Recap / Father Ted S3E3 "Speed 3"

Is there anything to be said for saying another Mass?

Ted and Dougal return to the parochial house from the Annual Baby of the Year Competition. Ted is unimpressed with Dougal's antics at the competition, running around with the babies too much and ending up vomiting all over Ted. The pair are also un-amused by the fact that a lot of the babies this year were 'hairy'. Ted finds out that, while they were gone, Mrs. Doyle left a brick in the middle of the floor of the living room, having apparently got the idea from a magazine about decorating.

Mrs. Doyle gets excited after seeing the milkman coming, and is already prepared with a different outfit than usual. She introduces Ted to Pat Mustard, a boastful, moustached man that Mrs. Doyle clearly has a liking for. That night, Ted notices from photographs that the babies all look similar, and all look like Pat Mustard. The next morning, he confronts Mustard, accusing the old man of fathering babies by having sex with housewives while on his rounds. Mustard denies it, but challenges Ted to prove him otherwise.

Ted and Dougal spy on Mustard, with Ted clearly intent on proving that Mustard has sex with housewives on the job. With a super-sensitive recorder (which somehow records a passing truck) and a camera, they manage to collect evidence of Mustard's activities and invite Mustard's boss, Mr. Fox, to look over them. After Fox initially 'mis-reads' the situation Ted manages to convince him to fire Mustard. Dougal, who claims he always wanted to be a milkman, is given the vacant position.

Dougal leaves in a milk float the next day to do his first rounds, while inside the house Ted finds out that Jack has adopted the brick as a 'pet' (albeit briefly). Mustard, planning revenge behind the scenes, calls Ted from a phonebooth and, using dirty language, tells him that he has planted a bomb on the float, which will arm at 4 mph and explode, killing Dougal, if it goes below 4 mph. Ted gets into a panic and races to warn Dougal. Meanwhile, Dougal is met at various doorways by housewives who were clearly expecting Mustard. Dougal does not notice that one of them is topless and that another is naked.

By the time Ted catches up to Dougal, the milk float is dangerously close to becoming a car bomb. Despite Ted attempting to warn him, Dougal somehow allows the bomb to arm by going above 4. Ted is forced to have to come up with a way of saving the young priest's life (after somehow having to deal with a pyramid of boxes in the middle of the road).

Ted recruits Father Beeching and Father Clarke of Barren Island to help him. They initially attempt to say a Mass on a tractor trailer, but it does not help. Ted has to tell a still-panicking Dougal to circle around a roundabout until a solution is found. The priests debate the situation at the parochial house, making irrelevant references to action films, until Ted gets an idea from tripping over the brick. He returns to Dougal, who has decided he would rather be a priest than a milkman, and gets him to step off the milk float while he puts the brick on the accelerator. The float travels to where Mustard is, and explodes, killing the old man - the sound is supposedly heard at the North Pole.

That night, Dougal goes to bed, but suddenly gets up and shouts about women in the nip. Meanwhile, Mrs. Doyle puts away pieces of her shrine to Mustard and Ted puts out the rubbish, where he is hit by the half-burnt brick.

Tropes featured in this episode:

• Affectionate Parody: Following the release of Speed 2: Cruise Control, the writers were discussing storylines when the question came up: 'How do we create a sequel worse than Speed 2?' They seem to have decided that this would be perfect for a Father Ted episode, and the rest is history.
• The All-Solving Hammer: "Is there anything to be said for saying another mass?"
• Armor-Piercing Question: Ted has no reply when Dougal asks exactly what important work he has to do around the parish.
  • He can't come up with a good answer when Pat asks him if he's advocating artifical contraception.
• Artistic License – Biology: No baby in the real world would have facial hair, no matter how hairy the father. Ted points this out by starting to tell Dougal that normally one wouldn’t need to shave a baby, but trips over the brick before he can finish his sentence.
  • At the beginning of the episode Pat is introduced as "the new milkman". There is no mention of a time skip before the hairy babies appear, so the babies were conceived before Pat started work as the milkman.
• Asshole Victim: Zigzagged with Mustard. While Mrs. Doyle is shown mourning him, it is implied he will be forgotten by the priests and by the dairy company.
• Bait-and-Switch: When we see Ted covered in vomit after the Baby of the Year competition, we assume it's from the babies (even though it is rather a lot). Turns out, though, it was Dougal who got over-excited to the point of throwing up.
• Big Brother Instinct: Ted protecting Dougal
• Big "WHAT?!": Ted when Mustard tells him the float has a bomb on it.
• Blatant Lies: Mustard tells them by the dozen. He claims to be a former Mr. Universe who fought in the Vietnam War and taught Elvis karate.
• Brick Joke: A literal example. That brick Mrs. Doyle left on the floor ends up as a pet for Jack and a way for Ted to save Dougal. Also done figuratively with a blackboard that Dougal though was unlike any other board, and also with Dougal and the nude women:
  Dougal: THOSE WOMEN WERE IN THE NIP!
• Call-Back: Mrs. Gleason from "Hell" makes a comeback as one of the women expecting to have sex with Pat Mustard.
• Captain Oblivious: Dougal on his rounds. No other milkman would ignore the sight of a naked woman answering the door to him.
• The Casanova: Pat Mustard has had sex with almost every housewife on the island while on his rounds.
• Cheating with the Milkman: Apparently, most of the women on Craggy Island are sleeping with the same milkman. A few of them have had children by him.
• Chekhov's Gag: The brick manages to be this, a Brick Joke and a Chekhov's Boomerang all at once. Ted keeps tripping over it, and when this happens at a critical moment, he gets the idea to put it on the accelerator of the booby-trapped milk float so they can get Dougal out safely. When the milk float blows itself and Pat Mustard sky high, the brick eventually falls back to earth and bonks Ted on the head in the final scene.
• Chocolate Baby: The Craggy Island babies' extreme hairiness is taken as evidence that they have been sired by Pat Mustard. Of course, that's not how genetics works, but still...
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Ted realises the babies entered into Craggy Island's Beautiful Baby contest all have suspiciously similar hairstyles to Pat Mustard. Dougal's first thought is that the babies are all copying his style.
  • Ted presents Pat's manager with photographic evidence of Pat's indiscretions. Pat's manager responds by telling Ted how much he's willing to pay for the dirty photos.
  • When Dougal first finds out about the bomb, he asks who it is meant for as if he was supposed to deliver it.
  • The priests realise that Dougal's situation is similar to the scenario of a certain action film, but randomly guess the wrong one.
  • Father Beeching laments that although Gene Hackman played a priest in The Poseidon Adventure, he "didn't even say Mass".
• Companion Cube: Jack briefly adopts the brick as a pet, but it does not last long; he simply throws it at Ted, making him fall over.
• Covered in Gunge: Ted’s first scene has him covered in white vomit thanks to Dougal.
• Delayed Reaction: Delayed to the point of a Brick Joke when Dougal delivers milk to women expecting the usual milkman, and walks away entirely oblivious to the fact that they opened the door entirely naked. At the end of the episode, he's just settling down to go to bed when he leaps up shouting "Those women were in the nip!"
• "Die Hard" on an X: Spoofed in that Dougal is trapped in a slow-moving milk float.
• Dirty Old Man: Pat Mustard
• Disproportionate Retribution: The bomb on the milk float. It wasn't even Dougal who got Pat sacked.
• Eskimo Land: Apparently the explosion can be heard all the way to the North Pole.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Ted decides that the brick would do saving Dougal. After tripping over it again.
• Evil Gloating: What comes in from the phone booth during the latter half of the story
• Evil Laugh: Pat Mustard does it when he's taunting Ted, to the point that he does not even realise that Ted is not listening anymore. He also appears to end up spending the entire day laughing maniacally in a phone box.
• Exposition Diagram: Parodied and subverted. The priests attempting to help Dougal out are drawing up various diagrams of plans to help out. After Ted has a "Eureka!" Moment and scribbles his plan on the board. His plan is to put the brick on the accelerator, and we then see the board where he has simply written 'WE PUT THE BRICK ON THE ACCELERATOR'.
• Fainting: This happens to Dougal after he accidentally plays the amplified sound of a truck while he and Ted are spying on Pat.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Dougal takes over the milk round, Pat's 'MILKMEN DO IT ON YOUR DOORSTEP' bumper sticker has been censored to read 'MILKMEN ON YOUR DOORSTEP'.
