'All Creatures Great and Small' Recap: Season 5 Episode 7

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Christmas and Jimmy’s first birthday are both approaching, but war rationing means any celebratory feasts might be scant. The ever-industrious Mrs. Hall has a plan, however: she gives some clothing coupons to a family with a wedding coming up in exchange for a goose.

The family’s boy, Christopher, has taken an interest in animals, so when a fox that he’s been feeding in the garden has a mangy tail, Christopher puts it in a crate and leaves it outside Skeldale. Mrs. Hall answers the door and spots Christopher hiding out nearby. She asks him to come in; Siegfried will take a look at the fox.

But distressing news has come over the radio in the short time that Mrs. Hall was outside. Her son Edward’s ship has been sunk in the Pacific. That’s the only information offered. All Mrs. Hall can do is wait for more news in the paper.

Siegfried treats Christopher’s fox with medicine and has the boy accompany him as they release the wild animal into the forest.

The next morning, Tristan goes out early for the paper. Half of the crew on Edward’s ship is believed to have survived. A list of casualties will be published in the papers in the coming days.

Mrs. Hall wants to keep busy, and rejects anyone’s offer of consolation or thought of canceling plans for Christmas and Jimmy’s birthday.

So everyone continues with their plans. Helen heads to her family’s farm, where she and James are planning to have a tea party for Jimmy on Christmas Eve. Tristan has been tasked with finding some of the best pigeons around to breed for the military’s use before Christmas. Siegfried has suggested he visit Enoch Sykes, who has some champion pigeons, but the old man is curmudgeonly and throws bird excrement at Tristan when he tries to visit.

Tristan is alarmed by the color of the excrement that stains his jacket, and convinces Sykes to let him in to look at his pigeons – they could have a parasite. Sykes is skeptical of veterinarians, but reluctantly acknowledges that some of his pigeons are ailing. Tristan convinces him to let him take one for tests and return it the next day. If he can figure out what’s wrong, Sykes might let him take some pigeons for breeding for the military.

But the pigeon is dead by the time Tristan returns to Skeldale. Because pigeon postmortems are difficult and out of his wheelhouse, Tristan sends the bird to the lab for testing. He doesn’t tell Sykes what has happened, and avoids the old man’s phone calls over the coming days while he waits for the lab results to come in. No other pigeon breeders will talk to him – because Sykes has warned them about Tristan. Sykes eventually visits Skeldale himself and guesses that the bird is dead – because two of his other pigeons have also died. He blames Tristan.

When the paper publishes a list of those confirmed dead in the sinking of Edward’s ship, Edward is not on it. But Mrs. Hall hasn’t heard anything.

When she spots the fox near Skeldale again, she feeds him inside the shed. He even settles into an open crate.

A Christmas card arrives from Edward, and Mrs. Hall is relieved – until she notices that it was postmarked before his ship went down. She leaves everyone’s company to look for the fox in the shed, but he’s not there. She hasn’t seen him for several days.

The next time she does, he has a bad dog bite, so she yells for Siegfried. The bite is infected; Siegfried says the kindest thing to do is put the fox down. This is why you shouldn’t feed wild animals, he lectures: they lose their fear of humans. Mrs. Hall bursts into her own lecture, telling Siegfried that it’s not fair or right for him to decide who lives or dies.

She works up the courage to follow a request in Edward’s card to bring some rum and shortbread to a mate of his who was sent home from duty on their ship after being injured, before it was sunk. The mate doesn’t know anything more about the ship than Mrs. Hall, but he reluctantly agrees with her that, if Edward was working in the engine room, as was his job, he wouldn’t have survived when the boat went down. Mrs. Hall leaves in a hurry, unable to hold back tears.

Tristan finally gets the lab results on Sykes’ pigeon and learns it died of lead poisoning. He visits Sykes again and learns that all the other pigeons are now doing fine. He insists on examining one of the pigeon lofts and sees lead paint on the ceiling. He realizes that Sykes was accidentally feeding the pigeons lead paint chips because his back was so bad that he was throwing feed at them from a chair; the feed mixed in with paint chips it knocked off the ceiling. But now Sykes’ back is better. Contrite, he now agrees to let Tristan take some of his birds for breeding.

Helen and James decide to cancel Jimmy’s tea party; Mrs. Hall can’t even bring herself to sit with everyone while she worries about Edward. So they give Jimmy gifts at the Alderson farm. Richard gives him Helen’s first wellington boots and some farm toys; James gives him a tiny veterinarian’s kit. The two men then squabble over whether the one-year-old will be a vet or a farmer.

Siegfried decides not to put the fox down after all and sets him up comfortably in the shed on Christmas Eve – though he’s not sure he will survive the night. Mrs. Hall apologizes for her outburst at him. She sleeps in the shed that night – and the next morning, the fox is still alive.

Even better news comes in a long-distance phone call for Mrs. Hall. It’s Edward, wishing her happy Christmas. He’s injured and in a hospital in Singapore, but he’s alive.

Christmas festivities are back on – except that Siegfried forgot to pick up the goose for which Mrs. Hall bargained. So the centerpiece of the holiday feast is… potatoes. Mrs. Hall makes the obligatory toast instead of Siegfried, thanking everyone for helping her through the hardest weeks of her life.