The first season of Netflix‘s new Little House on the Prairie show is a modern adaptation of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book of the same name, following young Laura (Alice Halsey) as she travels with her family far away from the little house in the big woods to start life over in the frontier town of Independence, Kansas. We watch as the Ingalls ford a dangerous river, build a log cabin, and encounter all sorts of trials as they attempt to live their version of the American dream.
**Spoilers for Little House on the Prairie Season 1, now streaming on Netflix**
Almost as soon as the Ingalls family arrives in Independence, Charles (Luke Bracey) discovers to his horror that the “free land” that was advertised isn’t free at all. The settlers are all squatting illegally on Osage land. The hope is that if Independence grows big enough to attract the attention of the railroad business, the U.S. government will step in and offer the indigenous settlers a hefty sum of money to relocate. The question of whether or not this will actually happen hangs over the Ingalls family and their friends for the entirety of the first season.
Ultimately, a deal is struck and the Osage leave, but that doesn’t mean the Ingalls can stay in their little house on the Prairie. Charles discovers in the Season 1 finale that he still has to buy back the land from the government. Unfortunately, the family is deep in debt. The tenants they left living in their old home in Minnesota have defaulted on their mortgage and the crops they spent all year diligently planting are incinerated in a devastating prairie fire.
So does Laura and her family stay in their little house on the prairie? Or do the Ingalls have to pack up their covered wagon once again to seek their fortune elsewhere? Here’s everything you need to know about the end of Little House on the Prairie Season 1…
Little House on the Prairie Ending Explained: Do The Ingalls Leave Independence?
In the end, the Ingalls leave their little house on the prairie behind to start life all over again. This is exactly how Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, Little House on the Prairie, ends, with the family forced to leave because of the situation involving the Osage. The Ingalls pack up their covered wagon once more, this time driving away from the home they built.
When DECIDER spoke to Little House on the Prairie stars Luke Bracey and Crosby Fitzgerald last week, they shared that filming that goodbye was as emotional for them as it was for their characters.
“Do you remember the day?” Fitzgerald asked.
“That was crazy,” Bracey said.
“The day we left the house, remember during rehearsal we went onto the location for a rehearsal before we’d even gotten dressed and I was weeping the whole time, and I didn’t know that I would have that reaction,” Fitzgerald said. “It was a little meta of a moment also because it’s like saying goodbye to this house that did so much for them, and for me, it was like this opportunity that did much for me.”
“We spent so much time at that house on set. We were out on the prairie and that was our place where we would sit out of the sunshine in between takes,” Bracey said. “It was our little home in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s so well done,” Fitzgerald said.
“It was a real house. It was completely legitimate, like it was a legitimate log cabin that was expertly crafted,” Bracey said. Yeah, it was really sad to leave it, and then, I remember that scene of us in the wagon. It was just like one in a million shot where the sun was just perfect, and the clouds were just perfect, and the colors were just right.”
So the Ingalls leave their little house behind, but does that mean this is the end of Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie? At the very end of Little House on the Prairie Season 1, family friend Mr. Edwards (Warren Christie) joins their wagon train, suggesting they move to Walnut Grove, Minnesota where his sister runs Oleson General Store…
Will There Be a Season 2 of Little House on the Prairie on Netflix?
Yes, Netflix has already renewed Little House on the Prairie for a second season. Little House on the Prairie Season 2 is currently in production and will adapt the events of the next book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series, On the Banks of Plum Creek. When the Ingalls arrive in Walnut Grove, they’ll get to meet new characters Nellie Oleson (Willa Dunn), Eva Beadle (Rachelle Lefevre), and Margaret Oleson (Charlotte Sullivan).
DECIDER asked Bracey and Fitzgerald if they could tease the second season — specifically the underground dugout house they initially settle in — and all Fitzgerald would say is, “Listen, maybe there’s a cow and a hoof in the roof. You know what I mean? That’s what I can say.”
Little House on the Prairie Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
