"Now do you see, you mutineering doddlehead?"
Well then. A lot can happen in half an hour.
We begin with a reprise of the big cliffhanger reveal about Arnold of Todi and Ramon Lully, aka Cole Hawlings, and then we, along with a miniature Kay, get to see the splendidly moustache-twirling Abner providing more and more exposition, ostensibly to the mutinous but dim Joe. The clergymen have been taken as hostages for the Box's return, and silly Abner doesn't suspect Kay simply because Sylvia Daisy Pouncer has declared him an "idle muff". Heh. This may be the most lampshaded piece of dramatic irony ever.
But Kay has failed to rescue Cole, Peter or Caroline Louisa, so in desperation he turns to the Box, and Herne the Hunter. If Kay can go to the past, and persuade old Arnie to take back the Box, it wont be around to cause all this trouble, right? So we get a trippy and cartoony interlude as Kay travels to a surreal-looking Trojan War past which makes no attelpt at realism and, above all, probably didn't cost that much. Here he finds a delightfully eccentric Arnie, played by Philip Locke, who went forever to the past because "my own time was dull"; believes Englishmen has tails; has no wish to leave the tiny island in 1200ish BC on which he happens to be marooned, alone; and is quite, quit mad, This is silly, pointless, and really rather brilliant.
Back in the present, the Bishop and a load of choirboys are in dungeon cells and Abner plans to double cross hi underlings to escape on his own with the fortune from the various robberies the gang has committed. But they plan to double cross him too. Neither of whch is Kay;s concern at present as he's small, has lost the box, and is trapped.
This is, by now, completely and utterly bonkers. I love it.
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