Recap / Blackadder S 3 E 6 Duel And Duality

Don't even try to work it out, Baldrick. Two people you know well have exchanged coats and now you don't know which is which.

The last episode of the third series starts with the impossible — Prince George has got lucky ... with not one, but two women. Unfortunately, his amorous conquests are the nieces of the Duke of Wellington, who has personally sworn to kill anyone who has sex with his relatives. George is terrified of fighting the duel so Baldrick suggests he should get someone else to fight it for him. That someone else is Blackadder, who of course, is not pleased. However, when he remembers that his identical Scottish cousin MacAdder (who just happens to be a claymore-wielding homicidal maniac) is visiting London, he changes his mind. Of course, MacAdder refuses to fight and Blackadder must pretend to be the Prince and fight the duel himself. Wellington turns out to be a blustering idiot, and the duel turns out to be fought with cannons, and Blackadder is shot. But all is well! The cannon ball hit his cigarillo case, and everything is fine! George, pretending to be the butler, Blackadder, steps out of the shadows to reveal he is the Prince, but Wellington shoots him in his anger. At that moment, the mad King George III appears, looking for his son, and Edmund, still in the Prince's clothes, goes off with him, presumably to live the rest of his life as the Prince Regent (and future King George IV).

But wait... George isn't dead after all! The bullet hit HIS cigarillo case - oh, wait, he must have left it on the dresser. Bugger.

Tropes

• All for Nothing: Blackadder's attempt to recruit MacAdder as his fighting double turns out to have been a waste of time not just because of the latter's disinterest in taking part, but because the duel turns out to be with cannons, meaning that MacAdder's swordfighting skills would have been useless.
• Anachronism Stew: A few examples, as ever.
  • In his letter, Wellington describes himself as "Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Europe", which was established in World War II.
  • Prince George references the story The Prince and the Pauper, which was first published in 1881 and whose author, Mark Twain, wasn't even born until 1835.
  • Blackadder introduces Wellington to George III as the "Iron Duke", a nickname that he didn't get until his term as Prime Minister, which began eight years after George III's death.
  • Mrs Miggins calls George "that fat Prussian truffle pig". George's ancestral homeland Hanover wasn't annexed by Prussia until 1866.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: MacAdder's letter to Blackadder.
  Blackadder: [reading aloud] "Have come south for rebellion... best sword in Scotland... the time has come... insurrection... blood... large bowl of porridge..."
• Artistic License – History:
  • Done for comedic effect, but historically the person who was challenged (and not the challenger) was able to select the weapons used in the duel, unless the challenger was of higher social status. As Prince George was of higher social status than the Duke of Wellington, he would have got to choose the weaponry instead of Wellington, whether challenged or challenger, and would likely not have chosen a cannon. Also, given how obsessed with honour Wellington is, it's equally unlikely that he'd try to exploit George's ignorance in order to more easily kill him.
  • Also at play with the portrayal of George III, who by all accounts did not speak with a German accent (although undoubtedly from a German family, he was very proud of the fact that he was the first Hanoverian monarch to have been born in Britain). Whether he was actually mad or suffering from porphyria (a physical disease which affects the nervous system) and quite possibly dementia in his later years is debatable, although he was definitely regarded as being mad at the time.
  • The word that George III, during one bout of madness, insisted on saying at the end of sentences was "peacock", not "penguin". This change was probably made because of "peacock" having become a slang term for an effeminate man in the centuries since, meaning that his calling himself "King Peacock" would have come across very differently to modern audiences; or it could have been Rule of Funny as a king penguin is a species of penguin.
• Ax-Crazy: MacAdder. His plan for helping his cousin involves disguising himself as Wellington and killing the Prince.
  Edmund: He's mad. He's mad! He's madder than Mad Jack MacMad, the winner of last year's Mister Madman Competition.
• Bad Boss: Conditions in Wellington's armies are terrible.
  Wellington: Well, those are my conditions and you'll just have to accept them!
  • He's also incredibly abusive to the faux-Blackadder. Of course, it is the inept George.
• The Bad Guy Wins: An odd, yet awesome example of the trope. Blackadder may be the protagonist, but he's certainly a bad guy. Who now gets to be the Prince Regent on a permanent basis, and will eventually become the King.
