Episode 298h. Bubble Guppies: Les Miserables (part 8)

Plot
Jean Valjean (Mr. Grouper), known as Prisoner 24601, runs from the ruthless Inspector Javert (Mr. Grumpfish) on a journey beyond the barricades, at the center of the June Rebellion. Meanwhile, the life of a working class girl, Fantine (Molly), with a child is at turning point as she turns to prostitution to pay money to the evil innkeeper and his wife who look after her child, Cosette (Oona). Valjean promises to take care of the child, eventually leads to a love triangle between Cosette, Marius (Gil) who is a student of the rebellion, and Eponine (Deema), a girl of the streets. The people sing of their anger and Enjolras (Goby) leads the students to fight upon the barricades.

Characters

 * Mr. Grouper as Jean Valjean
 * Mr. Grumpfish as Javert
 * Molly as Fantine
 * Oona as Cosette
 * Monsier Yellow as Thenardier
 * Hypletta as Madame Thenardier
 * Gil as Marius
 * Goby as Enjolras
 * Deema as Eponine
 * Nonny as Gavroche
 * Crabs, Lobsters, and Snails as Convicts, and People

Trivia

 * This might be similiar to the 2012 "Les Miserables."
 * This is the first time to have some characters die.

Story
Barricade -

Look-outs keep watch at either end of the barricaded street. Many of the rest of the rebels are sleeping. Valjean paces, unable to sleep, inside the cafe. Dead bodies are lined up on the ground floor. He comes to a stop, and gazes on Marius as he sleeps through the window.

Mr. Grouper: God on high. Hear my prayer. In my need. You have always been there. He is young. He’s afraid. Let him rest. Heaven blessed. Bring him home! Bring him home! Bring him home! He’s like the son I might have known. If God had granted me a son. The summers die. One by one. How soon they fly. On and on. And I am old. And will be gone. Bring him peace. Bring him joy. He is young. He is only a boy. You can take! You can give! Let him be! Let him live! If I die, let me die! Let him live! Bring him home! Bring him home! Bring him home!

Valjean is now kneeling next to the sleeping Marius. Seeing the little world of the barricaded street now surrounded by waiting soldiers - and the streets round them packed with soldiers in their thousands, as everyone knows the little band can never win. The barricade and the army that entraps it has become a small pool of darkness in the centre of the bright lights of Paris.

Paris -

The sun still below the rooftops. Every house is tightly shuttered.

Cafe Musain -

Grantaire is fast asleep in the upstairs room, dead drunk.

Barricade -

Enjolras re-enters the barricade through the secret gate. He has been on a reconnaissance. He looks at the street. No one is stirring, but for a single shutter which opens a crack - a face peeps - and it closes again. Below him the students are up and getting ready.

Goby: The people have not stirred.

Tobias: Yet we will not abandon those. Who still live in fear.

Goby: The people have not heard. Yet we will not abandon those who cannot hear. Let us not waste lives! Let all who wish to! Go from here!

There is silence. Uncertainty. Yet no one moves to go.

Nonny: (from top of barricade) Do you hear the people sing?

Nonny and Tobias: Singing the song of angry men!

Boys and Citizens: (joining) It is the music of the people! Who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart! Echoes the beating of the drums! There is a life about to start! When tommorow comes!

Under this:

Trevor: Enjolras! Ammunition’s short.

Gil: I will go into the streets. There are bodies all around. Ammunition to be had. Lots of bullets to be found.

Goby: I can’t let you go.

Mr. Grouper: Let me go! He’s no more than a boy. I am old. I have nothing to fear.

Gavroche is already climbing the barricade under cover of the smoke.

Nonny: I volunteer!

Tobias: Come back, Gavroche! Don’t you dare!

Joshua: Someone pull him down right now!

Nonny: Look at me, I’m almost there! Little people know! When little people fight! We may look easy pickings! But we’ve got some bite! So never kick a dog! When he’s just a pup - We’ll fight like twenty armies! And we won’t give up!

The rays of the rising sun break through, lighting up Gavroche.

Nonny: So you’d better run for cover! When the pup grows -

Crack! A musket shot. Gavroche falls face down onto the barricade.

Nonny: (is dead) ...

Tobias: No-o!

He runs up the barricade, seizes Gavroche’s body in his arms, convulsed with grief, and brings it back through the gate in the barricade. At the other end of the street Javert has appeared. He sees this gate. And talks to the Army Officer. As the smoke from the muskets clears horses are revealed drawing field artillery into position. The Army Officer is lining up the big guns carefully.

