'All Creatures Great and Small': Season 2 Finale Recap

As the Season 2 finale of All Creatures Great and Small opens, it's the day before Christmas, Skeldale House is beautifully decorated, and everything is ready for the annual party Siegfried throws for friends and clients. But early in the morning, James Herriot is rudely awakened by a phone call from a farmer with a sick cow, and he heads out without bothering to dress. Kitson (James Burrowes) is a complainer and penny-pincher. When James sees an obviously sick ewe nearby and offers to help, Kitson tells him she’s been that way ever since a difficult delivery, and she won’t survive. He refuses to spend money on a dying animal, so when Kitson is safely out of the way, James fills an enormous syringe with a sedative to ease the animal’s suffering. He picks up an interesting piece of wood, and we’ll find out why later.

Tristan and Mrs. Hall are out shopping for Christmas lunch, and so is Diana, who confesses to Mrs. Hall that she is looking forward to spending Christmas Day alone. She also advises Mrs. Hall to encourage her admirer Gerald Hammond. Thanks to Tristan there is mistletoe all over the house. We learn that three months have passed, in which he’s taken his Parasitology exam and the results will be here any day. Maggie, his former girlfriend, and he banter together briefly.

Back at Skeldale House, Siegfried is treating a one-eared rabbit, and while he’s occupied, Mrs. Hall finds Tristan's exam results in the mail and is determined not to let him get at them first as he did last year. Troubled by Diana’s revelation, she asks Siegfried if he’s going to invite Diana to Christmas lunch, and Siegfried blathers a bit; in his mind, there are women you invite to Christmas lunch and women you don’t, and Diana falls into the latter category. It might raise expectations. It is 1938, after all. It’s the reason why Mrs. Hall thinks it’s inappropriate for her to invite Gerald, although Siegfried is the one to suggest it.