Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading


"Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading" is the eighth episode of the second series of Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted and the fourteenth episode overall.

Synopsis

With Lent approaching, Ted receives a phone call from his rival, Father Dick Byrne, who says that he and his fellow priests on Rugged Island will be giving up their vices. Ted insists to his fellow Craggy Island priests that they must do the same: Ted will give up smoking cigarettes, Jack drinking alcohol, and Dougal his rollerblading. After they all find themselves sneaking out on the first night of Lent to partake in their vices, Ted decides they need help. With Mrs Doyle away on her Lenten pilgrimage, he calls up the Church-run addiction service, who says they will send someone to the island the next day. Jack becomes sober for the first time in 12 years, and is horrified to learn he is "still on that feckin' island".
Sister Assumpta, a nun Ted and Dougal have met before, arrives the next day. She learns what their situation is and promises to help. Jack, upon seeing the nun, hurls himself through the window and flees into the countryside. The next day, Sister Assumpta wakes the priests at 5 a.m. and puts them through a grueling ordeal, which include being dragged behind a tractor, having objects thrown at them, and being nearly fired at by her. By the time they go to bed, they discover Assumpta has even replaced their mattresses with bricks. To escape from Assumpta, Ted and Dougal go to Rugged Island that night, to see about staying with Dick Byrne. However, outside the Rugged Island parochial house, they see Dick and his fellow priests readily engaging in the activities Dick said they were giving up for Lent, having lied to Ted about it.
The priests return to Craggy Island to find that Assumpta had discovered a basket of chocolate eggs and ate most of them overnight. Knowing that she should not have done so as part of her Lent observance, Ted agrees to forget about her indulgence on the condition that she go to Rugged Island to oversee the priests' Lent activities there. She is later shown giving Dick and his fellow priests even more grueling punishments.
Mrs Doyle subsequently returns from her Lenten pilgrimage, and upon entering the living room, she finds Ted, Dougal, and Jack overindulging in their vices more than ever.

Production

Graham Linehan plays the man who walks past the parochial house saying, "Some mad-man's put up a cross..."