Jenny Wilder makes the mistake of taking her treasured father's locket with her to the lake. It falls underwater and she gets caught on a sunken tree branch trying to retrieve it. Even though she is rescued, Jenny was starved of oxygen for too long and now faces impaired motor controls and speech. Meanwhile, an aging doctor will soon be forced to retire for good as his eyesight deteriorates away. However, he has one last patient to help.
Tropes associated with this episode:
- Ambiguous Gender: Jenny finds a wounded bird, which she and Dr. Marvin nurse to health during their sessions. When they decide to give it a name but can't tell whether it's male or female, Jenny suggests that they name it the gender-neutral name Robin, which is also fitting for a bird.
- Bittersweet Ending: More on the sweet than bitter. Dr. Marvin eventually becomes completely blind and is forced to give up on Medicine practice as a result, but he was still able to help one last patient before and still has Jenny's friendship to make him company in the years to come.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Preteen Jenny is very close to elderly Dr. Marvin, who lives only with an aging nurse and occasional patients. His bond with her is what makes him very adamant in helping her overcome her paralysis.
- Irony: The last time a member of the Wilder family became temporarily handicapped, it was when Almanzo suffered a stroke and got stuck in grief, and Laura was the one adamant that he should make an effort to recover and overcome his state and fighting against Eliza Jane's efforts to coddle him. Here, Laura is the one coddling Jenny when she suffers paralysis and Almanzo is the one trying to insist that they let Jenny make efforts to overcome her situation.
- Kick the Dog: When Jenny returns to school, her speech and movements are still limp and when they are alone, Nancy openly declares she'd never want to live in her state, almost as if insinuating Jenny would be better off dead!
- Kids Are Cruel: When Jenny tries to talk during her first day back at school while recovering, two of the children can be seen laughing at her Speech Impediment.
- Near-Death Experience: When Jenny goes to school for the first time, Willie asks her about it, seeing how she got close to dying and is curious about what it was like. Jenny doesn't remember much of anything.
- Special Guest: Veteran actor Ralph Bellamy, who plays the titular physician (Dr. Marvin Haynes).
- Trauma Conga Line: DEAR GOD, Jenny! First, Jenny loses her locket of her father while swimming, the last thing she has left to remind her of him, and doesn't get it back. Second, she almost drowns. Third, she suffers partial paralysis from her brain being deprived of oxygen for a while. Fourth, she takes months to recover and has to relearn how to speak and how to walk. And finally, Jenny has to live with the fact the doctor who helped her recover is destined to go blind. The writers really put her through something terrible this time...
