This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Welcome to A Very Spooky… where we take a look at and review a classic TV series that is not known for horror but would, on occasion, dip its toes into the waters of terror. This week, we’re checking out The Waltons season 7 episode 5, “The Changeling”…
I don’t know if I’ve ever met a fan of The Waltons. I suppose someone from Mystery Science Theater 3000 must have watched it, since they often referenced the show, but I sadly am not friends with any of the MST crew (TV’s Frank does follow me on Twitter though - #Humblebrag).
When it comes to TV shows about a close knit super goody goody family, Little House on the Prairie was more my speed - they tended to go dark pretty often, what with blinding kids and doing a two part Giallo storyline and all. The Waltons were always “safe”.
Set between the Great Depression and WWII, the series focused on a family of what I think are seven redheaded kids - it seems impossible to get a headcount - and their parents who do not have red hair. The show ran for nine seasons and aside from the classic endings with the whole family saying goodnight to each other, I couldn’t tell you thing one about it.
Oh, there is that one episode where the family is haunted by a poltergeist. That one I remembered, mainly for one scene, which we’ll get to.
The episode starts off with Elizabeth Walton looking rather down in the dumps and clanking away at the family piano - not playing anything, just making horrible sounds. Liz makes it clear to her Ma, Olivia, that she has no interest in having a party for her thirteenth birthday. Olivia, being a Depression Era mom, is pretty cool with it, and walks off.
After another moment of terrible piano clanking, Liz (they never call Elizabeth ‘Liz’ but I’m doing it because I’m a straight up rebel!) walks away. Just as Liz reaches the stairs, the piano clanks by itself! Just then, a rush of air passes over Liz, mussing her hair. Freaked out, Liz rushes upstairs. I’ll give the show this - it wastes no time in getting started. It does, however, move at a snail’s pace from here.
The next day, as Liz and her friend… Sally? Suzie? Something like that… walk home from school, Sally Suzie tells Liz that they can’t hang out anymore because Liz, who I will remind you is turning thirteen in a few days, still likes to play games. As Sally Suzie walks off, a gust of wind musses Liz’s hair again.
Liz gets home just in time for Ma to break out the homemade apple cider, which everyone else is super excited about. Liz, having just been told to go to hell by her best friend, isn’t much in the mood for cider. Her lack of interest in cider leads to her brother, Jason, who looks like a mutated clone of Ron Howard, to goof on her. Liz tells Jason to piss off and stomps away.
On the porch, the family, sans Liz, sit around drinking apple cider and making fun of… you guessed it, Liz. Mainly, the fam appears to be annoyed with Liz being down in the dumps lately. Liz listens in on the family as the conversation turns to figuring out what to get her for her upcoming birthday. One of Liz’s older sisters, I want to say Mary, happily shares with everyone that she got Liz some pillowcases because it’s time for Liz to get grown-up presents. I’m nearing forty and I swear to God if anyone in my family got me fucking pillowcases for my birthday, they would be dead to me.
I guess Liz felt the same way - hearing about the shit gift, Liz gets upset. As she gets angry, a vase on the fireplace mantel rises up and falls, shattering on the ground. The family rushes in to see what happened and everyone agrees, Liz is a jerk who broke the vase, even though Liz denies touching it.
There’s a secondary story in the episode about Jason getting a job at a radio station as the host of a Dear Abby rip-off. Why this kid, who I’m guessing is eighteen, is given the job is beyond me, other than they needed something to fill in for a B-story. Whatever the case, the family gets together to listen to Jason’s radio show. I guess they’re all a little tired of bagging on Liz because the fam turns their fangs on Jason while listening to him give out love advice. Sadly, liz can’t help herself and asks a question that reveals how little she knows about sex. Being that Liz is a twelve year old girl living some seventy years before the internet would come around , I personally didn’t have an issue with her not knowing what the phrase “forbidden fruit” meant, but man did her family lay into her.
Upset at being made fun of yet again, Liz heads up to her bedroom. As she reaches the stairs that damn gust of wind comes back to muss her hair! It also makes a picture on the wall go crooked! Damn wind!
Liz gets to her room and starts brushing her mussed hair. She watches herself in the mirror as, with each brush, her reflection becomes cloudy. Then we cut to a scene about some other couple who apparently have a loveless marriage. This connects to the Jason story and I’m skipping it.
That night, Liz is woken by a weird laughter in her room. She gets up and looks around but can’t figure out where it’s coming from. Just then, a tinkling sound, like something scurrying across the roof, fills the house. Everyone else hears it, but they brush it off as squirrels. Liz moves closer to her window just as a stone slowly floats in. The stone carefully lands on the ground and sits there. Liz moves towards it, and just as she reaches for the stone, it shoots off, going under her bed. Liz freaks out and starts screaming, bringing in the family. She tells them what happened, but no stone can be found.
