The Ingalls and James ladies get to know each other, and the results are mixed.
Photo: ERIC ZACHANOWICH/NETFLIX

If “A Circle of Blue Sky” teaches us anything, it’s that no matter how badly you want to start over or how idyllic your home looks, you’re always going to run into super shitty people. Assholes and racists are everywhere, we know this — and now the Ingallses do too.

Caroline has been invited to a meeting of the Women’s Society led by Jemma James, which gives Mary and Laura the perfect opportunity to spend some time with Jemma and Eli’s twin daughters, Romanzy and Edith. Mary is thrilled — she does well with, uh, indoor girls — and Laura is full of anxiety. It doesn’t help that instead of sticking together as a team, both are instead hellbent on showing up the other. Mary has already claimed this outing as her domain, but Laura bets her that she can win over the James twins.

Romanzy and Edith are exactly like their mother in that they’re both terrible. The fact that Romanzy has that much bluster while wearing two pom-poms on her head — I don’t care what the fashion was at the time — really tells you everything you need to know about her. Still, Mary is desperate to make them her friends, and Laura is desperate to get in Mary’s way. They are very much in Mary’s wheelhouse here, playing dress up and pretending to be high society women, and it doesn’t help that anytime Laura makes a comment that the twins find off-putting, Mary apologizes for her sister, who has “no taste” and is “a wildling.” Even when Romanzy goes off on how stupid and ugly Caleb is — and gossips that his parents abandoned him because something must be wrong with him — Mary goes along with it. But it only takes a couple of crazy adventure stories from Laura to get the twins to pay attention to her. Laura has the upper hand now; she’s the favorite, and she’s more than happy to join the twins in making fun of Mary when they find her talking to Caleb outside. It’s only when the girls start hurling insults directly at Caleb that Laura realizes she didn’t win much of anything.

Caroline has a similar experience elsewhere in the James house. She’s excited to be included in the Women’s Society, and Jemma doesn’t hide that she’s basically anointed Caroline her right-hand woman. But it’s clear after even just a few minutes that this isn’t really the Independence Women’s Society but Jemma James’s Women’s Society.

Emily Henderson certainly learns that lesson. Running late because she had to go flirt with George Tann (an acceptable reason), Emily, who clearly took some pains to get dressed up for the event, arrives at the door only for Jemma to play dumb as to why she’d be here. Oh, she tells her, isn’t it clear? This Society is only for the married women of Independence, sorry, babe. Of course Emily and anyone else paying attention understands that “married” is just a stand-in for white. It doesn’t take Caroline too long to figure that out either, especially after Jemma explains why she didn’t let Emily into the meeting, and another woman pipes up that she’s not married, either. But this woman is from a “respectable” — again, white — family. “What’s not respectable about running the biggest store in Independence?” Caroline asks Jemma.

It takes a little while, but eventually, Caroline does confront Jemma in front of the entire group and brings up that it doesn’t seem right that not all the women in the community are allowed in this group. She doesn’t note how insane and blatantly racist it is for Jemma to go on about getting women the vote and giving them a voice, but excluding any woman of color, but that would’ve been a good point, too. When no one else in the room backs her up, Caroline leaves and takes the girls with her.

Caroline finds Emily at the store, clearly hurt but being brave about it. When Caroline apologizes, Emily tells her that there are “battles worth fighting and Jemma James isn’t one of them.” They giggle thinking about Caroline walking out on her in her own home. This scene and the budding friendship between Caroline and Emily are sweet, but the fact that Little House seems to go to great pains to avoid saying the word ‘racism’ or even ‘Black person’ is hard to ignore. Sure, this series leans toward a family-oriented tone, but isn’t that the perfect kind of show to have a thoughtful discussion about this? As we’ve seen with its handling of the tensions between the white settlers and the Osage, Little House clearly has decided, at least so far this season, that alluding to rather than explicitly talking about any violence or discrimination is the way. But this is a show that isn’t shy in pointing out everyone is walking around with both physical and emotional wounds from the Civil War; it shouldn’t be afraid to get a little more into what that war was about. At the very least, it shouldn’t stop short of letting Caroline connect Emily’s treatment with how she, up to this point, has felt about the Osage. We’re glossing over some important themes, motivating factors, and history here.

