Wally is taking pretty and popular Myra to the school dance; but Myra, who is the head of the dance committee, corners Wally into buying her an orchid for her corsage. Ward stops short of giving Wally the money to buy the expensive flower: Wally must not lose his sense of values over a pretty girl, he says; and anyway, an orchid is too extravagant for a 14-year-old. June, on the other hand, thinks they should relent and buy Wally the orchid. This parental disagreement forms a background to the plot of Wally and Beaver trying to find a way to obtain the vaunted orchid. Wally, eager to impress Myra and get a leg up on the upperclassmen she usually goes out with, is determined to get it.
A dea ex machina of sorts arrives in the form of Beaver's school principal Mrs. Rayburn, who has just returned from an awards banquet and happens to be wearing - you guessed it - an orchid! Beaver easily obtains the flower from Mrs. Rayburn and all seems destined to end well...except it doesn't, exactly. You'll have to watch to find out. There are some twists and turns to the plot and a surprisingly bittersweet ending. Suffice to say that Wally's illusions wilt just like the orchid which he and his brother hopefully placed in the refrigerator. In fact, the disillusionment of the ending foreshadows the Season Six episode "Box Office Attraction."
One of the common complaints about LEAVE IT TO BEAVER is that it's too pat and predictable, too dependent on formula. Here's an episode that puts the lie to that assumption.
Longtime LITB fans will notice that Myra is played by the same actress who later played Wally's love interest Mary Ellen Rogers. Here her character is a bit more pretentious and manipulative than Mary Ellen. Tony Dow looks mature for 14 here, although that was his actual age at the time. He is at his most endearing here, bashful nose-swiping and all. All in all, a good entry in the "middle" season of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.