Nothing bad here, but neither plot had anything particularly interesting.
The main plot was Jim-Bob starting out as a mail deliveryman working for Ike. Jim-Bob meets Betsy, a young wife of an Army Air Corps pilot, living in a long-abandoned cottage in the hills, in need of many repairs. Betsy is rather attractive, only a few years older than Jim-Bob, and seems to spend all of her days at home wearing clothing with no sleeves and frequently no shoulders, and also very short pants.
Betsy accepts his early offers to help fix things up around the house and welcomes his company, unaware that he is developing a romantic interest in her. John tries to lecture Jim-Bob about remembering that she is someone's wife. Jim-Bob insists she's just a friend, but his interest is clearly becoming more than that.
When he gives her some perfume for a gift after being invited to supper, she realizes she has been leading him in a direction she doesn't want to go.
Jim-Bob is hurt, but realizes he shouldn't have let romantic feelings develop for a married woman. Betsy visits his home to make amends and winds up doing him a huge favor that he truly appreciated. They agree to remain friends, and this enables Jim-Bob to help her later in the show. No need to reveal details of that here, for those who haven't seen this yet.
The subplot deals with Serena joining a Girl-Scout-like group of girls run by Corabeth, called the Blue Ridge Girls' Association (or something like that). After complaining to the girls about their poor efforts at raising scrap metal, Corabeth challenges them to earn all of their remaining merit badges. Serena needs to complete a number of tasks, and John assigns each family member to assist, or mostly, just watch her perform the various tasks--starting a fire by rubbing sticks together, first aid bandaging, preparing meals, etc.
The scene where they were assigned to the different tasks was rather humorous, as were some of the follow-up scenes. Later there's one not-so-funny, but it wasn't too dramatic.
I thought the subplot was decently interesting, but the main plot involving Jim-Bob seemed rather boring to me. The Waltons is not a soap opera and the characters do not behave like so many characters on TV today, at least not in the matter of jumping into bed with almost everyone they meet.
Thinking of someone in Jim-Bob's position actually meeting someone like that, I think he behaved as you would expect someone to behave, and I also thought it believable that Betsy was unaware of how Jim-Bob was becoming a bit too interested in her. My criticism is that none of this was all that interesting.
This episode is another example of why so many fans of the series believe the series was running out of good scripts by the 8th season.
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