Melissa Gilbert names most progressive episode of “Little House on the Prairie”: ‘Don’t think we get more woke than that’ Ryan ColemanFri, July 10, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC 0 Melissa Gilbert on ‘Little House on the Prairie’Credit: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via GettyKey Points Melissa Gilbert is looking back at a particularly progressive episode of the original Little House on the Prairie. Hitting back at conservative YouTuber Megyn Kelly for pejoratively referring to the new Netflix Little House as “woke,” Gilbert pointed to the 1977 episode “The Wisdom of Solomon.
Melissa Gilbert names most progressive episode of “Little House on the Prairie”: ‘Don’t think we get more woke than that’
Ryan ColemanFri, July 10, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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Melissa Gilbert on ‘Little House on the Prairie’Credit: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via GettyKey Points -
Melissa Gilbert is looking back at a particularly progressive episode of the original Little House on the Prairie.
Hitting back at conservative YouTuber Megyn Kelly for pejoratively referring to the new Netflix Little House as “woke,” Gilbert pointed to the 1977 episode “The Wisdom of Solomon.”
“I don’t think we get more woke than that,” Gilbert remarked.
The original Little House on the Prairiewas woke before it was cool.
Melissa Gilbert, who anchored the NBC series from 1974 to 1983 as the plucky heroine Laura Ingalls Wilder, waves away concerns that Netflix’s new take on Little House, which premiered on July 9,will take the property in too progressive a direction. In fact, Gilbert tells Entertainment Weekly that the original series was “woke” long before the term ever acquired its power as a political lightning rod.
Gilbert spoke to EW after conservative YouTuber Megyn Kelly publicly threatened the streamer last January, following the announcement of a new adaptation of Ingalls Wilder’s classic coming-of-age novels.
“If you wokeify Little House on the Prairie I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project,” Kelly wrote on X.
Gilbert’s response: “Did you watch the original? Have you seen the episode ‘The Wisdom of Solomon?’ I don’t think we get more woke than that.’”
Melissa Gilbert and Todd Bridges on ‘Little House on the Prairie’ episode ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’Credit: NBC/Peacock
“The Wisdom of Solomon,” which aired in 1977, is a landmark episode — not just for Little House on the Prairie, but for television as a medium.
Airing deep into the series’ third-season run, the hard-hitting episode starred a 12-year-old Todd Bridges before his turns on Roots and Diff’rent Strokes catapulted him to fame. Bridges plays a young boy named Solomon Henry, who steals a book out of desperation to learn to read. The son of poor sharecroppers, young Solomon is banned from enrollment at the local school because he’s Black and runs off after being reprimanded.
After being shown kindness by Michael Landon’s Charles “Pa” Ingalls, Solomon stows away on the back of the Ingalls family wagon and hitches back to their little house. There, he becomes a happy, yet temporary member of the Ingalls family and part time enrollee at Laura (Gilbert) and Mary’s (Melissa Sue Anderson) school. Solomon learns there’s more tolerance and equanimity out there than he’d ever seen growing up, and the denizens of Walnut Grove learn many valuable lessons from Solomon in return.
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Tough subjects like racism were frequent fodder for the original Little House, but nearly 50 years after its premiere, “The Wisdom of Solomon” still stands as one of the series’ most trenchant episodes on the topic.
Gilbert previously told EW about the series’ remarkable ability to tackle taboo topics. Citing “the episodes we did about drug addiction, about nativism, about Native Americans, chauvinists, antisemitism, rape, drunk child abuse, child neglect, industrialization,” Gilbert remarked, “We covered everything that’s going on in the world still.”
“It’s not my job to defend the word ‘woke,’ but I mean, to my mind, it just means compassion for all,” she explained. “I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing, and I don’t think anyone can ever convince me of that.”
Alice Halsey, Luke Bracey, Crosby Fitzgerald, and Skywalker Hughes shooting an episode of ‘Little House on the Prairie’
Gilbert and Bridges reunited in 2023 on an episode of her Knitty Gritty Podcast, where they touched on “The Wisdom of Solomon.”
Even before the announcement of the new Little House on the Prairie adaptation, the original series saw a resurgence on streaming during the pandemic. In that time, Gilbert said she was getting messages from famous fans of the show “saying, ‘Who knew Little House was woke?’ And we knew, because we did it!”
Bridges agreed, before diving into his memories of shooting the 1977 episode.
“I spoke too perfect of English in the beginning. My mom had to teach me to speak not good English, and I always say that show ruined my English,” he joked. “What I love about that show is, it’s how remarkable and how strong that particular episode gives the same values that are needed today, you know, to make people really look” at an issue like racism.
With reporting from Kristen Baldwin.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: July 10, 2026 at 03:09PM on Source: MORNING MAG
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