Questions About "The Burn Out"

[dayton3]

 I liked this two hour/two part episode a great deal.   I especially like the moment where John Boy's professor listed famous writers who had had their most famous works destroyed before they could be published.    Thus basically telling John Boy to buck up and get to writing again. 

But I have a few questions about the episode.

1) Why was Olivia so dead set against the children living with friends of the family for a few weeks?   It wasn't like they were far away.   Basically all were within walking distance.   Yet she acted like they were all going off to war or something.

2) Why couldn't more of the children have stayed with the Baldwin sisters rather than only Jason?    It was obvious the Baldwins had plenty of room and resources for one or even two more of the Walton kids and IIRC their offer earlier implied that they would gladly board more than one of the Waltons. 

3) For that matter,  why did the children have to be parceled out to friends anyway?   While much was made about the fiasco with the tent,  why couldn't they have simply erected the tent in the barn in the first place?   It appears as though there was plenty of room.    For that matter,  why couldn't all of the Waltons have slept in the barn to begin with?   After all,  when the tent collapsed it was where they all ended up anyway that night so obviously there was room for everyone to sleep there. 

4) By the way,  any house fire as shown in the episode would've effectively utterly destroyed the Walton home.   As someone once told me "when you have flames shooting through the roof that normally means everything inside is a complete loss"

5) They did a nice job portraying the mental strain on several of the kids.   Notably John boy,  Erin and Elizabeth. 

[Deleted]

and why was Elizabeth stuck alone? She should have gone with Erin or Jason. That would have helped her mental health a lot. 

[pinkbaker07]

I think the parents didn't want to overwhelm their friends.

I agree on the fact with all the flames the house would be a loss in real life.

[Brenda]

I could understand Olivia wanting to keep all the kids with her if they had been babies or toddlers, but most of these kids were nearly grown except for Elizabeth, and were independent. They didn’t need mothering. They just needed a safe place to stay. The reason they were parceled out to the various neighbors, in my opinion, was to make all the different storylines about each family member fit into the episode, and to include all the neighbors to show that it was a community that was willing to rally around their friends when they were down. Grandpa and Grandma were at Flossie Brimmer’s so Zulika Dunbar could flirt with Grandpa. Jason was at the Baldwins because he was special to them. Remember, in another episode they wanted to adopt him. Also, they had a piano so Jason could practice. Mary Ellen stayed with the doctor because of her interest in medicine. Jim Bob and Erin stayed with Rev. and Mrs. Fordwick so the preacher could try to teach Jim Bob some kind of moral lesson about taking hair ribbons from girls, and because Erin was doing her best to be humble and answer the call to preach. I think it’s likely that Cora Beth volunteered to take Elizabeth because she wanted someone to mother for a few days. They hadn’t adopted Aimee yet, so they had no children of their own. I do wonder if Olivia had ever seen the inside of Yancy’s house. If she had, I doubt she would have allowed Ben to stay there.

I agree it was a miracle that in later episodes they were still able to go into the attic and find family heirlooms that were preserved when all those flames were shooting out of the upstairs windows and roof.

[Easton]

The reasons for the split-up was to allow for the multiple storylines. Yes, they could have all stayed in the barn and even have set up the tent in there, but it would have been a very short and boring episode. Instead, we were given 7 different stories about how everybody dealt with the fire.

John, Olivia, and John-Boy busied themselves getting the house back together again while John-Boy battled with himself over the idea that his pipe may have caused the fire.

Grandpa had to deal with Zuleika Dunbar's amorous advances and Grandma's jealousy.

Jason had to get used to not only having his own huge bed to sleep in all by himself but also being fed breakfast in it by the Baldwin sisters.

Ben discovered the joys of Yancy's 'not a care in the world' lifestyle and the consequences of it.

While Reverend Fordwick taught Jim-Bob of the evils of coveting hair ribbons from his female schoolmates, Erin was learning about humility and the dangers of excess and how senseless it all was.

Mary Ellen got knocked down a peg or two by Dr. Vance and deservedly so.

And, last but certainly not least, Elizabeth's internal battle, her terrifying angst, of losing her entire family and being left all alone in the world for the rest of her life.

None of this would have happened if they had set up the tent in the barn.

EDIT: My apologies to Brenda. Honestly, I didn't see your post until I posted mine, and there it was.

[Brenda]

Dec 19, 2020 21:04:25 GMT -5 Easton said:

EDIT: My apologies to Brenda. Honestly, I didn't see your post until I posted mine, and there it was.

Great minds think alike. 

Most episodes of The Waltons have 2 storylines, a main plot and a subplot. The 2-hour or 2-part episodes tend to have several storylines involving each member of the family. This episode is no exception. 

