Blackadder II - S2E2 'Head'
Comments (55)
Blackadder III is the best one ! Hot take but I’d recommend just jumping straight to that one 😉
When Jess starts saying jeez Louise, you know it’s not hitting 😊
Wowzers. Can’t wait for this journey. GOAT British comedy . All the way to the end ….
I wouldn’t get your hopes up
You've probably already been told but Queenie is played by Miranda Richardson who also played Rita Skeeter in the Harry Potter films
Speaking of innocent people dying in them days, how many royal chefs do we think have been killed because the king/queens food tester had unknown allergies? 🤣
I hope they do the christmas episode loved that as a kid
😂😂
Strap in, it's all great from here on, right up to Series 4. If it was me, I would circle back to Series 1 once you have finished 4 and the Christmas Special. One is definitely funny but it's a completely different vibe. It was partly filmed on location whereas all the others were filmed in the studio.
Queen Elizabeth is played by Miranda Richardson, who you may have seen in the Johnny Depp movie “Sleepy Hollow’
She's playing the Queen as a spoilt little girl...but 1 with all the power in the Land
The first season is easier to love once you have seen the other three. Still most people's least favorite but not exactly a clockwork orange torture scene.
😂😂♥♥
I know everyone tells you, but please go to season 3 after this season and NOT to S1, or you will just get weirded out and bored. Especially since Jess favorite Hugh Laurie will have you throwing up of laughters in S3. S4 though is the best. Again, just my taste and feelings =)
S1 is definitely best saved once eveything else has been watched
Can see this going the same way as Father Ted 😊
Didn't they stop FT for religious reasons? I remember them enjoying the episodes beforehand
I recently did a rewatch of 'The Black Adder', and it really is *nowhere* near as bad as you'd believe, given the disparaging comments about it! There's a lot to enjoy about it. I'm sure you'll have a blast when you get round to it.
Interesting you say that Mike as I totally agree , I absolutely love the first series but I much prefer Edmund in the subsequent series as Rowan A is at his best. My friend Angela calls me Mrs Ploppy in all of my birthday cards and has done for about 20 years bc of this episode 🥴😂
The queen is the daughter of Henry the 8th, Elizabeth the 1st, Also known as the Virgin queen. Your own state of Virginia was named after her.
The simplest way to describe the characters is that they are all descendants from the characters of the previous series. The signs are good so far, but I really hope you do stick with this, season 4 is magical for me
This episode was filmed first, which is why Percy has his beard again after shaving it off in the last episode, back to clean shaven after this
🎶His great-grandfather was a king, although for only thirty seconds. When put in charge of beheading, he felt that fame and glory beckoned. Blackadder! Blackadder! No such blooming luck. Blackadder! Blackadder! Elizabethan schmuck. Blackadder! Blackadder! Nothing goes as planned! Blackadder! Blackadder! Life deals him a bum hand!🎶
Miranda Richardson plays Queen Elizabeth I as a petulant teenager but with a terrifying amount of power. In series 1 Blackadder was King Richard III's grandson but was proven to be illegitimate if you remember by Angus the Scotsman so his claim to the crown went bye-bye. They were The House Of York dynasty and remained in power in Series 1's version of history when Brian Blessed became the fictitious Richard IV. In actual reality Henry Tudor (Henry Vii) defeated Richard III at that time so the Tudors took power which passed onto his son Henry VIII then his daughters Mary I (the Catholic) , then her half-sister Elizabeth I (The Protestant) . So you could say Blackadder in Series 2 is a descendant of Series 1 incarnation (as are Lord Percy and Baldrick) but is just a nobleman/aristocrat no direct path to the crown, being of a different family line.
In general, the story of Blackadder across the series is about how he's always kind of in the "middle" as far as power and fame etc... so in this series he's above Baldrick and Percy, but below Melchett and the Queen. He's always striving to get more power and never quite makes it, i think in every series there's always two characters "above" him and two "below" at least as far as main characters go.
And, apart from series 1, he's always the smartest person in the room, irritated by the idiots below him and at the mercy of the idiots above him.
I always think of these types of show as Theatre! And i swear the widow could be straight out of Return to Oz...that creepy ass film ffs😝
Those wheelers were terrifying.
The long winter evenings must just fly by...
I seem to remember there was a Christmas carol one off and a special in the early 2000s where blackadder has a time machine?
Not forgetting the Comic Relief episode, 'Blackadder: The Cavalier Years'.
Blackadder is core childhood. Bring on S4. You guys rule.
It feels like a side-quest from this reaction could be for Mike & Jess to learn more about the history around each series, particularly where there are relevant links to the US (more so in series 3 and 4). For example the US state of Virginia is named after Elizabeth 1st (the 'Virgin Queen'). In the next series, the Prince Regent's historical involvement with America may be of interest to know, for example.