• Beige Prose: Wellington's full account of the Peninsular War is simply: "We won. Signed, Wellington."
• BFG: Wellington fights duels with cannons.
• Berserk Button: Sleeping with the Duke of Wellington's nieces will lead to him challenging you to a duel. Servants who act above themselves and serve coffee instead of tea will most definitely have physical violence inflicted on them.
• Blood Knight: As Blackadder lies dying (he thinks) and wistfully yearns for a peaceful world, the Duke asks if he doesn't think that he also wishes for an end to the dirty job of soldiering. Blackadder's response is a firm "Frankly, no".
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Uncle, actually. Even though it was his nieces who approached George and took him home to Apsley House for a threesome, Wellington's vowed to kill anyone who gets intimate with members of his family. Of course, unmarried sex was a much bigger deal back then.
• Buffy Speak: One of the few times Blackadder is so mad he can't even think of a simile is when Baldrick points out that he looks a lot like his cousin MacAdder.
  Blackadder: We're about as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite Wellington's incompetence, bloodlust and general psychopathy, he's still a highly accomplished military man.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Prince George, who has had no luck with the ladies throughout the series, finally gets laid. Twice. And is killed for it.
• Chekhov's Gun: The cigarillo case that Wellington gives to Blackadder-as-the-Prince saves the latter's life in the duel.
  Blackadder: I always said smoking was good for you!
• Cloudcuckoolander: George III, who wants his son to marry a rosebush and says the word "penguin" at the end of every sentence.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Blackadder threatens to kill Baldrick by cutting him into thin strips and telling Prince George that he walked over an unusually sharp cattle grid while wearing an extremely heavy hat.
• Did Not Think This Through: MacAdder rejects Blackadder's initial plan in favour of killing Prince George and claiming the throne for himself. Blackadder has to point out that if he does that, he'll just be arrested.
  MacAdder: Oh, blast. I forgot about the bailiffs.
• Dope Slap: Wellington does this incessantly to George (who has switched roles with Blackadder in order to escape the Duke's wrath).
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Prince George claims to have had a dream of an eagle that flew around the room 3 times and got into bed with him, before turning into a large black snake and stealing all the covers.
• Duel to the Death: Prince George is challenged to one.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Baldrick isn't wrong when he says that Blackadder and MacAdder look alike. He also correctly predicts that the Duke will not notice Blackadder and the Prince pretending to be one another.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Blackadder may be very much a villain protagonist, but even he thinks that Wellington punching George around is going too far. Though considering how Blackadder himself is only too happy to punch George when he and Wellington are discussing what is or isn't a hard hit, it's likely that he's acting out of empathy for Wellington's own servants rather than George.
• Every Man Has His Price: George is eventually able to convince Blackadder to fight the duel on his behalf with copious amounts of bribery. Blackadder's response essentially epitomises this trope (and really sums up his entire character)...
  George: Oh, wait, wait, wait. I'll give you everything!
  Blackadder: Everything?
  George: Everything.
  Blackadder: The money, the castles, the jewellery?
  George: Yes.
  Blackadder: The highly artistic but also highly illegal set of French lithographs?
  George: Everything!
  Blackadder: The amusing clock where the little man comes out and drops his trousers every half-hour?
  George: Yes, yes, alright.
  Blackadder: Very well, I accept. A man may fight for many things — his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn! You're on!
• General Failure: Wellington's first idea for crushing Napoleon is to send Nelson to Alaska "in case Boney should try to trick us by coming via the North Pole". It's Blackadder who suggests harrying him amidships at Trafalgar. That said, Wellington did manage to win the Peninsular War, and considering what we later see of him in Back & Forth, it seems that he actually is a capable leader once he's had a push in the right direction.
• General Ripper: Wellington declares that the only way to win a campaign is to "shout, shout, and shout again". When it's suggested that conditions in his army are appalling, he misunderstands the comment and says that those are his conditions and you'll just have to accept them. His regimental crest is two crossed dead Frenchmen emblazoned on a mound of dead Frenchmen, and he duels with cannon because "only girls fight with swords these days."
