Ted announces to a horrified Dougal that Father Paul Stone (Michael Redmond) has come for his holidays. For the preceding six years, Father Stone has visited the parochial house; he is pathologically boring and is totally unable to hold a conversation, giving one-sentence answers at the most and dominating the room with his awkward protracted silences. To try to stop him from coming, Ted told Father Stone incredible lies, but this failed to deter him.
Even when Father Stone arrives, Ted and Dougal make excuses to have him leave the house, but Stone offers to stay regardless of the conditions. After Father Stone stays through Ted's birthday party three weeks later, making it an awkward time for all the guests, Ted prays to God to get rid of Stone anyway he can. The next day, Ted and Dougal go to the Crazy Golf Course in the middle of a thunderstorm, thinking this is better than hanging around Father Stone. However, Father Stone has followed them there. Ted suggests that Father Stone should try a go at golf; as he raises the club, Father Stone is struck by lightning.
At the local hospital, Father Stone is found to be in shock: standing up, still holding the golf club, and not responding to any stimulus. Father Stone's parents and maternal grandmother arrive. His grandmother privately warns Ted that she knows what he is up to, while his parents go on about how much Father Stone looked forward to his visits at Craggy Island, showing a picture of Ted and Father Stone that he drew. Ted feels very guilty about having prayed for Father Stone to leave, and scared that the grandmother seems to know what he did. Ted begins praying at Father Stone's bedside, saying that Paul can stay for as long as he wants, that he will look after him "until the end of his days". After a brief interval, Father Stone regains consciousness, and is his old self again, giving one-word answers. Finally, Father Stone, as promised, has been allowed to stay on Craggy Island. A faint smile breaks across his face.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Father Stone's father is less than paternal about his son.
- And I Must Scream: Father Stone is briefly left immobile with a golf-club in his hand after being struck by lightning.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Ted begs God to do something to make Father Stone go away. The next day Father Stone is hit by lightning and hospitalised.
- The Bore: Father Stone is an exaggerated example. He doesn't talk in a boring way like Father Purcell, he just sits around without saying a word for prolonged periods and reduces any room he's in into painful, awkward silence for hours on end. After waking up from a lightning bolt-induced coma, his only reaction is to say he's fine.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Dougal reaches new heights in this episode:Dougal: Remember that film, Ted, where your man's head is transplanted onto a fly and the fly's head is transplanted onto the man?Ted: Oh yes, what was that called?Dougal: Out of Africa, I think. Anyway, you know, your man has the head of a fly and he's chasing his wife all over the place, she's trying to hide the jam so as he won't get stuck in it.Ted: I have to stop you there, Dougal.Dougal: Yes, Ted?Ted: No reason. I just have to stop you.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Father Ted demonstrates how much Father Stone is driving him up the wall by exploiting the first chance he can to excuse himself from the room (to talk to Father Dougal) to get the hell out and light up a cigarette to calm down and do said talk to Dougal.
- Comically Missing the Point: Dougal innocently points out that Ted's brother is a doctor after Ted said that it was traditional for a favourite son to become a doctor and an The Un-Favorite to be sent to the priesthood. This goes right over Ted's head.
- Creator Cameo: Arthur Mathews makes a cameo appearance as a guest at Ted's birthday party.
- Didn't Think This Through: If Ted and Dougal want to watch television to break up the boredom, they only need to turn the set on. It's highly unlikely that the passive Father Stone will object.
- Dull Surprise: When Father Stone is not being more silent than a grave, he speaks and acts in the most deadpan fashion that is humanly possible, just adding more fuel to the overall dreariness of being around him.Father Stone: [To how he feels after being struck by lightning] No, I'm fine.
- Faint in Shock:
- Dougal drops to the floor like a puppet that's had its strings cut when Ted reveals - after a long, drawn-out preparation - that the guest in the next room is the excruciatingly dull Father Stone. He does get up immediately on command.
- Dougal faints a second time when Father Stone indicates that he intends to stay a while:
[Father Stone] Oh, I don't know. A few weeks, maybe.[Dougal hits the floor] - Gargle Blaster: Jack's proclivity for dangerous drinking emerges when he's hospitalised for a combination of Babycham and Harpic cleaner.
- Gilligan Cut: Ted and Dougal reassure each other that Father Stone will be gone by the time of Ted's birthday. Cut to Father Stone in a roomful of miserable priests in party hats, Mrs Doyle sadly extinguishing the candle on a cake.
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Dougal mixes up The Fly (1986) with Out of Africa, although this could be intended as a joke to show how dim-witted he is.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: Such as knocking people out cold.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Father Stone's reaction to waking up from a week-long coma induced by being struck by a lightning bolt is to say "I'm fine" in the same deadpan tone of voice he says anything else.
- Megaton Punch: Jack delivers one to Ted with such ferocity he flies through the window and out of the parochial house.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Ted to Dougal in the hospital waiting room talking about The Fly (1986).
- No Sense of Personal Space: Father Stone uses the toilet while Ted is in the bath right next to him.
- Running Gag: The beginning of one. Asking another priest if they've 'seen Father Shortall at all recently?' comes up again in "New Jack City".
- The Stoic: Father Stone emerges from his lightening-induced coma as dull as ever.
- Too Much Information: Ted won’t let Dougal go into too much detail about The Fly (1986).
- The Un-Favorite: As above, it is implied Ted was one.