When it comes to who came first of Queenie and the Queen of Hearts, it’s hard to say. Blackadder came long before the Tim Burton version of Alice. The Queen there was clearly inspired by QE1. The book that it’s based on is much older, but there the Queen is a different character. Both movie versions merge the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts from the book. At the time of publication, comparisons were drawn between the Queen of Hearts and Queen Victoria, although Lewis Carrol denied this. I always thought she might be based on Mary, QE1’s sister, although there are any number of monarchs who might have been the inspiration. Queenie, on the other hand, seems a lot more likely Carrols Queen of Hearts than the historical Elizabeth.
Genuine question for Mike and Jess: I'm not trying to be snarky about Americans. Do schools in the USA teach anything about British history before George III and the War of Independence? I don't remember being taught much about American history other than independence and the Civil War. But it's 50 years since I was in a history lesson, so I might have forgotten (or not been paying attention 🙂)
Why would they? Americans learn about the parts of british history relevant to their own history, the same way the UK only learn about the relevant parts of American history. In Ireland, we learn quite a lot about british history, mainly so we knew which monarch/politician was responsible for each atrocity committed here. We learn about the American (and French) revolutions as they directly influenced one of our rebellions.
In series 1, Blackadder was the King's son, hence Prince Edmund and Duke of Edinburgh, so he was at the top layer of the nobility. In series 2, he has dropped down one level to the non-Royal Lord Blackadder.
Blackadder gets more clever as the seasons progress and Baldrick regresses.
In series 1, the first episode is the highest hurdle. A large number of the jokes are based on knowing history and knowing Shakespeare, and they are funny because things go down differently than you expect. I like series 1, but it’s definitely the weakest. I think 4 is the strongest, and I’m back and forth on whether 2 or 3 are the second best.
I hope the millennium and christmas specials are included. I love them ❤️
Of course, this is actually episode 1 of series 2, but episode 2 was shown first!
Let’s face it, they F’d it right up 😊
Yeah the royals aren't exactly known for being in touch with reality, especially in the 1500s, hence Miranda Richardson playing Queen Elizabeth as a psychotic 7 year old.
“Can’t is not a word for princes, Lord Blackadder” is a play on something Queen Elizabeth really said: “Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes?” This is when her advisor Robert Cecil said she must go to bed when she was ill in 1603. She died not long after so she probably should have done…
I never knew that. Excellent fact. Thank you.
This is probably the weakest one of series 2 for me
It was meant to be the first episode of series 2, but they swapped it with 'Bells' because it was a stronger opener.
I mean getting an episode wrong is better than when PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING ;)
That was a lyrical blow to the jaw if if I’ve ever read one Johnson
"HE'S ONLY GOT ONE ARM!!!!"
Blackadder isn’t King (as you now realised) he’s always in the middle relatively speaking. Here he’s a noble (Lord Blackadder) and a member of Queen Elizabeth’s court (which is why he’s always rocking up there) - so he’s already above other nobility socially. He’s always trying to win favour with the Queen and improve his position and power. Lord Melchett (Stephen Fry) holds a position known as Lord Chamberlain - which means he’s the closest advisor to the Queen. He’s Blackadder’s biggest rival. Think Game of Thrones but the competition isn’t for the throne but social position within the court and associated power. Baldrick is below him on the hierarchy by a long way of course; Lord Percy is probably on a similar level (the Percys were a real family and one of the key powers in the north in the Wars of the Roses, and before that, that Game of Thrones was based on). However Percy lacks the cunning to be a rival to Blackadder, so ultimately his position in the hierarchy is below Blackadder’s. After the Wars of the Roses the nobles lost a much of their power because Henry VII (Liz’s great grandfather and the first Tudor monarch, Liz is the last) concentrated a lot of the wealth and power under the monarch directly whereas before the nobles around England held a lot of money and power, eg if the king wanted to raise an army, he went to them to provide troops (and money). That still continued in a form right up to the Civil Wars of 1642-51. So not necessarily all ‘yes men’, especially up until the latter part of the 15th century as they had a lot of the real power. Plenty of revolts too, Magna Carta probably being the most famous product of one (the First Baron’s War). Much of English history, and to an extent British later (if we go from James VI / I), is about the balance of power of monarch and nobles - and by the civil wars increasingly the people beyond the nobility too. I won’t get into the Putney Debates as this is already WAY too long, sorry 😂 Can recommend some videos if you want to do some short dives into the history behind it.
Oh and Nursie was the Queen’s nursemaid when she was growing up
The first series is set in 1485 and this series is set somewhere between 1558 and 1603 so there is roughly 100 years between them, the characters of this series are the descendants of the characters in season one. And that is how the show continues.
I tend to think of it as somewhere around the 1580s but trying to pin any series down more narrowly, except s4, is where madness lies isn’t it 😂
My pumpkiny wumpkiny😁