MY ELLEN

"When Laura and Mary go skinny-dipping with their friend, Ellen Taylor, some boys come by to get a glimpse. The girls hide underwater until they go away. Laura and Mary come back up, but Ellen becomes trapped under the surface and drowns. Ellen's grief-stricken mother blames Laura for the tragedy, then rebuffs efforts by several people to cheer her up. Later, when Laura pays a visit to Mrs. Taylor she traps Laura in the basement, somehow concluding that she is Ellen. Suspicion immediately falls on Busby, a mentally challenged man whom Charles had warned his daughters to stay away from when Laura's thing are found outside Busby's House. While the hunt is on for Busby, Laura must rely on her wits to escape Mrs. Taylor's clutches and help her come to terms with Ellen's death, which she finally does. The men realize they were wrong about Busby. Laura later gives Busby a Picture book." (Wikipedia)

What a way to start an episode. Has there ever been another series that used skinny dipping as a plot device?
What does this say of the morals of the Ingall's girls? Swimming naked?? You would NEVER see a refined family, say the Olesons, behave in such a manner.

I guess they did't have swaiming suits....

I don't like the way the girls mother treated poor laura.Wasn't anybody's fault.

This episode has always been one of my favorites. I remember watching it as it aired and my Mom almost flipping out that Ellen drowned. (My mom can't swim and she was worried about my brother and I until we learned how...)
I do agree it did seem odd for the Ingalls girls to be skinny dipping. The whole twist of Ellen's Mom thinking Laura was Ellen was creepy, but I'm sure it has happend when someone is so distraught. Well written if you ask me.

While the only time I can think of skinny dipping being used as a plot point is in the opening of the first Jaws movie, historically, it's probably not that far fetched. Charles was known to bathe in the creek. Swimming in their birthday suits probably wasn't unusual back then. I find it odd considering how reserved Mary can be, and that by this time she had developed, that she would want to swim naked with the younger girls, but again, I guess we're supposed to assume she and her sisters swam naked all the time, unless they were swimming with a group of kids and wore their petticoats.

This episode still creeps me out. I don't watch it very often.

Gin wrote:

This episode has always been one of my favorites. I remember watching it as it aired and my Mom almost flipping out that Ellen drowned. (My mom can't swim and she was worried about my brother and I until we learned how...)
I do agree it did seem odd for the Ingalls girls to be skinny dipping. The whole twist of Ellen's Mom thinking Laura was Ellen was creepy, but I'm sure it has happend when someone is so distraught. Well written if you ask me.

I seriously doubt that Laura or Mary could have even been skinny dipping. Laura wrote about Mary and herself swimming, along with Pa, but I think they have old dresses on (since it was not common for people that were not from high classes would have swimming suits back then). No decent girl would swim naked, even if they were alone.

I don't like this epie a bit. The whole Busby thing is disturbibng. I know the guy was good, but when you began watching the episode one didn't know it, and it's possible to imagine he could have raped and killed a girl. This is was, apparently , Charles thought when Laura didn't come home this night.

As for Ellen 's mother...I know there are real cases like hers, but it was creepy and not very agreeable to watch the whole thing in LHOTP. When I watch "Sylvia", "Be my friend!" and "May we make them Proud?" I have similar feelings. They gave me chills.

Vanesa.

Part of the reason Ellen drowned was because the girls dunked underwater quickly when they discovered a group of boys trying to peek at them without theit clothes on. In Laura's Ingalls Wilder's fourth book, On the Banks of Plum Creek, which featured Laura as a girl about the same age as Laura in this episode, Laura Ingalls Wilder talked about how she and her sister Mary wore old clothes to swim. Back in the day, skinny-dipping was as inappropriate for girls that age as it is today. What's more, in episodes like Season 2's A Matter of Faith and Season 9's Times are Changing, the boys wore their pants (and sometimes even their suspenders) and just removed their shirts while swimming, and the girls often swam in their bloomers (or the wealthy girls, like Nellie and Nancy Oleson, had fancy old-fashioned bathing suits). That being said, it's unusual that Mary, Laura, Ellen, and Carrie didn't have anything on in this particular episode's swimming scenes.

From TV.com...

