Episode 298f. Bubble Guppies: Les Miserables (part 6)

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
Paris Streets -

All is still. Then comes the soft beating of draped drums. The tramp of feet. All down the streets, waiting, the silent faces of the poor. Among them we see Enjolras, Marius, and the radical students. Police and national guardsmen control the growing crowds. Now into view come the leaders of a great funeral procession. An entire battalion of infantry, marching with weapons reversed. A column of black-suited dignitaries carrying branches of laurel. A division of Cavalry rides in front, behind a section of military drummers who drum a military tatoo. Into frame, comes a team of black horses stepping slowly, black plumes nodding, drawing behind them a gun carriage draped in the tricolour flag. On the carriage stands a coffin. Softly, in time with the drums, the watching people begin to sing.

Crowd: Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a people! Who will not be slaves again!

The police and guardsmen look round to see who is singing so subversively, but they can’t be sure where it’s coming from. The singing grows stronger.

Crowd: When the beating of your heart! Echoes the beating of the drums! There is a life about to start! When tomorrow comes!

The dignitaries become aware of the singing, and glance uneasily from side to side.

Crowd: Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Beyond the barricade. Is there a world you long to see?

As the coffin on its carriage draws level with the students, Enjolras suddenly steps out in front of the horses drawing the carriage and waves the red flag, stopping the horses and the procession.

Goby: Then join in the fight! That will give you the right! To be free!

The students break the ranks of the crowd and surround the coffin carriage.

Boys and Crowd: Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a 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 tomorrow comes!

Enjolras, Marius and Courfeyrac and other students climb onto the top of the carriage as the horses and led by Combeferre.

Goby: Will you give all you can give? So that our banner may advance?

Tobias: Some will fall and some will live. Will you stand up and take your chance?

Gil, Goby, and Tobias: The blood of the martyrs! Will water the meadows of France!

The crowd supports them and surround the coffin carriage, blocking the attempts of the police to intervene, singing with passion.

Boys and Crowd: Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a 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 tomorrow comes!

Enjolras, the students, and the impassioned crowd have now become the procession. They turn off the main street away from the expected course of the funeral procession. Gavroche’s elephant looms over this side street. Gavroche and his gang jump down from the elephant to join in. As the procession turns off, the calvary division gallop ahead and disappear round a corner.

Boys and Crowd: Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade. Is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing? Say, do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that we bring! When tomorrow comes!

The students and crowd come face to face with the calvary. On one side, muskets of the infantry poke through the broken down fence surrounding the elephant. Other infantry have taken up position in a cafe opposite, upending tables to provide cover. There is a tense, prolonged silence. Then suddenly one nervous soldier lets off a round. It hits a middle aged kindly looking woman citizen in the crowd around the coffin carriage. The crowd is furious. Students charge the soldier, grab his musket and knock him down with the hilt of the gun. More shots ring out. The cavalry charges. The funeral explodes into a riot. The people of Paris turn on the dragoons, the National Guards, the police. More squadrons of dragoons charge into the crowd, sabres unsheathed. Women run screaming in terror.

Goby: To the barricades!

Boys and Crowd: To the barricades! To arms! To arms!

Some students fire weapons into the air, some into the cavalry and at the infantry. Enjolras knocks a calvary officer off his horse and Marius jumps on the horse. The students break away and race off through the cafe into a side street where citizens begin to erect a barricade. A cavalry rider gives chase and is shot by one of the students and falls through the window of an upended carriage. The students, with Marius on horseback, race to the slums.

Rue De La Chanvreri -

The students burst into their home street. They have been joined by a motley collection of citizens including burghers and an old eccentric man who works as hard as anyone. They raid a fencing shop and a gun shop for weapons, they force wives to give up their husbands’ muskets and chalk up the debt to the revolution on their front doors, they encourage homeowners to contribute furniture sometimes appearing at high windows to help overcome any reluctance. Soon the street is raining tables, chairs, mattresses, sofas. They smash streetlamps. They set to work to build their barricade. Students commandeer an omnibus which is overturned to form barricade’s heart. Three students arrive in the street hauling an uprooted tree. They pull up paving stones, rip boards, timbers and front doors from house and shop-fronts, pull down buttresses, and raid the Cafe Musain, systematically stripping it of every item of furniture despite the lamentations and protestations of Madame Hucheloup and her barmaid. As the barricade rises they bring down from the first floor of the cafe the rifles and ammunition they’ve gathered, to prepare to defend their chosen ground. A student stands on a stone post distributing weapons. They line the first and second floor front rooms with paving stones to create protected shooting positions. The inside of the barricade is built neatly with steps up made from paving stones. The outside is a crazy knarled mess.