The Ingalls ladies aren’t the only ones who have to deal with the bottom of the Independence barrel today. Charles is in town to begin construction on the church. The endeavor gets interrupted when scummy Russell shows up to declare he’s taken it upon himself to arrest the person who has been stealing everyone’s horses and unmasks the “degenerate” — it’s John Edwards. Edwards looks even more broken than before, and even with friends in the crowd — Charles, Dr. Tann, and Mitchell are all there — he declines to defend himself. It’s Lacey who comes to his rescue first: it turns out Edwards won a bunch of Russell’s money not too long ago, and he’s pissed. She’s about to draw her gun when Eli James steps in and tries to diffuse the situation by putting it off until the Marshal he’s having come down to Independence arrives. Neither Lacey, Charles, nor Mitchell is convinced this is in any way going to help Edwards, and instead ride off to find Mitchell’s brother-in-law, Little Puma, who seems to know about all the happenings in the area — if someone is stealing horses, he’ll know about it.

As one may have guessed, Little Puma isn’t exactly enthusiastic about helping out with a settler problem. “Your squatter friends can figure it out for themselves,” he tells Mitchell when they first arrive. But, as Mitchell reminds him, some Osage horses have been stolen, too. This is becoming everyone’s problem. He leads them to the actual thieves — a group of idiotic kids who are definitely unprepared to take on this crew of adults — and they get the horses back. Charles even successfully argues to let the thieves go as long as they promise never to come back. Lacey hates this idea, but the group decides to go with showing mercy this time around. At least Pet and Patty will return home, and Edwards will be released.

So, if Edwards is innocent, why didn’t he stand up for himself? As he confesses to Dr. Tann, today marks six years since he returned from the war and found his wife and daughters dead from cholera. He thought maybe this was his answer — this could be the end, and he might be able to join his family. This man has actually never been sadder — and remember how sad he was before? Dr. Tann tries to get through to him, reminding him that there are people here who care about him and he should let them. Edwards needs to, deserves to, start thinking about a future for himself.

It seems that the pep talk might work, or, at least, might be the beginning of Edwards wanting to turn things around, because when he runs into Charles again — Charles, who won’t stand for just a handshake because come on, brothers gotta hug — he takes him up on his offer to join the Ingalls family for dinner. And he brings Lacey.

There is laughter and music, and when Edwards has trouble getting through a song he says he used to sing for his girls, it’s Caroline who helps him through it. It’s a quiet, moving gesture to resolve any lingering tension or guilt between these two. There may be shitty people afoot in Independence, but not in that little house, not tonight.

• Laura sees that Mary is still upset by what happened at the James house and attempts to smooth things over with a cookie and acknowledging how awful the twins are, but Mary isn’t ready to forgive her sister just yet.

• After Charles saves Mr. Scott when he almost dies helping Charles dig out a well, everyone’s calling him a hero. This changes quickly once Charles is asked where he fought in the war, and he admits that he stayed home to help his father with the farm. “I guess some people don’t think the rules apply to them,” one of the other men tosses his way. Not joining up for the war effort isn’t going to go over well with a lot of these men.

• Lest you think Charles’s fever dream and chat with Caroline fully healed his grief and guilt over his brother, while he’s frantically trying to save Mr. Scott, he calls him George. Once again, lost in that memory of losing his brother.

• I know we’ve established that Charles is naive — Caroline’s words — but are we really to believe he has no idea what’s actually going on with how the US Government is dealing with Indigenous people? When Mitchell explains he was meeting with the new Indian Agent, Isaac Gibson, and refers to the land deal as a “removal agreement,” Charles seems shocked by what that implies. Wake up, my guy!

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