The Immaculate Contraption

The trouble starts with an Austin Allegro and a nun. Sister Angelica buys the Allegro from Arthur's lot, which is to say she buys what Arthur knows to be a clapped-out, overpriced car with ideas above its station. Then everything else starts going wrong. The equipment he is supplying to Bjorn, the manager of Jorgensen's new stress reduction clinic, goes sideways in every direction, and Arthur draws the only conclusion available to him: God is billing him for the Allegro. The timing is exquisite: the nun is barely out of the yard before the whole week starts punishing him.

So he sends Ray to the convent with orders to put the car in good order, whatever the cost, and the cost comes straight out of Arthur's own pocket, which is a form of penance he would normally outsource. Ray fixes the Allegro, Providence appears satisfied, and the clinic's grand opening arrives with Jorgensen himself flying in from America. Against all the evidence of the preceding week, everything works. Arthur takes it as exoneration, and the smile on his face is the one honest thing in the whole contraption.

William Ivory and Leon Griffiths wrote it, with Gordon Flemyng directing. Frances Cuka is a delight as Sister Angelica, whose patience with Arthur is a minor miracle in itself. George Cole and Gary Webster are Arthur and Ray, Metin Yenal plays Bjorn, and Sidney Livingstone, Tim Wylton, Richard Durden, Edda Sharpe and Peter Shorey fill out the parish.

Arthur's theology is simple: sin, then pay, then be forgiven, with the paying done by somebody else whenever possible. The episode lets him believe it works, and for once the universe declines to argue. A nun drives away in a working car, a clinic opens, and Arthur sleeps easy. That counts as a blessed week by his standards.