Episode 19: Soccer and Sock it to Me.

Major characters: Charlotte, Rene Levesque, Louis Riel, Desmond Collins, Mackenzie King, Tommy Douglas, Goggles, Angnes MacPhail, Kim Campbell, Robert Stanfield. 

Minor Characters: Announcer, The 1986 Canadian World Cup Squad, Dee Snyder, Louis Riel, Vendor, Lord Edmund Blackadder.

{Opening credits.}

{Interior: Stadium. View of the stands where Charlotte, Desmond, and Rene are asleep.}

ANNOUNCER: Let's make some noise!

CHARLOTTE: Woo. {Back to sleep. Louis Riel comes up behind them carrying a big jug of Gatorade. He then smacks them with it, not spilling a drop.}

RENE: Tabarnac! It's customary to pour the drink on people, not hit them with the container.

LOUIS: Shh! Not while I'm playing soccer. {Louis skips off screen.}

ANNOUNCER: And introducing the visitors: The team from Hell! {Show 11 gaunt, emaciated souls in tattered red uniforms staggering onto the field.}

DESMOND: They look familiar.

RENE: {Reading Program.} They should. They're the 1986 Canadian world cup team.

DESMOND: But... They're not dead.

RENE: Weren't they? {Cut to faraway top view of field.}

ANNOUNCER: Let's play football! {All players begin shaking violently and slowly moving about the field.} You can really feel the electricity! {Cut to field level. Close up on player following stage direction of the announcer.} King takes the kickoff for Gorffwysfa, and plays it smartly off the head of the opposing centre. {Muffled groan as centre falls over. King, now playing it up the field... still playing it up the field... King definitely needs to lose some of that dead weight {Cut down, Hell's Centre is clutching to his ankles.}

CENTRE: Asylum... please. {King falls to ground.}

ANNOUNCER: And the ball goes squirting out into the Midfield of the damned. It's still going... Into the goal area... And Goalie Paul Dolan is on it! He's got the ball! He's crouching with the ball. Cradling it in his arms. Dolan appears to be softly sobbing to himself now. Dolan is moving into the fetal position on the ground. Still crying... And here comes Snyder. He's kicked the ball out from Dolan's hands. Oh! And there goes Dolan with the ball. The referee is not going to like that. {Referee pointing at Dee. Draws a red card and holds it up in the air.} Ooh! Tough break for Gorffwysfa! One of the twisted sisters is gone! {Cut back to stands.}

RENE: Merde! Eh, Ref! That was delay of game! {Back to field.}

ANNOUNCER: Lenarduzzi taking the ball up for the darkest reaches from which no soul dares escape. He's moving quickly. And "Killer" Kim with a thunderous tackle moving the ball out from under Lenarduzzi! And the ground out from under Lenarduzzi too! Ball is out of bounds and it's Miller to return the ball to play. Miller to Lenarduzzi. Lenarduzzi advances the ball a long way and it's neatly handled by Dale Mitchell. Mitchel turns to face the kid and fires to the opposite end of the net. Goggles has managed a save! What an agile play from what must be one of the Afterlife League's rising stars! Really fast kid boots the ball out way past centre right into the waiting arms of Goalie Dolan. And... he's on the ground crying again. {Cut to stands.}

DESMOND: Let's get it moving, could we?

ANNOUNCER: Dolan to Lenarduzzi, to Dolan. Now to Terry Moore... Back to Lenarduzzi... Dolan! Lenarduzzi! Moore! Dolan!

DESMOND: That's more like it! {Cut back to field.}

ANNOUNCER: Now back to Moore, who sends it up to Randy Samuel. Samuel heads it forward. And bee line Tommy Douglas has trapped the ball neatly. He's dribbling it back past half. And Scoots the ball up to Killer Kim and Ooh! She's taken out by a thunderous collision with Lenarduzzi. {Cut to stands. Charlotte flies out of her seat.}

CHARLOTTE: {Shrieking.} You son of a bitch! Ref! Burn him from the cuffs up!

DESMOND: Didn't she kill you like last week? {Charlotte looks at Desmond. Punches him in the side of the head.} Down I go. {Desmond collapses. Cut to wide view of press box.}

ANNOUNCER: Oh, and this is never a good sight to see. Some fan has let the excitement of the match become overwhelming and now we've got a soccer riot involving at least half the crowd. {Cut back to stands, Rene is sitting casually while Charlotte is smacking the hell out of Desmond with one eye on the field.}

CHARLOTTE: {Yelling.} Kick his ass, Kim! Punch him in the head! {Punches Desmond in head. Pulls him up by his hair.} Kick him in the shins! {Kicks Desmond in the shins causing him to buckle to his knees.} And rip out his still beating heart just to show him how black it is before you eat it! {Charlotte grabs Desmond by his ear, pulls him up, and kicks him in the groin. Desmond buckles again.}

DESMOND: The first one sounded better. {Cut to field.}

ANNOUNCER: And the referee has decided on a penalty shot. {Cut back to stands.}

DESMOND: What?! {Desmond springs up shouting.} Ref! Do you need a Cricket bat to the skull to show you what a red card looks like. {Louis Riel walks up in batsman's uniform. Desmond grabs Cricket bat from Louis and begins to hit self on head violently. Then stops, standing uneasily.} I love any game you don't need padding to enjoy. {Desmond falls down unconscious. A gun goes off.}

ANNOUNCER: And there's the half!

