| "Plan F: Goodbyeee" | |||
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| Episode no. | Series 4 Episode 6 |
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| Directed by | Richard Boden | ||
| Written by | Richard Curtis & Ben Elton | ||
| Original air date | 2 November 1989 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Blackadder episodes | |||
"Goodbyeee" is the final episode of the BBC One sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth and was originally the final episode of Blackadder to be produced and transmitted, until the 1999 special Blackadder: Back & Forth was appended to the series. It depicts the final hours of the main characters before a final charge on the Western Front of World War I. It has become immensely popular and well-regarded with both critical and mass audiences; in a 1999 poll held by The Observer and Channel Four to determine what the public thought were the hundred most memorable television moments of all time, the final scene of this episode came ninth. It was first broadcast on 2 November 1989, shortly before Armistice Day.
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After spending considerable time in the rain-filled trench and noting "something's in the air," which Lt George thought was Baldrick, Captain Blackadder's trench gets a phone call from General HQ; an assault has been ordered for the next day, at dawn. Realizing that this could well be the end, Blackadder plans to escape the war by feigning madness. Using a method he'd picked up during the colonial wars, he puts his underpants on his head and sticks two pencils up his nose, but his plan is thwarted when General Melchett arrives to see what's going on, remarking that he had to shoot an entire platoon that pretended to go mad in the exact fashion Blackadder is attempting. Blackadder overhears and narrowly escapes Melchett's punishment by pretending he's relating a story of how troops feign madness to Baldrick, replete with the visual aids he'd prepared earlier.
After Melchett leaves, Baldrick suggests another alternative: that Blackadder ask Field Marshal Douglas Haig to get them out; Blackadder initially finds the plan absurd, but then remembers that he saved Haig's life during the colonial wars and decides to call in the morning. George, Baldrick and Blackadder discuss the war and the friends lost, to which a frustrated Baldrick asks why both sides can't just stop fighting and go home, to which George replies: "It wouldn't work because, there, well, now, you just get on with polishing those boots, all right? [...] I think I managed to crush the mutiny there, sir."
Back at General HQ, both Melchett and Captain Darling are unable to sleep and discuss the upcoming battle. Melchett reveals that he always thought of Darling as a son (not a favourite son), and has a surprise for him: a front-line commission. Darling pleads with Melchett to reconsider, but the general misinterprets his fear as enthusiasm and simply not wanting to leave the latter's side. The following morning, Blackadder calls Field Marshal Haig and reminds him of his debt; Haig is supportive and suggests an old trick that never fails - that Blackadder should stick a couple of pencils up his nose, underpants on his head and pretend to be mad. Haig then declares the debt repaid and hangs up. At this moment Darling arrives, and both his and Blackadder's normal enmity is gone as both realize they're in the same poor position. George tries to cheer everyone up, only to realize that he's actually quite scared.
The men are called to the trench to prepare for the big push. There is a brief moment of hope when the British guns stop firing, but Blackadder remarks that the hope is misplaced, and the guns stopped because "not even our generals are mad enough to shell their own men: they think it's far more sporting to let the Germans do it." Baldrick comes up with his most cunning plan yet in order to escape, though Blackadder sadly says it will have to wait:
| “ | Baldrick: I have a plan, sir. Edmund: Really, Baldrick? A cunning and subtle one? |
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Blackadder concludes by wishing his squadmates good luck (one of very few sincere well wishes spoken by a Blackadder in the series), and they charge over the top into thunderous machine gun fire. The sequence enters slow motion as the Blackadder theme is played slowly on piano on minor key. The series ends as the mud of No man's land and the four characters fade into a tranquil field of poppies, with only birdsong disturbing the peace.
The episode's title is a reference to the popular World War I song "Good-bye-ee", composed in 1917 by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee.
There are no credits.
Tony Robinson later said that the ending was filmed on a polystyrene landscape with no rehearsal, and that as a result the cast bounced visibly as they fell down dead, ruining the poignancy of the scene. This was rectified by slowing the film down and fading into a post-battle shot of No Man's Land littered with corpses, followed by the final fade into a shot of a poppy field.[1] In the Britain's Best Sitcom documentary for Blackadder, Tim McInnerny said that he hadn't known about this change prior to the episode airing, and so he found it particularly emotional.
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