Product Description
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Waltons: The Complete Eighth Season (DVD)
In Season Eight, war brings the family closer together, even as
it sends them far apart. “The Secretary of War desires me to
express his deep regret that your son, John Walton, Jr., has been
reported missing in action…” The telegram that every parent fears
brings sudden heartache to the Walton family. But the penultimate
season brings joy as well. Olivia returns home, her
restored. Ben and Cindy welcome another Walton into the world.
Cousin Rose and her rambunctious grandchildren fill empty rooms
in the Walton home. Mary Ellen and Erin challenge scoffing men in
a horse race. Jim-Bob graduates from high school and makes a
decision that fills the family with profound pride. And
throughout the emotional season, all the Waltons pitch in to help
the war effort, eager to defend their country… and to bring the
Walton sons, each in uniform, safely home.
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Narratively speaking, The Waltons: The Complete Eighth Season is
overwhelmingly defined by World War II and its impact on the
Walton family and their friends. Make that the Waltons' extended
family: a new character, Rose Burton (Peggy Rea), cousin to
matriarch Olivia (Michael Learned), moves into the Virginia
clan's home with two troubled grandchildren, Jeffrey (Keith
Mitchell) and Serena (Martha Nix). Their numbers swell the
household considerably. But with Olivia's sudden
departure--halfway through the season--to become a Red Cross
volunteer, and with three of the Walton boys in various kinds of
active duty and Grandma (Ellen Corby) on an extended visit
elsewhere, the Walton population goes up and down almost daily.
Despite all the commotion, season eight tightly focuses on the
ripple effect of the war. The two-part season opener "The Home
Front" finds John Walton (Ralph Waite) in the unenviable position
of running the local draft board and making determinations about
the fitness of local boys to go into the U.S. Army. When one
young man (Glenn Withrow) has to be talked out of going AWOL and
ends up dead while shipping out, the boy's grieving her comes
ning for a Walton offspring in revenge. The story also
illustrates the backwoods nature of much of the community in the
shadow of Walton's ain--people suspicious of the government,
of outsiders, of educated folk. (In the episode "The Diploma,"
Mary Ellen (Judy Norton-Taylor), a nurse, rides horseback to go
on rounds checking on skeptical hillbillies who want no outside
interference.) "The Innocents" finds Olivia advocating for the
unsupervised children of women working in a local factory while
their men are off at war. "The Journal" finds Olivia and John
forced to confront the disappearance of their oldest son,
John-Boy, who is missing-in-action. "The Silver Wings" is a
Summer of '42-like story involving the Waltons' youngest son,
Jim-Bob (David W. Harper), and his attraction to a woman whose
husband is off flying bombers in Europe. "The Unthinkable,"
arguably the best episode in the eighth season, concerns a Jewish
army buddy (Todd Susman) of Jason's (Jon Walmsley), who
encounters anti-semitism in the service at the same time he
receives a letter indicating his beloved grandher died in a
Nazi extermination camp. What makes the show special, in part, is
the way patriarch John must deny to himself and others that such
camps, in all their inhumanity, can't possibly exist in modern
times. There are a few episodes that don't touch on the war
theme, the sweetest of which is "The Traveling Man," in which an
old beau (William Schallert) of Rose's turns up, ready to marry
but torn by career aspirations. --Tom Keogh