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.”

Before she was Aunt May, she was a hapless Nun at a beautiful convent. Imagine what Peter Parker would say if he knew his Aunt had powers too!

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? Apparently the show was fairly successful back in the day, but I suspect not many people were paying attention. Don’t get me wrong, it’s my favorite TV show that’s ever been made, but what is it really? It’s an odd little program, where anything can happen, and it has no place in today’s narrative hungry world. I think it was ahead of its time and nobody truly appreciated it for what it was. In fact I think it’s still ahead of its time and I’m certainly curious about whether that time will ever come.

The Flying Nun, 3.6: “Guess Who’s Coming to Picket”
I am very frustrated. I’m almost done watching this show and Tubi has suddenly stopped streaming this ridiculous show. I thought for a moment I’d need to be done with all this. It’s not on Prime Video anymore, you can’t buy it, it’s not on YouTube. But I found a way forward. I won’t specify what it is, it’s legal and virus free, but if I jinx this it’ll never ever end.
Now, here’s what’s going on in the Convent San Tanco. Carlos’s waiters and staff are on strike, picketing for better rights. Sister Bertrille manages to cause a mess, when she’s photographed with the leader of the strike and ends up in the newspaper. Carlos is furious, a confusing conversation ensues, she eventually forces him to accept her apology, and then that absent-minded Sister Bertrille once again goes and sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong, and holds the strike leader’s sign while he shows her his scalded hands.
This is the dumbest she’s been, and I’m more inclined to dislike her idiotic combination of church and picketing because of her show being nowhere. Grrrrrr. I don’t know, man, there’s some funny bits but I’m not going to mention them because this isn’t fun. The trajectory of the episode leaves the Sisters cooking and cleaning in Carlos’s kitchen. The episode continues escalating due to some stupid photographer who manages to always be where he shouldn’t be. I hate that guy. And I hate this show. My face is boiling in rage. But why? Oh, dear God.
Episode Rating – 2.1 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.7: “The Not So Great Impostor”
Here’s a better premise! A writer leaves a newspaper to write a book, and has no good ideas, until he sees a Nun fly by. He’s got, in his mind, the greatest news story in the world, and a friend in Carlos Ramirez. Good thing is that Carlos can pre-warn the Sisters so they know to keep quiet and stop Sister Bertrille from flying. What they don’t expect is the writer to disguise himself as a Priest visiting from Nigeria, who speaks with what sounds like an Irish accent?
He’s very conniving, but why Carlos didn’t tell any of the Sisters what he looked like, I don’t know. Carlos finds out what’s going on, but only after the writer tricks her up a tree with a cat and a broken ladder, and has her fly a kite. It’s nice to see that this episode continues how unbelievably stupid she is.
Her solution is doing aerial tricks for the writer Barnes to take photos, only to take trick photos of the other Sisters “flying” in front of a light blue backdrop and send them to his former editor. Barnes is upset that they discredited him, which I guess makes sense, but I don’t care that he’s upset. He impersonated a Priest. He’s a bad guy, and he said something about a sick wife and children, which I’m sure is false. Yeah, it is. Sister Bertrille knows out of the goodness of her heart she won’t ruin a man’s career, and prepares to do a “Peter Parker revealing his secret identity during the super hero Civil War”. But the prick folds and shows his decency. And walks away with a great book idea. “The Flying Nun”.
Episode Rating – 7.8 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.8: “A Convent Full of Miracles”
Sister Jacqueline opens the episode as always. “We have a saying at the Convent. Anything that can go wrong, will.” That’s not your saying, Jacqueline, that’s Murphy’s Law. Ugh. I only have three more months after today. Three months. That’s all. The Convent is in the middle of a terrible rainstorm and leaking all over the place. This time around the Nuns invite a man with no money driving a classic car to stay with them as their handyman. And shortly thereafter they receive gifts from a mysterious benefactor. A new stove. A new hot water heater. A new wading pool. Some of the Nuns think Sister Bertrille is getting gifts from God.
It’s Alonzo, the handyman, who is rich and able to bestow gifts upon the Convent while doing something new with his life. I enjoy the various ways Alonzo thinks of mysteriously bestowing gifts upon the Convent, like having his assistant call pretending to be an over the phone sweeps caller. I like this, it’s nice, it’s fun, it’s just a man being nice to a community.
The thing is, Alonzo wants to take some credit for giving back for their kindness. But none of them believe he’s a rich man. It’s frustrating. The Sisters are catching Sister Bertrille’s stupidity, and unfortunately Alonzo told his assistant to lie and say he was in Canada if phoned. But in the end, Sister Bertrille finds out the truth.
Episode Rating – 8.4 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.9: “Hector and the Brass Bed”
It’s a donkey episode, folks. A beleaguered antiquesman tricks the Sisters into trading their large brass bed for his donkey Hector, as his wife insists on kicking Hector to the curb. This is what, the third or fourth episode where a new pet at the Convent causes chaos? He’s the second one who needs to learn manners, but I guess he can’t imitate people like the parrot or steal things like the dog and the monkey. So it’s different, really, they’re not retreading their steps at all.
Antonio Fuentes, the antiquesman, insists he won’t take the donkey back, but soon finds bad luck striking him after all of his lies. He quickly believes he’s been cursed by the Sisters. Meanwhile the Sisters buy an angry dog to help Hector calm down on advice from an animal therapist. It’s not long before the Sisters are swindling Antonio, whose life has been undone by the “curse”. They trick him into giving them $250. And they keep Hector anyway? It’s very confusing.
Episode Rating – 6.3 Sally Fields

The Flying Nun, 3.10: “The New Habit”
Oh. So. Um. The Convent of San Tanco has received new blue uniforms with weirdly shaped hats. They all look like they’re hosting a garden party. The Cornettes don’t look especially aerodynamic. When Sister Bertrille goes to save a kitty from a tree she falls immediately. Her and Sister Jacqueline don’t know why she can’t fly. Because they’re stupid. And in the weirdest bit of editing, she falls fast into a fountain when trying again. Why try to fly in front of a fountain? Oh, because she’s stupid.
The Mother General wanted these new habits, so Sister Bertrille resigns herself to giving up flight, like Spider-Man 2. The Reverend Mother allows Sister Bertrille one last flight, via the same stock footage we’ve seen seven dozen times now. The issue is everyone gets extra depressed by the lack of flight, and the fact that their hairstyles all look different when they don’t wear paper airplanes on their heads. The Reverend Mother looks like Jane Lynch.
Of course at the end the new outfits are discarded. The Mother General realizes the error of her ways when Carlos, desperate to bring the flight back into his life (He claims he’ll have no excitement without Sister Bertrille being able to fly in on his dates, which sounds like a weird kink quite frankly) enlists his current female obsession to design a new dress that is identical to the habit. This shocks the Mother General and her concepts of what’s hip and happening and she subsequently changes the outfits back and all is well. Yaaaay…?
Episode Rating – 7.3 Sally Fields

Thirteen down, three to go!!!