Recap / The Brittas Empire S6E4: A Walk on the Wildside

Helen: I tell ya, I'm dead on m'feet. I've walked miles, and miles. He won't let me use the car anymore!

Penny: Why not?

Helen: It's Gordon's "Walking for Health" program, it's killing me! He had this stupid idea. He put it to the European Commission. It's now a Euro directive! He's gotta find fifty interesting walks in Whitbury.

Penny: The only interesting walk in Whitbury is the walk out of Whitbury.

— Helen Brittas complaining about her husband's "Walking for Health" program to Penny Bidmead.

• Date First Aired: 02/04/1996

We open up on Brittas taking a stroll through the streets of Whitbury for reasons that are initially unclear. Once he makes it into the centre, the purposes of the walks is revealed, it's part of his "walking for health" program, which he had put forward to the European Commission and is now a Euro-Directive. As part of the program, he must find fifty interesting walks in Whitbury. Whilst he is preparing these walks, he finds out from an old map that a public footpath exists in the centre. Marking out the exact direction, he first gets Colin to create a hole through the ladies' bathroom, scaring a woman in the process.

Meanwhile, the leisure centre is holding a "Face In The Crowd" competition, with the winner winning a year's free admission to all of the centre's facilities (well, almost). Penny, annoyed at the idea of her spa being free, tries to write on the board, whilst Colin tries to remove it. Brittas considers taking Penny to court and, deciding that Carole assisted in the crime (by giving Penny a pen), tells her that she should be careful with what she says. Meanwhile, the winner of the competition shows up hoping to claim his prize. However, Brittas, being his bureaucratic self and believing him to be an impostor, won't let him redeem the prize until proof of records is found. The poor man reduces to measures such as getting sick and pouring water on himself in a bid to get the prize but Brittas won't have a word of it.

Meanwhile, Carole is hoping to get Chickenpox out of the way for Ben, so she's invited one of his friends over so that he can catch it. She is successful in doing so and Colin reveals that he keeps vials of diseases such as Anthrax so that he can build an immunity to them.

Meanwhile, a meditation class is set up at the centre and coming to assist in it is a man named Harry Johnson, who recognises Helen as his "Moon Maiden". As they talk, Helen finds out that unbeknownst to her, she and him are actually married, the Reverend hippie who joined them together in a mock ceremony having since gone on to become the Bishop of Maidenstone. Once she takes time to process this, Helen considers leaving Gordon and having a trial run with Harry.

After all this chaos, Brittas comes to find Carole claiming that it was Ben's pen that she took and that the signboard is missing. Finding that the man is using the billboard in a bid to duplicate the photo, he bans him from the centre for life.

Whilst Colin continues marking the public right of way, he accidentally lets the vials containing the diseases to the ground. The walkers come in anyway, though Brittas has Carole and Colin spray them with a liquid in a bid to protect them from disease. Just then, Julie appears and reveals that the public right of way was repealed when the centre was built. Brittas proceeds to make Gavin get rid of the ramblers.

Helen prepares to tell Gordon about her trial run with Harry. Just as she prepares to do this however, the man shows up, extremely pissed at the treatment that Brittas has given him. He ends up killing Harry by hurling a sign in a bid to hurt Brittas.

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Tropes featured in this episode:

