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Episode Two - The Clone Wars Mademoiselle Guillotine (it's supposed to be MADAME, but whatever. Or if we're going by book titles, it's actually Mamz'elle Guillotine. Again--W-ever bitches.)
What's going to be great/horrible about this is that you just KNOW they're going to be making shit up from hereon in. We wept over the tattered shreds of canon in the last film, of course, but now we can kiss it entirely goodbye. Bonus - if anything remotely canonish shows up in here, we shall have a shot to celebrate. Sadly, I fully expect this will leave us far too sober, in the end.
Were it not for the phallic pistol shots, I might actually like the credit sequence with all the sepia. Which is looking more reddish, now.
Oh.
Oh.
Scarlet. I see what you did there. Impressive, for a team of idiots. I would have thought even an attempt at subtlety beyond you.
The scene opens.
It's Guy Fawkes Night. Again. As usual. The revolutionaries are, of course, burning and pillaging. It's all they ever do. Ever.
Some Revolutionary: *smashes a vase for the hell of it*
So. Consider yourself introduced to the bad guys. Because wanting to free yourself from a corrupt and oppressive heirarchy is just MADNESS.
(Not THE Bad Guys, just the background bad guys that have made it okay for THE Bad Guys to get to such positions of power as they now hold.)
Someone chases a servant girl all Mr. Grabbyhands and it looks a lot like the Tortuga scene from Pirates of the Carribean.
She screams, and then some soliders show up and it's like "oh, thank God," but then they get their Shut This Bitch Up on and it's time for some remedial Law & Order tutelage, guys. Come on, you're giving republicanism a bad name.
(Don't give me that look--OLDSCHOOL republicanism. Plato and all that shit. Democracy.)
Hey, that is good furniture--don't burn it! STEAL IT!
The Most British Frenchies Ever flee in their carriage, unnoticed by the mob, who are apparently too busy raping servant girls and burning shit to actually care about bringing the aristocrats to justice, like they're supposed to be doing.
The Most British Frenchies argue about what to do as they flee. They have to flee some more, but the carriage has their aristocratic crest and whatever they'll be recognized, and Girlfriend can't be damned to ride a horse to save her life, so she begs Daddy to just leave her at a convent where she'll be safe. Because it's not like the revolution is going to abolish religion and eventually go after the clergy, too.
Anyway, the Most British French Father gives in as if she were just begging to go get ice cream, and leaves the Most British French Fille at Our Lady of WTFery.
Their friend, who...I think...looks kind of like a cardinal, only he's in all black. Maybe he's a Jesuit. Maybe the costume department thought it looked more badass that way, IDK--anyway this dude is all "I'll stay. My people will hide me."
Just because he SAID that, I can tell you already--no, they won't.
Meanwhile, back at the Bonfire...
Some woman rides up astride, (so you know she means business,) pissed as hell that the Marquis and his daughter and his priest escaped. The soldier she questions has the decency to look a little ashamed of himself. Caught raping and pillaging on the job, damn--do you want a lift to the temp agency, mon frere?
Lady Ride'Em moves on to some prisoner and demands to know where the quarry is, backhanding him for good measure, just because she is that hardcore and everyone is her bitch--including you. (Anyone feeling like giving a bit of lip might here point out that if they knew where the Most British Frenchies were, they wouldn't be standing around going "damn, we lost them.")
The Most Expendable Man refuses to talk, and so the waterboarding begins. This plotline will never be resolved, and we never find out what happens to Expendable Man. Let us presume the obvious.
At the convent:
"Papa, remember, a part of me will always be with you!"
Either that's really sappy and they'll never see each other again, or else he actually has a tissue sample in his pocket and that's just creepy and wrong.
And cue a parting "I LOVE YOU!" with an outstretched arm as they're torn apart, sort of. Well, walk apart, is more like.
I think we're supposed to feel bad, here.
Party at the Blakeney House.
As seen in the last episode, Sir Percy and Margot have reconciled and though they trade stale barbs, it's all in good fun.
Shame. I liked them better when they despised each other.
Sir Andrew and Suzanne are getting married--a shot for canon!
The Most British Daddy-O rides up and comes to Margot in a state of exhaustion, or at least great distress. Let me guess--his daughter has been captured thanks to the nefarious nuns.
Sir Percy is still being a dickwad.
The Most British Daughter is actually not TMBDaddy's DAUGHTER-daughter. He just thinks of her as his daughter. We've all heard that one, before.
Something about belonging and exile and then there's kissing. Am still skeeved out by it.
Cut to soldiers and running and I don't know what.
