happily reunited with her father, but never forgot Alyssa.
Yep, this one is BAD. The subplot with Charles and Jonathan should have been the main one. I was far more interested in that than Carrie and her imaginary friend. As I said, Lindsey and Sidney Greenbush can not act. I'm not sure who discovered them, but I hope he or she was blacklisted. If they had gotten decent actresses, they could have built more on Carrie's character and probably not caused the Ingalls to adopt other children, but instead, Carrie remains the forgotten Ingalls, and it's probably just as well. Bottom line: I give this episode a 1 because of the telephone subplot, as for Carrie and Alyssa, I give that one a 0. It's not THE worst, but it's definitely one of them.
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