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.”

She believes she can fly! She believes she can touch the sky! She believes she can soar! She believes she can… what are the lyrics?

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? As a beloved fan of the work of Sally Field, I’m always hoping the 77 year old legend’s career will reach new heights. What if Mark “Vin Diesel” Sinclair were to cast her as a new elderly relative in the next Fast and Furious movie! We’ve got sassy British mum Helen Mirren and wise grandmother Rita Moreno, but where’s the cool aunt who loves to drive fiats? What an excellent addition to the last film that would be! As we find out John Cena isn’t really dead and Vin and the Rock reconcile their differences via a fist fight on Gal Gadot’s submarine on the way to punch Jason Momoa in the face, a bald and muscley Sally Field crashes through the wall, high on steroids and ready to rumble. Ah, yes. Call me, Hollywood.

The Flying Nun, 3.1: “The Big Game”
What do you get when you combine Sally Field, a season premiere, and a group of orphans playing baseball? An episode of The Flying Nun of course. And these are A-level child actors! One of these kids was in Scarface! Which is fitting, seeing as Carlos looks like Al Pacino when he wears his shiny blue shirts. Also, I keep learning things about this show. For one, the IMDb page for this show has a video for Gidget, and vice versa. Gidget ran for only one season, and followed and was followed by several low budget movies about the same character. And the opening of every episode shows Sister Bertrille driving what looks like a Vespa. Granted, these things aren’t important. But it’s more interesting than talking about how Carlos can be bribed into buying uniforms and equipment for Sister Bertrille’s baseball team, but he only bought them one ball. Also apparently Scarface kid, who will henceforth be referred to as Scarface Marcello, will be a major part of two more episodes.
Anyway, the big game. Carlos is funding a baseball team for the Convent. Bertrille convinced him to go up from one baseball to an entire team’s worth of uniforms. The issue with all this baseball is Armando, a boy who truly wants to be adopted, is getting adopted on the day of the big game, the game he so desperately wants to play in. He has a daydream as he’s being adopted of playing with the Dodgers and trouncing them easily with meteoric plays. It’s interesting that his daydream conveniently cuts between close-up shots of actors from the show to wide shot footage of actual baseball games. Armando’s daydreams are incredibly cost effective for a TV show with a presumably small budget. The new adoptive parents try to make Armando happy by telling him they’ll get him a mitt and a bat and a uniform, but this little boy replies “No thanks, I don’t like childhood memories”.
Meanwhile Scarface Marcello is getting flustered by a girl heckling him. And Marcello’s new family get a flat tire. “Why are you looking at me like that? What would you like me to do?” Quoth the new father to the mother. “Whatever you think is best.” And with that bout of old-fashioned sexism and lack of confidence, Armando joins the game, with untied dress shoes, and hits a home run. They lose the game, 43-1, but they have good fun, and Armando finds a family. I liked this, but I may be biased because the Reverend Mother almost yells at a Ref and I watched the first half of this a month ago.
Episode Rating – 8.4 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.2: “My Sister The Star”
We start out with more classic Flying Nun shenanigans, AKA Sally Field either singing in a studio and having that played over the scene or a different musician singing entirely. It infuriates me, though it shouldn’t. We are also introduced to Claudio the Clown, the children’s TV performer. Claudio insists on her joining his show and singing songs. But Sister Bertrille is a very nervous performer and- oh no why does Claudio have a weird African ventriloquist dummy?! That’s horrifying! And almost assuredly racist. Also Claudio’s kind of a dick. When she is on the show she sings the song she wrote last season for that boy band. It also takes her a while to get onto the set, because everything is so incredibly confusing, especially the curtains. The combination of a weird old-fashioned variety hour and a frustrating clown makes this all feel like Joker. But who is De Niro?
Anyway, Bertrille is offered her own show, singing wholesome songs for children.
Sister Bertrille goes flying after the offer to consider what she’ll do if she does the show. And suddenly many spinning newspapers tell us she’s a big star actress in her own TV show and wig. Carlos gives up the Casino and becomes her manager, and everyone at the Convent hates her when she gets back. Because they had to pick up the slack of all her old jobs. And the Reverend ?Mother insists she leave the Convent permanently if she wishes to continue her career. This is the second time one of her vivid hypotheticals inspired her to tank a deal that probably wouldn’t go the way she assumes, given her good-hearted nature and the love her fellow Sisters have for her. But it’s the first time we spend a whole episode with it. So instead Sister Bertrille refuses all the sponsors her manager offers, and insists on giving sermons at every show, until he shuts down the idea and offers a donation in its stead.
Episode Rating – 7.8 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.3: “Speak The Speech, I Pray You”
It’s Priest o’clock, everybody. The Priest of San Juan has passed away and is now to be succeeded by Father Walter Larson, the Reverend Mother’s friend of 23 years. We learn one important thing and one regular thing off the bat. The Reverend Mother’s first name is Lydia. Lydia Mother, I assume. And Walter has spent 20 years working in the Archives, and is absolutely terrified with the idea of suddenly becoming San Juan’s source of faith and social encouragement. He can’t consider what going to all these events will do to him. So I’m figuring this’ll be like The King’s Speech, but when the Reverend Mother and the others let him test his speech, he gives what seems to be a feature length speech full of Latin and references to Marcus Aurelius that puts everyone in the Convent to sleep, including Walter.