The Running Man stops at a door, hears a trickling of water and kneels to peer through the keyhole at Lady Ride'Em in the bath. Of course we only see her bare shoulders but we must assume that in the age of stays and petticoats this is next to Playmate of the Month.
She tells him off, and then smugly sips from an ornate goblet as she soaks in her steaming bath before a fireplace the size of my garage. Lady knows how to live.
Somewhere In The Woods
The Most Scottish Frenchie ever is smuggling guns or something and information and blah blah blah rebel army blah.
In a Tavern:
Man with a Cough and a Scarred Face, Therefore He Must Be Evil lurks lurkily in the tavern.
He comes to find...Chauvelin!
CHAUVELIN!
Looking much fuzzier and filthier than last we saw him, and certainly in worser company.
Robespierre's wig is still puffy as anything, Robespierre remains Fabulous despite (or perhaps because of) this.
MADEMOISELLE GILL-OH-TEEEEN.
It's Madame Gee-oh-teen, you iiiidiots.
Oh, wait, it's a nickname for Lady Ride'Em.
Chauvelin "...mad bitch." Ohsnap. She kind of is.
Robespierre is so quiet and understated it's awesome. He speaks so succintly, so quietly, that you have to strain to listen to what he's saying. But you know he could break your balls in an instant. ^__^ I think I love this Robespierre. I have to love somebody, now that YOU FUCKING KILLED LORD TONY YOU FUCKS. Even if Robespierre is more likely to just be my Fabulous Friend rather than Lord Tony who would have been my Hottie Husband.
Robespierre needs Chauvelin to capture the Most British French Daughter ever, but keep her alive as a bargaining chip. This just as Percy is setting out to rescue her. And Lady Ride'Em is determined to find the girl and kill her and already has a head-start. This is going to be an interesting throw-down threeway, at least.
House of Marital Bliss
Percy and Marguerite are arguing over whether Margot ought to come to France or not. Sir Andrew is unwillingly drawn into the argument and Margot slaps him around a bit and insists Sir Percy would suck as a nun, even with disguises. Percy argues that she isn't even packed yet.
Oh, but she IS.
Percy: ...right, then.
Cut to the Day Dream
...
FUCK. WARN US BEFORE THERE'S CLOSE UP SHOTS OF CANOODLING. IT FREAKS ME OUT SO BAD.
Percy's all sulky and "you're talking and the rocking of the boat keeps me awake..." and Margot starts moaning "oh yes, the rocking of the boat, how it's prow penetrates the yeilding waaaves..."
At this point I clapped my hands over my mouth and squeaked "JESUS CHRIST!" in the World's Tiniest Voice because my skin, it crawls, my horror, it knows no bounds. WHY MUST THEY SEXUALIZE EVERYTHING, AND SO BADLY? WHYYYY?
Unspecified Action beneath the sheets. EW. EW EW EW.
At this point my lower lip started wibbling.
Thank God we're moving on to something pastoral. Peasants. Countryside. Soldiers.
The Most Scottish Frenchie Ever does a piss-poor job of trying to convince Chauvelin he's not a rebel.
Lady Ride'Em rides into town with her guillotine. Whooot. The game, she is on. Until the Most British Priest Ever is given up, she'll randomly execute five townspeople every day. What was that about Your People, again, Father?
They pick some random guy and he doesn't fight them, like, at all.
The priest is watching from a window ten feet away (of course) and has the decency to wince.
Dun dun dun...another one bites the duuuust!
Except we only HEAR it, this time. The priest winces, again.
The Most Scottish Frenchie Ever laughs as he watches Chauvelin riding away, confiding in his wife/daughter/slagheap that Chauvelin's real name is Valentine Gautiere or something, and he's actually some rich landowner's son. Oooooh. Outed.
Meanwhile, in the Underground Chapel, The Most British Priest Ever is holding Mass.
Once everyone leaves, the priest starts yammering and quoting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
Bitch, please. Talk about a martyr complex.
Then he goes to give himself up to the guards.
Percy shows up at the house of the Most Scottish Frenchie Ever. With Andrew and Marguerite.
The Most British Priest Ever is thrown at Lady Ride'Em's feet, with blood all over his face. Lady Ride'Em makes not-so-vague sexual jokes...I don't even know. It's like they took every moment and thought "how can we make this sexier?" "Subtle lighting and--" "NO. NO SUBTLETY. IT HAS TO SCREAM SEX. EVEN WHEN THERE'S NOTHING REALLY SEXY GOING ON. WHEN THE PRIEST IS BEING TORTURED AND INTERROGATED--MOAAAAAR SEX!"
She throws the book at him. The Bible, that is. Then kicks him in the head.