• Funny Background Event: As Ted suggests that Mrs Doyle is buying more milk just to see Pat Mustard every day, she appears in the back of the shot watering the plants with it. Later on, she nonchalantly takes some of the photos of Mustard's indiscretions while the dairy manager is talking to Dougal.
• Genre Blindness:
  • The priests in the second half, who don't realise they are dealing with something out of a Keanu Reeves film.
  • Played for laughs after Ted puts the brick on the accelerator of the milk float and jumps clear. Dougal should have jumped clear at that point too, but instead he picks up the brick and tells Ted that he forgot about it, forgetting why Ted put it there in the first place.
• Go Fast or Go Boom: The premise of the episode is that a vehicle has to move at a certain speed threshold or it blows up. Parodied in that it's a milk float and the speed threshold is three miles per hour.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Pat Mustard has all manner of facial hair, which his young children somehow inherit.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: One of the naked women, surprised to see Dougal delivering her milk rather than Pat Mustard, grabs her bottles and awkwardly holds them over her breasts.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mustard and bombs are not a good combination, especially if it's his bomb.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Ted confronts Pat Mustard about using his job as a milkman to father illegitimate children across Craggy Island, suggesting that he should be more careful in the bedroom, Pat turns it around and asks if Ted's suggesting that he use artificial contraception?
  Ted: Yes! (Beat) No! Oh, just feck off!
• Innocent Innuendo: "Oh, Pat was wondering if he could put his massive tool in my box."
• It's All About Me: Pat Mustard. The man's ego is probably difficult to measure properly, without special equipment. He's even convinced that Ted would never be able to prove what he was up to, despite him making it comically obvious.
• Jerkass: Pat Mustard.
• Karmic Death: Alas, poor Mustard.
• Kavorka Man: Pat Mustard.
• Lame Comeback: As seen above, Ted's reply to Mustard pointing out that Ted just advocated the use of artificial contraception.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Was it mentioned that the milk float previously belonged to Pat Mustard?
• Low-Speed Chase: The whole premise of the episode really, but particularly the "big pile of boxes in the middle of the road" scene.
• May–December Romance: Pat Mustard to many of the island's women.
• Misplaced Retribution: Pat Mustard attempts to take out his frustations on Dougal even though Ted did the bulk of the work getting him fired and was the one who brought the allegations against Pat in the first place.
• Naked People Are Funny: The nude women whom Dougal sees.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The 'Baby of the Year' Competition, which not only had a lot of hairy babies (traceable back to Mustard), but left Ted covered in white vomit (traceable back to Dougal).
    • Ted claims the latter incident is something that "happens every time" they go to a baby competition.
  • "There was that time at the Moscow Olympics, with Sean Dreir the rower."
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: It takes Dougal several hours to process the sight of nude women.
• Overly Long Gag: By the time Ted is able to rescue Dougal from the milk-float-bomb, night has fallen. Same goes for Mustard in the phone booth.
• Parody Episode: They did not call it "Speed 3" for no reason. The writers have stated on record that they had heard about Speed 2: Cruise Control but not seen it but felt the idea of a boat speeding out of control a crazy idea, and wanted to find an even worse idea beyond that.
• Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: When asking to replace Pat Mustard as the milkman, Dougal acknowledges that his being a priest doesn't actually involve any work (although given what happened when he was allowed to do a funeral, this is somewhat justified). This trope is also defied in this episode, as it's the only time we actually see Ted saying a Mass, albeit while on a moving trailer.
• Porn Stache: Pat Mustard
• Really Gets Around: Pat Mustard basically shags all day while he's working. When he loses his job, he outright states that he's yanking himself around the clock because he can't get sex.
• Revenge: Attempted by Pat against Ted
• Revenge by Proxy: Pat Mustard trys to kill Dougal to spite Ted after the latter gets him fired.
• Running Gag: The brick and the blackboard are this.
• Shout-Out: Speed aside, there are references to The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.
• Stock "Yuck!": Fox claims that Ultra-Heat Treated Milk is this:
  Fox: Milk gets sour, you know, unless it's UHT Milk. But there's no demand for that, because it's shite.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Ted's think-tank team of priests seem to independently work out that the episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to an action film and that the answer to the problem of how to rescue Dougal must lie in such a film. However, they go on to suggest films that bear no relevance to the crisis at hand, like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure. They only go for that last one because Gene Hackman plays a priest in it, and after watching it they express disappointment that he doesn't even say Mass!
• Take That!: There’s no demand for UHT milk because it’s shite.
• Whole-Plot Reference: To Speed, obviously.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Fathers, seriously, do you not know that this is a case of a vehicle rigged to explode, not a building on fire or a ship sinking?

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THOSE WOMEN WERE IN THE NIP!