1.7 "Baa baa black sheep"
B'Stards's worst fear has come to pass: he has been deselected as the Member of Parliament for Haltemprice. His refusal to engage with his constituents, ask questions in the House or basically do any of the work expected by an MP has led to Roland, Sarah's father and head of the local Conservative party, finally deciding he's had enough, and B'Stard will be out on his ear as soon as he can arrange it. There is however a one-month window before the next meeting of the Party, and Roland can't officially do anything before making the motion --- which will be carried, as he wields power with an iron fist --- leaving Alan time to try to do something to enhance his reputation and curry favour with the party. It doesn't prove that easy though, and he's running out of options when Norman, his transformation to female almost complete now, comes up with the winning idea.
A chain of fast food diners in the USA, Lamb Burger Guzzler, wants to open two hundred outlets in the UK. If Alan can get them to situtate their factory in Haltemprice, he'll be so popular that Roland won't dare deselect him. Only one problem: why would they choose his constituency over the many other sheep-rearing districts in Yorkshire, never mind the rest of the country? Well, Norman (Norma?) tells him, the owner of the chain, Willoughby Guzzler, is a strict Christian fundamentalist. As the only other place suitable from an economic point of view is Wales, B'Stard must convince Guzzler that due to his hedonistic lifestyle, Welsh Secretary of State Garonwe Hopkins would be an unwise choice for business partner.
He begins to compile dirt on the man, getting the lowdown from Sir Stephen about a scandal Hopkins was involved in with an exotic dancer, for which he ended up taking the blame himself. The old politician therefore has something of an axe to grind with Hopkins, which helps Alan. He invites Hopkins to his club, where he introduces him to Norma(n), who has to play the part of a vamp if he wants the ten grand he needs to complete his sex change operation. One thing leads to another, but when he discovers literally what is up Norma's skirt, Hopkins' heart gives out and he dies just as Alan bursts in with his camera, all ready to blackmail. Well, at least his rival has been removed, just more permanently than he had intended.
And so he sets up a meeting with Guzzler, but even with the competition out of the way it's still going to be a slog. Guzzler invites him to dinner tomorrow to discuss it --- him and his wife. When it looks like he's not married, Guzzler intimates this could blow the deal, and Alan, unable to trust Sarah, drafts Norma(n) in as his wife! Later he talks to Roland, who is looking very much forward to deselecting him, and B'Stard asks him about the possibility of selling him his sheep farming business, as he will need an alternative source of income once he is booted out of the Tory camp. Roland is incredulous, but remarks that he's finding it hard to make a living from farming sheep these days, and as B'Stard is happy to pay over the odds, Roland's greed wins out. At the dinner, Guzzler and his wife make improper suggestions to Alan and Norma, but they resist and it turns out that the American was testing them, to see were they righteous. Having heard a lot of bad press about Alan, Guzzler wanted to know if he really was a God-fearing man, and Alan has proven he is.
So Guzzler will build his factories in Haltemprice, B'Stard will be a hero and Roland will be unable to deselect him. Better yet, as he has managed to convince the old man to sell up his sheep farming business to him, Roland is going to be fuming at missing out on the Lamb Burger deal, from which he would have made a fortune, which will now be going into the pockets of his hated son-in-law!
QUOTES
Sarah: "Daddy! Lovely to see you! Staying for lunch?"
Roland: "No thank you, not hungry. Just chewed up and spat out your husband. I'm going now but it's him who's on the way out!"
B'Stard: "This is politics, not real life!"
Sarah: "But you're forgetting something, darling. I loathe and despise you: why would I help you?"
Alan: "Well, because I pay for all this sexy lingerie."
Sarah: "It is sexy, isn't it? Turning you on?"
Alan: "Well, as Kipling probably said, down in the jungle, something stirred."
Sarah: "Oh darling, I'm sorry if I'm giving you a Rudyard-on! But let's not spoil a perfectly stable marriage by trying to reintroduce sex into it!"
Cop: "Sorry Sir but there's a lady outside, says she's got an appointment."
B'Stard: "What's she look like?"
Cop: "Well, I suppose you could say she looks like something out of "Dallas"."
B'Stard: "Ooh! You mean Sue Ellen?"
Cop: "No Sir, I was thinking more of JR!"
(Nobody under 20 years old will get that reference...)
B'Stard: "Wait a minute! There must be dozens of places where they breed sheep --- not including the Cabinet!"
Sir Stephen: "Garonwe developed a nasty cold, so his doctor ordered him to go to bed and suck a
Fisherman's Friend." Cue disbelieving looks from B'Stard...
Alan (reading the Bible):
Thou shalt not what?" Laughs evilly.
Alan: "The Welsh are essentially a pagan race, only drawn to Christianity by the prospect of a good sing-song!"
Guzler: "My little Edie says
The family that stays together, stays together! We make lousy mottos, but great burgers!"
Alan: "Norma is a one-man woman."
Norma: "In every possible way!"
Alan: "Lamb of God?"
Norma: "He means Jesus."
Alan: "Who?"
Norma: "Jesus."
(Alan looks blank)
MACHINATIONS
This time the two things mesh perfectly: Alan's sense of self-preservation with his ever-present greed and desire to make even more money. Not only that, there's an extra up side for him, when he cheats his nasty father-in-law out of a big cash windfall by convincing him to sell him his sheep farming business, just as Lamb Burger Guzzler set up in Haltemprice, a virtual goldmine that B'Stard now owns. In an attempt to save himself he manages to destroy his only rival, makes himself a hero in the constituency, bringing investment and employment to the area, thereby becoming indispensable to the party and thwarting Roland's plans to deselect him. He also manages to hurt Sarah by ripping off her father. The best of all worlds.
