Application of theory to Blackadder’s last episode “Goodbyeee”

In earlier posts  we explored Stephen Wagg’s “broadly agreed characteristics” of situational comedy (1998, p. 3), and the structure of situational comedy within an “adapted form of Todorov’s equilibrium-disequilibrium-new-equilibrium model of narrative” (Langford, 2005, p. 17). We also explored in detail how spatial awareness was critical for the success of Blackadder II when production moved into a studio and away from location.

Virtually every episode resolves to a new equilibrium placing the characters almost where they were when the episode started, to allow for the next episodes events to take place. In “Private Plane” (Curtis, Elton & Boden, 1989a) Blackadder, feeling inferior to Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart, signs himself up to “The Twenty Minuters” for the promise of five months of training, “soft tucker, tasty beds [and] fluffy uniforms!” and “do[ing] twenty minutes’ work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down”.

The disequilibrium here serves as the realisation that “Twenty Minuters” means the life expectancy of new pilots and the trio’s capture by the Germans. It is returned by Flasheart saving them and Blackadder continues to seek an escape from the trenches, only to be rejected by Melchett.

Throughout Goes Forth the structure of the episodes are served by Blackadder’s attempts to get away from the front lines of the war, which also serves as the disequilibrium. As noted, before, Blackadder is in a constant power struggle with Captain Darling as he attempts to navigate through the bewildering orders from General Melchett. Social class is also at play here, as although George is a Lieutenant and answers to Blackadder, back at home he is of a higher social class. This is apparent when General Melchett bonds with George over an old school song and even offers him an out from the big push in “Goodbyeee” (Curtis, Elton & Boden, 1989b). Baldrick is shown to be dirty and diseased and is only seen outside of the trenches under the supervision of Blackadder.

“Goodbyeee” is emblematic of Blackadder and several aspects of the episode are symbolically important. However, it is also an emotional shift in terms of the series, in that as the last episode, it needs to negotiate the previous series practice of killing off most of the characters or situating an escape for Blackadder. Blackadder’s constant class battle between himself in the trenches and Captain Darling and General Melchett in the chateau is addressed, depicting disgraceful behaviour from the General and Field Marshal Haig.

Blackadder’s final attempt to escape the war involves him telephoning Field Marshal Haig to ask for help. During this call, Field Marshal Haig is seen to be literally sweeping toy soldiers, from a mock battlefield, into a pan and throwing them over his shoulder. When he tells Blackadder to “put your underpants on your head and stick two pencils up your nose” to “make them think you’re mad”, Blackadder finally accepts there is no escaping the war. The high-ranking officials are seen to be hiding in their chateau with no consideration of the lives of the soldiers in their command and this can only be the creators expressing the view that the Battle of the Somme was simply a wilful massacre of men.

General Melchett presents Captain Darling with a gift – a commission for the front line. Drums can be heard in the background, and the laugh track becomes awkward and patchy as Darling begs Melchett not to send him to certain death. There is nothing funny about this scene, a man begging for his life. The door opens and a looming shadow of his driver is seen which, alongside the marching drums, mimic that of an executioner waiting to walk a convict to a firing squad.

This is a defining tonal shift where the laughter and comedy stop, and when Blackadder stops his attempts to escape the war and accepts his fate; and any sense of superiority is lost as an audience quickly realises the equilibrium at the start of the episode will simply not be returned, as Blackadder and his men prepare to go over the top.

(BBC Comedy Greats, 2020)

When Darling arrives at the front line, Blackadder does not mock him once. George tells Blackadder that he is scared, and it is at this point the tonal shift is most apparent. From this moment on, whilst there is sporadic laughter at various witty comments, the audience understands the characters they are watching are about to die. This is hammered home by Darling’s comment “We lived through it! The Great War, 1914 to 1917”, whereas an audience would know the Great War did not end until 1918, and Blackadder’s final words of “Who would have noticed another mad man around here? Good luck everyone”.

It is in these scenes the power relations and the spatial awareness truly present themselves. Throughout Goes Forth, Blackadder and Darling have been in constant battle, despite being of the same rank. When Darling has been in Blackadder’s domain in the dugout, Blackadder rules, however, when Blackadder is at the chateau and at Darling’s place of work, he is powerless to Darling.

The trenches act as a form of no-man’s-land, but from the moment Blackadder accepted his fate he also accepted the fate of all the men around him, including that of Darling’s. It is at this point that Blackadder sees everybody around him as equal, and therefore has little wit or humorous comments. When they are talking to each other they are lined up and facing forward, again mimicking a convict’s last moments in front of a firing squad. Baldrick continues to show his lack of understanding about the entire war by commenting that somebody might hurt themselves on a splinter on the ladder they are about to climb to their deaths.

The first three series had humorous endings surrounding the death of the cast, but with the fact that Goes Forth was set within recent history and the manner in which the characters died meant it would not have been possible to play such an ending off as humorous, so instead, creators decided to fade to a field of poppies, reminding any viewer that whilst Blackadder was a work of fiction, the World Wars were very real and the reality of the War must be remembered.