Army Officer Lobster: You at the barricades listen to this! The people of Paris sleep in their beds! You have no chance! No chance at all! Why throw your lives away?

Enjolras gazes on his pitifully small group.

Goby: Let us die facing our foes! Make them bleed while we can!

Pablo: Make’em pay through the nose!

Tobias: Make’em pay for every man!

Goby: Let others rise to take our place! Until the earth is free!

The sun now appears above the rooftops of the city. And the big guns fire - Boom! Boom! Boom! The bombardment hits the barricade, rocking it. In its wake a massive barrage of musket fire. The big gun has been lined up with the gate and has burst right through in the first hit. Bullets fly, and every few moments another cannon ball smashes into the piled debris. Javert is glimpsed among the attackers. Enjolras and the students throw themselves onto the barricades, firing at the attackers, handing their rifles down to others to be re-loaded, firing again. Valjean moves among them, tending to the wounded, lifting down the dead, regardless of his own safety. Marius takes a bullet, and crumples and falls. Valjean runs towards him - Crash! The latest cannonade bursts a hole in the barricade and now the soldiers are storming through. The hard core of student fighters retreat, firing as they go, into the Cafe Musain.

Cafe Musain -

Students and soldiers fight in the café, on the stairs, up the stairs to the upper room. Students driving back the pursuing soldiers hack away at the staircase, smashing it to fragments - the soldiers below fire up at them - students fall, their bodies caught on the jagged remnants of the stairs. Grantaire is still unconscious from drink.

Barricade -

Valjean has Marius in his arms and is hiding him from the onrush of the soldiers -

Cafe Musain -

The students’ ammunition has run out, they’re hurling sticks and bottles - but the soldiers have found a way to clamber up, shooting as they come, and one by one the students are falling.

Street Outside Cafe Musain -

Valjean carries Marius away from the carnage. A soldier challenges him. One violent blow from Valjean sends the soldier flying -

Cafe Musain -

The soldiers break through at last to the upper room, to find there’s only Enjolras still alive. He stands by the window, knowing he will die now, proud and unafraid. Seeing him the soldiers hesitate. The sudden silence wakes Grantaire from his drunken slumber.

Corpitch: Long live the republic!

He sees Enjolras with the muskets raised against him. Grantaire goes and joins him. Enjolras smiles, and raises his now-ragged red flag. The rifles blaze. Grantaire drops back to the ground. Enjolras falls back -

Barricade -

Enjolras falls backwards out of the window, until he hangs upside down, the red flag still in his hands, streaming like blood down the wall.

Goby: (is dead) ...

The street is littered with corpses, and the remains of the barricade, and soldiers are scouring the rubble for any last pockets of resistance. It come to a stop looking at the wide scene. Javert walks, grimly surveying the victory of law over rebellion.

Back Alley -

Valjean carries Marius down a long narrow alley that runs between the backs of tall houses. The alley turns a corner - and there ahead is a dead end. Behind him, the stamp of soldiers’ boots. Ahead, no way out. Then his searching gaze falls on an iron grating in the ground. A storm drain.

As the soldiers come round the corner into the end of the alley. They look round. It’s empty.

Soldier Snail: Nothing here!

The soldiers depart. A moment of silence.

Then into the alley’s end steps Javert. Not so easily fooled. He walks all the way to the end, and looks round. He sees the drain at his feet. He sees the signs that the grating has been lifted. He stoops, and tries to lift it. It’s far too heavy for him. He straightens up and looks round, calculating. Where does the drain lead?

Paris Sewers -

Valjean is pulling Marius after him down a tight sloping pipe, where dark water races. Suddenly they start to slide, then drop through a vent into a wide sewage tunnel. Faint light reflecting off the slime of curving tunnel walls. The skitter of rats. Sodden forms floating by: dead bodies. Valjean carries Marius down the tunnel, moving as fast as he can, losing strength all the time. He reaches an intersection where four sewers meet. Light falls through distant gratings. One of the four sewers is dry. Here he lets his burden down, and himself sinks to the slimy ground to rest. He lets his eyes close. A voice echoes in the shadows.

Monsier Yellow: Here’s a hint of gold. Stuck into a tooth - Pardon me, m’sieur. You won’t be needing it no more. Shouldn’t be too hard to sell.

A figure coming closer. A sewer thief, robbing corpses. No sign of life in either Valjean or Marius.

Monsier Yellow: Well, someone’s got to clean’em up, my friends. Before the little harvest. Disappears into the mud. Someone’s got to collect their odds and ends. When the gutters run with blood.

The thief is Thenardier. He finds a ring on Marius’s finger and pulls it off.

