'All Creatures Great and Small' Recap: Season 5 Episode 1
Daniel Hautzinger
January 12, 2025

All Creatures Great and Small airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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World War II is felt keenly even in bucolic Darrowby, where residents are under blackout warnings to prevent bombing at night and have organized victory gardens and knitting drives. That’s not to mention the absence of men who have gone off to fight, like James, who left behind Helen and their new son James. Richard has taken in Hamish, the dog of one of those military men, and is teaching him tricks.
Siegfried is stretched thin, so when an emergency meeting of the veterinary society might make it necessary to cancel his appointments, Mrs. Hall suggests that he allow Richard to run the surgery in his absence. Siegfried nervously agrees, made more confident by Richard’s suggestion that they start using intake forms for each patient.
Richard does well on his own, and Siegfried is impressed enough to continue using the forms – they will speed things up. But they lead to a problem when Dot Fawcett drops off her cat Frisk in a cardboard box, telling Richard he died in the night. Richard plans to send Frisk off for cremation and sets the box aside – but Frisk’s form gets mismatched to another cat.
Siegfried chastises Richard for trying to cremate a cat that is alive and in no way nearing death, until they realize the mix-up. By then, the box containing Frisk’s body is empty. The cat is alive, and has hidden in another part of the house. Siegfried is disappointed that Richard didn’t examine Frisk to confirm death. Chastened, Richard returns the living Frisk to Dot.
Dot is recovering from a surgery; it’s why she couldn’t bury Frisk herself. The cat is her beloved companion – but she has recently received company in the form of baby James and Helen, who agrees to help Dot out with her victory garden.
Mrs. Pumphrey is deeply involved with all of the war support activities on the home front. She even offered up her home for use, and now it is being requisitioned as a convalescent hospital. She wasn’t expecting to have to move out herself, but she and Tricki-Woo will nevertheless decamp to the cottage on her land.
Mrs. Hall has been knitting for the war effort but is inspired to do more by Mrs. Pumphrey’s sacrifice. She volunteers to be a blackout warden, making sure that no one has lights shining out of their buildings after curfew. But Bosworth, who’s in charge of the wardens, tells her only men can volunteer – he can’t have a woman out alone at night. Mrs. Pumphrey encourages Mrs. Hall to stand up for herself, and helps convince Bosworth that Mrs. Hall should be accepted. After all, Mrs. Hall was a Wren during World War I – a trained participant in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Bosworth relents and grudgingly accepts Mrs. Hall.
Siegfried is shocked when he sees Mrs. Hall in her warden uniform but quickly tells her he thinks her volunteering is marvelous. They all need to do their part.
James is certainly doing his part, training as a pilot. He’s due to fly his first long-range practice mission, which is still dangerous given continuing Luftwaffe bombings of England. His navigator, Banerjee, is nervous – the mission has been expedited and he doesn’t feel prepared. James reassures him despite the heavy cloud cover that is forecast. But as James approaches the plane for the mission he collapses.
He wakes up in the infirmary. The doctor has done some tests, and found that James has brucellosis. He must have been infected while treating the Crabtrees’ herd for the disease last year. Everyone was worried about Helen catching it since she was pregnant, but James is the one who got it. The disease is not contagious or life-threatening, but could cause delirium and a recurring fever. James is put on bed rest.
His wing commander grounds him. He’s not entirely fit anymore, so he cannot be a pilot. James objects – he wants to do his duty, and feels a responsibility towards his crew. But they’re now flying the long-distance practice mission with a pilot known for mistakes. James asks his commander to reconsider, but he simply orders James to prove his fitness by working on the ground crew, digging a ditch.
When the training mission James was supposed to fly is shot down by the Luftwaffe, only Banerjee survives – and he might not last long. James bursts into his commander’s office and blames him – James might have been able to save his crew. His commander reminds him that they all know the odds.
Helen thinks James should come home: working as a veterinarian is more valuable than digging ditches. But James still feels he owes something to his comrades – and Helen worries that he’s deliberately choosing to stay away from home.
While at the ditch, James hears a cow in distress and asks the crotchety farmer who’s upset by the soldiers on his land if he has a cow in labor. The farmer says yes and dismisses James. But James offers his help and quickly delivers a healthy calf.
Proud of his work as a vet, James goes to his commander and asks to be dismissed to return to his home and work. The commander already has the discharge papers drawn up – he was just waiting for James to come to the decision on his own. Veterinarians are valuable and in short supply.
Siegfried would certainly agree, as he and Richard deal with an unending series of patients. One of them is Dot’s cat Frisk: Dot again thinks he has died, but Helen notices a faint heartbeat and brings him to Siegfried and Richard. They realize that Frisk has been licking Dot’s saucer at night – which contains the spoon she used to give herself morphine after her operation. The cat has simply been knocked out by the medicine. Siegfried congratulates Richard on deducing the problem.
James appears at Skeldale unannounced, and everyone is overjoyed to see him. After dinner that evening, he shares a drink with Siegfried while Helen puts the baby to bed. James thanks Siegfried for looking out for Helen and his son while he was gone, then goes up to bed to join his reunited family.