There is quite an alarming tonal shift during this episode of The Avengers. It starts off almost like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with an exploding cigar leaving a man with a blackened face. The story then initially centres around a group of men who are embarrassing dignitaries and politicians with practical jokes, the sorts of things children might like to do: sneezing powder, plastic spiders, whoopee cushions; all things that were available to buy in toy shops when I was a child.

“It’s all very childish, but very damaging.”

The moment things change is when somebody dies, in a joke involving electrified tape and rubber scissors. The scissors are swapped for metal ones, and the man cutting the tape is electrocuted and is killed. A member of the modern day Hellfire Club is responsible, but he never realised his actions were going to cause the death of the intended target. He was betrayed, and when he complains about that he becomes another victim, falling through a trap door to his death.

Writer Brian Clemens is clearly not troubling himself with the details at this point. If the original intention of the joke was for the victim to cut electric wire with rubber scissors, then where’s the joke? The scissors wouldn’t have worked, but then why electify the wire? The two things cancel each other out, so you have a joke that either (a) succeeds and then nothing happens, or (b) fails and somebody dies. It’s hard to see how Lord Darcy could have thought he was doing anything other than murdering a man, and being set-up while he was doing so. What could his thought-process have possibly been?

Once it’s established what’s going on, there isn’t really a story here as such for the vast majority of the episode. Steed and Emma both get involved in the club, and that’s about it until the fights at the end. The episode therefore revels in the scenes of debauchery and macho posturing involving our two heroes. The only time that works well is Steed’s initiation into the club, with the nerve-shredding pea and axe test. I almost guessed what he was going to do, thinking he would probably jog the table, but his solution to the problem was even simpler and very typical lateral thinking from the brilliant Steed.

The rest of it is pretty nasty stuff. This episode was never shown in the US and was only broadcast here with cuts to the scene where Cartney is attacking Emma with a whip, but what they did get away with showing is actually quite remarkable for 1966. It’s not so much what is shown, but what is implied. The members of the club celebrate “evil” and “sin”, and when they are saying things like “let the wenching begin”, or Cartney is offering Emma to the group and telling them to do what they want with her it’s pretty obvious what is intended. There is a moment where Emma is being carried around by the men, and in reality Diana Rigg was concentrating on the real snake she had wrapped around her arm while that chaos was going on, but it comes across on screen as a young woman who has switched herself off emotionally. Her expression is blank in that moment.

This episode seems to be positively celebrated by fans, and it certainly has its moments, but all in all I think it’s a pretty sick hour of television. If you enjoy the scenes of Emma in her bondage gear, which loads of fans express their approval of, then frankly you should be ashamed of yourself, because you are expressing your solidarity with the views of the revolting apologies for humanity that populate the club portrayed in the episode. They consider women to be “mere vessels of pleasure”, and the big problem with the writing is that there is not sufficient condemnation of their views. Yes, they are the bad guys, but Emma just shrugs off her horrendous treatment at the hands of these men who think they have a “divine right of birth”. It’s an indication of how low this series has sunk in the pursuit of entertainment since Cathy left. There is simply no way she could have fitted into this episode in the same way that Emma does. She was Steed’s equal, and was often superior to him, intellectually and physically. Emma, in contrast, is objectified, and the writing doesn’t even get close to the condemnation and utter disgust that her treatment here should have inspired.

This is an episode that shows what happens when a prank gets serious, and “it’s no joke any more”. The same line could be applied equally to the gradual and insidious sexualisation of the female lead in this show. The fourth season has been hugely entertaining, but this is the point where it stopped being fun any more, unless you want to be like those misogynistic men in the Hellfire Club. In a way, the writer unintentionally held up a mirror to the viewers who were drooling over Emma. They really shouldn’t have liked what they saw in the reflection. Troublingly, the popularity of this episode suggests otherwise.   RP

The view from across the pond:

As you may have picked up over the last million episodes of The Avengers, I’m not entirely a fan of John Steed.  I’ve found him far more womanizing the Jim Kirk ever was, and he’s an absolute alcoholic to boot.  However, with last week’s chocolate box fiasco, I suddenly had an epiphany.  I’m embarrassed that it took so long to make the connection but Steed is exactly what he needs to be and it pays off with A Touch of Brimstone.

Peter Wyngarde is back for another episode of The Avengers and the man definitely has a charm to him.  He plays John Cleverly Cartney who starts off as little more than a prankster, but rapidly becomes a veritable Lucifer, causing mayhem and havoc just for the fun of it.  He’s recreated the Hellfire Club, a real club from the 18^th Century devoted to allowing people to partake in what  would be considered socially immoral behavior.  His behavior is disrupting the government, which is where Steed and Peel come in.

The thing with this show is that it teeters far too heavily between action and comedy.  When this episode started, my laughter was so deep that I couldn’t believe this was the same show I’d been watching for what often feels like eternity.  Between the exploding cigar and the collapsing chair, I was deep belly laughing and excited to see an episode about an oddball prankster.  Even the rubber scissors, foolish though it would be as there’s no way someone wouldn’t know from the feel of them, made me laugh.  But then the first man dies as a result of Cartney’s work and we realize that this is another of those off-the-wall capers by some madman.  I think the episode took a turn then, but thanks to the writing of Brian Clemens, it retained the edge it needed to still be an enjoyable hour of television.

Where Clemens may have failed in the storytelling is that the suspense of who is behind these acts only lasts for a few moments.  I suspected Wyngarde not only because he was the top billed extra, but because his middle name is “Cleverly” and he writes with a feather pen.  Come on!  How much more obvious that this is the baddie?  He is enamored of Peel (unsurprising, really) and he invites Steed to join the Hellfire Club, but his test could cost Steed at least a finger or two.  And that’s where Steed really shows his abilities…

John Steed’s initiation starts with him having to drink a massive amount of alcohol, which the lush does with no problem.  He even asks for a refill.  Color me impressed, the act is one of both cunning and skill.  He then sits down to a game of “remove the pea before the axe cuts your fingers off”.  (What, you don’t have that game where you live?)  At the word “go”, Steed doesn’t move his hands an inch but blows the pea out of the way.  Mr. Cleverly has to acknowledge that he’s no longer the most clever man in the room but the rest of the crowd welcomes Steed with open arms.  Steed even manages to be overheard while eavesdropping and still turn that into a win for himself.  But his absolute best moment, possibly of the entire series, comes from the man who catches Steed after he witnessed Steed stealing from them.  He calls out “that’s the man”, and Steed winningly and unflinchingly says “He’s right, you know!”  This ends up leading to the end of episode fight – the standard affair with the series… in a very nonstandard way.  I was actually stunned when the episode ended because it was so enjoyable.  The battle between Steed and his assailant is a good old fashioned sword fight, but it’s Peel’s battle against the ballet-karate villain that was utterly sublime.  Her repeated moves to beat him are a class act unto themselves.  Then Cartney shows up and his demise is telegraphed from miles away when his whip catches the latch that causes him to plummet into the very pit he used earlier to dispatch a former colleague.

This was an hour of sinful delight that went by in a flash.  I chose that word with care, too, because Emma Peel is put in some extremely sexy attire (that Diana Rigg apparently designed herself) and is called the Queen of Sin.  This episode was apparently banned in the US in 1966 as a result.  I find it fascinating to think that by today’s standards, it seems more likely to be remade on this side of the pond for a whole different network.  Ah, irony!

I still think there are better episodes, but this was one of the most fun episodes of the series.  I truly hope my viewing experience continues to improve.   ML

Read next in the Junkyard… The Avengers: What the Butler Saw