Previously on The Flying Nun, Revisited…
“The Flying Nun is a hip sixties woman named Sister Bertrille from New York and she just began working at a convent in exceedingly windy San Juan, Puerto Rico. She weighs ninety pounds and her cornette is shaped in such a way that makes it aerodynamic when countered with a large gust of wind. She sings songs to children like The Sound of Music and there’s a local sleazy rich jerk named Carlos that Sister Bertrille is always running into whenever he’s about to kiss a woman. She usually gets into some sort of scheme that involves using his vast wealth or losing his vast wealth. The Flying Nun has a warm but begrudging friendship with the Reverend Mother. She’s also a good mechanic, and allergic to Hibiscus. Her real name is Elsie, and she comes from a family of doctors. She’s good friends with Sister Jacqueline, who narrates the episodes, as well as Sister Sixto. And she’s friendly with birds, whether they talk or have crushes on her.”

Everybody on Earth loves and watches this show, but there’s lots more show to go! It’s time to see what Episode Eleven of Season Two has in store! Cut to present day!

The Flying Nun IMDb

Introduction –
In the modern day, no concept, TV show or movie is ever forgotten. Everything, no matter how stupid, has a fanbase of some kind and ends up getting a sequel, a revival, or a recap podcast with people laughing at jokes they made five to thirty years ago. Why has the long forgotten Sally Field sitcom, The Flying Nun, been left behind? I’m surprised Sally Field’s omnipresent popularity hasn’t made this show as successful a beloved juggernaut as Cougartown, Joey, The Morning Show, or The Odd Couple remake. I mean, we all watched Brothers & Sisters when we were children, right? We all think The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had the best Aunt May. And we all briefly considered watching 80 For Brady last year. You can’t throw a tomato without hitting someone who’s talking about Sally Field, like I am now. Welcome to the convent of San Tanco. Welcome to The Flying Nun.

