B-TV: Revenge

On a special edition of BTV, Connie Kendall broadcasts from the secret lair of Wombatman, a caped crusader who insists wombats are the most terrifying of all rodents (his own Wombatcomputer disagrees, ruling that wombats are, in fact, cute). Today's topic is revenge: what it is, why people seek it, and why it never works out the way they hope.

The show unfolds as a string of comic sketches. In a law office, a mediator tries to untangle a quarrel between Whiskers the cat and Baxter the dog that began over a sunny spot on the couch, escalated through a drooled-on ball of yarn, and ended with a tank, an airstrike, and a flattened neighborhood. In a hospital sketch, a doctor takes "an eye for an eye" literally, yanking out teeth and popping out eyes so that everyone is equally hurt, until his patients protest that now two people are in pain instead of one. The scene closes with the words of Jesus, who taught his followers not to repay evil but to turn the other cheek.

Between sketches, host Rob Sirloin leads viewers into the What If Zone, where familiar Bible stories of forgiveness are replayed with revenge instead. What if Joseph had thrown his groveling brothers into the dungeon? What if Esau had made Jacob crawl around in a moth-ridden goatskin? What if the prodigal son's father had turned him away? Each rewritten ending spirals into absurd catastrophe - cube-shaped pyramids, a goat rebellion, an ocean of tears - until, every time, "the whole world exploded." Rob concludes that revenge repays evil with more evil and interferes with God's plan.

The centerpiece is a serialized spoof of The Count of the Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantes, a happy sandwich maker engaged to his beloved Mercedes, is chosen as the king's royal sandwich maker. The jealous falafel-seller Ferdinand frames him for treason by leaking the kingdom's cherished tuna-on-toast recipe under Edmond's name, and Edmond is banished to an island prison built on an active volcano. When the volcano erupts, he floats to safety on his breakfast French toast and discovers the missing ingredient to his masterpiece: ham and cheese on French toast, the Monte Cristo sandwich. Disguised as the Count, he grows rich, strips Ferdinand of everything, and lures him to a ruined castle for a duel. Just as Edmond raises his sword, Mercedes arrives and begs him to stop, urging him to "forgo vengeance and forgive." Seeing how twisted revenge has made him, Edmond forgives Ferdinand, who forgives him in turn, and Edmond realizes that "it was not until I forgave that I was finally set free."

Meanwhile, the lair itself is invaded by Wombatman's nemesis, the Puzzler, a former newspaper word-search writer seeking revenge because Wombatman kept sneaking in to shut off his alarm clock (the word searches were too hard, Wombatman explains). The Puzzler traps the hero inside a word problem about Cindy's fifty oranges, and Connie calmly frees him by doing the math. Wrapping up, Connie and Wombatman agree that revenge is really anger pretending to be justice, and the Wombatcomputer reads Romans 12:19: "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord." Since only God is perfectly just, vengeance belongs to him. The Puzzler offers one last riddle - a seven-letter word for letting go of past wrongs so we can be friends again - and Wombatman gets it right: forgive.