I will never get over this opening scene with its gentle piano music. I love it so much. Every time it begins with its little “doo-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-dooooo,†I think, “TAKE UP RESIDENCE IN MY BRAIN, TRANQUIL AND QUAINT VILLAGE LIFE SHOW.â€
This week is all about adjustment — and also saving baby cows. Saving the baby cows is important. (“Don’t you mean calves?†you might say. And no, I mean baby cows, for it is cuter.) James is a partner in the practice now and owns 40 percent of the business, but Siegfried is very “how about things stay exactly as they’ve always been?†Siegfried is relatable until he makes a complete ass of himself, at which point, we can all claim that we don’t relate to him at all, and that we, placed in the same situation, would behave with absolute aplomb. Fortunately, he has Mrs. Hall (whom he should marry) to push him in the right direction. May we all have a Mrs. Hall in our lives.
James and Helen still have newlywed, let’s-bang-all-the-time energy, which probably happened more when people didn’t really live together prior to marriage. James is pretending Helen’s cooking is edible, which is nice of him, and they just hole up in their attic bedsit while Tristan, Siegfried, and Mrs. Hall eat in the kitchen downstairs. Like I said, it is a time of adjustment. These crazy kids all have to figure out how to adapt to a Helen living among them. A Helen who keeps rolling her dirty bike through the hallways, which would drive me nuts, personally.
When James and Helen eventually make it downstairs, James finds out that as partner, he’s currently making less than he did before, and that Tristan is making more than he is. Siegfried attributes this to the ups and downs of running a business, but when James asks how that business is indeed run, Siegfried runs away. Siegfried’s bad behavior is always eventually corrected by Mrs. Hall and/or his own conscience, but it takes some time. Again, totally unrelatable, can’t imagine behaving this way in the slightest, what kind of person, etc., etc. Mrs. Hall tells him that he made James a partner and has to keep treating him like one. Siegfried accedes very quickly. Too quickly. Mrs. Hall is taken aback but accepts this, while probably knowing like we all do that Siegfried has something up his sleeves (it can only go so far up his sleeves because of his sleeve garters).
The main animal emergency is the baby cows, who are sick with gastroenteritis. They live on the Billings farm, and I would die for Miss Billings. She seems a 100 percent grump, and maybe she is, but she’s a practical grump who loves her farm and cows. There’s a greater story here of family and connection and so on, but the important thing is these sick baby cows. One of them dies (noooooo!!) and another is not doing well, and James can’t determine what’s causing it. It’s like that scene in Jurassic Park with the sick Triceratops that was eating the West Indian lilac. Only here, there are no poisonous berries nearby, and the cows aren’t leaving the shed, so it is a mystery. I admit to being very displeased with James for not doing a thorough sweep of the shed to try to find out what’s causing the sickness, but he later says that he did do it, so apparently it happened off-screen. He thinks it could maybe be lead and has some tests run at a lab.
James’s troubles are not over, though! Siegfried’s smugness re: treating James as a partner is due to his cunning plan of dumping an overwhelming number of receipts on the dining table and asking James to deal with the profit and loss accounts for the last year. Siegfried! The next morning, when Siegfried discovers, to his delight, that James could make no headway, he says, “We can’t all be polymaths†(omg), but he is immediately chagrined when James mentions that he thought Helen could help since she used to run the farm’s accounts. More change! Oh no, Siegfried! Better go feed more cake to your pet rat.
Helen, it turns out, is incredibly organized, and has all the receipts sorted in no time. She’s even going through a ledger. It’s all very impressive. Siegfried hates it. He’s so upset. Every rustle of paper is an icicle stab to his soul. He finally explodes and goes off about how he has a “system.†Helen abandons the project, as would we all if we had Siegfried breathing down our necks (in an annoying way, not a sexy beardy way; the latter would be okay).
During all this, Tristan pays a house call on a sick Dalmatian named Daisy. The twist? Daisy is owned by (dun dun dun) Florence Pandhi, daughter of George Pandhi, rival veterinarian! Her father is on a farm call, so he cannot help Daisy, who had fallen over on her side out of nowhere but now seems fine. Tristan looks at her for two seconds and says she’s probably okay. Florence and I are unimpressed.
In the midst of all this cow and Dalmatian business, James finds out that doing TB testing on farm animals is incredibly lucrative, so he wants the practice to start doing more of it. Unfortunately, it’s also controversial among farmers, and Siegfried doesn’t want to test their relationships with their clients. If you would like to read an academic paper on the history of bovine-tuberculosis testing in Britain, I found one for you! (Look at the “Frustrating Eradication†section.)
Quick shout-out to the beautiful Richard the Cat, who makes a quick cameo at the practice. More Richard the Cat on this program, please.
Tristan’s “the dog is fine†idea comes to naught, because Florence bursts into the practice carrying her Dalmatian, who cannot breathe. Tristan discovers that there’s a pebble lodged in Daisy’s windpipe; at the same moment, I discover there’s a Breyer Horse in the surgery room and get very excited, while concurrently feeling worried for Daisy. To get at the pebble, Tristan makes an incision in her throat, which is shown maybe too clearly, then he just dives in with his bare hands, without having washed them. He gets the pebble out with forceps, but good lord, Tristan. Florence is aghast at how messy the surgery is, but grateful that Tristan saved her dog’s life. Tristan, who had no clean surgical tools due to said messiness, decides to get it together. It’s baby steps for Tristan.
Okay, I know we’re all on tenterhooks about the baby-cow mystery. It was the MILK. Sort of. Miss Billings can’t read, and a salesman sold her a bottle of something to make the cow’s horn buds fall off. Unfortunately, the bottle was antimony, which is a straight-up poison. The horn buds fell off into the milk while the cows drank it, so they drank poison. I cannot tell you how many baby-cow accounts I follow on social media, but suffice it to say, I was all in my feelings about these cows this episode. I know they were cow actors, but still.
James and Siegfried figure this out together, so now they’re friends again, and everyone eats downstairs together. FAMILY. Now let’s get through an episode where a cow doesn’t die.