rfgoebel

For starters, I am age-wise four months younger than Elizabeth. Since I was very young when the show began, I only remember a few of the episodes from their original air-date. While the original Homecoming is considered the pilot, I consider this to be.

Four wonderful life lessons are wrapped up into the dialog that I believe is so well written and so well portrayed by all the actors. Elizabeth gets the first lesson when she asks her dad where he found her. While the hand alphabet by itself is easy to learn, the deaf girl would have to first have a language understanding to be able to use it. That is nit-picking I know. There probably should have been a little more of Ben and Jason, I felt they were left out.

The writers were just beginning to build the characters, the actors were beginning to create them. The idea of abandoning a child during the time portrayed would more likely to have happened at a much younger age, and I believed the writers understood that so they went with someone who in real life is nearly exactly Elizabeth's age. I would like to know who it could have been in the barber chair getting prepared for a shave from Ike. Could it have been Yancy Tucker? The importance of communication, especially listening to children when they know something adults don't. John-Boy learned that sometimes, actions speak louder than words.

I live in eastern Virginia, and spend quite a bit of time in the mountains that border West Virginia. Having visited Schuyler, VA, I'm amazed at how well they make most of the local scenery look as close to Virginia as they could. Perhaps someone could have sent a film crew to do some scenery footage for the opening and transitioning. I have to remind myself often that those on the screen are actors, and they have lives away from the set, and those producing have to produce with the resources at hand. Otherwise, I love this episode.

The characters and how they are portrayed by their actors are remarkable. The little things I noticed are so accurate to the time period in that they didn't modernize anything. This episode is the first to have the people they interact with are from the outside world with little mention of locals. As often would be the case, they had to make do with what they had, and they would never turn their back on anyone in need, anyone.

There was a lesson on judgment on people you don't understand. Having gotten to know the performers who were traveling through personally, everyone, especially Olivia learned that despite their differences on the outside, there were more similarities than differences.

I am amazed when I stop to realize that the on-screen relationships exist only on screen. If I had to explain one scene in particular to children today, they probably couldn't understand it, even though I do. It's as if they have always been a family, living for the day, dreaming of something more, and often settling for a lot less than they hope for. I don't dislike this episode, I happen to like a lot of episodes a lot more, but this is still excellent in its entirety.