| Man-Flu | |
|---|---|
| Season 2, Episode 8 | |
| |
| Air date | April 18, 2012 |
| Written by | Ross Hastings & James Griffin |
| Directed by | Geoffrey Hawthorn |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Effortless Manly Coolness |
Next Everything Starts With Gaia |
Man-Flu is the eighth episode of the second season, and is the eighteenth episode of The Almighty Johnsons overall
Synopsis[]
A dose of reality for the Johnson clan, as something as simple as a virus turns their world order upside down.
Plot[]
Not exactly a lot of happiness in God-world, as both Axl and Michele are suffering from some kind of lurgi, while Anders is just generally unhappy with the lot of them – Axl for abandoning his Quest in favor of the ‘be a man’ approach; Mike for hooking up with the enemy (i.e. Michele); and the lot of them for everything that happened regarding Agnetha and her money for the Goddesses. When Mike finally punches Anders, he seems to speak for all of them.
Axl’s flu worsens – but he gets no sympathy from his flatmates, as he takes to his bed. Michele, meanwhile, is the world’s worst patient, as Mike looks after her as best he can, whilst also dealing with the Agnetha bequest – Stacey has decided she wants to buy the cycle courier business she works for. Mike has no problem with this, but suspects Anders might.
So Stacey heads off to berate Anders, who is having his own problems. It transpires that the top secret mission he was on for Agnetha was to find and retrieve a branch from Yggdrasil, the World Tree from which all life flows. He duly did this, but now MAF have confiscated The Stick (as it comes to be named) and are going to fumigate it – and not even Anders powers of persuasion can get them to release it. Olaf agrees that fumigating the Tree of Life is a bad thing and it must be stopped. But when their second attempt to Olaf also fails, Anders starts to notice that Olaf, strangely, seems to be getting older.
Ty, meanwhile, is having a great day – he feels the cold; he can taste food; he can feel the sun on his skin. Eventually it is Mike who puts everything together, when he finds out that Axl is really sick – and the sicker he gets, the more the rest of the Johnsons lose their powers. And Axl then proceeds to get sicker and sicker, with whatever virus is rampaging through his system sending him into a coma, and into hospital.
Inspired by Olaf, who is now looking all of his 93 years, Anders teams up with Stacey to stage a rescue mission to free The Stick – maybe the Tree of Life can save Axl and, by extension, them all. But even once they have retrieved it, it proves to be of no use at all, because without Agnetha to guide them they do not know how to harness whatever powers The Stick possesses. When Michele – still sick but called into work, and very grumpy – finds them molesting Axl with a tree branch, she takes The Stick off them, tells them to get it off the premises. But when they are gone, and she is alone with Axl, when she touches him with the hands that just held The Stick she finds that she leaves an imprint on his skin, that glows then fades. How interesting.
While all this is going on, Ty is taking the opportunity to rekindle his romance with Dawn. The world is a shiny, happy place for Ty until he realizes this either ends with Axl dying (in which case he dies too) or Axl getting better (in which case he gets his icy powers back). Although Dawn is up for taking things further, Ty can’t bear to restart something that he knows will end badly, so he suggests that they should remain friends.
And so Axl recovers – and Michele is intrigued to hear him tell of a golden light in his fevered dreams. And the Johnsons get their powers back – Ty is Höðr again, and Olaf goes back to his usual youthful self (and bags Stacey in the process after they connected). And then Mike reveals that while his powers were gone, all of Agnetha’s millions also went from his online stock-trading account – leaving just enough to buy Stacey her business. This time it is Anders who punches Mike, though he hurts himself as much as he hurts Mike, who says that he will use his restored powers to rebuild the money that he has lost.
Cast[]
- Emmett Skilton - Axl Johnson / Odin
- Tim Balme - Mike Johnson / Ullr
- Dean O'Gorman - Anders Johnson / Bragi
- Jared Turner - Ty Johnson / Höðr
- Ben Barrington - Olaf Johnson / Baldr
- Keisha Castle-Hughes - Gaia
- Hayden Frost - Zeb
- Eve Gordon - Stacey / Fulla
- Michelle Langstone - Michele / Sjöfn
- Rachel Nash - Ingrid / Snotra
- Fern Sutherland - Dawn
- Bree Peters - Shona
Crew[]
- Writers - Ross Hastings & James Griffin
- Director - Geoffrey Cawthorn
- Script Editor - James Griffin
- Storyliners - Tim Balme, Ross Hastings & Tiffany Zehnal
- Producer - Simon Bennett
- Executive Producers - James Griffin, Rachel Lang, Chris Bailey & John Barnett
Music[]
- Oh My - Performed by Gin Wigmore (Theme Music)
- Little Heart - Performed by Jess Chambers
- Full of Fire - Performed by Jess Chambers