Goby: Here upon these stones. We will build our barricade. In the heart of the city. We claim as our own. Each man to his duty. And don’t be afraid.

A man in worker’s clothing is helping build the growing barricade. He wears the insignia of the rebels, and keeps his head down.

Goby: Wait! I will need a report. On the strength of the foe.

The man who’s just arrived looks up. It’s Javert.

Mr. Grumpfish: I can find out the truth! I know their ways. Fought their wars. Served my time. In the days. Of my youth.

He slips away through the barricade, which is still rising.

Brett: See! The people unite!

Corpitch: Pray your right!

Pablo: Dogs will bark!

Nonny: Fleas will bite!

Jose: They will do what is right.

Barricade -

The barricade is now complete: an impressive wall up to twelve feet high, with one heavily guarded section that can be wheeled open to allow access. Two smaller barricades protect the left and right side of the cafe. Enjolras climbs halfway up the main barricade and turns to his little army. Grantaire prises the final piece of Madame Hucheloup’s furniture from her arms - her favourite sewing armchair - and adds it to the barricade. As the men sing she steals it back defiantly.

Goby: Red, the blood of angry men!

All: Black, the dark of ages past! Red, a world about to dawn! Black, the night that ends at last!

It is night. The students have been waiting for hours. A single flaming torch atop the barricade caged in by cobbles underlights a fluttering red flag. There is no sign yet of any opposition. A boy climbs down from sentry duty on the barricade. Marius realizes its Eponine. She sits down with her back to him.

Gil: Hey, little boy, what’s this I see? God Eponine the things you do!

Deema: I know this is no place for me! Still I would rather be with you!

Gil: Get out before the trouble starts! Get out, ‘Ponine, you might get shot!

Deema: I’ve got you worried now, I have! That shows you like me quite a lot...

Gil: Get Out!

Joly, sentry on the main barricade, sees a figure approach.

Joshua: He's back!

Javert, still in his disguise as a rebel, is let back through the guarded ‘gate’ into the barricaded street.

Mr. Grumpfish: Listen, my friends, I have done as I said. I have been to their lines, I have counted each man. I will tell what I can. Better be warned. They have armies to spare. And our danger is real - We will need all our cunning. To bring them to heel.

Goby: Have faith! If you know what their movements are. We’ll spoil their game. There are ways that a people can fight - We shall overcome their power!

Mr. Grumpfish: I have overheard their plans. There will be no attack tonight. They intend to starve you out. Before they start a proper fight - Concentrate their force. Hit us when it’s light -

Nonny: Liar!

They all look up. There’s Gavroche, on the top of the barricade.

Nonny: Good evening, dear Inspector. Lovely evening, my dear! I know this man, my friends. His name’s Inspector Javert! So don’t believe a word he says. Cause none of it’s true. This only goes to show. What little people can do.

Guns swing round to aim at Javert. He stares back in defiance. Gavroche comes dancing down the barricade to Courfeyrac’s delighted embrace.

Tobias: Bravo, little Gavroche! You’re the top of the class!

Gavroche grabs Grantaire’s red cap and puts it on his own head, mimicking the students.

Brett: So what are we going to do? With this snake in the grass?

Enjolras faces Javert.

Goby: Tie this man and take him! To the tavern in there! The people will decide your fate, Inspector Javert!

Mr. Grumpfish: Shoot me now or shoot me later - Every schoolboy to his sport! Death to each and every traitor! I renounce your people’s court!

Goby: Take this man. Bring him through. There is work we have to do.

Javert is led into the cafe. As they pass through the front door only one student is holding Javert. Seizing his opportunity, Javert breaks free and the students have to subdue him by force. Javert is on his knees and is being tied to the staircase.

Goby: When are they coming!?

Silence. Suddenly, out of the darkness, the students and citizens at the barricade here an ominous distant sound. The sound of marching feet, hundreds of men, marching in unison. First soft, then building louder and louder, closer and closer. Boots on cobbles. The sound comes right into the end of the street. Enjolras and all the students man the main barricade. Silence. They peer over the barricade. In the pitch blackness, all they can make out is hundreds of gossamer thin slivers. These are bayonets and musket barrels dimly lit by the reflection from the torch. A voice shouts out from the darkness.

