Charles and Albert Ingalls pay a visit to Walnut Grove to catch up with friends and family. Unfortunately, it isn't long before they realize something is off. Charles's demeanor is subdued and Albert is acting very strange and emotionally detached. Soon, Charles is forced to admit that Albert fell in with a bad crowd and is now suffering from a severe addiction to morphine that is destroying the sanctity of his life in the city and heavily straining his marriage, and Albert is raiding every possible place that carries morphine to feed his addiction and ruining any hope to make a steady living. The question is, will Charles be able to break Albert loose from this horrendous addiction, or is Albert too far gone to stop from tearing apart everything in sight, his own family included?
This episode contains examples of:
- An Aesop: Don't listen to peer pressure. The quintessential cause of most of these kid/teen addicted to drugs kinds of plots and situations, Albert is yet another victim of it, as he wouldn't be hooked to morphine had he not wanted to fit in with his new "friends". Near the end of part 2, a recovered Albert himself drives the point home in a speech to the Walnut Grove schoolchildren.
- Bad Boss: No longer a farmer after his move to Iowa, Charles is now working at a men's clothing store, where he gets berated daily by his tyrannical boss, Mr. Janes; while working late one night (under protest), a policeman stops by to inform Charles that Albert has gotten into trouble yet again. Anxious to sort out the situation, Charles tries explaining to his unsympathetic boss why he needs to get to the police station immediately, but Janes threatens to fire Charles for doing so; seeing no alternative, he defies his boss and leaves anyway.
- The Bus Came Back: Charles brings Albert back to Walnut Grove after his latest run-in with the law, having fallen into a bad group of boys in Burr Oak, Iowa.
- G-Rated Drug: Completely and totally averted. Although the drug in question is morphine – as such, not quite as bad as heroin or cocaine – the big thing here is the withdrawal scenes, which are extremely graphic and horrifying to watch. In fact, in a show where just about everything else was as G-rated as could be, this was one episode where parents were explicitly encouraged to watch with their children due to the horrifying nature of Albert going through the painful process of withdrawal.
- New Transfer Student: Toward the end of this episode, as Albert is finally clean, a new 10-year-old girl about Jason's age named Tami joins the school.
- There's No Place Like Home: What Charles hopes Albert will take advantage of to get him off his drug habit. It works, but only very eventually.
- Unwanted Glasses Plot: Inverted with this strong anti-drug episode's virtually forgotten subplot, which also heavily involves Doc Baker. Jason may need glasses, but seems a little too eager to get them. Though he knows the boy's eyes are fine, Doc Baker goes along with it, explaining to his father John that the glasses make Jason feel good by boosting his self-confidence; by the end, Jason has abandoned his spectacles after being called "four eyes" by new girl Tami.
