All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 “On a Wing and a Prayer” Spoilers Ahead
All Creatures Great and Small’s “On a Wing and a Prayer” is the warm hug viewers need to mend our hearts after the exquisite emotional exertions of Season 4. After the high tension of “Papers” and “The Home Front,” the season finale is less heart-wrenching and instead binds up our wounds.
While still exploring challenging, universal themes, “On a Wing and a Prayer” shifts the balance of heaviness and lightness back toward levity and joy. The finale provides viewers with a deeply satisfying conclusion to a season that we could watch without end.
Duty Calls in “On a Wing and a Prayer”
The opening of All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 “On a Wing and a Prayer” takes viewers outside the Dales into the wider world of wartime preparations. We first look skyward at a hovering falcon in a clear sky. The falcon dips out of view as a plane roars onto the screen. The scene cuts to a downward shot of James Herriot in uniform standing in a field dusted with frost. He is also looking up with evident admiration. James raises his hand in what appears to be a salute, but we discover he’s shielding his eyes from the sun. The ambiguity of this gesture presages James’s tenuous allegiance to his military obligations. Like James, some of our favorite Yorkshire residents struggle to accept “the way things are” as circumstances alter their ideas of duty and responsibility.
In the episode, Richard Carmody is celebrating Christmas for the first time. He’s lodging at Skeldale House ostensibly to help during the festive season. Carmody seems to be making himself at home. He hammers out a noisy “The Nutcracker Suite” on the piano and shares jarring notes with Helen Harriot from an armchair. Yet, Siegfried Farnon’s reminder that the arrangement is temporary and Carmody’s reluctance to admit his fondness for Christmas traditions fuel his continuing sense of himself as an outsider. Carmody, nevertheless, obediently does as Siegfried commands. Poor Richard even sacrifices a bit of his own flesh to make the Christmas celebrations a success. It is, though, only after he “get[s] stuck in” and embraces “the joy of Christmas” that Carmody sincerely feels responsible for helping to spread that joy.
Like Carmody, Siegfried experiences a kind of Christmas first. He’ll celebrate without Tristan. Siegfried sounds composed but looks downcast when he says he has no news of his brother. He refutes Mrs. Hall’s suggestion that Carmody’s presence might relieve his loneliness. As Siegfried questions the need for Father Christmas and imperiously commands Carmody to wear the costume, he initially appears decidedly grinchy. He does, however, dutifully care for those under his roof. In asking about extra sheets, compliantly following party planning orders, and uncharacteristically offering to do the dishes, Siegfried tacitly shows he no longer takes Mrs. Hall for granted. His dad-like interruption of the Harriots’ phone conversation springs from his promise to take responsibility for Helen’s welfare. He even sacrifices the sanctuary he’s been keeping for Tristan to welcome Richard fully into Skeldale House.
Christmas Presence, Christmas Absence
Of all the first-time holiday happenings in “On a Wing and a Prayer,” Helen’s Christmas delivery is the most spectacular. As she has throughout Season 4, Helen initially rejects suggestions that she should alter her activities. She relents in her plan to drive “thirty miles over hill and dale,” only when the “two mother hens” stick their beaks in. James echoes the haunting words of “The Home Front” — “think about the baby” — and Helen yields. Even so, she is torn between responsibility to her unborn child, a sense of obligation to James, and her own needs for comfort. She honors her Scottish husband by burning a carved Yule log. Her kin and chosen family at the Drovers provide emotional support as Helen tearfully reminds herself of a warwife’s duty to “get through it.” Yet, Helen’s fear remains palpable.
Her frantic plea to James before their call cuts off catalyzes James’s decision to ease her fears and his own. He faces what feels to him like a unique dilemma: support his wife or serve his country. Commanding Officer Woodham doesn’t mince words in informing James where their higher duty lies. When Woodham denies his imprudent request for leave, James hesitates momentarily before engaging in a potentially irretrievable act of disobedience. During his Christmas journey homeward, James meets a wise man who provides perspective on the regrets that haunt those willing but unable to fight. Woodham rescues James from a dishonorable fate and again tries to instill a sense of their greater charge. Though he counsels James to harden his heart, in a kindhearted gesture, Officer Woodham allows James to experience the one moment that “changes everything.”
All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 Is a Bright Beacon of Hope
While the Season 3 ending was bittersweet, “On a Wing and a Prayer” is the perfect downshift in angst to conclude Season 4 on an entirely delightful note.