[dayton3]

Dec 19, 2020 20:20:32 GMT -5 Brenda said:

I could understand Olivia wanting to keep all the kids with her if they had been babies or toddlers, but most of these kids were nearly grown except for Elizabeth, and were independent. They didn’t need mothering. They just needed a safe place to stay. The reason they were parceled out to the various neighbors, in my opinion, was to make all the different storylines about each family member fit into the episode, and to include all the neighbors to show that it was a community that was willing to rally around their friends when they were down. Grandpa and Grandma were at Flossie Brimmer’s so Zulika Dunbar could flirt with Grandpa. Jason was at the Baldwins because he was special to them. Remember, in another episode they wanted to adopt him. Also, they had a piano so Jason could practice. Mary Ellen stayed with the doctor because of her interest in medicine. Jim Bob and Erin stayed with Rev. and Mrs. Fordwick so the preacher could try to teach Jim Bob some kind of moral lesson about taking hair ribbons from girls, and because Erin was doing her best to be humble and answer the call to preach. I think it’s likely that Cora Beth volunteered to take Elizabeth because she wanted someone to mother for a few days. They hadn’t adopted Aimee yet, so they had no children of their own. I do wonder if Olivia had ever seen the inside of Yancy’s house. If she had, I doubt she would have allowed Ben to stay there.

I agree it was a miracle that in later episodes they were still able to go into the attic and find family heirlooms that were preserved when all those flames were shooting out of the upstairs windows and roof.

I know all this.   But what is the "in show" justification for the Waltons actions?

[Kyle]

There’s no real justification for splitting the family up the way they did. Couldn’t John and Olivia have stayed at the Baldwins with the two youngest children, at the very least? And then have the older ones stay with others? And have the kids come to the house for dinner a few times a week in order to keep the family unit intact?

I like this episode a lot, but if you examine it too closely, it’s not logical.

[dayton3]

Dec 20, 2020 4:07:09 GMT -5 Kyle said:

There’s no real justification for splitting the family up the way they did. Couldn’t John and Olivia have stayed at the Baldwins with the two youngest children, at the very least? And then have the older ones stay with others? And have the kids come to the house for dinner a few times a week in order to keep the family unit intact?

I like this episode a lot, but if you examine it too closely, it’s not logical.

Agreed.    But again this is one of those episodes that makes me absolutely detest Olivia.    Even a review at the Internet Movie Database says something to the effect regarding this episode that "the kids are probably eager to get away from their overprotective mother".

Another thing that springs to mind is "Why is  Olivia so protective and obsessive over Ben?"     You see this in various episodes like "The Intruders".   I see nothing that would provoke those feelings about Ben in a mother with the lone exception of Ben being named after John's brother who was killed in World War
One. 

Anyone ever notice that Olivia seems to mention John's brother Ben more than John or grandpa and grandma do?

[kazk]

Interesting questions and observations from everyone.

I can certainly understand that Olivia would want to keep her brood around her during such a traumatic and trying time. Possibly for her own welfare and her children's. With regard to Jason at the Baldwin's big home, I suspect that Olivia would not have even wanted Jason there given her thoughts about the recipe, but she had to make allowances since the piano was so necessary for his schooling.

Sometimes you have to make the hard decision to send your children away for their own safety. Here in Australia we have so many bushfires in summer and as a child my parents homed at least two children from one family. The rest of the children stayed with other family friends during the fire crisis. It could have been that the Walton adults could have been able to focus on the job of repairing the house for their children without fearing that their children would be underfoot or taking their attention away from the jobs that needed doing.

[carol]

John said the cause of the fire could have been old electrical wiring. How old could the wiring be? It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that rural areas even had electricity.

[patriciaanne]

Dec 28, 2020 0:16:46 GMT -5 carol said:

John said the cause of the fire could have been old electrical wiring. How old could the wiring be? It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that rural areas even had electricity.

Ha! Good catch!

[pinkbaker07]

Dec 28, 2020 0:16:46 GMT -5 carol said:

John said the cause of the fire could have been old electrical wiring. How old could the wiring be? It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that rural areas even had electricity.

Interesting. They never said if it was the fan grandpa left on or John boy pipe.

[jason88cubss]

Dec 28, 2020 0:16:46 GMT -5 carol said:

John said the cause of the fire could have been old electrical wiring. How old could the wiring be? It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that rural areas even had electricity.

wow.

That is great point. I never even thought of that

[dayton3]

Dec 28, 2020 17:12:50 GMT -5 pinkbaker07 said:

Dec 28, 2020 0:16:46 GMT -5 carol said:

John said the cause of the fire could have been old electrical wiring. How old could the wiring be? It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that rural areas even had electricity.

Interesting. They never said if it was the fan grandpa left on or John boy pipe.

I thought it was Professor Plum in the Conservatory with knife...