"Eels up inside ya, findin' an entrance where they can!"
In "Eels", Naboo leaves the store in the care of Howard and Vince for the weekend so he and Bollo can attend Dennis' stag weekend. Howard and Vince have a competition to see who is the better salesman, which Vince wins resoundingly.Left alone in the store, Howard is accosted by the Hitcher, who delivers his backstory and then extorts Howard for 1000 euros. Howard has to moonlight as a male prostitute to get the money, but will that save him from the Hitcher?
The Mighty Boosh episode "Eels" contains these tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Eleanor, a middle-aged woman played by Rich Fulcher, desperately wants Howard's "love nuggets". Howard wants nothing to do with her, but is forced to sleep with her for money.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: It's unclear whether Eleanor, who presents as female but is played by Rich Fulcher, is supposed to be a cis woman, a trans woman, or as the Hitcher puts it, "a geezer in a dress", perhaps Bob Fossil. She uses female pronouns but is very interested in Howard's ball fondling skills. The ambiguity is of course part of the joke.
- Anachronism Stew: Howard and Vince remix the Hitcher's creepy Victorian "Eels" song into a hip hop/techno number, which involves people in Victorian dress dancing under flashing rave lights. Lampshaded in the song:"Elements of the past and the future, combining to make something not quite as good as either"
- Bathroom Stall Graffiti: A variant. Crude statements about Howard's sex life and his willingness to do various things for money are scrawled on the outside of the shop each day. Turns out Vince has been writing them.
- Body Horror: The Hitcher sings a song about Eels crawling and swimming through your body. Later in the number, Howard leans in to kiss Ella, and an eel crawls out of her mouth (and it turns out she's just the Hitcher).
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Howard turns away from Vince in the middle of the conversation to stare directly into the camera and ask it to skip through his explanation. After it happens, he thanks the camera.
- The Cavalry: Just as it looks like the Hitcher is going to kill Vince and Howard, Eleanor bursts in and shoots him. It doesn't actually kill him, but does cause a change of heart.
- Dance Party Ending: The episode ends with Vince, Howard, and the Hitcher singing and dancing in an electronic remix of the Hitcher's "Eels" song.
- Exposition Cut: Lampshaded. Howard starts explaining his predicament with the Hitcher to Vince, then asks the camera to skip past this as the viewer has already seen this bit.
- Femme Fatale: Bizarrely combined with Abhorrent Admirer. Eleanor, Howard's lady admirer, is a "sultry" mature woman who comes to him at his workplace and tries to seduce him, and she has a coy, euphemistic way of talking about sex that sounds noirish until a few statements ruin it. It turns out she carries a gun and proposes they Run for the Border after she seemingly kills a man.
- Heel–Face Turn: At the end of the episode, the Hitcher decides that nobody likes his Victorian ways, and that's ok and he shouldn't be mad about it. He resolves to stop going around threatening people, and does a song and dance number with Vince and Howard.
- Hidden Depths: Shallow idiot Vince somehow manages to build a highly effective Celebrity Radar tagging device system.
- Orbital Shot: When Howard is trapped in a deranged dance inside the Hitcher's hat, the camera spins around as the background rotates behind him out of focus, giving the scene a trippy feel.
- Pocket Protector: Howard's survival patch, stolen by the Hitcher, saves the Hitcher by blocking the bullets.
- Run for the Border: "Run away with me Howard! I've got a love nest down in Acapulco". Said by Howard's female admirer after she seemingly kills the Hitcher.
