You have a woman’s legs, my lord! I'll wager those are legs that have never been sliced clean off by a falling sail, and swept into the sea before your very eyes.
Sir Walter Raleigh has returned from the New World and everyone's thrilled ... except for Edmund Blackadder, of course. After he can't take any more of everyone hero worshipping Raleigh, Edmund plans to take off on his own voyage into the Sea of Certain Death. He packs his bags, press-gangs Percy and Baldrick into being his crew and hires a captain, Redbeard Rum, who turns out to be insane. However, after bidding a tearful farewell to Queenie, it's revealed that he's just planning to sail to France, spend a few months there and TELL everyone he discovered a new country. Alas, Captain Rum doesn't know how to get to France. In fact, he doesn't know how to get anywhere. Our heroes are lost at sea, but just as they're about to resort to drinking their own urine to survive they spot land. After a thankfully off-screen encounter with cannibals, where Captain Rum makes a lovely second course, our heroes return in one piece, with gifts for Queenie and Nursie, but nothing for Melchett and Raleigh. Well, nothing but some very pungent wine they picked up on their travels, of which there is an inexhaustible supply...
Tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Edmund and Rum set off with the intention of hiding out in France and pretending to have sailed the notoriously deadly Cape of Good Hope. And they manage to stumble their way into discovering Australia.
- The Alcoholic: Defied. When Percy laments that they're condemned to a watery grave with a legless Captain, Rum calls foul, as he claims he hardly touches a drop of booze. When Percy points out that he was actually referring to the fact that Rum has no legs, Rum concedes the point.
- Ambiguous Syntax: Percy mentions that Lady Caroline Fairfax is his girlfriend, to Blackadder's surprise.Percy: Oh, yes. I even touched her once.
Blackadder: Touched her what?
Percy: Her... once. In a corridor.
Blackadder: I've never heard it called that before. Still, when you get home, you'll be a hero! She might even let you get your hands on her twice! - Artistic License – History: Sir Walter refers to an expedition he began in 1552. Raleigh was born in 1554.
- Edmund asks the taunting child why she isn’t in school. Most children didn’t go to school in those days - most families could not afford the fees.
- The Cape of Good Hope had been navigated by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488.
- Audience Murmurs: Parodied, in the boat scene, where everyone is arguing except Captain Rum, who is just shouting 'rhubarb!' over and over. Of course, knowing Captain Rum, he could be arguing very strongly about rhubarb.
- Bold Explorer: Sir Walter Raleigh returns in triumph to England, which makes Blackadder jealous, so when Sir Walter says that even he wouldn't attempt to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, Blackadder tells the court that he's going to do just that. Of course, Blackadder isn't actually bold; his plan is to sail to France and hide for a few months, then return and claim to have sailed around the Cape. Unfortunately, the ship captain he picked for his expedition isn't capable of navigating even as far as France — they wind up in Australia, returning with a boomerang for the Queen.
- Captured by Cannibals: Blackadder and co. end up having this happen to them. Edmund, Percy and Baldrick manage to escape, but not so Rum.Percy: [talking to Nursie about Rum] Do not despair, good woman. He died a hero's death, giving his life so that his friends might live.
Blackadder: And that his enemies might have something to go with their potatoes!
Nursie: [sobbing] You mean they put him in the pot?!
Blackadder: Yes, your fiance was only a third-rate sailor, but a first-rate second course! - Casting Gag: World explorer Sir Walter Raleigh is played by Simon Jones, who played galactic hitch-hiker Arthur Dent in both the radio and TV series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Raleigh here is a complete inversion of Arthur: confident where Arthur is diffident and smug where Arthur is humble.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Captain Redbeard Rum has little truck with anything unrelated to his outlandish seafaring misadventures. Despite having no legs, he believes that such luxuries as a crew are completely unnecessary.Blackadder: I was under the impression that it was common maritime practise for a ship to have a crew.
Captain Rum: Opinion is divided on the subject. [Beat] All the other captains say 'tis, I say 'tisn't. - Critical Staffing Shortage: A ship large enough for a trans-oceanic voyage is manned by a captain with no legs who doesn't know how to navigate and three passengers with no sailing experience at all. One wonders how they even managed to set the sails.
- Dirty Coward: Percy. Mind you, considering he's being coerced to sail through notoriously fatal waters with a captain who is insane, and whose actions end up leading them adrift and threatened by cannibals, he's probably justified.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Melchett offering Edmund a potato and Blackadder saying "Thanks, I don't" plays like someone being offered a cigarette. See Edmund's quote under It Will Never Catch On, below for context.
- The Ghost: The cannibalistic natives never appear on-camera and are merely described as the protagonists observe their approach.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Blackadder remarks about how people are reacting to Sir Walter Raleigh's discovery of the potato, "people are smoking them, building houses out of them. They'll be eating them next". In the same scene Lord Melchett casually offers Blackadder a potato as one would a cigarette.
