Soldier's Return

Richard Mulligan guest stars in this gripping episode about a Civil War "hero" who returns to Walnut Grove after living in Philadelphia for the past twelve years after the war. Granville Whipple seems like a mild-mannered man ready to set up a music teaching business for himself, but it is clear very early that the demons of battle still haunt him. That, and an obvious addiction to morphine. Granville's mother, the local seamstress, finds a small package of the addictive substance in his things and asks if his leg is still bothering him. Granville denies that he still uses the stuff and hasn't touched it in nine months. His bugle from the war hangs over his bedpost, and just looking at it brings back some painful war memories.

In public, Granville Whipple puts on a happy face and seems to be in control. He quickly gets several local kids to come over for lessons, and even hires Mary Ingalls to create sheet music for him. Alas, the painful war memories combined with his longing for morphine soon reduce him to acting like an angry junkie. He angrily rejects Mary's work in one scene, then finds out to his dismay that the Olesons' store does not stock opiate painkillers anymore. Doctor Baker knows what Granville is up to and wont prescribe him any morphine, either. Later that night, Granville breaks into Dr. Baker's office and steals all of his morphine. The conclusion of this story is harrowing, and not uplifting as so many endings were on this show.

One subplot reveals that Granville was actually a coward in battle. In flashbacks, we see him running from enemy fire and leaving a friend to die on the battlefield. In town, he meets this man's son, and that is what seems to help push him over the edge. Later, he tearfully admits to his mother that he was in fact a coward at Shiloh where he was awarded a medal. This episode may have been very timely due to many American soldiers returning from Vietnam at the time with perhaps similar demons and afflictions. Overall, this is a somber episode made at a time when the series was firing on all cylinders. 10 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

We've met Mrs. Whipple and know she's a widow, but today we discover that she also has a son. Granville Whipple fought in the Civil War. Unfortunately, he was wounded and as common knowledge tells you, the war doctors gave the wounded w wonder drug called morphine. It did wonders for the pain, but what they didn't know was that it caused a dependence on it.

Granville is a musician and has returned home to reunite with his mother and teach music. That gets Laura to asking her Pa to teach her the fiddle. Nellie and Willie became his first pupils. And even Mary started to learn the mini-piano in exchange for copying music.

We find out almost right off that he had become addicted to the white powder. His mother had been aware of it and became frightened when she discovered he still had some morphine on him. He assured her that he wasn't using it anymore. And at first, perhaps he wasn't. But the longer he stayed around Walnut Grove, the more he became haunted by the memories of what really happened in the battle he won the medal in. People hailed him a hero, but the memories he had assured the viewers that he was anything but a hero.

As the memories taunt him, things get worse. And then he meets the son of his best friend who was killed in the war. Seeing the son tormented him with the truth all over again. He began taking the morphine. Classic symptoms of drug abuse began and soon he was no longer the nice war hero, but an angry, bitter man who snapped at everyone.

The ending of this episode chills you to the bone. I'm afraid his life ended in tragedy, and though I've seen this episode many, many times I never could figure out what happened to him exactly...

By the way, this isn't the only time the issue of morphine addiction is mentioned in this show. Michael Landon was a very big advocate against drug abuse and often delved into the topic on his shows. We'll see a member from his family deal with this issue in the last season.

I enjoyed this! storyline about the trials of war. At this time of filming the Vietnam war had ended and these were issues in modern society

Although over the top sometimes (David Rose's soundtrack is the main culprit--this composer never, ever learned anything about subtlety, and that lack of nuance is blatant here; in one particular scene, as Granville Whipple sinks into the abyss, the music sounds like that of the twister scene in the Wizard of Oz), this episode is a well-intentioned portrait of how the trauma of war haunts a soldier years after the last shots are fired. In 1975, this subject was still small in the public consciousness, so "Little House..." deserves some credit for covering it.

On the minus side is the simplistic portrayal of morphine addiction. The victim goes from using for the first time in months to acute withdrawals within a matter of hours. But, that's television.