Monsier Yellow: Here’s a tasty ring. Pretty little thing. Heart’s no longer going. And he’s lived his little time. But his watch is ticking yet. It’s a world where the dog eats the dog. Where they kill for the bones in the street! And God in his heaven! He don’t interfere! Cos he’s dead as the stiff at my feet! I raise my eyes to see the heavens. And only the moon looks down. The harvest moon shines down.

Valjean wakes, rears up, seizes Thenardier by the arm, slams him against the sewer wall.

Mr. Grouper: How do I get out of here?

Monsier Yellow: There! That way!

Valjean drops him, picks Marius up once more, and sets off. Thenardier stares after them, grinning. He’s sent then the wrong way. Later, Valjean is still in the sewers, Marius is still on his back, and they’re sinking ever deeper into the slimy water. As he feels himself sink, Valjean holds Marius up in his arms and forges on, chest deep, lifting the younger man above his head. Still he sinks, until his face is halfsubmerged and he’s gagging in the filth. He stumbles, and suddenly he’s sunk beneath the surface, and Marius is dropping - Then up he bursts again, face black with slime, eyes burning with his refusal to be beaten. Later, Valjean staggers down the endless sewers, Marius is still on his back. But all the time he can hear, closer now, the rushing sound of the river. Round a bend and at last - moonlight ahead. He drags himself on through the shallow running water towards the moonlight. He reaches the exit at last. Before him the river.

River Embankment -

Valjean, crusted with slime, heaves Marius out of the sewer onto the embankment that runs beside the river. He looks up. There, staring at him, is Javert. Valjean rises slowly. Heaves Marius up onto his back once more. The strain of the night is showing. He’s a man near the end of his strength.

Mr. Grouper: It’s you, Javert! I knew you wouldn’t wait too long. The faithful servant at his post once more. This man’s done no wrong. And he needs his family’s care.

Mr. Grumpfish: I warned you I would not give in! I won’t be swayed!

Mr. Grouper: Another hour yet. And then I’m yours. And all our debts are paid.

Mr. Grumpfish: The man of mercy comes again! And talks of justice!

Mr. Grouper: Come, time is running short - Look down, Javert! He’s standing in his grave!

He starts to move past Javert. Javert draws his pistol and holds it to Valjean’s head.

Mr. Grumpfish: One more step and you die.

Valjean meets his eyes. That old battle of will against will.

Mr. Grouper: Then I die.

He starts walking past Javert. Javert’s hand trembles as it holds the pistol. Valjean keeps walking. Javert wills himself to shoot, but he just can’t do it. Frustrated, enraged with himself, he lowers the gun.

Mr. Grumpfish: Take him, Valjean! Before I change my mind! I will be waiting... 24601!

He turns away, trembling now all up and down his body. He stares into the river. Valjean is gone now. He’s alone.

Mr. Grumpfish: Who is this man? What sort of devil is he? To have caught me in a trap. And choose to let me go free? It was his hour at last! To put a seal on my fate! Wipe out the past! And wash me clean off the slate! All it would take! Was a flick of his knife! Vengeance was his! And he gave me back my life!

He begins to move away along the embankment, up steps, towards a bridge. He’s unaware of everything except the turmoil in his brain.

Mr. Grumpfish: Damned if I live in the debt of a thief! Damned if I yield at the end of the chase! I am the law and the law is not mocked! I’ll spit his pity right back in his face! There is nothing on earth that we share! It is either Valjean or Javert! How can I allow this man? To hold dominion over me? This desperate man that I have hunted... He gave me my life! He gave me freedom! I should have perished by his hand! It was his right... It was my right to die as well... Instead I live... But live in hell!

He moves up from the embankment onto the bridge. Here he stands, looking down at the dark water of the night river. The Seine forms a whirlpool here, where violent currents swirl round the piles of the bridge.

Mr. Grumpfish: And my thoughts fly apart. Can this man be believed? Shall his sins be forgiven? Shall his crimes be reprieved? And must I now begin to doubt. Who never doubted all those years? My heart is stone and still it trembles... The world I have known is lost in shadow. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know. That granting me my life today. This man has killed me even so?

He climbs up onto the parapet, reaching his arms up to the night sky.

Mr. Grumpfish: I am reaching but I fall. And the stars are black and cold. As I stare into the void. Of a world that cannot hold... I’ll escape now from that world. From the world of Jean Valjean. This is nowhere I can turn... There is no way to go on...

He reaches higher, turning his body, twisting, as if he wants some angel from on high to save him - and so, turning, he falls into the river. The swirling eddies close over him. And he’s lost.

End of Part 8