• Gender-Blender Name: MacAdder named his daughter Angus.
• Hidden Depths: Not only is MacAdder actually a fish salesman rather than a warrior, he's apparently a very good fish salesman — "a top kipper salesman with a reputable firm of Aberdeen fishmongers", no less.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: While the real Wellington was not exactly friendly to servants or the lower classes, he was not known for savagely beating them for the slightest indiscretion. In fact, Napoleon Bonaparte was known for being violent towards servants, and Wellington held it against him!
• Honour Before Reason: Even when finding that the "Prince" is smarter than rumour has it, Wellington still finds it necessary to kill him. On the other hand, he only cares about honour, not about actually killing him — he's perfectly fine with the Prince after the duel, as he believes that honour has been satisfied, even though the Prince didn't die thanks to his Pocket Protector.
• Horrible Judge of Character: George III first appears minutes after his son has been shot by Wellington and tells the disguised Blackadder "this is the first time I've truly felt fatherly towards you". Of course, George is mad.
• Hot-Blooded: Wellington. So hot that it is safer to keep a distance from him.
• Humiliation Conga: Having already offended Wellington when first meeting him, George manages to make things ten times worse by trying to sit down and discuss military strategy with him and Blackadder when he's just supposed to be serving them tea, causing Wellington to punch him to the ground. Then he gets smacked around another few times as Blackadder and Wellington discuss whether or not the latter hit George too hard. And then, as if it were possible, things go From Bad to Worse when it turns out that George has unwittingly served Wellington with coffee instead of tea...
• Identical Grandson: Blackadder's Scottish cousin MacAdder, played by Rowan Atkinson in a curly red wig, a kilt and a deliberately bad accent.
• Insistent Terminology: Wellington gets angry when George accidentally addresses him as "my lord", since he's a duke. Truth in Television, as dukes are addressed as "your grace".
• Large Ham: Wellington, and gloriously so.
  Wellington: THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO WIN A CAMPAIGN! SHOUT, SHOUT AND SHOUT AGAIN!
  Blackadder: So, you don't think inspired leadership, and sound tactical planning have anything to do with it?
  Wellington: (Beat) NO. IT'S ALL DOWN TO SHOUTING! BAAAA!
  • Blackadder's mad cousin MacAdder is also quite hammy.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  Edmund: Yes, I'm afraid my ambitions stretch a little further than professional idiocy in West London. I want books written about me. I want songs sung about me. And then, hundreds of years from now, I want episodes from my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age!
  Baldrick: (smiling) Yeah, and I could be played by some tiny tit in a beard.
• Majored in Western Hypocrisy: The Great Khan of Mongolia and the Duke of Wellington were at Eton together — much to the chagrin of the Prince Regent, who had intended to attempt to escape the Duke's wrath there. Mongolia, not Eton.
• Mood Whiplash: George goes from a state of euphoria (following his threesome with Wellington's nieces) to dread (at the thought of being killed by Wellington because he had sex with the man's nieces) very quickly.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A fatal example of this occurs when Prince George screws up Blackadder's plan to save his life by blabbing about the whole thing in front of the Duke of Wellington just after the duel. Wellington doesn't actually believe him, but gets so pissed off at the fact that the man who he believes to be a servant (and not a very good one at that) is acting disrespectfully to his "master" that he whips out his pistol and shoots him.
• No Indoor Voice: The Duke of Wellington. Because THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO WIN A CAMPAIGN. SHOUT, SHOUT, AND SHOUT AGAIN!
• No-Sell: Wellington doesn't believe that George and Edmund switched roles when the former tells him that this is the case after the duel.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: An odd inversion, as King George III speaks with a German accent, which he did not have in Real Life ^note  although obviously of German ancestry, George III was born in Britain and was very proud of that fact. Then again, he is mad, so he may be affecting the accent as part of his illness.
• Not Quite Dead: Played straight when Blackadder gets a cannonball to the chest, as his cigarillo case cushions the impact and saves his life. Subverted when Wellington shoots George, as he too claims to have been saved by a cigarillo case, only to die permanently when he realises he forgot to bring it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Blackadder can immediately tell that something unusual has occurred because the Prince is up and fully dressed before being served breakfast.
