Eric R. Danton | Sound Check

'What do you play, leather jacket?'

The first season of "Flight of the Conchords" ends on an awkward note, after band manager Murray goes and hires a third Conchord while gassed up on nitrous from a trip to the dentist.

He adds Todd to the band without checking with Bret and Jemaine, leading to trouble when Todd's more interested in scoring with the ladies than music. Jemaine tries to fire him, but ends up firing Bret instead, leading to rival acts Flight of the Conchords, featuring Jemaine and Todd; and the Original Flight of the Conchords, featuring Bret and a keytar player.

Eventually, after Flight of the Conchords opens for the Original Flight of the Conchords, Todd and the keytar player split to form Crazy Dogggz, and immediately land a smash hit with a tune Jemaine and Bret refused to play. Come to think of it, it sounds like a pretty accurate parable of the music industry: Crap sells.

The songs weren't anything special here, but Bret responds to having been fired by dancing away his anger. Check it out.

'Not even Crowded House gets a 90-10 split'

A "Lord of the Rings" parody on "Flight of the Conchords" was probably inevitable, given the common link to New Zealand. But the setup was brilliantly convoluted: Bret and Jemaine are offered a fake record deal by a semi-professional actor they engage to cheer up Murray the manager by calling him to reject the band.

Among the various promotional ideas for the fake record deal are lunch boxes with the band's name on them, and a video commemorating the 10th anniversary of the filming of "Lord of the Rings" in New Zealand, resulting in this video, which incorporates all the recurring characters: Landlord Eugene, friend/pervert Dave, fan/stalker Mel and Murray, all dressed as characters from "Lord of the Rings."

Eventually, of course, the truth emerges, but not before Murray books a night club and spends a lot of money to celebrate the band's apparent success.

'Pretty party clothes crocheted of snow'

After several mostly Mel-free outings, the band's No. 1 (and only) fan is back with a big role in Episode 10 of "Flight of the Conchords."

In fact, she wins a contest to cook dinner for the band, but only after Jemaine is disqualified for being in the band. (He defends himself by saying he's a fan of the group, too. Bret, meanwhile, says he's not at all a fan of the band. "I'm more of a fan of popular bands," Bret says. "The Bee Gees. Pearl Jam.")

The band makes two new female fans at a world-music open mic, but Mel warns the guys that these fans are only in it for sex. Sure enough, after mistakenly dropping acid with Summer and Rain ("like bad weather," Mel sniffs), the topic of a threesome comes up. One of the funniest scenes in the series so far involves Bret and Jemaine discussing whether it would be impolite to refuse.

First, though, Bret's acid trip results in this pyschedelic homage, "Prince of Parties." Check it out:

'Mermaids murmur into my ear'

What a bleak episode.

Manager Murray opens the ninth episode of "Flight of the Conchords" by announcing to Bret and Jemaine that he's booked an actual tour for the band, culminating in a gig in "a central park." But everything goes wrong, from Jemaine's inadvertent purchase of an $8 can of nuts from a hotel mini-bar to an expensive run-in with a women's water polo team to Bret and Jemaine blowing their per diems on leather suits instead of "food and other essentials," as Murray puts it.

Murray won't tell the band where he got the money to take them on tour, but soon enough, his wife calls wondering what happened to their savings account and Murray spends most of the rest of the episode dissembling. It's the first time you feel sorry for Murray, rather than merely cringing at his cluelessness.

Some of the visual gags were outstanding here (especially the ever-shrinking leather suits), and a bit toward the end with fan/stalker Mel is priceless, but the song, "Mermaids," definitely felt wedged in. At least it was a funny play on lounge singers. Check it out:

'Stop comparing everything to Top Gun'

The songs are still the focal point of "Flight of the Conchords," but the storyline in Episode 7 was pretty great, too: Bret and Jemaine get girlfriends.

Bret switches gender roles when he wants to take things slow with Lisa, who's all over him. In the meantime, Jemaine is keen for things to move a lot faster with Felicia, who doesn't actually like him at all. Awkward hilarity ensues, including this exchange, when Bret recounts Lisa's advances:

Bret: It was full-on. I'm not ready for it.
Jemaine: How did you get her to start it?
Bret: I don't know. I was asleep.
Jemaine: Really? Hmm. And then what did you do?
Bret: Well, I just said wasn't ready to have sex.
Jemaine: And that worked?
Bret: No, that didn't work at all, 'cause then she wanted to have sex.
Jemaine: Hmm. It worked, then. Good.

