Yeah, she along with her mother, had always been the nasty ingredients to this classic show. Nellie seemed to have gotten worse the older she got though. She was constantly angry, resentful and downright insulting. The major damage came when her mother built her a hotel & restaurant that she could own and operate and to possibly use in "finding a man".
That whole business venture was a disaster with Nellie unable to cook and clean and properly maintain that establishment. She also made it honestly clear how much she hated it and hated working there.
Mr. Oleson seriously wanted to shut the place down due to that, pointing out how much money they were losing from lack of customers. Harriet would have none of that though so she resorts to hiring a specialist from the hospitality industry to help remedy things.
I guess you could say Nellie got "tamed" after dealing with Percival Dalton, the man who was sent to assist in getting the place up and running again. It all got off to a rocky start though.
Percival investigated the place and discovered how rude Nellie was to the customers and how she made no attempt to clean the rooms or learn to cook properly. Against Mrs. Oleson's wishes, he suggested the place be renamed "Caroline's" because if Nellie's name stayed on it, "the public would stay away in droves".
He pointed out too how well liked Mrs. Ingalls was and how she knew to cook. He also suggested he could train Nellie to cook in the meantime. The plan went ahead, but Nellie, in her usual style, still felt resentful about everything.
The scene with the bowl of eggs was hilarious with Nellie angrily breaking them into the bowl until Percival dumps the bowl over her head. He then angrily turns to leave, but says first, "Why your Mother ever built this place for you, I'll never know! You certainly can't cook, and you certainly have no right to be dealing with the public. And as pretty as you are, you don't need a restaurant to catch a husband in the first place."
Well, that final outburst triggered off a major change in Nellie. Her nasty, foul attitude magically disappeared and was replaced with a sweet urge to learn to cook. Percival worked wonders on her and he also knew how to control the loud mouth rantings of Harriet, deeply surprising Mr. Oleson who said, "I just don't believe it."
Yeah, the extreme change in Nellie was a pleasing one indeed and so was her budding romance with Percival Dalton. Those are the segments I enjoyed in this particular episode.
I just felt like yawning though whenever scenes with Laura and Almonzo came up and the trouble they had in getting together. There was, of course, the dilemma added to that about (Yawn!) finding another place for the blind school to be relocated to. Some crisis or problems always occur in trying to keep that place stationary. They seemed to have moved around too much.
Anyway, the highlight of this episode was the one about "taming the beast" and I've always enjoyed that. Turning Nellie nice though didn't give her much to do on the show afterwards. She was eventually written out with another spoiled imp to take her place, "Nancy Oleson". Enough said.