- Hair Memento: Blackadder brings back Captain Rum's beard for Nursie, who says that she'll "wear it always, to remind me of him."
- I Ate WHAT?!: Defied after Melchett and Raleigh drink the "wine" — since Blackadder and Baldrick withhold the information that it's actually Baldrick's urine, their reaction goes unrecorded.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Sea of Certain Death.
- Inelegant Blubbering:
- Queenie relents from executing Raleigh, allegedly only because he was reduced to this on his way to the block.
- This is also Nursie's reaction to hearing about Rum's death, bursting into heartbroken nigh-incoherency.
- It Will Never Catch On: Edmund about potatoes: "People are smoking them, building houses out of them... They'll be eating them next."
- Killed Offscreen: As Percy recounts to Nursie, Captain Rum made a Heroic Sacrifice to feed the cannibals in place of the main trio.Edmund: Your fiancé was a third-rate sailor, but a first rate main course.
- Lame Comeback:Captain Rum: Aaah, courtiers to the Queen, you're nothing but lapdogs to a slip of a girl!
Blackadder: Better a "lapdog to a slip of a girl" than a... git!- Subverted though, in that Rum is genuinely impressed by it.
- Large Ham: Captain Rum, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrr. Of course, this is to be expected from someone played by Tom Baker.
- Layman's Terms: A sort-of example. Queenie attempts to greet Sir Walter using sailor's language: "Splice my timber, Sir Walter; it's bucko to see you, me old matey". Ironically, Sir Walter replies "I'm sorry?", so Blackadder bluntly states "she says hello."
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Captain Rum's "Ah! You have a woman's (noun)!" He even uses it while talking to an actual woman.
- The Nicknamer: Queenie calls all her 'boys' by nicknames, even calling Sir Walter Raleigh "Wally".
- Noodle Incident:
- It is revealed a horse was elected Pope. The details of this vibrant, dynamic and exciting Papacy have sadly been lost to history. Of course, this is coming from Baldrick, who may not be a reliable source.
- Perhaps a Call-Back or Running Gag to the first series when there were even multiple Popes at a time.
- Percy is scared of water because when he was a child he was savaged by a turbot.
- It is revealed a horse was elected Pope. The details of this vibrant, dynamic and exciting Papacy have sadly been lost to history. Of course, this is coming from Baldrick, who may not be a reliable source.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: Percy is the victim of one when he attempts to dispose of it.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Edmund talks about potatoes:Blackadder: I mean look at this! [picks up a potato] What is it?
Baldrick: Oh, I'm surprised you've forgotten, my lord.
Blackadder: I haven't forgotten; it's a rhetorical question.
Baldrick: No, it's a potato. - Seadog Beard: Captain Rum has one. Somehow, Edmund is able to preserve it for Nursie as a memento.
- Shaped Like Itself: Percy mentions Mrs. Miggins is baking a pie to honour Sir Walter in the shape of an enormous pie. Raleigh also tries, and fails to amuse Queenie with the tale of how he was nearly eaten by a hammerhead shark, describing it as a shark whose head was funnily shaped ... exactly like a hammer.
- Smug Snake: Sir Walter Raleigh, until Queene decides that she's no longer interested in explorers.
- Shout-Out:
- Captain Rum carries a dead parrot with him.
- The running joke where Rum criticizes Blackadder's hands, skin, etc. as not being those of a working mariner are riffing on a dialogue exchange from Jaws.
- Sommelier Speak: Apparently Baldrick's urine is "familiar" and has "plenty of nose."
- Suddenly Shouting: Queenie:Queenie: Edmund was right. You do smell of fish. POOEY!
[later]
Queenie: You haven't seen where I put that spare DEATH WARRANT? - Surrounded by Idiots: Edmund, as usual, thinks this:Melchett: Started talking to yourself, Blackadder?
Blackadder: Yes, it's the only way I can be sure of intelligent conversation. - Talk Like a Pirate: Queenie wants to talk like a sailor to honour Raleigh, but ends up sounding like this. Raleigh is baffled.Queenie: Splice me timbers, Sir Walter! It's bucko to see you, old matey!
Sir Walter: I'm sorry?
Blackadder: [drily] She says 'hello'. - This Is Gonna Suck: Blackadder's reaction when Baldrick correctly notes that they haven't made it back to Southampton.Baldrick: Don't look much like Southampton to me, my lord.
Blackadder: What?
Baldrick: Well, those streams of molten lava and that steamy mangrove swamp. [Blackadder and Percy join Baldrick at the window as Jungle Drums are heard] And that crowd of beckoning natives rubbing their tummies and pointing to a large pot.
Blackadder: [rolling eyes] Oh, God. - Toilet Humour: The urine drinking scene.
- Would Hurt a Child: After getting fed up of a young girl (voiced by Miranda Richardson) taunting him from outside his window, Edmund promptly pulls out a longbow and arrows and shoots.
- Blackadder, Blackaddder, he heard the New World call.
Blackadder, Blackadder, discovered bugger-all!