In the morning, Pa Walton checks the roof outside Liz’s window where he finds more rocks. He blames it on some kids who I’m guessing show up regularly in the series or may even be members of the family - the episode didn’t bother giving names to many of the characters hanging around. I’d go so far as to say that half the Walton kids never say a word.
Liz sits in her room doing what kids did in the days before TV - she’s staring at a wall wishing someone would invent TV already. As she gazes at nothing, a rocking chair in the room starts to rock on it’s own. Liz watches as the chair goes from rocking to jumping up and down in a furious manner. She screams for help, but her parents show up a second after the chair stops being crazy.
Pa checks the chair, which has a broken leg. He considers beating Liz, but Ma talks him out of it.
That night, Liz sits in her room refusing to listen to Jason’s radio show. Pa comes in, no longer looking to beat his daughter, and talks with her. In a kinda creepy, but not horror related creepy, bit, the two discuss puberty and it becomes clear that Pa Walton, who has at least three kids older than Liz, has never heard the word “puberty” before. To get out of the very uncomfortable conversation, Liz agrees to go downstairs and listen to Jason’s stupid show.
Just as Liz reaches the living room, the radio goes on the fritz. The family yells at Liz to go get a screwdriver so one of the other kids can fix the radio. When she walks off, the radio works fine. The second Liz comes back with the screwdriver, the radio fritzes out again. Once more, the family yells at Liz to go away, and once again, when she goes away, the radio starts working. This all goes down a third time, and the family starts to put it together - something weird is going on with Liz.
I suppose the Walton family is filled with blabbermouths, because by the next day everyone in town is talking about Liz and her strangeness. Ma, Liz, and another Walton child who goes unnamed end up in the local shop to buy some stuff for baby Walton when the shopkeeper, who is a full on moron, tells them that he wife thinks Liz has a “poultygeist”. The shopkeeper’s wife then explains that what her idiot husband means is poltergeist.
Liz is clearly worried that she does indeed have a ghost following her around, but Ma convinces her that there’s no such thing. Feeling better, Liz decides that she would like to have a birthday party after all. She and Ma decide that what would be super cool is if Liz had a sleepover with some of her friends. Ma even says that the girls can stay up til midnight! This party gonna be cray!
Now that she has her kid feeling better, Ma heads off to the library and reads up on poltergeists. It quickly becomes clear to Ma that her daughter fits everything that the book says - she’s entering puberty, doesn’t want to grow up, and weird stuff is happening around her.
That night, as Liz tries to sleep, she looks at her Raggedy Ann doll sitting by the window. There’s a sadness in Liz’s eyes - she knows that she’s reaching an age where she’s expected to give up playing with dolls, but she doesn’t want to do that just yet. It is then that Liz notices that the Raggedy Ann doll is in a different position. Liz closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. The doll is standing on its own. I’m not saying this is the true story of Annabelle the possessed doll that sits in the home of Lorraine Warren, but it sure seems like it!
Like any good kid confronted by pure evil at bedtime, Liz pulls the blanket over her head and cries herself to sleep.
In the morning, Liz is in a shit mood. Ma tries to talk to her, but Liz isn’t in the mood for gabbing. She heads off to school.
That night though, Liz is in much better spirits. The sleepover is in full effect as Liz and her friends, including the one who was a real jerk a few days ago, run about the living room playing fun sleepover games like “jump over the blanket” and “squeal as loud as you can” when one of the friends gets an honestly good idea - they should all tell ghost stories!
Liz, who isn’t much in the mood for scary stories, what with Annabelle sitting in her bedroom, gets nervous. When she gets nervous, all the lights in the Walton home shut off and won’t come back on. Then the rocking chair starts doing the whole rocking on its own thing again, this time with more than just Liz seeing it. As the girls react to the rocking chair, the piano starts clanking on it’s own and a huge wind starts blowing through the house. The girls all start screaming, bringing Ma, Pa, and not Jason but a different brother downstairs. Ma holds the screaming Liz while Pa tries to close the window and not Jason tries to get the lights on.
At this point, Pa straight up yells at the poltergeist, which has no effect. Ma begs Liz to tell them why she’s so upset, aside from all the poltergeist stuff, that is. Liz unloads her feelings, “I don’t want to grow up and move away! I don’t want you and dad to get old and die!” She lets out an angry scream and all the craziness stops. The poltergeist is gone. The Narrator tells us that after that night, the weirdness ended.
And Jason gets fired from his radio job. The episode ends with everyone making fun of Jason for being a failure as they say goodnight to each other.
I’ll give The Waltons credit for really leaning into the poltergeist stuff and not bothering to ever give the viewers a logical reason for why everything happened, though it seems real strange to introduce the concept of the paranormal in the seventh season of your show and then never bring it up again.
Most of the scares don’t work that well, mainly because they are rather basic, but the Raggedy Ann scene is honestly creepy. I remember seeing this episode when I was a kid, and that scene has always stuck with me. That is the power of a well done spooky scene, it’ll stick with the viewer for decades, and in that moment, The Waltons pulled it off.