• Absurd Phobia: Tim is afraid of men in anoraks. Just the sight of one sends him running for the hills.
  Tim: Well, my problem is, you see, I've got... I've got anoraknophobia.
  Harry: Ahhh, you're frightened of spiders!
  Tim: No, I'm frightened of men in anoraks.
  Harry: Don't be daft! You can't be frightened of men in anoraks!
  Tim: Oh, well, I am. I used to have these nightmares when I was little, the child psychiatrist said it was to do with death. The Grim Reaper, the Hooded Figure, anoraks. I just panic!
• Accidental Marriage: From Helen's side at least; she was unaware that the hippie who married her and Harry was actually a Reverend and thought that it was a sham ceremony.
• Accidental Murder: The "Face in the Crowd" contest winner accidentally knocks down a sign trying to hurt Brittas, and the sign knocks Harry on the head and kills him.
• Accidental Pervert: Colin's attempts to create a public right-of-way through the women's toilets end up getting him flagged as a pervert.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Colin keeps vials of anthrax and foot and mouth disease to build up an immunity.
• Alliterative Name: Harry calls Helen his "Moon Maiden".
• Annoying Patient: As befitting his personality as a Bratty Half-Pint, Ben is not very cooperative with Carole once he gets the Chickenpox, refusing to take his medicine to such a degree that Carole is forced to throw it at him in frustration and putting his thermometer in a "silly place".
• Arrows on Fire: Brittas makes a brief mention of the Inglenold Peoples' Home being destroyed by a stray flaming arrow, presumably from one of Brittas' archery lessons.
• Baby Carriage: During Brittas' walk, he moves a baby carriage out of his way, causing it to go hurtling down the street and into a skip.
• Berate and Switch: Penny's response to the idea of Helen going off with Harry Johnson.
  Penny: Do you mean would I leave Gordon?
  Helen: Yeah.
  Penny: And go off with someone else? A man I had forgotten all about? A man who is in fact a complete stranger?
  Helen: Yeah.
  Penny: (Beat) Yeah, I'd leave Gordon.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Whilst Harry only had eyes for Helen, Helen only ever saw her brief liaison with him as just another one-night-stand, and she's clearly struggling to remember the night she accidentally married him.
• Chainsaw Good: Colin takes a chainsaw to the women's bathroom when trying to create a public right of way. Whilst wielding, he ends up being partially responsible for scaring a woman into a permanent catatonic state.
• Chickenpox Episode: Carole wants Ben to get the chickenpox, so gets over his friend Sophie to have him catch it off her. By halfway through the episode, she proudly proclaims that he's "more spot than Ben" and her appearances through the rest of the episode involve her trying to help Ben through his illness.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Sophie from "Body Language" is mentioned to have come around to help give Ben chickenpox.
  • Carole mentions Jessica having had chickenpox before.
  • Helen mentions having once taken marriage guidance.
  • Helen mentions having been married before meeting Brittas, as previously revealed in "Underwater Wedding" and "New Generations".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If Brittas had checked to see whether the right of way was still in effect, none of the sub-plot regarding it would have happened. Tellingly, when Julie mentions this to Brittas, she mentions that the Planning Officer called him "cretinous" for it.
• Death from Above: Harry Johnson is killed by a sign falling on top of his head.
• Dies Wide Open: Harry Johnson's eyes remain open after his death by falling sign.
• Dream Within a Dream: Tim's dreams he discusses retroactively become this with the reveal at the end of the series that the show was All Just a Dream.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite her usual lowly opinion of Brittas and her Ice Queen personality, Penny stops her rant about Brittas upon realizing that she's saying it in front of his wife.
• Felony Misdemeanour: Brittas considers legitimately taking Penny to court over her writing on the board advertising the competition.
• Get Out!: Brittas repeatedly tries to kick the "Face in the Crowd" contest winner out of the centre.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: Colin apparently has been infecting himself with diseases in a bid to build up immunities, to the point of keeping vials of diseases. He later helps Carole do the same to Ben after he gets chickenpox:
  Colin: Ah, but from now on Carole, he'll be immune. He's building up his antibodies. It's something I tried to do myself.
  Carole: What is?
  Colin: Antibody building. I try to give myself a disease on a regular basis so that I can build up an immunity to it. As I always say "A disease a day keeps the doctor away".
• Lawful Stupid: Brittas insists on maintaining the right of way through the centre, even though it goes through the women's bathroom (and eventually a plague zone).
