Season 6 Episode 26: England Show (3)

May 17, 1992

Published 05/17/92

The conclusion of the England trilogy and the end of season 6. Al and Bud are brought onto a stage in Lower Uncton to be honored, and it takes both of them an uncomfortably long time to notice the two nooses hanging behind them. Al, assuming this is a civic tribute, delivers an address to the assembled villagers in the register of a man accepting a lifetime achievement award, opening with the line Lou Gehrig used and closing with a warning to the children of England about the one great danger facing them, which is marriage. Kelly arrives in the crowd, having knocked out a local woman and taken her shawl, and gets her family off the gallows. What follows is a chase to the boundary between the two villages, where the Bundys end up surrounded by two mobs with opposite objectives, each trying to persuade Al and Bud to die on their particular side of the line. Peg and Kelly, informed that the women are free to leave, leave. The standoff is finally resolved commercially: the two Unctons work out that there is more money in a shared attraction than in a dead shoe salesman, and the dispute is settled by a joust. Al puts on his Polk High uniform, which he has somehow brought to England, and the show cues up “Bad to the Bone” before he announces that it is time to joust. Meanwhile Marcy and Jefferson are finally enjoying their holiday, in a bondage club. For a show that spent six years trapped in one living room, ending a season with a medieval joust in an English field was a genuine swing, and it lands.

Episode Facts

Original air date: May 17, 1992
Season and episode: Season 6, Episode 26
Overall episode number: 131
Written by: Kevin Curran
Directed by: Gerry Cohen
Taped: March 30 to April 17, 1992
Production note: The season 6 finale and the conclusion of the three part England arc.
Production note: The working title was “England Show III: We’re Spending as Fast as We Can.”