The Ingalls family learns that nothing resolves trauma like a mysterious illness-induced fever dream.
Photo: ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX

Nothing like a deadly fever to force people to confront their fears, guilt, grief, and other demons, huh? May we all have as much clarity from our fever dreams as the Ingalls family does. Turns out, almost dying in a pool of your own sweat because of a mysterious infection is better than therapy.

Last we left them, Mary had collapsed with the intermittent fever going around right in the middle of a heated argument between Charles and Caroline. Caroline was questioning whether her sister had been right to call her out on her foolishness for following Charles after learning her husband was keeping the fact that the Osage had not sold the land they’re living on from her. She put so much faith in Charles and feels completely betrayed. Maybe she really is a fool. Well, before either can find out what Caroline wants to do about it, both Ma and Pa Ingalls fall ill with the fever, and we — and Laura — watch them drift in and out of some pretty intense dreams. Never fall seriously ill whilst dealing with so much angst, I say!

Caroline finds herself in her sister Eliza’s house back in Wisconsin. She has chosen to leave Charles. Her sister keeps telling her that she made the right choice. That she is better off without Charles. Now she can start a life with the safe, predictable man she rejected for Charles all those years ago. Caroline doesn’t seem so convinced. Something is wrong here.

Charles gets lost in a dream that is quite upsetting for him but illuminating for us. He follows George out into the woods, and he comes upon his father, and we finally get more details as to what happened before Charles left Wisconsin. George was supposed to come out West with his family, but Charles eventually decides against it. And he doesn’t want George to stay in Wisconsin with their family either. “He’s not right in the head,” Charles tells his father. George has been hallucinating soldiers, refusing to take his uniform off, and waking up screaming. Charles found a home in Pennsylvania that takes care of soldiers like George. Charles’s father won’t hear it. “He’s not sick! He’s a hero,” he yells before they notice George is listening. Charles follows George, trying to apologize. He comes upon George’s uniform neatly folded by a lake. There’s enough to imply that George must have killed himself. Charles only wanted to help, but his father reappears to reprimand Charles for always thinking he knows best. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” he says. So, uh, yeah, seems like a lot of intensely emotional and tragic shit went down before Charles left. It’s no wonder no one showed up to say good-bye. It’s no wonder Charles is suffocated with guilt. It’s no wonder he so badly wants to make Kansas work.

While Ma and Pa are dealing with their unresolved trauma, Laura does her best to take care of her family. When she realizes that her parents are only getting worse, she decides she has no choice but to go find Dr. Tann and get help. Pet and Patty, the horses, are nowhere to be found, which means Laura and Jack the Dog have to make a run for it. Laura is simply too brave and too precious for this world! And I know this is mean, but I also know every last one of you is thinking it: thank the prairie gods Laura was the last Ingalls to fall to the fever and not Mary. You know it’s true!!

And yes, Laura does eventually fall ill. She finds herself at the Mitchell house only to learn that Mr. Mitchell is away for work and White Sun and Good Eagle are both in bed, extremely sick as well. Laura tries her best to help them and then vows to make it to town. With a protection prayer from White Sun, she and Jack take off again. But she soon runs right into her grandma (played by none other than Anne of Green Gables herself, Megan Follows), and we know that Laura is sick too. So technically, it is Jack who is the last Ingalls standing — when she collapses along the road to town, he doesn’t leave Laura’s side and barks his face off trying to get help.

In Caroline’s dream, as she begins to fight back against her sister, Eliza makes a comment about how alone Caroline and her family are out there, and Caroline responds that she doesn’t think that’s true at all. And she’s right. While the Ingalls family are all fighting off this sickness, there is a whole group of people trying to help them.

Dr. Tann is back in town and frantically searching for more quinine; he’s already out of his own supply. When he learns that Jemma James stocked up on the medicine months ago, he goes to her house to ask her to, you know, not be an asshole and give him some of her stash. He’ll even pay her for it. But she refuses. People will definitely die without it, he reminds her. Well, she doesn’t want her family to be some of those people. May this woman never know peace.

You know who does come to the rescue of her friends and neighbors, even though you know a lot of people write her off for wearing pants and being French? Lacey Aubert. She finds Dr. Tann and tells him she has a supply of the medicine, and they begin administering it all over the prairie. The two come across the Ingallses just as Mary is trying to stop her father from fever dream sleep walking out into the middle of nowhere. She thinks Laura must have reached them, but when they tell her that they haven’t seen Laura, everyone’s worried.

Never fear, my prairie babes, there’s another helpful neighbor out there: Caleb. Even after Emily asks him not to go out so that he doesn’t get sick, he goes to check on the Ingalls family anyway. Jack stops him on the road, and he carries Laura on his back to the Mitchell house, where she rests until Dr. Tann can bring her some quinine. Everyone is going to survive this outbreak thanks to Dr. Tann, Lacey, and, in a sweet little twist, Mr. Edwards. Do you think Lacey enjoyed informing Caroline that it was Mr. Edwards who used all of his money to buy quinine wherever he could find it, knowing people would need it? Just a little? I do. And that feels right. Caroline still feels like shit over how she treated Edwards, and I cannot wait until she gets to talk to him face-to-face again.

Everyone surviving the fever is great, but do you know the most important thing that survives? Charles and Caroline’s marriage. I would have thrown something at my TV if the rift between them had gone on any longer; they are my everything now. Charles and Caroline Ingalls are inching very close to Coach and Tami Taylor at the moment, and know that I do not rank TV marriages lightly.

At the end of Caroline’s fever dream, she realizes that what feels so wrong is that she never wanted a safe, predictable life with the safe, predictable guy. Charles may be overly optimistic and naive, she tells her sister, but he’s also brilliant and driven by love and hope and adventure, and that’s what she’s always wanted for her life. “He makes me feel whole,” she says. “He makes me feel like myself.” Yes, their life together may feel uncertain at times, but “an uncertain life is full of possibilities.” Then she walks herself right out of that room and that dream and goes to see her guy.

Charles tells her about his dream, and he lets an apology for everything he’s put their family through spill out of him. He’s scared that she’ll never forgive him. He’s scared by what her having a way out means. But she shuts that all down. She tells him that she needs him to trust her from now on. She needs him to believe in her the way she believes in him. She is strong and capable, and there can be no more secrets between them. He agrees, no more secrets. These two are incredible. Please adopt me once the little house gets indoor plumbing.

• The scenes between White Sun and Laura are some of my favorites in the series. Laura, convalescing at the Mitchells’, wakes to find White Sun singing a morning sun to thank Wah’kon-tah. When Laura asks questions about it, White Sun opens up to her about her grief over her daughter Julia, who died only a year ago, and how she can feel her spirit again — especially when she hears Good Eagle laughing with Laura.

• White Sun and Caroline finally come face-to-face. Caroline comes to pick up Laura, and it’s like the two women finally see how connected they are and how that might be a good thing. They agree that Caroline should have Good Eagle join some of her lessons with the girls.

• When Emily tells Dr. Tann to take care of himself because the town can’t afford to lose him, did you also yell SHE CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE YOU at your screen? Cool, cool, cool, I did not do that either.

• Pet and Patty have gone missing, and while Laura blames herself, believing she must have left the pen open while doing chores, we saw her double-checking that the pen was closed. A mystery!

• As the Ingalls family takes stock of how much they love each other and have another sing-along to end the day, Caroline reaches for her stomach and makes a face that might be saying something is wrong with the baby. Is something wrong with our baby?

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