Walnut Grove is saying goodbye to two couples who announce plans to depart their roots for life in the city.
Sorrowful news comes to the Oleson family as Papa Cohen's ailing heart got the better of him, taking his life. Nellie will be moving to New York with her husband Percival so he can take over the family business. At the same time, Adam Kendall is forced to accept that he is not getting any business as a lawyer out in the country and would do better in the urban environment, so he and Mary decide to move to the city.
While the Ingallses manage to handle the departure of their daughter fairly well, poor Harriet is beside herself with grief because she no longer has her beloved Nellie there to dote on. She spirals into depression so badly that she becomes bedridden. Eventually, Dr. Baker comes by to check on the woman at the request of Nels and suggests that Harriet look into adoption if she misses having a little girl in her life so much. Although, no one can truly replace Nellie... or can they...?
The little girl the Olesens agree to adopt just might turn out to be ... "The Reincarnation Of Nellie."
After some resistance to the idea, Harriet gives in, skeptical that she will find someone she would like to adopt. However, a sudden and chaotic clamor at the orphanage the Olesons are visiting reveals one extremely ill-behaved, blonde-haired, blue-eyed menace.
Enter Nancy.
Nancy, as the orphanage director will reveal, is the single-most unruly child this orphanage has ever seen, always gets her way and causes disasters for anybody who gets on her bad side. While anybody normal would turn around and run the other way at the sight of such a monster child, this is Harriet Olesen we're talking about... and Harriet sees the spitting image of her Nellie inside this pint-sized tyrant. To Nels's surprise and Willie's horror, Harriet actually decides to win over Nancy and adopt her as her new daughter. Nels does go along, wanting to go along but also thinking that maybe, with a little love, guidance and a stable home, she can become a respectable and responsible person ... if he only knew ... .
Yet... there's something wrong with this picture, and Harriet can't see it because she's blinded with dreams of motherly affection, even dressing up Nancy to further resemble Nellie when she was younger. Nancy is a manipulative little devil with a knack for weaseling her way both in and out of trouble, and soon, she leaves her mark on the school community and her family with a bratty tirade she cloaks by playing the victim. Willie is totally sick of this second coming of Nellie within days as he never wanted another helping of what he went through with his older sister, and the Ingallses' own adopted daughter Cassandra becomes an easy target for Nancy to pick on at school. Sure, her own mother is too dense to see it, but not Laura, who immediately sees through this trick from personal experience with the trick's original weaponizer.
But then comes a point where Nancy does something not even Nellie would have imagined doing, nor Mrs. Oleson would have approved. There is a talent show planned at the school and angry that another student, Belinda, will be starring and not her ... she feigns friendship with her and then tricks her into going to the icehouse to get some ice for a drink ... and then gets Willie to close the door, unknowing Belinda is inside.
Belinda is found unconscious but Nels finds her and gets her to Doc Baker in time. Nancy feigns an explanation that it wasn’t her fault, and it looks like she’ll get her wish and be the star of the talent show. Mrs. Oleson, unaware of the truth behind how Belinda became incapacitated, even wants to make her a cute little mermaid costume.
Then it all comes undone for Nancy. Charles finds out the truth about Nancy’s background — her biological mother died while giving birth to her, and because of behavior problems she was shipped to different orphanages, never staying in one home for long. Even Mrs. Oleson admits Nancy has gone too far, and she, Laura and all of the others who do not like Nancy’s entitled behavior, seek to teach her a thing or two about manners and what is acceptable and what is not.
In the end, Mrs. Oleson tells Nancy she is loved and that she now has a stable home and doesn’t have to lie to be accepted. Nancy seems to get it and is actually a good sport about it ... but will this be the end of her reign of terror on Walnut Grove?
Tropes associated with this episode:
- Broken Tears: Hate Mrs. Oleson if you will, but this was a rare case of the audience actually feeling sorry for her as she mourns Nellie's move to New York to be with her in-laws. (Keeping in mind that, in the 1880s, if your child moved cross-country, it often meant that was the last time you saw them in person during your lifetime (given that travel, even though the railroad existed, wasn't nearly what it is today), let alone even got letters or other correspondence from them even on a timely basis. Mrs. Oleson mourns for so long, in fact, that Nels becomes genuinely concerned over his wife's state of mind, let alone physical health.
- Bus Crash: It's revealed in the beggining of the episode that Percival's father passed in his sleep.
- Cousin Oliver: Arguably, Nancy. The fourth child added to the series, all to keep it interesting and draw new, younger viewers.
- Death by Childbirth: The reason why Nancy's biological mother is missing.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- What Laura tells Charles when she compares Nellie to Nancy. Nellie played many cruel tricks in her day, but hers was more a show of elitism than outright hatred and a desire to kill off their rivals … which is what Nancy does when she tricks Belinda into going to the icehouse and then asks Willie to lock the door (not telling him someone was inside).
- Mrs. Oleson, when she not only refuses to stick up for Nancy when she's been tricked into being queen of the dunk tank, she joins right in. She then tells her she doesn't have to lie to be loved or accepted. (And truth be told, she would never have allowed or endorsed Nancy locking Belinda in the icehouse in the first place.)
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Nancy, when auditioning for the school pageant. In real life, Allison Balson is vastly talented as a folk singer, and hints of Nancy pursuing a singing career are dropped throughout the rest of the series' run.
- Missing Mom: Nancy wants to believe, and wants everyone to believe, that her dear, beloved mother left her behind and that she's simply a victim of poor luck. In reality, this evil brat with mounds of problems is indeed without a mother. Nancy's mother died while giving birth to her — today, the condition is known as preecclampsia – and she never had a true mother figure in her life.
- Disappeared Dad: Also at play; since there was no hope of tracking down the unknown father, and reliable testing methods were still the things of science fiction, why Nancy was sent to an orphanage.
- Noodle Incident: In an otherwise serious scene where Mary and Adam announce that they're moving to New York, Adam mentions among the only five cases he had in Walnut Grove, one "Morgan v Swenson", which involved the theft of an outhouse.
- Orphan's Ordeal: What Nancy has faced most of her life. Come to despise someone that might be best described as devil spawn, but Nancy's actual background story will reveal that she has been an orphan most of her life, and her unstable life of moving around from orphanage to orphanage — not all of it her fault — and the conditions that likely existed in the 1880s (including, sadly, physical and sexual abuse) have all given Nancy a terrible burden to have already borne.
- Put on a Bus: Adam and Mary make their final regular appearances, though both would return later that season in "A Christmas They Never Forgot".
- Raised by Grandparents: According to the orphanage director Charles questions about Nancy's background, she was initially raised by her grandmother, but the poor old woman couldn't keep up with her erratic behavior much longer so Nancy eventually ended up at the orphanage.
- Removing the Rival: Nancy arranges to have Belinda Stevens locked in the ice house to make her sick, so that she can sing in the festival in her place, and also because she sees her as a rival to Albert.
- Series Continuity Error: The Blacksmith shop still has name of Irv Hartwig, even though 1) he was a one-shot character who died at the end of his episode, 2) it's been months since his death, so there should he a new blacksmith in town, 3) he was a rapist and his sign should have been taken the day people figured it out.
- Villainous Crush: Nancy seems to take a liking on Albert, and tries to bully Cassandra into giving up her place to her so she can see by his side. She later arranges to have Albert's girlfriend locked in the ice house.
