Following the boisterous antics of The Jolly Boys' Outing, John Sullivan did something very different with his first Only Fools and Horses Christmas special of the 90s. The first few Only Fools festive episodes were surprisingly bleak but as they became a staple of the Christmas Day schedule, Sullivan moved towards livelier capers, sometimes relocating the Trotters to different places, such as Amsterdam, Margate and, in the following year's Christmas episode, Miami. But Rodney Come Home is a very different creature, sticking to the familiar Peckham setting and reinstating the downbeat atmosphere. The main reason for this was that Sullivan was setting up series seven of the show, which followed immediately, before the new year even arrived. It's clear from its distinctly unChristmassy content that Rodney Come Home is really just the first episode of the seventh series, differentiated only by its slightly longer runtime.
If Rodney Come Home admittedly feels a bit mismatched as a Christmas special, taken as a standard episode it is excellent. In its examination of shifting gender politics, male insecurity and the class divide, it hits most of the major hot button issues that really ignite Sullivan's talents. Only Fools and Horses was growing up and it acknowledged that fact with an episode, and subsequent series, about how hard it is to grow up. Spotlighting Rodney and his faltering marriage, not to mention his attempts at a career, Rodney Come Home begins at a point where the Only Fools world has become very different. But through a series of unfortunate events, Sullivan was able to get Rodney back in the flat and working for Trotter's Independent Traders again, and do so convincingly. With Cassandra and Raquel now playing a major role, the series was bound to change a little but Sullivan managed to find a way to preserve the central dynamics without having to force it, as he ultimately would with the ill-advised comeback trilogy at the start of the 00s.
Rodney Come Home begins with a scene of Rodney attempting to exert a small amount of authority over his secretary, something she evades by easily outwitting him. The callous way in which he speaks to her initially seems out of character but it soon becomes apparent that this seemingly throwaway scene is actually very important since it betrays Rodney's motivation for much of what happens in the episode. Sullivan was often very astute when probing the psychology of his characters but it was more often Del who came more closely under his microscope. But Rodney Come Home gives us an up-close look at Rodney's tragically minimal self-esteem, something Sullivan subtly links to his father abandoning him and his mother dying in a way which Rodney has subconsciously construed as abandonment too. After years of living in his brother's shadow, marrying Cassandra should've given him a boost but instead he is plagued by fears that she has "married beneath" her, and he attempts to redress the balance, first by trying to elevate himself by picking on his secretary, and then by devaluing himself by sabotaging his own marriage. This is largely subtextual but I was hugely impressed on returning to Rodney Come Home by just how effectively Sullivan layers it all in. Although Rodney and Cassandra are sometimes portrayed as being as bad as each other when it comes to childishness, Sullivan carefully highlights the main source of the tension between them through a clever metaphor involving a pair of small earrings.
As well as examining Rodney's psychological state, there's lots in Rodney Come Home about ingrained gender politics, something Sullivan began bringing to the forefront with the introduction of major female characters. The sexist attitudes of the Trotters had been realistically portrayed from the get-go but early on Sullivan was not always great at differentiating his characters' attitudes from his own. Too often he seemed determined to write as many gags comparing women to dogs as he could. This resurfaces in Rodney Come Home but in a very different light. Trying to dissuade Rodney from going on a date with another woman, Del begins spouting the sort of comments about dogs that can be found in the earlier episodes. But now, in Raquel, we finally have a female character present to challenge him. The speed with which Sullivan has her forgive him for the sake of making a joke work is a bit forced and he ultimately has Raquel apologise to Del rather than vice versa, but Sullivan cleverly shows that Del's sexist performance wasn't pure fakery in an unpleasant conversation he has with Albert before the scene. The Trotters are trying to grow but it is hard when certain attitudes have been so consistently passed down. When Raquel suggests Rodney is frightened, Del responds with "He's not frightened, he's a bloke." Given that Del raised Rodney himself, it is hardly surprising that he expects his wife to have dinner on the table, or that he is so reluctant to discuss his emotions that they fester and manifest as self-sabotage.
The astute psychological underpinnings do not mean that Rodney Come Home isn't also very funny though. Del has a good storyline about trying to invite Raquel to share his bed, while Albert gets a hilarious bit of business involving faking a shocked reaction. As the focus shifts to Del in the second half, his attempts to save Rodney's marriage are both touching and farcically funny as he runs from place to place trying to do the right thing and then clean up after his mistakes. Sullivan drops in a small ulterior motive for Del in the shape of the cheap printing he is getting from Cassandra's Dad, but the overwhelming impression is that Del is most concerned with Rodney's welfare and that his own interests merely add a greater urgency. In this sense, Rodney Come Home feels like the antithesis of the mean-spirited misfire A Royal Flush, in which Del destroyed Rodney's relationship for his own financial ends, only throwing in an unconvincing claim that he was actually protecting Rodney at the last minute.
With its lack of festive content, its bleak outlook and its backdrop of the usual Peckham locations, Rodney Come Home may not be one of the most well remembered Christmas episodes of Only Fools and Horses but it is one of the best-written ones. It easily folds into the subsequent series seven, which continued to explore Rodney and Cassandra's marital strife, and which is all the more effective for this introductory glimpse into Rodney's psyche.
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