Army Officer Lobster: Who's there?

At the same time the sound of the clatter of guns being levelled.

Goby: French Revolution.

Army Officer Lobster: Fire!

A flash turns all the facades of the street bright crimson as though the door of a furnace has suddenly open and shut. A dreadful explosion bursts over the barricade. The red flag falls, the pole sliced through. Bullets richochet off the cornices of the houses, bore into the barricade and wound several men.

Goby: (as boys return fire) Comrades, do not fire back! Do not waste powder!

In the darkness, the clang of ramrods in muskets - the troop reloading weapons. Enjolras picks up the fallen flag and is about to take it up when the old man Father Mabeuf who has seen many insurrections before this takes the flag and runs up onto the top of the barricade.

Army Officer Lobster: Who’s there? Get down!

Mr. Toney: Vive la France!

Army Officer Lobster: Fire!

A second volley. Father Mabeuf falls down dead. While everyone is reacting to the dead old man and the wounded, the men are distracted from noticing that some French soldiers have used the cover of darkness to creep down the street. All at once the first full attack begins. Shouts and the rattle of gunfire as soldiers throw themselves up and over the barricade. The students run for their guns and return fire. They are taken by surprise. All could be lost in the first instant. Some soldiers make it up to the top of the barricade, where they’re driven back by the fierce resistance of the defenders. Eponine sees one soldier aiming his rifle at Marius - she throws herself in front of Marius just as the rifle fires - and Marius is safe. They are being overrun. Panic ensues. The gun battle is fierce. Marius in a flash of inspiration realises all is lost unless they do something. He drags a barrel of gunpowder to the top of the barricade, grabs the torch and with a face of deadly resolve he tips the torch towards the barrel.

Gil: Clear out or I’ll blow up the barricade!

Everyone freezes.

Army Officer Lobster: Blow it up then and take yourself with it!

Gil: And myself with it!

Marius brings the torch closer to the powder keg. But already the soldiers have cleared out. Marius comes down from the barricade.

Trevor: (to Gil) Thank you!

Jose: What were you thinking!

As everyone surrounds Marius in amazement he spots Eponine lying propped against the barricade.

Gil: Eponine! What have you done?

He kneels by her side. Eponine is dying.

Deema: Here... It’s from Cosette... I kept it from you...

With a struggle she pulls the letter out of her pocket, and pushes it into his hand.

Deema: Don’t be too hard on me...

Marius is shocked to find blood pouring from her wound.

Gil: Eponine, you’re hurt! You need some help!

Rain begins to fall.

Deema: Don’t you fret, M’sieur Marius - I don’t feel any pain. A little fall of rain. Can hardly hurt me now. You’re here - that’s all I need to know. And you will keep me safe. And you will keep me close. And rain will make the flowers grow...

Gil: But you will live, Eponine - Dear God above! If I could close your wounds with words of love -

Deema: Just hold me now, and let it be. Shelter me... Comfort me...

Gil: You will live a hundred years. If I could show you how... I won’t desert you now...

Deema: The rain can’t hurt me now... This rain will wash away what’s past. And you will keep me safe. And you will keep me close. I’ll sleep in your embrace at last.

Marius tries to comfort Eponine in his arms.

Gil: Hush-a-bye, dear Eponine. You won’t feel any pain. A little fall of rain. Can hardly hurt you now. I’m here.

Deema: So don’t you fret, M’sieur Marius. I don’t feel any pain. A little fall of rain. Can hardly hurt me now...

Gil: I will stay with you. Till you are sleeping.

Deema: That’s all I need to know. And you will keep me safe. And you will keep me close. And rain.. Will make the flowers... Grow...

Eponine dies in Marius’s arms.

Deema: (is dead) ...

Marius looks up at the others, his eyes full of tears.

Goby: They were the first to fall. The first to fall upon this barricade.

Gil: Her name was Eponine! Her life was cold and dark, yet she was unafraid!

Pablo: We fight here in her name...

Brett: She will not die in vain...

Jose: She will not be betrayed...

They pick up Eponine’s body and carry her into the tavern.

Tobias: (to Nonny) Are you alright?

Nonny: That was my sister.

Marius reads the letter Eponine has given him. He takes out pencil and paper and writes a note. Looking round, he sees Gavroche.

Gil: Gavroche! Do you know the Rue de l’Homme Armé?

Nonny: Course I do!

Gil: Will you take this for me?

He holds out his note.

End of Part 6