The Flying Nun, 2.11: “Slightly Hot Parking Meters”
I took a little break unintentionally in December, so you’ll be getting back to back posts on the same day. Unfortunately Prime Video has gotten rid of our favorite TV show, but as always, I can count on Tubi, the free streaming service that is the streaming equivalent of non-cable television and the random crap you find at the video store. YAY! THANK YOU, TUBI!
We open on Captain Fomento, my least favorite character, installing parking meters across town. I don’t like this man and his stupidities, but it’s nice to see him impound that ridiculous purple piece of crap car when he sees it has no headlights. It’s a bummer that, when she pays for a random guy’s parking meter, Bertrille gets $10 from him and the kids from her convent come up with a scheme to pay for all the meters in town and get money back to fix that stupid car. This episode is about my two least favorite things, Fomento and that stupid purple car. Fomento does some classic physical gags, putting a bowl of flowers on his head, stepping in a flaming trash can. The trouble is this isn’t a show about the slapstick police officer, it’s a show about a flying Nun.
Fomento is upset and won’t unimpound the car until Bertrille finds new headlights, so she finds them at a junkyard and unintentionally receives a marked penny from the schemers who sold Fomento the parking meters and kept keys so they could steal all the coins. One misunderstanding later, Bertrille slowly flies and captures the criminals, and Fomento apologizes for being a bad cop and fixes the car entirely with a new muffler and what have you, so he won’t be fired again. Yay.
Episode Rating – 6.2 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 2.12: “To Fly Or Not To Fly”
There’s some sort of rededication ceremony going on or something? I’m not sure. I’m at work. Sister Bertrille is doing a lot of work so she can be picked as the Reverend Mother’s companion on a trip to Chicago. The Reverend Mother and Sister Jacqueline were oddly absent last episode. She misses out on the Chicago trip because it is “The Windy City” but she doesn’t want to miss out on the rededication ceremony when the Mother General arrives. Unfortunately the Convent has never been windier and she spends the episode trying to gain weight, working hypothetically with engineers, putting weighted shoes and using dogs and other nuns as counterweights. It is possibly the best exploration of her abilities thus far, which is more impactful since it’s centered around her rededicating herself to her relationship with God.
By the end, the Reverend Mother tells her it’s best not to question her abilities, but still she must know when to fly and when to not. It’s her “With great power comes great responsibility” and this is her triumphant re-origin. She gets a beautiful flying sequence at the end, hampered somewhat by reusing stock footage and the visible ropes holding her up. Honestly? This is a great episode. And there’s no Fomento.
Episode Rating – 8.8 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 2.13: “How To Be A Spanish Grandmother”
Carlos’s grandmother was dying three or so years ago, so Carlos told her he was married and had two kids. But she survived and now she’s visiting. The trouble is her heart is still weak. So the ethical conundrum comes into play almost immediately. Let the farce commence. Carlos’s grandmother sees a photo of Sister Bertrille’s sister Jennifer and assumes she’s his wife. Carlos lies to Jennifer and tells her Sister Bertrille is dying. Every other second when the grandmother thinks something is wrong with Jennifer or the “children” she acts like she’s seconds from dying and bounces back as soon as she’s dissuaded of that notion. The trouble is Jennifer has a fiancé who insists the grandmother should hear the truth, as he used to major in Philosophy. He looks nice, this guy, he’s attractive in a 60’s kind of way, like a more distinguished William Shatner.
Things get worse from there. Children from the Convent are brought in to the ruse, and the grandmother falls in love with them instantly. Additionally, she sees Jennifer kissing her fiancé and Carlos kissing another woman and runs to the airport with the children to take them back home with her to Argentina. Now I don’t know the intricacies of the relationship with a grandmother like this, but even if this is the 60’s and she has traditional values, they could be in an open relationship and she has no right to kidnap her great-grandchildren who aren’t her great-grandchildren. Sister Bertrille flies out to tell her the truth and she is overjoyed to learn her grandson would go to such lengths to make her happy, even if he lied through his teeth. Hmmm.
Episode Rating – 7.5 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 2.14: “The Landlord Cometh”
Ugh. Fomento’s back. I hate this guy. He starts his time in this episode by breaking a 200 year old heirloom and saying “Thank goodness it wasn’t new”. Sigh. The owner of the Convent, the latest descendant in a family who’s laid claim to the property for 400 years. This man, of the De Cordova family, he claims his family no longer has money, as his grandfather invented the lightbulb after Edison, and the submarine after… whoever invented the submarine. So he’s kicking the sisters out instead of reupping the $1 rent every 99 years. But he only wants a place for him and his donkey to stay, so Sister Bertrille convinces the Reverend Mother to let him stay on the property as a live-in landlord. He’s still not ready to re-up the lease though.
He’s very persnickety, this man. And he’s the most passive aggressive man on Earth. One thing leads to another and he starts running tours around the Convent, which nobody enjoys, he causes quite the fuss. Fomento suspects Fabio De Cordova to be an imposter. He is of course wrong. But De Cordova thought Fomento knew Fabio committed some crime for which he’d be in jail for twenty years. What did he do? Did he murder somebody? Man, this show has some weird plots. Anyway, we learn he stole from his bride-to-be, and after he signs a deed passing ownership of the Convent to the Church (Shouldn’t they have owned it already?) him and his donkey rides off to find his love.
Episode Rating – 4.3 Sally Fields Because I hate passive aggressive people

The Flying Nun, 2.15: “Sister Socko In San Tanco”
I’ve talked about it before, but I’d love to see this show get a reboot. But in this new version, she solves grisly murders alongside the police with her special abilities. Back in the old version, one of Bertrille’s students is obsessed about his uncle the magician, and showing all his friends the “Show business Bible” known as Variety magazine. Heh. I was just reading Variety’s website to hear the Oscar nominees. We learn “Marko the Magnificent” has been performing for a while in a wonderful exchange.
Reverend Mother: “He is an extraordinary artist.”
Sister Bertrille: “You’ve seen him before?”
Reverend Mother: “Yes, before I entered the Convent.”
Sister Bertrille: “Oh, I didn’t know he’d been performing that long.”
Reverend Mother: “Yes, he an I began our careers at about the same time. Shortly after the Civil War.”
DAAAAAAAAAMN! As always, the Reverend Mother is one cold badass motherfucker.
Marko the Magnificent is a big man who speaks in the third person and isn’t a very good magician. The sisters need to form a trio of singers. But who cares? Because the ads on Tubi have informed me that Kitchen Nightmares is still going, and there’s a knot in my hair. Marko has arthritis, that’s interesting. When we get to the show itself we get more pre-recorded music that sounds weird and like completely different people are singing it. Specifically, we get Sister Bertrille, Sister Jacqueline and the Reverend Mother singing “Gonna Build A Mountain”, the song recently popularized by the box office hit and indisputable critical success, Joker: Folie à Deux. In the end, Marko “levitates” Sister Bertrille, and the Reverend Mother enjoys Variety’s review of her singing voice. Great stuff.
Episode Rating – 7.1 Sally Fields

Well, after an unplanned hiatus, we’re back and still on track to finish this show in a mere six months! On we go!