Sick (The Young Ones)

All four flatmates are ill in bed, although Rick and Mike seem to faking illness with Vyvyan trying to ease the suffering with vodka, which he later uses to blow up Rick's bedroom, in the form of a Molotov cocktail, to stop Rick complaining. Neil's sneezing fit prompts Vyvyan to send Mike out to get a cure. Vyvyan takes drastic emergency action, involving the use of Rick's laundry bag, and some extreme acupuncture, using six-inch nails. Vyvyan also tries to get Neil to sneeze outside by pushing him through the bedroom window. Neil's snot splatters all over a man's face who is standing in the street. The man's reaction throwing a brick toward the four's house, ends up smashing through the window of a neighbouring house, thus beginning a cycle of violence which results in a street riot, also sucking in musical act, Madness, during the performance of their song, "Our House".

Brian Damage Balowski escapes from his police guard after they are called in to deal with the trouble, and takes the quartet hostage. Usefully, Brian Damage eventually cures Neil's sneezing with a timely headbutt. Just as the four's doom seems sealed, Neil reveals that his parents had arranged to come for tea within a few minutes. A major clean-up operation - with Brian Damage doing his bit, helpfully polishing his shotgun - follows, before Neil's parents knock at the door as the riot continues surround them. Neil's parents complains that the show should be more age appropriate, in the manner of a classic sitcom like The Good Life, at which point, Vyvyan angrily makes a vehement articulate outburst against The Good Life after ripping apart the show's title page.[2] Suddenly, the quartet go into a whole new sitcom involving the cultivation of plants in their backyard. Rick ends up supposedly killing Neil with a spade after he drones on too long about the cycle of plant life, and later buries him in special, grow-anything compost. This causes three Neils to appear from the soil.

Taunted by his conscience for killing Neil while he slept in his bed that night, Rick has a nightmare in which he is tried by judge Mike and prosecutor Vyvyan at court, who suggests Rick to be executed, at which point, some girls shows up and wishes that the "People's Poet" will not die. But first, the girls are going to strip naked for Rick. Rick's conscience wakes him up for having a wet dream when he is supposed to be feeling guilty for killing Neil. Rick runs downstairs to the living room and tearfully wishes that he could see Neil again, and the three Neils come into the house, which spooks Rick. Just as Vyvyan and Mike joins Rick, the back wall of the house opens up, and Neil's parents and Brian Damage head up a large staircase, milking the audience's applause during the show's closing credits.

As with all episodes of The Young Ones, the main four characters were student flatmates Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall), Neil (Nigel Planer), and Mike (Christopher Ryan). Alexei Sayle starred as escaped convict Brian Damage Balowski. Brian Oulton and Peggy Thorpe-Bates guest starred as Neil's parents.

• Sick at the British Film Institute
• The Young Ones: Sick at IMDb