The Third Conchord

"The Third Conchord"
Flight of the Conchords episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 12
Directed by	James Bobin
Written by	James Bobin Jemaine Clement Bret McKenzie
Production code	112
Original air date	September 2, 2007
Guest stars
Todd Barry (Todd) Demetri Martin (Demetri) Eugene Mirman (Eugene) Frank Wood (Greg)
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Actor" Next → "A Good Opportunity"

"The Third Conchord" is the twelfth and final episode of the first season of the HBO comedy series Flight of the Conchords. This episode first aired in the United States on Sunday, September 2, 2007.

Plot synopsis

Murray hires a bongo player for the band without consulting Bret and Jemaine. They are not happy about it and decide to fire him, but it's Bret who ends up out of the band. He responds by forming his own competing band.

Plot

Bret and Jemaine arrive at Murray's office for a band meeting to discover that Murray has hired a bongo player (Todd Barry) without consulting them. Astonished, they demand Murray fire him, but Murray convinces them to give Todd a chance.

At band rehearsal they discover that Todd the bongo player has a tendency to launch into long bongo solos, which they try to persuade him out of. Todd wants them to try one of the songs he has written about dogs, but they are not impressed.

After their first gig together — at which Todd has again launched into a long bongo solo — they try to convince Murray that Todd has to go because he is not "cool". But Murray refuses because Todd is popular and is bringing the band more fans. Despite this, the next day Jemaine attempts to fire him, but Todd's powers of persuasion are too much for him and he ends up firing Bret instead. Bret then does his angry dance.

After unsuccessfully attempting to weasel his way back into the band, Bret gives up and forms a new band of his own "The Original Flight of the Conchords" with a keytar player he has met named Demitri (Demetri Martin). Despite Murray's reluctance to manage both bands, they are surprised to discover that the two new incarnations of The Conchords are more successful than Bret and Jemaine ever were. Bret and Jemaine are still not pleased, however, since neither of them are getting along that well with their respective band-mates.

After a very successful gig in which "Flight of the Conchords" is the opening act for "The Original Flight of the Conchords", a pleased Murray suggests that the two bands merge to form a supergroup. Instead Todd and Demetri announce that they want to split from Bret and Jemaine and team up together to form the "Crazy Dogggz".

One month later, the song Todd had tried to get the Conchords to play, "Doggy Bounce", is number one in 24 countries. The Crazy Dogggz are touring the world and a busy and now-rich Murray is neglecting the Conchords. Even worse, their once-devoted fan Mel has also switched allegiance to the other band. The episode ends with Bret and Jemaine doing the angry dance.

Demetri Martin becomes the third correspondent from The Daily Show to make an appearance in this series, following in the footsteps of John Hodgman in episode 106 and Dan Bakkedahl in episode 111. In March 2008, Kristen Schaal also joined The Daily Show, becoming the fourth person to appear on both shows.

Songs

The following songs were featured in this episode:

"Bret's Angry Dance"

This song is an instrumental, and is played when Bret starts dancing to vent his anger on being fired from the band. The dance closely follows the style of Kevin Bacon's angry dance in Footloose. The song is reprised over the closing credits, with Bret and Jemaine dancing.

"Doggy Bounce"

Only one new song appears in this episode and it is not, at least in a plot sense, a Conchords song. The Crazy Dogggz song "Doggy Bounce", sung by Todd and Demetri, features somewhat childish lyrics set to a simple melody. The music video for it, which Bret and Jemaine watch on television, features Todd and Demitri in suits accompanied by four female dancers wearing doggy ears. It resembles very closely the "Macarena" music video by Los del Rio from 1996.^[1] Murray's English bulldog, Toby, also makes an appearance.

In the next episode, the first episode of season two, we learn that Todd plagiarized this song from a Polish band.

Other songs

During the scenes in which the various incarnations of the band are performing, we see snippets of "Robots".

Cultural references

Early in the episode Bret mentions to Jemaine that he sometimes dances "when he is angry". Later in the episode we see Bret launch into an elaborate dance sequence mimicking the Kevin Bacon dance from the 1984 film Footloose.^[2] During the end credits both Bret and Jemaine begin the same dance.

In one scene, Jemaine and Todd arrive at Murray's office wearing leather jackets. Murray remarks that "the Fonzies have arrived" referring to the character Fonzie from the 1970s TV series Happy Days.

The title is a reference to the fictional Fifth Beatle.

After a gig, Murray makes a reference to the Pied Piper, relating his "coolness" to that of Todd's.

The band name Crazy Dogggz refers to the 1990s supergroup Wylde Ratttz. In the show Todd specifically says he wants it to be spelled with three g's and a z.

References

1. ^ Los del Rio - "Macarena" (YouTube)
2. ^ Kenny Loggins - "Footloose" Music video featuring dance sequence from Footloose (YouTube)