Recap / Sharpe F1 Sharpe's Challenge

At the urging of Wellington, Sharpe travels to India to track down a missing British agent — his friend, Patrick Harper. Once reunited, they infiltrate Seringapatam to rescue a general's captured daughter and put down a rebellion led by rogue British officer William Dodd.

Tropes that appear in this episode:

• Adaptation Decay: The miniseries is an adaptation of prequel books in which Sgt. Obadiah Hakeswill is the main villain, but is set after most of the episodes including the one where Hakeswill finally dies, so Sharpe is given a Hakeswill expy villain who isn't particularly convincing.
• Adaptation Distillation: This miniseries is meant to be a combination of three of Sharpe’s earliest exploits: Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, and Sharpe’s Fortress.
• Big Bad: General William Dodd. He's also a Dragon with an Agenda who has aspirations of being The Starscream.
• Big Damn Heroes: Colonel Gudin and his men arrive in the nick of time to save Sharpe and Harper from being killed, having decided they want no further part of Khande Rao and Dodd's cruelty.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Invoked in an argument between Celia and Lalima; Celia has seen men sworn to protect her killed in cold blood, become a hostage against her father, been sexually assaulted, publicly humiliated and threatened with being made a Sex Slave by Rao and Dodd, so a few kind words and creature comforts from her captor's sister are hardly going to make her more amenable. Lalima retorts that, even if Celia hasn't done anything personally to her and her brother, she's still a citizen of an occupying foreign power in India that is trying to exploit the country's wealth.
• Camping a Crapper: Inverted: Sharpe is able to survive Dodd's initial attack in the prologue because he was off taking a leak.
• Cavalry Betrayal: Dodd and his men inflicted one of these in the prologue.
• Damsel in Distress: Celia Burroughs gets this a lot.
• Dangerous Deserter: Bickerstaff defects to Dodd to save his own life when captured and ends up serving as a Pet Rat to the man.
• Death of a Child: In the prologue; Dodd's men kill the soldiers and the civilians, including children.
• Decapitation Presentation: The captain in charge of Celia's escort is murdered by Rao and his severed head sent back to the British army.
  • In the prologue, Dodd presents Rao's father with the severed head of an East India company officer as a token of his allegiance.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Invoked by Dodd when he bluntly tells Madhuvanthi he never actually loved her and never had any intention of sharing power with her after they deposed Rao.
  Madhuvanthi: You must take me with you!
  William Dodd: Why? You mean nothing to me!
  Madhuvanthi: Our love, William!
  William Dodd: [scoffs] Love?! For a whore?!
• Enemy Mine: Singh, an Indian soldier fighting in the British Army, outright tells Sharpe and Harper he's fighting alongside them because his people are sworn enemies of Rao; thus the British are seen as the lesser of two evils.
  • Colonel Gudin also sides with Sharpe when his disgust at the brutality he is party to becomes too much.
  • Despite sharing her brother's distaste for the British, Lalima is willing to go to Celia's father and negotiate with the British, rather than see him murdered by Dodd and Madhuvanthi when they have no further use for him.
  Lalima: I would sooner see my brother alive under British rule, than dead at a renegade's hand.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being hired to train the Maharajah's men, French colonel Gudin cannot hide his disgust at Celia's treatment. He's also disgusted by the brutal executions of British prisoners, to the point he and his men aid Sharpe in the final battle.
  Lieutenant Bonnet: [watching British prisoners being executed] This goes against all the rules of war, colonel.
  Colonel Gudin: I know, Bonnet. I know.
  Lieutenant Bonnet: We came here to fight for honour and glory. Where is the glory now?
  • "Evil" is debatable, given she doesn't do anything overtly villainous and merely shares her brother's anti-British sentiments, but Rao's sister Lalima clearly disapproves of the abuse done to Celia and petitions her brother to give the Englishwoman to her care, that she might be treated better.
• Expy: Sergeant Shadrich Bickerstaff is meant to be a stand-in for Obadiah Hakeswill, who was a recurring antagonist for Sharpe. Since the TV series’ version of Hakeswill was killed much earlier, the writers had to make a similar character.
• French Jerk: Averted with Colonel Gudin and Lieutenant Bonnet; despite being Hired Guns, they don't hold any grudge against Sharpe and Harper for being on the losing side at Waterloo, are quite friendly and chummy to drink with, and have scruples about the brutality and cruelty of their employers.
• Freudian Excuse: Dodd claims his reasons for deserting the East India Company and effectively becoming a warlord supporting Rao's rebellion was because he got fed up of being passed over, despite his skill and competence, for less capable men who came from money.
  Dodd: I was a lieutenant in the East India Company for six years, six bloody years! You see, in the Company, it doesn't matter how good a soldier a man might be; if he hasn't got the money, he's got to wait his turn! I watched wealthy young idiots buy themselves majority in the King's ranks, whilst I had to bow and scrape to the useless bastards!
• If We Get Through This…: Colonel Mcrae, while sharing a cigar with the young standard bearer for the forlorn hope invokes this before the troops set off.
  Soldier: It's my first cigar, sir.
  Mcrae: Come find me when the battle's done and we'll share another.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: To prove he's not a spy, Dodd orders Sharpe to kill Harper. Fortunately, it turns out to be just a Secret Test of Character.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Sharpe kills Dodd by nailing him to a throne with his sword.
• It Has Been an Honor: The dying Captain Singh expresses this to Sharpe and Harper, as well as apologising for his previous distrust of them.