I like this guy. when talking to Bertrille about how bad his speech was, she says he just needs to practice saying things people understand. He says “Yes, that’s been my problem. I’ve never mastered the judicious use of monosyllabic articulations.” This is my kind of episode. He’s like me. And the plot is much like a similar one that was recently in Severance season two, except this one is less about coded racial aggression in a cult-like management structure. Sister Bertrille gets Carlos to find her an Emmy winning writer to fix the speeches. But this speech doesn’t work either, because all the puns and jokes suck and he has the wrong delivery entirely. Carlos then pays for several ringers to join the audience and laugh at all the jokes. Except Thomas chooses last minute to switch back to his original speech. I don’t know why, but I love this episode. I feel bad that poor Thomas leaves at the end. And he feels bad, in the end, for causing Bertrille to lose faith. But flying gives him faith, and he sticks with it. By the end, he’s leading Bingo. I love this guy.
Episode Rating – 8.9 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.4: “The Paola Story”
The Reverend Mother has a new Secretary. She’s very outgoing and not very secretarial, but somehow very good at her job. And it all leads to the Reverend Mother exercising her excellent comedic delivery. Paola is cool. She dances. She has fun. She calls Sister Bertrille “Bertie”. She is also about to get fired. Situations are complicated when Paola shows up with a baby. She claims it’s not her baby, but her friend’s baby, abandoned on her doorstep, and none of them believe her. Anyway, Paola is offered living quarters with the baby in the Convent. Sister Sixto’s running joke of misquoting sayings and names of people continues, but I don’t mention it that much. Sister Sixto, again, was Rosario in Will & Grace. I mention this because these characters have very different comedic sensibilities, and Shelley Morrison deserves praise.
The Sisters try to investigate, but Paola is crafty. Or stubborn. Bertrille hits on a lead when she mentions Carlos and Paola gets incredibly upset. Carlos helps Bertrille track Paola’s ex-husband down, who is now a house painter working with persnickety women who want their houses painted the color of mustard. But not English mustard. French mustard. This episode is very funny. I should make a list of Flying Nun episodes everyone should check out, because this is certainly one of them. Paola and her husband, upon reuniting, realize they still truly love each other, even after she annulled their marriage. Of course Paola was not lying about the baby not being her daughter, it was her friend’s daughter after all. But Sister Bertrille convinces Paola and Lorenzo to stay together after all. Wait! Paola double bluffed! Anita is her baby! There’s so many twists and turns! She staged the phone call to make sure Lorenzo loved her for her and not for the baby, like in Scrubs! What an episode!
Episode Rating – 8.9 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.5: “Marcello’s Idol”
This is Scarface Marcello’s episode. I didn’t think he was very good in the last episode, I would’ve preferred more of Armando. Alas I will not get what I want. I still have hopes for this one because this season has been solid so far. It’s almost like the absence of a certain police officer has drastically improved the quality of the show, even if Scarface Marcello’s line delivery isn’t great. The thing that gets overlooked throughout this show is that Sister Bertrille is a master manipulator. She learns that Marcello is looking for a father figure and he looks up to Carlos and immediately goes to Carlos and tricks him into giving her what she wants by implying that he would not be a positive influence on the boy. He is so intent on proving that he would be a good influence that he says he will take Marcello sailing.
Of course when Sister Bertrille and Marcello arrive the next day, he’s forgotten, and is with a woman. He tries to get rid of them, but Marcello is so nice he takes him in anyway and introduces the woman as his crew. Of course Carlos is an idiot. He doesn’t talk to Marcello or hang out with him. He has Marcello drive the boat while he canoodles and probably has sex with “the crew”. This is Carlos’s lowest moment. He doesn’t even seem apologetic. Sister Bertrille tells Carlos it’s over. Marcello still wants Carlos to be his dad, and instead of telling the truth, Sister Bertrille tries to let him down easily by saying Carlos needs to be married to adopt him. There is a solid line when Marcello decides to find Carlos a wife who is not vain, but pretty on the inside: “We need to find a woman who wears a bikini on the inside”.
Things escalate when Marcello places an ad in the newspaper looking for women to marry Carlos based on a joke Sister Bertrille made. Sister Bertrille has to find Marcello and Carlos when Carlos runs from the women and Marcello follows, and they use the same stock footage of her flying with a grin on her face, though she clearly wouldn’t be happy flying right now. The whole situation leads to the bonding Marcello wanted all along. Scarface Marcello is still a very bad actor. But in the end he’s led to realize that Carlos wouldn’t be the guy he idealized if he adopted Marcello. And all is well? I guess?
Episode Rating – 4.3 Sally Fields

At the end of this post, I’d like to pause and share something uncharacteristically sadder for this particular series of posts. Back in October Sally Field shared a story from her childhood before she became an actress about having to drive to Tijuana to get an abortion. She urged Americans to vote for Kamala Harris. That didn’t happen obviously, and this blog post about The Flying Nun shouldn’t be political, but… Anyway. Here’s the link to an article about this. It should have a link to her Instagram post where she told the story. I urge you to watch it. It’s a sad but moving story that shouldn’t be a cautionary tale in this day and age, but of course it is. Yes. 100 Sally Fields. I love you, Sally. You’re a fucking legend.

Sally Field is a Badass who tells all

See you next week for your regularly scheduled programming!