THE USER AND THE USED
NORMAN/NORMA
The last time we will see him/her, I suppose you could say in a way Norma(n) has not been totally used. For one thing, as Alan's accountant he's been responsible for, as he says himself in an earlier episode, thirty or forty accounting errors, so he's no angel. Plus B'Stard is paying him for his sex change operation in return for playing the role he does. Nevertheless, he involves him in a plot with leads, inadvertently, to the death of the Welsh MP and then later bullies him into pretending to be his wife. Alan knows there is no way Willoughby Guzzler will site his factories here if it turns out the Haltemprice MP is single, and he also knows that Sarah would delight in putting him down and spoiling the deal --- she knows too much about him and is all too willing to share ---- so he considers the transforming Norman the best bet, even if it must make him sick to his stomach, Alan B'Stard being a real dyed-in-the-wool bigot. As he says in a later episode, "I hate queers almost as much as I hate poor people!"
WHAT IS LOVE?
SARAH
Of course we've seen by now that Alan and Sarah's marriage is one of complete convenience, and stands only on the twin pillars of Alan's need to retain his seat in the House of Commons and Sarah's equally vital need to shop. They seem to have reached some sort of a compromise, but according to Sarah do not have sex any more. Well, not with each other. This arrangement will get harder to maintain as the seasons go on, and love, if it has not already, will certainly turn to hate, at times psychopathic.
It could even be Sarah's idea --- though I doubt it --- to have Alan deselected. Thinking about it, very unlikely. Without his seat, though Alan must by now have squirelled away millions, he would have no reason to keep Sarah around and would divorce her like a shot, and without the money she needs to, as he later says, "assault Harrods", she would wither and die. Still, she doesn't seem particularly worried when he tells her of her father's plans. Perhaps she realises that her cunning husband is a match for even the Chairman of the local branch of the Conservative Party.
SIDEKICK
No, no role whatsoever for Piers in this episode! He doesn't appear in it even once. But never fear: you'll see plenty of him in season two!
THE B'STARD BODYCOUNT
Add another to Alan's list, which will only grow with time. This time it's literal, as he causes, however unintentionally, the death of Garonwe Hopkins from a heart attack. Though he didn't mean it, and had only meant to blackmail the man, force him to retract his bid for the factories, he doesn't seem in the least bothered by what has happened. Just another body on the trail to power.
Non-Lethal
Unnamed cabby:I didn't include it in the last episode because I was debating ... okay. I forgot about it. But now that I have remembered I've been debating as to whether or not to include the cabby in that episode. At first it seemed like B'Stard had killed him --- accidentally, which is surprising enough for the Tory: when he wants someone dead it's usually intentional --- but then it turns out he's not dead. However, at the end of the episode B'Stard does manage to convince the police that the driver had taken him prisoner, kidnapped him and driven him off, and the innocent cabby is arrested. One would assume he will be charged, and likely lose his job as a taxi driver, and probably be banned from driving if he is not imprisoned. So that's a life basically ruined, so let's include him.
Roland Gidley-Parke, Local Chairman of Conservative Party and Sarah's father: I'd also include Roland, whose life he has somewhat turned upside down. He's made himself the blue-eyed boy (literally) of the Tory Party and ensured Sarah's father can do nothing to remove him, and in addition he's dealt a crushing financial blow to him by purchasing his sheep farming business at just the right time. Indeed, we will see Roland no more, so it may be that he withdrew from politics rather than have to face B'Stard's smug grin of victory.
Lethal
Garonwe Hopkins, Welsh Secretary of State. Dies of a heart attack brought on by the realisation that the one-night-stand B'Stard has arranged for him is in fact a man, Norman, his accountant who is going through a sex-change.
Non-Lethal Bodycount: 5
Lethal Bodycount: 1
Total Bodycount: 6
(I must admit, I'm a little surprised to find the Bodycount so low at the end of the first season. Still, I know the kind of guy B'Stard is and that figure will quickly mount up once season two gets going.)
Notes on the first season
We've seen from the beginning, the very first scene in fact, that Alan Beresford B'Stard is a man who lets nothing stand in the way of his ambition, his greed and his sexual appetites. He has divorced his wife in all but name, but uses her when it suits him. In fact, he uses and manipulates everyone around him, not least his so-called best friend Piers, who is so under Alan's charismatic spell that he finds it hard not to obey him. He is not by any means a brilliant politician, often stealing other people's ideas, as when he ripped off Sir Stephen's speech to get his gun law through, or used his name to get Lady Bottomley to allow him publish her pamphlet. When things go wrong he has a knack of turning the blame on anyone he can, usually Piers. When the investment opportunity in St. Martin's goes belly-up he promotes Piers to treasurer so that his friend can carry the can, and when he's trying to dispose of the body of the cabbie and Piers refuses to help he makes out that it's all Piers' fault.
But things generally do seem to go his way and his machinations, schemes and plans usually seem to turn out how he expected. Perhaps the devil looks after his own. Often they don't of course, as in the example above about the bank, but in the end it would appear that B'Stard could fall into a vat of
shit and come up smelling of roses. What we've seen of him here has been mild, and the bodycount will begin to rise steeply as we get to know him better. His schemes will become more and more daring and machiavellan, culminating in ... but no. Why spoil the surprise?
Just don't trust those baby blue eyes for one moment, and never ever turn your back on B'Stard, unless you want to feel a sharp pain between your shoulder blades!