  Captain Mohan Singh: I'm sorry to take my leave of you so soon, Colonel. I should have liked to have known you better.[...] I hope we might part now, in friendship.
  Sharpe: We do, and to my mind, we have never been anything else.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Sharpe hates and wants to kill Dodd for murdering men under his command when Sharpe was a younger officer in India.
• Kick the Dog: Dodd mocks an East India Company officer with a stutter before murdering him.
  Dodd: What's the matter? Cat got your t-t-tongue?
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Invoked by Singh about Rao's father: the late Maharajah hated his rival rulers more than he did the British, so as long as the British supplied him with weapons to deal with his rivals, he was content to keep the peace with them. His son, on the other hand, is causing trouble in hopes of expelling the British from India.
  Harper: [Khande Rao] has a reputation of being a real monster.
  Singh: If he's a monster, Mr. Harper, he's one of British making.
  Sharpe: How's that, Captain?
  Singh: The Company have only maintained the peace here by keeping the princes at each other's throats. Khande Rao's father, he feared his neighbours more than he hated the British, and so it was your country that kept him supplied with arms.
  Harper: That sounds just like the English: getting someone else to do its dirty work!
  Singh: The son is not the father. Khande Rao wants you out of our country, once and for all. It is a view with which I cannot say I do not have some sympathy.
• Oh, Crap!: Sharpe and Harper's reaction to being trapped between two forces of Indian soldiers.
  Sharpe: Oh shite!
  • Also Dodds, when Sharpe and Harper detonate his planned trap for the British before it was ready and decimate his army in the process.
  • Bickerstaff's reaction to realising the muzzle of Harper's gun is pressed against his chest.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: “Say hello to Mr. Nock.” Cue Bickerstaff getting Blown Across the Room.
  • Sharpe delivers one to the mortally wounded Dodd after impaling him to the throne he hoped to usurp.
  Richard Sharpe: You got your throne. How does it feel, Your Majesty?!
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!: Celia tries to beg mercy for British prisoners taken by Rao's men, about to be brutally executed to make an example. It doesn't work.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Colonel Mcrae and Major Stokes, certainly compared to Simmerson.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sharpe gives Dodd one of these during the final battle as he catches Dodd looting Indian treasure before planning to flee for his life.
  Sharpe: Lieutenant Dodd! So it's come down to this. For all your dreams of kingship, you're naught but a common thief! You were the same at Chasalgaon, only there, it were paychests! Now, it's a royal treasury!
  • Before that, he gives another one to Dodd after he and Harper are exposed.
  Dodd: You thought you were better than me, but you underestimated William Dodd, didn't you?! Just like all those other British officers born to privilege!
  Sharpe: I was born to the gutter, Dodd, and like every other gutter bastard, I know the shit that belongs there!
  • He also gives a brief one to Simmerson when they meet, referencing Simmerson's previous incompetence and cowardice in command.
  Simmerson: You should be wary of this one, Mcrae. He thinks because Wellington raised him up from the sewer that it somehow makes him a gentleman. Don't know your place, do you Sharpie?
  Sharpe: Maybe not, but I know how to stand before a French column. I know how to face fire without soiling my breeches and turning tail.
  • General Burroughs also gives one to Simmerson when the latter doesn't take the hint he's being relieved of command and sent home in disgrace.
  Burroughs: I had thought, Sir Henry, to spare you further ignominy, but since you are determined to prove as dull-witted and thick-skinned as a hippopotamus, let me speak plainly: I have no wish to die beside such a bloody fool as you!
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: The Evil Chancellor Madhuvanthi begs Dodd to take her to safety when the British breach the fortress. He makes it clear he has no intention of doing so and murders her when she protests.
  • Dodd, an unrepentant traitor and mass murderer of British soldiers, gets killed in a Duel to the Death with Sharpe. For added irony, Sharpe impales him to the throne Dodd hoped to usurp.
  • Zigzagged with Khande Rao. He survives the final battle and gets to keep his head and his position, but his power base is irrevocably broken up and he's reduced to nothing more than a Puppet King for the British Empire, kept alive only for the sake of peace in the region, something that, given Rao's anti-British sentiments, he probably considers a Cruel Mercy.
• Shameful Strip: A captive Celia Burroughs gets her dress torn open, exposing her breasts in front of the entire Maharajah's court.
• Sole Survivor: It is revealed that Sharpe was the sole survivor of an attack on an East India Company outpost in India.
• The Starscream: What Dodd aspires to be to the Maharajah.
• Tempting Fate: Bickerstaff insists to his sepoy troops the rebels have nothing that can hit their position...and then rockets start hitting the ground all around them and everyone dives for cover.
• The Woman Behind the Man: The young Maharajah is technically still a minor in Indian society and mainly follows the advice of his Evil Chancellor Madhuvanthi, his late father's favourite concubine. Unknown to the Maharajah, she is also Dodd's lover and they plan to kill him before he reaches the age of majority.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Despite his people having a blood feud with Rao's and having the young Maharajah at his mercy during the final battle, Singh withholds the killing blow because Rao is still technically a boy in Indian society.
  Mohan Singh: You are a child, and I am not a murderer.

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