It's a dark and stormy night in Nottingham and The Abbot is racing toward the castle in his primitive Pope-erm Abbot Mobile. The Sheriff has summoned him to aid him in his battle against Robin Hood. The Sheriff has one month to execute Robin or Prince John will kill him (or something, I'm never entirely sure what the deal is between those two, especially as there's a standing order to destroy Nottingham if the Sheriff is killed). The Sheriff blackmails The Abbot into helping by threatening to read from his Necronomicon (okay I'm being melodramatic, maybe it's only a copy of De Vermis Mysteriis or Parchments of Pnom)
The Sheriff starts to talk about finding explosive nuggets and how this book is the most explosive nugget of all. I bring this up because I find the word 'nugget' amusing and also because I think the Sheriff doesn't know the word 'book'. Anyway, the Sheriff's threat is enough to force The Abbot to concede in a shouting match and the Sheriff tells him that he will help him capture Robin.
Next day the Merry Men arrive in Locksley village (why is it always there? What about Worksop?) and find the Sheriff and The Abbot addressing the peasants. Robin and his gang are dubbed "satanic killers" for attempting to rob the local abbey (they totally didn't though!) and The Abbot kind-of-but-doesn't declare them heretics.
Tuck decides that he's going to visit The Abbot later that night and find out why he's turned against the Merry Men. Tuck breaks into the abbey via the (presumably Roman) sewers. It's at this point that he discovers his only point of entry is via a toilet or primitive poop chute. At this point I lose it when I realise that the subtitles have come up with a piece of childish comedy gold.
Which is swiftly followed by this:
As you can no doubt guess there are some comedy poop sound effects at this point. Truly we have reached the zenith of the age of television. I am so glad I started watching these episodes with the subtitles on, it does all the work for me.
Tuck manages to find The Abbot and questions him about the whole heresy accusation thing. The Abbot offers to show him the reason why, but then betrays him to the guards. There's a slightly exciting fight scene (again much better than anything Merlin produced) but Tuck is eventually overwhelmed. Oh well, someone's been captured by the Sheriff again, it must be Saturday.
The Merry Men visit Locksley to hand out stolen goods but Kate's stroppy mother won't take their charity as she fears heresy. Kate hides the Merry Men as the Sheriff conveniently rides into the village at the exact same time. The Sheriff has Tuck in chains and shows him off to the villagers as he shouts at them about catching Robin Hood. He also announces that Tuck will be torn apart on a rack tomorrow. Well, that's a new crappy deathtrap that won't work. Kate then banishes the Merry Men from the village... FOREVER! Or until this storyline is resolved anyway.
The Abbot visits Tuck in gaol and explains why he is helping the Sheriff - he is translating the bible from Latin into English. Tuck is amazed and appalled (probably because it took The Abbot ten years to translate one page of text in two languages he already knows). The Abbot is scared that the Sheriff will burn his book and so doesn't mind sacrificing the Merry Men instead.
Later on, Robin buys some tar and Much tries to chat up Kate but she calls him smelly and dangerous. Well she's right about one thing.
The Sheriff's traditional supervillain execution scene is next and it fails like all the others as Robin arrives and shoots a bunch of guards. The Merry Men dump tar on the Sheriff (for no real reason) and use the rest of the tar to make a wall of fire to seal off their escape. Not that they need to bother as we all know the Hungarian guards won't bother running after them.
That night the Sheriff decides to exhume some bodies in the local graveyard so he can manufacture a holy relic. He needs this so he can... well, so he can produce something that he can claim Robin Hood was trying to steal. The Abbot is horrified by this and threatens to quit but the Sheriff burns a page of The Abbot's translated bible and he soon tows the line.
Tuck and Allan break into the Sheriff's quarters and steal back the bible while the Sheriff delivers a sermon at the abbey to the local peasants (Allan gets captured in the process though.) The Sheriff shows off his fake holy relic as evidence of Robin's intended heresy. Robin Hood decides to gatecrash the sermon and tries to convince The Abbot to admit that Robin isn't a heretic. Unfortunately The Abbot is still a book loving wuss and won't support Robin so Robin is captured along with Much and Little John and sentenced to death by burning. Two deathtraps in one episode, we are truly spoiled!
Tuck tries to blackmail The Abbot into helping free Robin by threatening to burn the bible but the Sheriff suddenly appears to conveniently arrest Tuck (again) so all of the Merry Men can be placed in the deathtrap.
The villagers have turned on the Merry Men and are chanting "burn them!" Ungrateful, fickle, sods. But Kate manages to slip Robin an arrowhead so he can cut his bonds. Robin clumsily drops the arrowhead though and it takes the intervention of The Abbot to save the Merry Men. The Abbot admits that he made up all the charges of heresy and this causes enough distraction for the Merry Men to break their bonds and escape. The Sheriff throws the bible onto the fire in a fit of rage as the Merry Men run off and the guards fail to pursue them. The Abbot gives a customary "Noooooo!" as his book burns.
Don't worry though because The Abbot is safe and sound, SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE. He's translating a new book this time...
NEXT EPISODE: The Actor Kevin Eldon!
1 comment:
HE DRINKS HIS WEAK LEMON DRINK
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