He keeps eye contact as she's questioning him about the whereabouts of The Most British Daughter Ever. Dude. At least look away or bow your head so she doesn't just have to keep guessing various locations until she sees your pupils contract.
Of course she finds out within five minutes.
The Most Scottish Wife Ever totally hits on (engaged!) Sir Andrew over his bowl of stew. Marguerite snerks.
The Most Scottish Frenchie Ever goes straight to Chauvelin and tells him everything. Apparently in THIS version of the Scarlet Pimpernel universe Chauvelin can't find out anything unless he has a double agent do it for him.
Chauvelin realizes it's Marguerite & Co. His voice gets all funny.
THAT. THAT is how you do subtle sexiness. For fuck's sake. We should not be taking lessons from Chauvelin in this, of all people. Fucking Chauvelin, but there you are.
Andrew, Margot and Percy ride off on three different coloured horses. Of course. Percy on black, Margot on white, Andrew on brown. Of coooourse.
Chauvelin ambushes them. Margot rides on to the convent at Percy's command, after a single "NO!" but then she does, anyway. Andrew and Percy ditch their horses into a pile of leaves. Chauvelin rides into a tree and sputters "I WANT HER ALIVE!"
Of course you do, Chauvvy.
Handy!Rebels are handy. They open fire at Chauvelin and his soldiers from the hillside and take Chauvelin captive.
The Most Scottish Frenchie Ever has his finger in about six different pies at this point.
Percy and Andrew are gleeful.
The rebels round up the soldiers and begin summarily shooting them.
Percy: ...my glee is suddenly lessened.
Chauvelin, Percy and Andrew are all captured. Well, except I didn't actually see Percy and Andrew get caught. They're walking towards the rebels one minute, the next, they've been pinioned. Ain't that always the way.
Percy starts insulting the leader of the rebels, who he is on a first-name basis with, evidently. Vague phallic jokes made anent his gun and how Percy's seen bigger.
I'll bet he has.
Who the fuck is that actor...I recognize him.
OH MY GOD.
JAMES CALLIS. WHY DO YOU DO THESE THINGS?
Still, he's about the fiercest thing IN this clusterfuck. Bless him.
Meanwhile, Marguerite rides like the wind on her faithful steed, Snowflake.
Meanwhile, Chauvelin's toadyish little colleague faked his death and is still alive. (And still coughing. Evilly.)
Margot makes it to the convent. She's riding astride, as well, but not so anyone would know it, really.
"Make yourself scarce, Snowflake. Go. Run. Be free."
The rebel camp in the woods is full of goats and children. Weird.
Percy neatly explains everything to James Callis, who orders horses to help Percy and Andrew rescue The Most British Daughter. He gets a funny look on his face when they mention her.
Marguerite, meanwhile, is finding out that The Most British Daughter Ever is missing from the convent, and has been for some time. I call shenanigans. I'll be she's in the rebel camp canoodling with James Callis. (Wouldn't you? The man is FIERCE.)
WHO CALLED IT. THERE SHE IS. AHA.
Chauvelin is being kept in the pigpen (giggle) and The Most British Daughter Ever goes over to taunt him and they argue. Chauvelin actually has a point, kind of. And it pisses the Most British Daughter Ever off. So bad.
OH HAI MOST BRITISH DAUGHTER EVER IS TOTALLY TONGUE-WRESTLING WITH JAMES CALLIS OKAY HE'S KIND OF I MEAN REALLY GREASY AND SCRUFFY BUT I CAN GET BEHIND THAT.
Chauvelin's little toady went back to the Most Scottish Frenchie Ever's farmhouse and slit him and his wife/daughter/slagheap's throats and calmly sits eating cheese.
It is the French way.
Meanwhile, a Nun on the Parapets runs to alert the reverend mother that they are under attack.
Lady Ride'Em struts in and threatenes a beatdown on the Mother Superior, who doesn't bat a stone-cold-fox eyelash.
The soldiers fan out in the nunnery to search.
Y'know, I liked this scene better in The Sound of Music.
Marguerite just sits, waiting, for...something. I mean, I don't know, the girl is gone, so now what? Thuds and running footsteps sound in the distance and her expression doesn't change in the slightest. Well, that's canon-ish. She's too stupid to live in the books, too, sometimes. Which is remarkable, as she's supposed to be so damn genius it makes the rest of Europe and therefore the civilized world fall to their knees before her brilliance.
The soldiers burst into the room and find her sitting there. They keep standing there. She keeps sitting there.
Essentially--
Soldiers: ...
Margot: ...
Soldiers: ...
Margot: ...
Audience: ...
Scriptwriters: ...
