All Creatures Great & Small (S03)

[queer_scribbling]

Clearly, I remembered to toss a post up for series/season 3.

(This year I'm just adding episode remarks in the comments on this one post, especially with the season nearly being over. Contextual note: For the first two seasons on PF, I tried to have a separate post for each episode as my family watched the show each week. In this archival process, I might follow suit with season 3 and have a bunch of comments on just one post per season.)

Originally posted on Pillowfort on 15 February 2023.

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S03E06: For Whom the Bell Tolls

[queer_scribbling]

Recap.

You know what's not great? When they finally give you a very specific date. Friday, the 1st of September of 1939. There's an announcement that Germany has invaded Poland on the radio. (It's an archival clip, but I'm not sure if it's Chamberlain speaking or not. I do know the last archival clip is him, though. One out of three ain't bad....)

Did you think we were done with TB? Nope. Richard [Helen and Jenny's father] has a cow test positive, and he panics a bit about the farm needing to be shut down for a month. James can hold off on signing the forms until he does a test in the lab to confirm the positive result, and Richard tries to send the cow to slaughter the next morning. James and Helen convince him to call the MAG to explain, since this looks like a cover up for James' in-laws and making a mistake could cost him his job, which might lead to him being drafted [reminder that veterinarians belong to the exempt from conscription group].

To make this even more tricky, an unsigned form stating that there weren't any cows with TB on the farm was accidentally put into the post. (James didn't immediately tell Helen about the possible positive. Mrs Hall didn't realise that the stamp-less envelope meant that it wasn't ready to be put in the post, so she found a stamp.) James and Helen rushed off to the MAG to Mr Yells Everything, and things get sorted out. (Definitely more stressful with all the yelling than it sounds here.)

Operation Pied Piper and the first wave of children being evacuated from the cities to rural areas starts [in this] when James and Helen literally see a bus of children show up. At first my family was a bit confused, but that's more because we're used to the wave of evacuees after the Blitz starts being talked about. That should be late 1940 or 1941.

Anyway, war is totally looking imminent now, and Mrs Pumphrey is helping by growing vegetables (and I believe offering to open up Pumphrey Manor to evacuees if needed). Cue that lovely motivational bit about holding onto the people you love like a life ring in a storm. I don't think that was the only deciding factor, but Tristan tries to propose to Florence after he sees the stray cat at the manor. I absolutely do not blame Florence for being surprised. I mean, Tris just barely got done having dinner with her parents the day before. The writers actually gave Florence a more mature reasoning about how getting married to her won't help him to find himself [separate from Siegfried].

Emotions are a bit high in the aftermath of this, so I'm not sure how literal Tristan was being when he said that Florence was never going to visit Skeldale House again. I am not disappointed that Tristan and Florence aren't getting married, but I must admit that I was hoping they'd still be amicable. It's not like it's the worst thing ever to be friends with Florence instead of married to her. That's definitely a To Be Determined matter, especially at this particular high stress time.

Sunday, the 3rd of September of 1939. That archival clip of Chamberlain announces that Britain is at war with Germany. Tristan decides to join the queue of men in the town square signing up to enlist. After all the hints and not so subtle discussions with Helen this season, James has decided that he needs to enlist as well, so he joins Tris in the queue. It's the final image of the episode. [Part of that final image is the church bells ringing. Siegfried and Mrs Hall briefly talk about how the bells didn't ring in the last war until it was over.]

Originally commented on 16 February 2023.