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'Grapes of Wrath' is the third episode of the first series of the British sitcom, Black Books. It originally aired on the 13th of October, 2000. The script was written by Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan, who also directed the episode.
Plot synopsis
The episode opens with a pre-credits scene in a monastery in Bordeax, 1900, in which one of the monks (Ben Homewood) rushes to his abbott (Paul Beech), informing him that a bunch of grapes have grown from a rose bush. The two monks decide to make a wine from the grapes, which they say "will be fit for the Holy Father himself". After the opening credits, the show returns to its original format, in which Manny (Bill Bailey), after seeing the state of the house, decides to bring in 'The Cleaner', to see if he can improve the house's cleanliness. When a furious Bernard (Dylan Moran) finds out that this means they have to leave the house, both Manny and Bernard are forced to house-sit for their friend, Freddie (Chris Larner), who had tried to bribe them into house-sitting for him by offering them a massaging machine earlier in the episode.
Meanwhile, Fran (Tamsin Greig) is going out on a date and, after a series of unsuccessful ones, wants this one to go well, and buys herself a dress and makes a special effort to impress Ben (Mark Aikean), her date. However, she quickly starts embarassing herself and begins to notice something strange about Ben. Meanwhile, Manny is being shown around the house by Freddie, who explains about two racks of wine in the cellar. The larger rack is cheap wine which Manny and Bernard can drink as many bottles as they want, however, the smaller rack is expensive wine, some of which is worth $7000. However, once Freddie has left, Manny mistakes the expensive rack for the cheap one, and they begin drinking thousands of pounds worth of wine.