In his only episode this season, veteran All Creatures Great and Small writer and executive producer Ben Vanstone masterfully incorporates all the elements that series viewers cherish: weighty themes, complex characters, honest dialogue, perfectly calibrated humor, and heartwarming outcomes.
A Christmas special set in one of Britain’s darkest wartime moments, “On a Wing and a Prayer” finds the delicate balance between the hopeful joy of the season and the awful sacrifice of service. Themes of welcome and inclusion feel reassuringly familiar as Carmody is a stranger discovering the wonder of Christmas (like little Eva from 3×07 “Merry Bloody Christmas”). Carmody’s surprised reaction to his first-ever gift is touchingly humble. Happy tears well up when Mrs. Pumphrey compels Uncle Carmody to stay, saying, “Tricki saved a spot for you.” When Carmody later marvels at how “completely at home” everyone made him feel, those happy tears stream down. Mrs. Pumphrey’s presence also results from a warm welcome. She initially doesn’t see a place for herself at The Drovers. Following their bonding moment in “Right Hand Man,” Helen confidently invites the silent benefactor to take her place in the community center. They even find the perfect perch for Tricki, to Richard Alderson’s chagrin.
In All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 “On a Wing and a Prayer,” Vanstone also weaves family and community themes that have been a throughline of Season 4. The Alderson bond is stronger than ever as Jenny supports Helen through her labor, and Richard can finally cuddle a healthy baby boy. James helps Michael Collins rethink his priorities as a father and discovers how fatherhood transforms his own commitment. We experience the joys of a found family in numerous ways, such as when “Uncle Siegfried” admires little James. The shifting contours of community are evident in the various faces around the radio: uniformed men amongst the farmers at The Drovers, “old man” James with his baby-faced brothers-in-arms at the RAF officers’ mess.
Growth and Grace
Though it hardly seems possible after the raw exposure in “Papers” and “The Home Front,” the characters’ qualities continue to emerge in the finale. Even if he tries to hide behind practicality and convenience, Siegfried is learning to value companionship and assistance. Though he can’t yet stop himself, Carmody is learning to recognize when he’s put his foot in it — “Just the one? Progress at last!” And James crosses a dangerous line he’s been toeing since “Broodiness“: imperfect empathy, rash decision-making, and increasing assertiveness metastasize into punishable insubordination. He finally puts Helen first but at the worst possible time. That characters learn and grow incrementally from the same mistakes feels authentic to the human experience; that others repeatedly show them grace feels aspirational and inspirational.
Mrs. Hall, perhaps the most complex character, is the one person who now appears perfectly at ease with how things are. Following her choice in “The Home Front,” her commitment to Skeldale and the community is now unwavering. She uses her apparently divine power to organize a Christmas feast, all while creating a bubble of feminine energy around Helen. Mrs. Hall is so remarkable in the eyes of some that she takes top-billing over Jesus. In deliberately removing her wedding ring, Mrs. Hall signals that, even without that symbol of her past devotion, she can now finally “hold [her] head up high…to God.” Season 4 leaves some mystery about the motivations for Audrey’s final choices, generously allowing engaged viewers room for debate.
Directing for a second time this season, Jordan Hogg invites viewers into private moments with tight shots, often in close quarters — a booth at The Drovers, Collins’ truck, the falcon’s enclosure, and the Rover. The view through the windshield of Siegfried calmly offering advice and the final close-up of Carmody’s contorted face capture all the panic and agony of the hilarious goose scene.
Full Circles
All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 “On a Wing and a Prayer” closing scenes beautifully bookend the episode and our collective journey from Easter to Christmas. As James looks skyward for a second time, he is no longer alone. He and his fellow officers celebrate as Georgie tests out her mended wings. James’s elation, as he runs through Darrowby yelling “Merry Christmas, young ‘uns,” recalls his joy at seeing wee ‘uns hunting for Easter eggs at the start of Season 4. In his final exchange with Michael Collins, we hear echoes of the mutual affirmation James exchanged with Wesley Binks — “You’re a good man.” And, in the closing portrait outside Skeldale House accompanied by Alexandra Harwood’s tender notes, we find comfort that, although we cannot control everything, we can plan and have faith.
Just as Helen finds the strength to reassure James, All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 restores our belief that, sorely, tenderly, we’ll somehow “cope just fine.”
The episode provides a gentle landing from a fantastically turbulent season, with the finale leaving viewers in the most perfect state to look back in wonder and look forward in hope.
Now streaming on PBS: What are your thoughts on the All Creatures Great and Small 4×07 “On a Wing and a Prayer?” Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Photographer: Helen Williams Courtesy of Playground Entertainment and MASTERPIECE.