The ending of Blackadder was the saddest show ending I’ve ever seen. The show is hysterically funny for four seasons. It’s just, laugh, after laugh, after laugh. Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, all in their prime. It’s magnificent. Then the final episode comes. And humor just… leaves the scene.
Suddenly, it’s dark. And heart-wrenching. There’s still some jokes, but they’re no longer jokes aimed at the public — the men are now just trying to cheer one another up. But it isn’t cheery, it isn’t happy, it’s just, sad. All these episodes, Atkinson’s Captain Blackadder has been trying to avoid “going over”. Baldrick, his dim-witted by overly enthusiastic comrade-in-arms, has come up with what he describes as “a cunning plan” in every episode so far. It never is cunning, of course. And it never works.
This time, Baldrick doesn’t have a cunning plan. He calls it, for the first time, just “a plan”. The men are resigned to their fate. Even the running jokes fall flat, and they no longer take heart from them. Hugh Laurie’s George says “so we are, in fact, going over. This is, as they say… it.” Captain Blackadder wishes his men good luck. Blows his whistle. And over, they go. And as they run over, in slowmotion, a nostalgic tune starts playing. The scene fades. The trenches disappear. And a field of poppies appears.
It’s apparant that they all died in the charge. The final episode of Blackadder was aired around Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom. It was unexpectedly emotional, and the ending was even played as part of a serious commemoration of Armistice Day on it’s 80th anniversary in 1998 — highly unusual for a comedy show. Because in the final three minutes… Blackadder wasn’t comedy anymore; it was more. It was a beautiful, tragic tribute to the futility of war.