Little House on the Prairie cast members Alison Arngrim and Dean Butler opened up on the season three episode \u201cBully Boys\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The cast members and their podcast cohost called the installment \u201cdisturbing\u201d and \u201chorrifying,\u201d as it saw three men come to town and attack women, including Mary and Caroline Ingalls<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Butler called out one episode as being the most \u201cmenacing\u201d in the whole series<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Though fans might think of Little House on the Prairie<\/a> as only wholesome, the cast thinks one episode was particularly “disturbing,” \u201chorrifying\u201d and \u201cshocking.\u201d<\/p>\n On the Sept. 25 episode of the Little House 50 podcast<\/a>, Alison Arngrim (who played Nellie Oleson)<\/a> and Dean Butler<\/a> (who played Almanzo Wilder) were joined by their co-host Pamela Bob to discuss the season three episode \u201cBully Boys.\u201d The episode saw two adult men and a teenager, the Galenders brothers, arrive in Walnut Grove, Minn., where they quickly wreak havoc on the townspeople.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is so much woman-beating in this episode. It’s crazy,\u201d Bob said in the podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cThey target the women. They’re cowards,\u201d Arngrim, 63, said. \u201cThey don’t want to fight the men. They wanted to attack the girls.\u201d She called the men \u201ccreepy and disturbing\u201d and said there was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe to the men. Roy Jenson played George Galender, Michael LeClair played Bubba Galender and Geoffrey Lewis played Sam Galender.<\/p>\n NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via Getty<\/p>\n Melissa Gilbert (left) and Michael LeClair in the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ episode ‘Bully Boys’<\/p>\n \u201cThis plot is very simple,\u201d Butler, 69, said. \u201cIt’s really about how much will people take.\u201d Butler also said the Galenders were \u201can illustration of no moral guardrails of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n When Bubba spends time in the schoolyard with the other kids, Bob said, \u201cThis was the craziest scene ever when he, out of the blue, punches Mary in the face.\u201d Bubba purposefully knocks a girl down with a dodgeball, and when Mary tells him to stop being mean, Bubba punches her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is jarring to say the least as a viewer watching this,\u201d Bob said of seeing Mary, played by Melissa Sue Anderson, be attacked. She added that Melissa Gilbert<\/a>\u2019s Laura<\/a> was \u201ca little more nonchalant\u201d than you\u2019d want her to be.<\/p>\n Even though Mary has a black eye for the rest of the episode, she feels pressured to keep what happened to her quiet. In the episode, Arngrim\u2019s Nellie tries to make herself Bubba\u2019s girlfriend, which Arngrim called \u201creprehensible.\u201d \u201cShe sees him beating women, and she’s cool with it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The breaking point for the town is when Karen Grassle\u2019s Caroline \u201cMa\u201d Ingalls<\/a> is attacked by the two older men when she\u2019s walking into town to sell eggs. \u201c<\/p>\n NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via Getty<\/p>\n Melissa Sue Anderson (left) and Jonathan Gilbert in the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ episode ‘Bully Boys’<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s all sexual innuendo. It’s horrible. It’s horrific,\u201d Bob said. \u201cIt’s really bad,\u201d Arngrim agreed.<\/p>\n In the scene, the men leer at Caroline and touch her face. She begs them to let her go, but they grab her basket and all the eggs fall and break. She eventually breaks away from them and runs home.<\/p>\n Butler called the scene, \u201cprobably as overtly a menacing scene as . . . has ever been shot on the show.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this is Caroline. I mean, viewers had to have gone, \u2018Oh my god, that’s your mom,\u2019\u201d Arngrim said. The scene, she said, was clearly \u201cassault.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"NBCU](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/b003fbca9aabc008e54ed59f94b78ba8.jpeg\"\/)
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