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Corporal Punishment (Blackadder)
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"Corporal Punishment" is the second episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, the fourth series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.
rs for Operation Insanity arrive and Blackadder breaches regulations by eating the messenger. Can the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer" avoid the firing squad?
Plot
Captain Blackadder receives numerous calls to the wrong number via the telephone system before finally having a call with orders to advance.
Discussion
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Encyclopedia
"Corporal Punishment" is the second episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, the fourth series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder.
Summary
Orders for Operation Insanity arrive and Blackadder breaches regulations by eating the messenger. Can the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer" avoid the firing squad?
Plot
Captain Blackadder receives numerous calls to the wrong number via the telephone system before finally having a call with orders to advance. Mocking the apparently bad line, he manages to avoid going over the top. After receiving a telegram from HQ which he dismisses being for a man called Catpain Blackudder, he shoots a carrier pigeon, justifying his actions to a protesting Lieutenant George by saying, "Come on, George. With fifty-thousand men getting killed a week, who's going to miss a pigeon?"
Upon inspection of the pigeon's message however, it turns out that shooting carrier pigeons has become a punishable offence with the result being court-martial, and Blackadder simply decides to eat the evidence for lunch, telling Baldrick and George that if anyone asks any questions, they should tell them that "I definitely did not eat this delicious plump-breasted pigeon".
When General Melchett arrives at the trenches, demanding an explanation as to why the group hasn't advanced, Blackadder nearly gets away with it by blaming the communication breakdown.
Unfortunately Baldrick and George both give the game away, unknowingly dropping Blackadder in it when they tell Melchett that "Captain Blackadder definitely did not shoot this delicious plump breasted pigeon sir" when asked an unrelated question, and Melchett is angry, revealing to the group that it was his pet pigeon Speckled Jim.
After an enraged Melchett tries to kill Blackadder himself, Captain Darling is forced to restrain him. Smugly, Darling then informs Blackadder that he's under arrest and, if found guilty at court-martial, he will be shot by a firing squad.
Blackadder, whilst in his cell, talks to a prison guard, saying that he is bound to get off because he has sent for lawyer Bob Massingbird, who, Blackadder claims, managed to get a man off another case, despite him being seen by thirteen people stabbing a victim and then exclaiming he was "glad he had killed the bastard" to the police.
However, thanks to Private Baldrick getting Massingbird's letter mixed up with a letter asking George for a sponge bag, the message falls into the wrong hands, and George turns up as Blackadder's defence. Blackadder irritably tells him that he needs a case as water tight as a mermaid's brassier and that his mindless optimism will not contribute to the case, disappointing George who had been intending to "play the mindless optimism card" strongly.
On the day of the court-martial, Blackadder fancies his chances upon seeing that Darling is the prosecuting counsel. His optimism and hopes of getting away soon evaporate when the judge arrives and it is revealed to be Melchett, who summarily fines George £50 for wasting the court's time by turning up and refers to Blackadder as "the Flanders Pigeon Murderer" rather than by name or as "the defendant".
George puts paid to any remaining hopes with his poor choice of witnesses (Darling, who ends up providing more evidence against Blackadder, and Baldrick, who after being instructed by Blackadder to 'deny everything', denies literally every questions that George asks, including "Are you Private Baldrick?").
Darling's case for the prosecution follows; it involves calling Melchett to the witness stand and inciting him against Blackadder, which works perfectly; Melchett swiftly comes to a verdict and wastes no time in sentencing Blackadder to death.
Baldrick comes up with a cunning plan to help Blackadder escape, but his escape kit turns up to include only useless items (notably a toy duck, a miniature trumpet, a pencil and a Robin Hood outfit). Shortly afterwards, Blackadder meets his firing squad, a cheery bunch of men who seem to take pride in murdering people for the law.
Another mix-up results in Baldrick delivering a telegram for George's mother to Blackadder, but this provides Blackadder with a way out, when he discovers that George's uncle Rupert has just been made Minister of War, and can get Blackadder acquitted. When Baldrick eventually remembers to tell George this, they decide to celebrate by drinking some Scotch - and of course get so drunk that they pass out before remembering to send a telegram.
In the end, Rupert sends a telegram anyway, knowing that Blackadder is a close friend of his nephew's. Upon return to the trenches, Blackadder is (quite justifiably) outraged that they forgot: "I'm not a religious man, as you know. But hence forth I shall nightly pray to the God that killed Cain and squashed Samson, that he come out of retirement and get back into practice on the pair of you."
Out of revenge for apparently ignoring his orders, Blackadder signs Baldrick and George up for 'Operation Certain-Death', a mission into No-Man's Land, after receiving a call from Captain Darling on the "now repaired" trench communications system. Blackadder hangs up the line, leans in close to his now frightened subordinates and tells them: "God is very quick these days!"
Trivia
A close review of the DVD edition reveals that all verbal references to "Massingbird" were in fact re-dubbed (Atkinson's mouth movements do not match the audio). It is not clear whether this is a coincidence, or whether a different name was originally scripted, and then later replaced.
In his autobiography Moab is My Washpot, Stephen Fry recalls an instant when a man shouted "The Flanders pigeon-murderer!" at him on the street. Fry had no idea what this meant (he had forgotten about this episode) and feared he was going to be attacked.
The names of Blackadder's firing squad are a reference by writer Ben Elton to the classic sitcom Dad's Army.
The basic story of the episode is similar to Stanley Kubrick's film Paths of Glory.
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