The Blue Ribbon

[alegtostandon]

End of the school year testing and poor Andrew Garvey cannot pass a test while Nellie was passing with flying colors.  Albert was doing pretty good himself. Mrs. Garvey is pretty embarrassed her own son could not pass so Nellie offers to tutor Andrew out of the goodness of her heart.

Turns out her way of tutoring is by having Andrew steal the tests from his mom.  She writes the answers on the lining of her jacket, which she wears every test day. There is so much writing on that lining, I don't know how she can even read it. 

Laura catches Andrew cheating & tells Pa & at the same time, informs Pa that Albert is pretending to not know the answers so Andrew will not be mad at him. Pa, of course, with words of wisdom, gets them both back to the path of honesty.

Final testing day, Alice proclaims it to be too warm for Nellie to be wearing that same brown jacket she's worn every test day & takes it from her. Albert is proclaimed the blue ribbon winner and all is good in Walnut Grove.

When Albert was announced the winner, the scene goes to Albert while everyone (except Nellie) is applauding. It shows Albert looking behind him, clapping along with everyone else. Then he's shown looking forward while everyone is applauding, very obviously 2 different scenes spliced in.

The very best part was Mrs Oleson confronting Mrs Garvey saying she graded Nellie's test wrong. Alice handed her Nellie's jacket and told her she can check the answers herself, they're all written on the jacket lining.

Good thing Mrs Oleson did not offer up that silver cup Laura had won in the horse race & returned in exchange for shoes for the whole family...Albert would have kept it!

[CountryGirl]

Far be it for me to point out further inconsistencies/plot contrivances in a show chockful of them but...wasn't Nellie supposed to be good student all along?