Vanesa wrote:

I seriously doubt that Laura or Mary could have even been skinny dipping. No decent girl would swim naked, even if they were alone.

They were. I thought it was odd when I read it too, so I pulled out my DVDs last night and they had bare shoulders. This really threw me, because I hadn't watched this episode in forever. Now, what I don't understand is why in all the other instances when swimming with classmates they were in their petticoats, but in this episode they are bare. I mean, the girls still could have been freaked out by some strange boys trying to look at them in their wet underclothes, though less likely since they swam that way with other classmates around--including boys.

It's just a totally odd way to approach Ellen's drowning. They could have been playing a game and gotten distracted by Carrie and not noticed Ellen go down. There were other ways to have it happen. Why they were skinny dipping is beyond me.

1.The mother thinking laura was ellen i agree was creepy. Laura shouldn't have gone to her house to see her.She should have waited a bit. I think the mother was in so much shock and grive about it she just started blaming ppl for the deaths.It was really no ones fault.

Watched this again last night. Couldn't help but think how smart Laura was to have Mrs. Taylor makes a wish also before blowing out the candles. BUT, what seemed odd to me is that Laura fell. That girl had run all over those hills, and with someone after me I would have sprouted wings!

Gin wrote:

Watched this again last night. Couldn't help but think how smart Laura was to have Mrs. Taylor makes a wish also before blowing out the candles. BUT, what seemed odd to me is that Laura fell. That girl had run all over those hills, and with someone after me I would have sprouted wings!

Accidents will bite when you least expect :P

Gin wrote:

Watched this again last night. Couldn't help but think how smart Laura was to have Mrs. Taylor makes a wish also before blowing out the candles. BUT, what seemed odd to me is that Laura fell. That girl had run all over those hills, and with someone after me I would have sprouted wings!

It was smart of Laura to get Mrs.Taylor to make a wish so she could escape. I felt sorry for Busby getting blamed for Laura's disappearance.

Funny Busby wasn't around til the episode. Did you take a look at his hands? They were huge!

This show disturbed me for whatever reason, sad, but like a modern day kidnapping you see on Law and Order.
I thought it was odd to see Ellen's mom playing Mrs. Edward's later in the series..with all the actress's out there, she didn't look like her and all I kept thinking was, "That's Ellen's mom".
(she took the Edward's children too!)

I find it interesting to see what grief did to Ellen's mom.

I saw a scene from this episode a few weeks ago when it was on tv, the one where Ellen's mother traps Laura in the basement, but it would be interesting to see the rest of the episode. From what other forum members have said above, I can't believe skinny dipping would be part of a Little House episode at all! I can possibly imagine Laura doing so when she was younger, but not Mary at any age. Mary always seemed much more proper and a rule follower than Laura.

This is my least favorite episode. One time, looked like the girls were carrying an old fashion bathing suit or something? When the girls duck under the water. You think, Ellen will come back up. She probably panic under the water or hair got caught in something. Mr. Busby, he was okay man. He didn't look like, he was going hurt anyone. He looked like, he played the character from Princess Bride. Who was tall and big.

There is a tradition that a young girl died in an identical way to the girl in this episode. Ironically, she is known as the Walnut Girl. Try Googling Walnut Girl Armona California for details. I wonder if the episode writer knew of this or just coincidence.

It's interesting that in a later Season 4 episode, "The Stranger," they are going mixed swimming (Laura and Mary with Pa and a boy named Peter) and Peter says, "I don't have a bathing suit." Pa explains, "We swim in our underwear." The guys strip down to long union suits while the girls have on petticoats or something. Pa also throws Peter in and then explains there was no danger as the water is shallow enough to stand up in. It's obvious they not only have changed their swimwear habits, with presumably no more skinny dipping, but gone to a much safer swimming place, possibly with poor Ellen's fate in mind.

CoriSCapnSkip wrote:

There is a tradition that a young girl died in an identical way to the girl in this episode.  Ironically, she is known as the Walnut Girl.  Try Googling Walnut Girl Armona California for details.  I wonder if the episode writer knew of this or just coincidence.

Oh, that's very interesting! And it really was identical to the episode. Thanks!

Yeah, I sat up and paid attention when I watched the episode.