• Lotus Position: Several of the staff members sit in this position during the meditation session.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: When Brittas first sees the contest winner, he is mistakenly led to believe that he is Carole's lawyer. Even after being told otherwise, he keeps believing that the man is a celebrity impersonator and a fake lawyer.
• Mistaken for Foreigner: Tim describes Harry Johnson as being from the East, so Gavin assumes that this means from the Eastern countries in the world. When Harry turns out to resemble a typical British person, Gavin voices his confusion, to which Tim replies that he means from Scarborough in Eastern England.
• Noodle Incident: Brittas once held an archery class for the elderly which ended with a misaimed arrow killing one of them. It's also implied that it was this very course that led to the burning down of the local old people’s home.
• One-Shot Character: Harry Johnson.
• Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: Helen thought that the wedding ceremony she had with Harry wasn't real and is horrified when she finds out that it was.
• Persona Non Grata: Brittas bars the contest winner for life from the centre when he catches him trying to replicate the scene using the stolen signboard.
  Mr. Brittas: You are guilty of perverting the course of justice, so I have no alternative but to ban you from this leisure centre for the rest of your natural life.
• Polyamory: Helen discovers that the entire time she has been with Brittas, she has been married to another man, meaning that she has had two husbands for a couple of years now.
• Raised Lighter Tribute: Helen mentions a group of people raising their lighters in the air to give their blessing during the night where she ended up marrying Harry Johnson.
• The Scapegoat: To try to get out of being considered as an accomplice in Penny's act of vandalism on the "Face in the Crowd" sign, Carole shifts the blame to Ben, arguing that he was the one who owned the markers used in said vandalism. Brittas calls her out for this.
  Mr. Brittas: Woooo, trying to blame the pen on a child, Carole. It won't wash, you know.
• Share the Sickness: Carole brings Sophie, a friend of her young son Ben, to the leisure centre so that he can catch chicken pox from her, wanting Ben to get the disease over and done with whilst he's still in his childhood. By the next night, Ben is covered in spots, and Colin uses it as an incentive to gift Carole samples of more serious diseases in case she wants to do the same regarding them.
• Shout-Out: The title of the episode comes from the film Walk on the Wild Side.
• Sickening Slaughterhouse: One of Colin's proposed walks takes him through a slaughterhouse off-screen, where he ends up slipping on stray bovine liver and careening into a vat of steaming entrails, explaining the staining on his notes.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Brittas and Penny engage in a bit of this.
  Penny: Is this the silly internal enquiry unit?
  Mr. Brittas: No, it is not, Mrs. Bidmead. Regrettably, I have had to put that on hold because another matter has superseded it, but I will be resuming it in due course.
  Penny: You know, you are a very sad man.
  Mr. Brittas: Well, I am not very happy with you, Mrs. Bidmead.
• Status Quo Is God: Helen almost goes off with Harry Johnson as a new husband, but he is killed before she can do so.
• Thermometer Gag: Ben puts his thermometer off-screen in "a silly place", causing Carole to admonish him.
• Tragic One-Shot Character: Harry is reunited with Helen, his estranged wife, but is killed by a falling sign.
• Victimized Bystander: The poor woman bystander who gets scared by both Colin chainsawing his way through the women's toilets and the Face in the Crowd winner showing up naked. The last we hear of her does not bode well for her.
  Colin: Will that lady be alright?
  Mr. Brittas: The paramedic was exaggerating. People recover from catatonic states all the time.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: An unusual case, Tim reveals that he is afraid of men in anoraks because they remind him of death. Predictably, a walker wearing an anorak shows up at one of his meditation sessions, causing him to panic.
• Wrong Bathroom Incident: Colin is tasked with creating a path through the centre to comply with the public right of way which is seemingly still in effect. The problem is that this path goes right through the women's changing room, and Colin is perfectly fine wielding a chainsaw in front of a screaming woman who only wanted to use the toilets. Naturally, this ends with the woman in an apparently permanent catatonic state and Colin being flagged as a pervert.
• Year's Supply Prize: Downplayed - the person who wins the "Face in the Crowd" competition is meant to win free admission to the leisure centre for an entire year, although Penny, annoyed at the idea of someone using her services for free, tries to exclude the sauna-solarium from the prize.

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