Me: >_<
Eventually, they haul her out to Lady Ride'Em, who looks over her fake papers and then asks why she was hiding. (She was sitting in a room, calmly. It's not like they found her face-down in the cellar. Geez.)
Anyway, this being revolutionary France, that's enough to condemn her, and she gets hauled away as the nuns are herded upstairs, presumably so the soldiers can sate themselves on a handful of 60+ women in sailboat headgear.
Meanwhile, back at the campsite, a bunch of kids pelt Chauvelin with compost.
The Most British Daughter Ever shoos them away and dabs at a cut on Chauvelin's face with her apron. For all she was making out with James Callis five minutes ago, she and Chauvelin have some crazy chemistry, sorta. Which is kind of ew.
She figures out he's searching for her, but he doesn't make the connection. She makes a vague reference to her mother which sets off something in Chauvelin's head, and--OH.
OH.
HE'S HER REAL FATHER, ISN'T HE?
OH FUCK THAT IS SO WRONG.
Percy and Andrew have taken their sweet time getting to the convent, and they find it ablaze and Marguerite is missing. (Nice, boys. Real nice.)
A couple of soldiers show up to fight, and Percy begins delicately sword-fighting with the one while Andrew gets his Crowning Moment of Awesome because he loses his sword so he fucking takes out the soldier and takes away HIS weapons all "FINE, we'll do this by HAND, BITCH!" and proceeds to beat the soldier into the ground with his fists, only to haul him up repeatedly and DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Eventually he gets bored and snaps the guy's neck because he's the fucking Hulk.
Percy minces back and forth for two seconds then delivers a single stab wound to his soldier's gut, and with a clean blade, runs off.
Marguerite is being dragged into Lady Ride'Em's bastion, where every single soldier is sitting around polishing a sword or a musket.
Because it cannot get any more un-subtle.
Lady Ride'Em points out several clerical errors on Margot's fake ID. Way to go, Percy. A GOOD Pimpernel would not have fucked that up.
Oh wow I just noticed Lady Ride'Em's single earring is a wee little guillotine. That is so hardcore. I want one.
Margot hisses "bitch!", Lady Ride'Em backhands her, and the D/s lesbian pornfic is writing itself at this very moment, ladies and gentlemen.
James Callis is pissed about the dead nuns, and he's giving a rousing shout-y speech to the rebel-rabble, which is fortunate for Toady, who is listening from the other side of the fucking lake and begins to swim across. >_<
The Most British Daughter Ever brings ChauvyDaddy some food. They STILL have crazy weird chemistry, and it's definitely of the Electra complex variety. She always stands way too close to him. Especially for someone she hates who has been sitting in a pigstye for the last several hours.
Anyway, two sentances later and some candid revalations reveal that The Most British Daughter Ever is The Most British Chauvelin's Daughter Ever and oh my goodness, is this actually something like canon? In the books her name was Fleurette! And they're kind of playing fast and loose with this, but whatever. Like...really, they took characters from all over. Lady Ride'Em from Mamz'elle Guillotine (whom the episode is named after, presumably, in a way...) and Fleurette/Helene from Sir Percy Hits Back but aside from that, the rest of the story is shot to hell and mangled up together.
Swimming Toady stabs the guardboy and hauls himself out of the lake and frees Chauvelin in broad daylight. How convenient. (Earlier James Callis remarks on how he takes no prisoners--evidently this is because they cannot fucking guard even ONE.)
Andrew and Percy ride up to Lady Ride'Em's pad and order the soldiers to take them to her. Thank God everyone in this movie has a British accent, or else there would be no plausible way to explain why the fuck the soldiers assume Percy's a citizen of France when he's practically got a Union Jack streaming from his back pocket. Anyway, they burst into Lady's chambers, and she looks more than a little drunk and her rack is fantastic. She should leave off with the bulky manjacket more often. Damn, girl.
Percy passes himself off as Chauvelin and majorly macks on Lady Ride'Em and her chesticles. Within two minutes he has her bring in Marguerite without even asking her.
Andrew frets quietly. Percy admires the booze. Margot gapes and cannot take a fucking hint to play the fuck along.
Percy: *facepalm*
Percy continues to boldly pass himself off as Chauvelin and starts insulting the Scarlet Pimpernel to boot, and Lady Ride'Em's all "...wait, what? WHO?"
*record-scratch*
She's never heard of the Pimpernel. Bahaha. Percy explains how the man is daring, elusive, a thorn in the side of the Republic blah blah blah...
Andrew: "And he's a total douche."
Percy: "Um. Yes. Right. Thank you, Toady."
Lady Ride'Em has great plans to torture Marguerite, and Sir Percy looks forward to watching the proceedings with a little too much enthusiasm, if you ask me.