• Pocket Protector: Parodied: a cigarillo case stops a cannonball.
  • And parodied again when shortly afterwards Prince George also gets shot, seems to die, wakes up shouting he also has one... then realizes he left his on the dresser. THEN he dies.
• Prince and Pauper: Edmund and George switch coats and wigs and pretend to be each other. Lampshaded by George:
  George: This is just like that story, The Prince and the Porpoise.
  Edmund: And the Pauper.
  George: Of course. The Prince and the Porpoise and the Pauper.
• Puff of Logic: George doesn't notice he's dead until he realizes he forgot his cigarillo case.
• Record Needle Scratch: Sappy music plays as George and Edmund lay dying, and stops when they both sit up.
• Rule of Three: Teas, and hitting Prince George:
  George: Your tea, Sir.
  Wellington: You're late! Where have you been for it, India?! (smacks George)
  Edmund: Or Ceylon? (smacks George)
  Wellington: Or China?! (kicks George in the backside)
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: MacAdder quickly decides against fighting the duel and says he's off back to Scotland. Mrs. Miggins is so taken with him that she decides to go with him.
• Shout-Out: When MacAdder gets carried away about his plan to seize the throne, Blackadder has to remind him that he's not Rob Roy. Though Rob Roy never had royal ambitions. "You are not Bonnie Prince Charlie" would have been more appropriate.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare: When Prince George talks about a large eagle circling the room and Duncan's horses turning and eating each other, it's a reference to Macbeth.
• Small Name, Big Ego: MacAdder acts like the second coming of Robert the Bruce or Bonnie Prince Charlie, when he is in fact a fish salesman.
• Smart Ball: Rather surprisingly, Baldrick has two.
  • The three main characters are trying to come up with a plan to get the Prince Regent out of a duel he's sure to lose, when the plan comes up of Blackadder and the Prince switching places so that Blackadder can fight instead. When the Prince notes that it will never work, because "my portrait hangs on every wall", Baldrick — who thought to solve the problem of his mother's low roof by cutting off her head — offers up this gem:
    Baldrick: Well, my cousin Bert Baldrick, Mr. Gainsborough's butler's dogsbody, says that all portraits look the same nowadays since they're painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosyncratic facial qualities of the person in question.
    Blackadder: [grudgingly impressed] Your cousin Bert obviously has a larger vocabulary than you, Baldrick.
  • After George gets punched by Wellington he visits Baldrick in the kitchen when Mrs Miggins arrives. Miggins lists all insults Baldrick has thrown to George (who's hiding from her) but Baldrick manages to manipulate the conversation so that George "knows" Baldrick thinks he's a "lovely" instead of "clot". Baldrick's look when he realizes he's actually outsmarted George is priceless.
    Baldrick: [after a Beat] Yes. And Mr. Blackadder loves you too.
• Suddenly Shouting: TEA!
• Take This Job and Shove It: After MacAdder bails on him, Blackadder flatly refuses to partake in the duel and gives George a serious piece of his mind.
  Blackadder: I'm afraid that the duel is off.
  George: Off?
  Blackadder: As in 'sod'. I'm not doing it!
  George: By thunder, here's a pretty dame! You shall stay sir, and do duty by your prince, or I shall-
  Blackadder: Or WHAT, you pork-brained twerp?! I've looked after you all my life! Even when we were babies, I had to show you which bit of your mother was serving the drinks!
• Tea Is Classy: Wellington would like some tea, but George is such an idiot that he serves him coffee instead.
• A Threesome Is Hot: No wonder George can't stop smiling when telling Blackadder about his night of passion with Wellington's nieces.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Blackadder and MacAdder. Everyone is astounded how alike they look!
• Violent Glaswegian: Or rather, violent Aberdonian. Blackadder finds himself having to fight a duel with the psychotic Duke of Wellington, so he tries to recruit his equally psychotic Scottish cousin MacAdder (who looks uncannily like him) as his replacement. Quite how violent MacAdder actually is is open to question, as he's actually a Aberdeen-based fish salesman rather than a Highland warrior, but we do hear that he punched Baldrick in the face.

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