- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons.
Today, I'm going to be talking about the episode
from Season 9, The Outrage.
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In The Outrage, it's a two-part episode,
where we find out that Harley Foster,
played by the fabulous Hal Williams,
is actually someone who is wanted as an escaped convict.
He has come to the mountain, married Verdie,
and they have a son, Josh, that they adopted
and then he has an older son, Jody.
When he comes to the mountain,
they clearly don't know much about his past
and it turns out, at some point in his past,
he unintentionally killed a man, a white man,
and this has earned him a stint in prison
and has been on work gangs from which he escaped,
seeing no other future for himself.
Now, a racist sheriff has made a point
of finding out who he is and what he remembers about him
and is insistent that he now be recaptured
and sent back to prison.
Now, John, John Walton, thinks that this is very unjust,
doesn't like the way that Harley is treated,
thinks that racism is ridiculous
and does everything in his power
to help clear Harley's name.
During the course of John's research
into finding how he can help Harley clear his name,
John also encourages Harley to, in a way, disappear,
not runaway, which Harley is inclined to do.
But he sends him up to a cabin up on the mountain
and then hides the specific whereabouts of Harley
from not only this sheriff who is after Harley,
but also from Ep Bridges.
Ep's just trying to do his job.
Ep has known Harley, he knows Harley's a good man,
but his hands are tied because he is an officer of the law
and must do things by the book.
John asks for just a day or two to do what he can
to help clear Harley's name.
Ep goes along, but then there's a point
where he no longer can.
And he actually puts our father in jail
for obstructing justice.
I go to visit John in prison, bring him some cinnamon rolls
from Rose and help pass the time with him for a bit.
But, ultimately John is released
because Harley turns himself in.
John goes all the way to the President
and manages to get Harley a pardon,
which is the last thing that, supposedly,
President Roosevelt does before he dies.
There are many subplots along the way,
because this is a two-part episode.
There's a subplot with Elizabeth, who has a horse.
Daddy has done some work and,
in exchange, whoever he did the work
for has given him a horse and a foal.
And Elizabeth now has this horse, Molly,
this mare that she is just totally attached to.
Drew, her long-time boyfriend is feeling left out
because Elizabeth spends all her time with the horse
and Drew is stuck on his own
and Elizabeth never has time for him.
There's some really cute things along the way
with the two of them and that relationship.
The other subplot going on is with Cindy.
Cindy, all the other women feel that she
is too delicate to do all the heavy farm chores
that the girls and the rest of the family
have grown up doing.
So every time she tries to clean the chicken coop
or clean the barn or milk the cow or hoe the garden,
there's somebody there going, "No, no, no, don't do that.
You go take care of Ginny and rest and you're too delicate."
In the long run, at one point,
Elizabeth's horse has an accident.
We see here, clearly a stunt sequence
with a stunt rider who crashes through this fence
and brings the horse down.
And as, although I'm not a vet, as a nurse,
I guess, they figured it was, I could tell
that the horse was injured enough that,
likely a broken leg, and needed to be put down.
I say, "I can't do it because I heal.
I don't, I can't take a life."
Erin's like, "I can't do it." We know Elizabeth can't do it.
And Cindy's the one who steps up and says, "Bring the gun,"
because her father was in the army,
so clearly she's been around guns
and she's the one that puts the horse down.
So Cindy has that moment of strength
and shows all of us that she is not just a soft,
delicate little flower that has to be cared for
and can't handle anything tough.
So bravo to Cindy.
Drew and Elizabeth's storyline wraps up
when Elizabeth, now with no horse, is unsure what to do.
And Drew's like, "Well, there's someone else
that really needs you."
And she goes outside and there's the foal
and she's like, "I can't, the foal's going to be sold."
And Drew admits that he has bought the foal
so that he can be closer to Elizabeth.
And he says the two of them can help raise the foal.
So it's a very sweet gesture on Drew's part
to find a way to be closer to Elizabeth
and share an interest of hers.
All of the Walton men are away at war.
Ben is in the South Pacific and he has a Chief Petty Officer
who is his Senior Officer who was played by Dick Sargent,
who you might remember from Bewitched.
So it was great to have him as a guest on an episode.
This whole area where they shot the South Pacific
was indeed the jungle area of the back lot
of Warner Brothers Studios
and in the area that actually bordered Druscilla's pond.
One point, when I was talking with Eric about locations,
he said that when they had the POW camp
when Ben is captured in later episodes,
that he said that was actually in Druscilla's pond.
They had drained the pond and built that POW camp
actually in that space where Druscilla's pond
normally would be full of water.
So, interesting tidbit on locations.
John-Boy is stationed in Paris,
working for the Stars and Stripes
and Jason is someplace in France.
John-Boy's been trying to track him down,
but hasn't been able to find him.
Somehow his papers are misplaced or something.
John-Boy does end up running into and meeting Antoinette,
Toni, who Jason has been dating.
And the two of them make a bet that,
about who's going to find Jason first via their contacts.
Ultimately, Jason does appear,
does show up where both of them are,
and they have a happy reunion and celebrate finding Jason.
A darling little ad-lib that has been mentioned a few times,
but I didn't realize this was the episode it was from,
where we are at the table and John Curtis
is in his high chair next to our father.
And at one point, all of a sudden, he pipes up and goes,
"I have new pants!"
- What? - I got new pants!
- I see that, who got you those, your mommy?
- No, from Pat!
- From Pat? Where she live on, the next farm?
- Yeah. - Okay, good!
- You can hear all of us kind of laughing in the background
and I think that was all for real,
but they kept it because it was such a sweet exchange
and worked well and there was,
it was so adorable that they decided to keep it,
despite the fact that, I mean,
Ralph just went right along with it
and that's kind of what we would do with things.
You know, sometimes things happen
and you just continue to play the scene.
You stay in character and you deal with it.
So really sweet to see that.
In the end, we see a final sequence
as the train carrying the casket of President Roosevelt
makes its way from where he passed away in Georgia
back up to the Capitol and you see people
that have been waiting to pay tribute,
to pay their respects as the train
passes through those areas.
And the Waltons have decided to go to a spot
where the train supposedly is going to pass through
in the early hours of the morning.
And we all take that moment to pay our respects
and, in a little bit different fashion,
instead of our typical good nights,
in this case, you just hear John say--
- Goodnight, Mr. President.
- That's what I have for you for this segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons
about the episode from season nine, The Outrage.
I'll be back with more Behind the Scenes of The Waltons
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.