RENE: A good match nest-ce pas?

CHARLOTTE: I'm too exited to be sarcastic. What is this wonderful feeling?

DESMOND: Bloodlust.

CHARLOTTE: I knew it felt familiar! {Vendor walks on.}

VENDOR: Poutine! Get your poutine here!

DESMOND: I'll have the delicious confection of pommes frites, gravy, and cheese curds please. {Vendor throws bag of fries at Desmond, throws handful of cheese curds on him. And ladles gravy into a small container. He then places a lid on the container and places the container gingerly beside Desmond.}

VENDOR: For your convenience sir. {Vendor walks off.}

DESMOND: Charlotte, Rene, did you want some?

CHARLOTTE: I think I'd just rather eat the discarded husks of sunflower seeds that other patrons have spit here if it's all the same.

RENE: I wouldn't touch that mess! {Vender walks on again.}

VENDOR: Scotch Egg! Get your Scotch Egg here!

RENE: Deux sil vous plait. {Rene hands the vendor a bill and passes one to Charlotte.} Don't you just love Scotch Egg?

CHARLOTTE: It's just so crunchy and delicious!

RENE and CHARLOTTE: {Singing to the tune of the night they invented Poutine.} The night they invented Scotch egg somebody must have drained a whole keg. Diefenbaker was mild and calm. McMannus passed the ball straight on. Trudeau did not play a libertine. The night they invented Scotch egg, no polls were done by Randy Gregg. Ralph Klein wrote original work. Jack Layton didn't play the jerk. Scott Feschuck's football column was clean. The night they invented Scotch egg. Hoo! The night they invented Scotch egg. Brent Butt's show didn't have a seg..ue! Montrealers moved to Edmonton. By Easter the Stanley Cup was done. Mulroney didn't act like a clegg. The night they invented Scotch Egg. The night they invented Scotch Egg. No one knows the precise origin, when or where this food did begin. Everybody in Scotland will tell you with a frown: Of course we didn't make that rubbish why don't you sod off? To be really authentic the Egg must be over done. The ground pork must be lean, and the yolk cannot run. With a Daily Mirror Tabloid wherever it is sold and served in a cup that is shlupped by a pup. You dump eggs with ground pork into an oil filled pot but the eggs won't cook if the fryer isn't hot. Then it sticks to your hair and the air is thick with smeg. And that's how you know that you're eating a Scotch egg. It the chips served are salty and the Scotch Egg, it is not, a damn good take away well that is what you've got. Then lodge in your insides where it does begin to rot. If your food does that then Scotch Egg is what you've got. {Singing and music stops. Awkward silence. Rene eats Scotch Egg.}

ANNONCER: And here's the second half! {Again directions follow the commentary} Randy Samuel takes the kick off for Dante's Inferno, the ball to Terry Moore. Moore moves it a long way and... where's Samuel.. Samuel materializes at the opposite end of the net to neatly play it past the Gorffwysfan Goalie! Goal. Things are getting very tense for Gorffwysfa. They'll have to pull out all the stops now. Nothing to leave in reserve... down by a goal with a mere 40 minutes remaining, not counting injury time. And coach Don Cherry has signaled for a time out. {Cut to bench. Team is huddled around Cherry.}

CHERRY: Alright then you guys. What are we doing? Look at the size of that goal! Little ball. Big net! Look the goalie's not even wearing any pads!

TOMMY: So then coach, what's the strategy?

CHERRY:... Score two goals!

TOMMY: But how-

CHERRY: Absolutely! {Cut to Edmund Blackadder in Elizabethan version of uniform.}

BLACKADDER: Good God! Bob, you've let yourself go!

GOGGLES: That-was-more-cunning-than-a-fox-that-was-professor-of-cunning-at-Cambridge-University.

BLACKADDER: I quit. {Walks off field. Cut to announcer's booth}

ANNOUNCER: And with Slackbladder gone the shattered glasses are down to 9 on their squad! Though I suppose it's not such a loss with argh! {Announcer collapses revealing Blackadder, who puts on the announcer's headset.}

BLACKADDER: Slackbladder eh? I'd like to see you maintain lilly white pantaloons with six inches of steel in your upper colon. {Bored} So, some git passes the ball to some bint and she get's a goal. Whoopty do. Doesn't matter anyway because the fans are so drunk that they may have well recieved a swift kick to the groin and a cricket bat to the cranium for all they care. Which of course will pale in comparison to the punishment that Satan will deliver upon his team considering the shattered glasses... Dear God that's an exceedingly stupid name... what idiot thought that was worth seasons tickets? {Don Cherry pops up behind Blackadder's right shoulder. Blackadder quickly brings his fist back and Cherry collapses off screen.} At any rate the gits beat the twits 3-1 and I'm off to have a go at whatever women there are in the locker room. {Blackadder walks off screen. Cut to stands. Desmond is sprawled out in his seat. Charlotte and Rene are gathering their things and preparing to leave.}

RENE: So, should we give Desmond a hand to the car?

CHARLOTTE: I think that sends the wrong message. {Rene walks off. Charlotte leans in close.} I had a fun time today Des. I'm taking your tickets for next weeks match if you don't mind.

DESMOND: Lopez is too an actor! {Produces tickets. Charlotte grabs tickets and walks off.} I could really go for a beer now.{Desmond is splattered with a brown liquid.} I said beer, not rum and coke! {Desmond is splattered with a golden liquid.} Now you're not even trying.

{End credits.}