All Creatures Great and Small Recap: Tricki Woo Lives

All Creatures Great and Small
Old Dog, New Tricks
Season 6 Episode 2
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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Someone this past week told me that Tricki Woo better be okay after this four-year time jump, and I am thrilled to report that Tricki Woo is alive and relatively well. And it is his birthday. Tricki Woo, if we could send the Barbra Streisand dog cloning technology back in time, Mrs. Pumphrey would definitely use it, and while your spirit would leave us, your exact DNA would remain. Tricki Woo: the true star of the All Creatures series.

Our high stakes this week are an X-ray machine, a vomiting dog, and Siegfried alienating the village people. I say it every year, but thank God this show exists. Just a calm little island of peace and mostly minor problems. They skipped four whole years of World War II. Do you think the writers looked around at what’s happening globally and said, “We know why people watch this show; let’s just jump ahead”? I need one hour a week where I can watch Mrs. Hall be consternated by the greengrocer giving her a bad head of lettuce. How will she solve this insurmountable obstacle?! Talk to Siegfried? Oh, yes, that did solve it; wow, what a fixable situation that doesn’t involve staring at horrifying news videos on one’s phone, knowing you have no control over national or global events. Yayyyy Darrowby. 

Despite Siegfried essentially declaring his love for Mrs. Hall last week, he’s still acting like the Darrowby town bicycle for women in their fifties who look like Mrs. Hall. James encounters him walking on the side of the road. Siegfried is missing one shoe and claims his car wouldn’t start after an evening of bridge at a nearby widow’s home. Okay, Sieg. I really thought you had finally figured this out, but thinly veiled dog speeches later in the episode made me realize you still have some personal growth to achieve. When they arrive back at Skeldale, Mrs Hall asks Siegfried why he only has one shoe. “Bridge,” James replies. I love all of you. 

James has to run to Sister Rose’s to see one of the dogs she’s fostering. Siegfried forgot to tell him about the appointment, and the practice can’t lose her as a referral. James is terrified of Sister Rose, but her type of caustic is the funny kind, so I’m not sure why. (Note: Okay, I technically know why, because my wife hates any kind of caustic humor, but I do not.) When he shows up and apologizes, she tells James, “My dogs are used to being abandoned, so why worry?” Lolll. Apparently Sister Rose also had requested flea powder and has not received it yet and there are other vets nearby she can go to. Before that potentiality, though, we have Geoffrey the Dog. She found him on the side of the road and he keeps vomiting. James prescribes “stomach powders,” which sounds fun, and Sister Rose learns that the practice doesn’t have an X-ray machine. Fortunately, she can hook him up with one. Or rather, she essentially tells James he’s going to buy it, and he does. James half-heartedly mentions this large purchase to Siegfried while Siegfried is distractedly looking for his other shoe (its partner was thrown into the house by Siegfried’s bridge companion).

Wait, you say, but what about Tricki Woo’s birthday? Yes, great point. Tricki isn’t responding to Mrs. Pumphrey calling him, and she is concerned that she offended him. Siegfried looks at Tricki’s ears and diagnoses an ear infection, which is impairing Tricki’s hearing. It’s a symptom of his age. Mrs. Pumphrey is insulted and so am I. What are you implying, Siegfried? That Tricki won’t always be with us? Sitting on his little pillow and eating bacon on his birthday? That can’t be right. Mrs. Pumphrey (and presumably all of us) have to sit with this information. 

Tristan is bored, so he’s doing inventory in the dispensary, rewiring the electrical system, and all sorts of things he learned in Army. Mrs. Hall mentions that when Edward came home, he said the worst thing was not having anything to distract him from remembering. Tristan is like, psh, sure, okay. He later decides to start going on calls for the practice, so maybe he’ll be back to stay? Unclear.

First, though, he and James have to take delivery of this very heavy X-ray machine. I did find one from the first half of the twentieth century, and it was about 310 pounds, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. Their machine is delivered on a horse and cart (love it) in a six-foot-tall crate. James and Tristan try to move it by themselves while some old men judge them from afar. Tristan bribes them into helping, and they get it just in the doorway, where it becomes stuck. Siegfried is shocked by its arrival, and while James insists that the domestic pets that will use it are the future, Siegfried correctly points out that it won’t happen if they can’t get in the building. Sister Rose comes by for her dogs’ flea powder, and mentions that if it were her, she would take the machine out of the crate, because it’s on wheels. A stunning reveal. James and Tristan finally set it up, switch it on, and it shorts out the whole house’s electricity.

Meanwhile, the greengrocer and other local vendors are being short with Mrs. Hall, and she doesn’t understand why until Helen tells her the obvious — it’s not her, it’s Siegfried. When Mrs. Hall confronts him about this, he says he does things his way because they work and also he’s the only one who’s been at Skeldale. Awwww, Siegfried, everyone left you. She tells him she knows it hasn’t been easy, but maybe don’t be rude to literally everyone. Siegfried references a blind mole rat being able to see things better than James’s defunct X-ray machine, and Mrs. Hall picks it up, comparing Siegfried to an angry blind mole rat furiously digging a tunnel that is swiftly collapsing behind him. We find out that the greengrocer is upset because Siegfried hired his sister to replace Mrs. Hall and then fired her after three days. In the way that only she can, Mrs. Hall informs Siegfried that it’s not the worst thing in the world to admit you’re wrong. Character growth! Maybe! It’s pretty early in the series to tell, but also, we get so few episodes per year. 

Siegfried goes around to the people he has alienated and apologizes, marking them off on a little list as he goes. Amazing. Truly amazing. The greengrocer (who looks like Putin, by the way; I needed to mention this) gives Mrs. Hall a less terrible head of lettuce next time. Success! Tristan puts the X-ray machine on a separate circuit. More success! But then Sister Rose brings Geoffrey in because he’s been vomiting again. Is our streak broken? But no, Siegfried and James work together and find out Geoffrey ate a rock. The success continues! 

While James operates to get the rock out of Geoffrey, Sister Rose gives a little monologue about Geoffrey being at his lowest when she found him, but he has a good heart, only growls because he was hurt, etc etc, we all know you’re talking about Siegfried, Sister. Mrs. Hall is sitting with her and asks, what if he can’t learn to trust again? But Sister Rose says they all just want a home and love (and to know they’re not in charge). Yes! Move Siegfried and Mrs. Hall closer together, Sister! I appreciate this. It was very “Scully’s speech in the X-Files season six episode ‘Rain King.’” But about a dog.

Mrs. Pumphrey wants the men of Skeldale to find Tricki a romantic companion so she can have future Trickis in her life. Siegfried assigns this task to James. Wow, I would love to find a girlfriend for Tricki. Can you imagine if your job were to look at absurdly fluffy Pekingese dogs? Amazing. Geoffrey is healing and wearing a sweater, Siegfried is growing as a person, and the family is together again at the dinner table. Hurray!