The Real Chauvelin and Toady turn up, and Marguerite screams "PERCY! YOU FOOL!" and I'm dying a little inside.
Chauvelin: "Oh for FUCK'S sake, lady!"
Lady whips out her trusted backhand.
Sir Percy has the Real Andrew take Marguerite, Chauvelin and Toady out to the dungeons so he can stay behind and enjoy one of the perks of his job.
Something about the rebels and they have a death wish blah blah blah.
Percy and Lady play some king of sexually charged tug-of-war game with a napkin that ultimately leaves me confused.
Lady: "I wish I had been a man..." Because Sir Percy is, of course, positively dripping with Fabulosity.
Percy disabuses her of the notion, however, and she scurries to lock the door so they can get their freak on.
*facepalm*
Good thing he's never going to tell Margot about this. Ever.
Percy reeeeally gets his freak on and shoves the napkin down her throat. Again, the D/s porn is just starting to fall from the sky.
Outside the room, the guards hear her strangled cries and just giggle like thirteen year old boys.
Inside, Percy hogties her and then escapes with Andrew and Margot. In the nick of time, Lady spits out the napkin and screams for them to be captured (she also manages to get her hands and feet untied and the door to her chamber unlocked without a key with surprising quickness, as she is running into the courtyard within moments of her first yell. Shots are fired at the three as they ride off, but no one is hit. Frankly I'm surprised Sir Andrew didn't buy it, because that's the kind of gong-show this is. NO ONE is safe. Except Percy.
Chauvelin and Toady are let out, and Toady tells her all about James Callis and his plan to attack the town (their town? A town? I don't even know what's going on with that whole thing, anymore.)
The three riders are halted and taken to James Callis' campfire, where The Most British Daughter Ever outs herself and insists on staying with His Royal Makeoutedness, who, as it turns out, is a greasy, scruffy VICOMTE. So there.
Percy: "WELL LOOKS LIKE WE'RE DONE HERE, THEN." And he drags Marguerite off, muttering furiously about what a waste of fucking time this entire plot has been.
Aaaand the next morning the rebels chaaaarge!
And then they pause to spend ten minutes scaling the walls. Quietly. It's kind of a let-down, really.
For God's sake, get ONE guy over the wall and have him OPEN THE DOOR for the rest of you! It's not a hard thing to think of.
They quietly kill all the guards, and it's actually quite easily done.
...where's the bloodbath?
Oh. There it is.
Outside the walls, what's left of the rebels can hear the sounds of utter defeat drifting towards them. The Most British Daughter Ever hightails it towards the...town? Castle? Barracks? I don't even know what it IS they're supposed to be attacking, anymore.
Percy: "FUCK."
Percy goes after her. Why he's still there and trying to keep this girl safe, I don't know, because clearly he believes her to be old enough to die of her own stupidity.
Of course a random fire is burning in the courtyard where they're fighting.
Inevitably, James Callis bites it.
Inevitably, The Most British Daughter Ever runs out to be with him as he dies.
Inevitably, Sir Percy, Margot and Sir Andrew are not enough to restrain a bloody teenager.
Inevitably, she gets shot by Lady Ride'Em.
Inevitably, Chauvelin shits a brick.
Inevitably, the crazy kids die together. Sort of.
At least, James Callis does.
Chauvelin carries his daughter to safety (chemistryyyyy D: D: D:) while she bleeds from the stomach and Percy swears he's going to get the damn kid back from that damn Republican and he'll be damned if Marguerite follows him or argues with him and she'll go wait with Andrew and the damn horses. Damn it.
Percy rides through the battle, but...hanging off his horse, so he can't be shot, really. Um...it makes more sense on the video. Anyway, it's supposed to be clever, I guess.
Percy wrenches The Most British Daughter Ever away from Chauvelin, and then there's guards and gunshots and EVERYONE has a gun WTF and Lady Ride'Em has two and I don't even know.
So now Lady Ride'Em is pretty much dead and Percy is confused as hell.
Toady is gaily firing off his pistols at whatever and then has no ammo left when Percy & his Posse ride off with The Most British Daughter Ever.
In a clearing in the woods, The Most British Daughter ever gives some emotional deathbed exposition about her mother and father and God knows why this keeps coming up, realistically, but I can understand that if it's repeated often enough to different people, SOMEONE is eventually bound to connect the fucking dots.
Aaaand she bites it.
...the end.
Yeah, no, that's it. For the episode, at least. I mean, this makes more sense as part of a series than the first one does.
Geez. Two days and plenty of sanity-saving breaks to get through an hour and a half.