Both songs were funny, too, though the action flowed more smoothly into "A Kiss is Not a Contract" than "Foux Da Fa Fa," a Serge Gainsbourg send-up that they were clearly eager to include. With its bright '70s colors, lounge-like musical feel and elementary French vocab, you can see why. Check it out.

'There's a dog in the New Zealand section'

Episode 6 of "Flight of the Conchords" was, for the first 20-odd minutes (or possibly 20 odd minutes), a morality tale about looking past superficial differences among people, before a twist at the end that unravels the whole lesson.

A fruit vendor, with dark skin suggesting Middle Eastern or Indian origins, refuses to sell his wares to Bret or Jemaine, telling them, "I don't serve your kind here" and, later, directing them to the "New Zealand section" of his stand, where a dog is picking through rotting fruit. A series of xenophobic tauntings results, along with a brilliant gangsta parody, "Mutha Uckas," in which the lads edit themselves as they complain about "too many mutha uckas/Uckin' with my shi-."

In keeping with the morality angle, manager Murray lends Bret and Jemaine a video tape of TV programs his mum recorded in New Zealand. One of them, a surreal stop-motion puppet TV show called "Albi the Racist Dragon," makes the pair cry when Albi realizes the error of his racist ways. So, so strange.

Speaking of Murray, he's the subject of this epsisode's subplot when he falls in love with the tech support woman installing new computers at the Consulate where he works. His clumsy attempts to woo her fail when she finishes her assignment and leaves, leading to Murray's turn on the microphone. Check it out:

Do you want to borrow my jumper, Bowie?

"Flight of the Conchords" is definitely getting weirder, but in a good way.

A band photo shoot in Episode 6 leads to body-consciousness issues for Bret, resulting in a series of dreams involving an advice-dispensing David Bowie, Jemaine writing a too-much-information song attempting to boost Bret's self esteem ("Why can’t a heterosexual guy tell a heterosexual guy/That he thinks his booty is fly?" Jemaine sings) and this exchange when Bret mentions, while reading Novelty Music Scene magazine that he feels like he's too small in stature:

Jemaine: Are you bulimic or something?
Bret: No. But I just feel like all these novelty musicians are bigger than me.
Jemaine: Is that what's made you bulimic?
Bret: No. I just need to eat more.
Jemaine: Hmm. Sounds like bulimia.

Along with Bret, Jemaine, Murray the manager and dream-sequence David Bowie (impersonated by Jemaine) all endure moments of shaken confidence. After Bowie tells Bret he has no more advice for him, he leaves for party ("in space, Bret. In space") and Bret and Jemaine perform a totally lo-fi video homage, "Bowie's in Space." Check out the clip.

Business hours are over, baby

Episode 5 of "Flight of the Conchords" was much more of an ensemble piece, featuring excellent bits from stalker/fan Mel, friend Dave (who has the most graphic and unexpected line in the episode), manager Murray, Bret's girlfriend Coco and Bret and Jemaine's shared ex-girlfriend Sally, who reappears to wreak havoc in their lives.

The songs were catchier in previous episodes, though both "Business Time" and "Song for Sally" had their moments. The funniest part of this episode, though, was the montage as Bret and Jemaine attempted to outdo each other in making the best birthday present for Sally, closely followed by their dejected walk home after Sally springs a surprise on them at her birthday party. Check out the clip:

Being lewd with two dudes with food

Two episodes ago, Bret fell for Coco, his sign-holding co-worker. Now, in Episode 4 of "Flight of the Conchords," they're dating and he's smitten. It's the set-up for the smartest episode yet, replete with Beatles references both subtle and obvious, and wordplay that verges on brilliant.

After a date with Coco (on which Jemaine is also present), Bret is inspired to write a song for her and asks Jemaine to critique it. After noting that the tune is two hours long, Jemaine parses some of the lyrics, leading to this exchange:

Jemaine: "I'd climb the highest mountain." Would you actually do that?
Bret: Probably not.
Jemaine: Well, you're sort of promising that you would.
Bret: That's a metaphor.
Jemaine: Oh, is it? Oh, OK. What's it a metaphor for?
Bret: That I'd do anything for her.
Jemaine: Would you climb the highest mountain for her?
Bret: Oh, God. I see. No, I wouldn't do a lot of that stuff.

The two then write a shorter, revised version called "If You're Into It," which starts off sweet and funny and then gets weird and hilarious. Check it out:

The Rhymenocerous

Shortly after Bret assures his mother on the phone that "it's not that dangerous" in New York and that he doesn't need a gun, Bret and Jemaine are mugged in Episode 3 of "Flight of the Conchords."

They're accosted as they ride their bikes home from a band meeting, at which Bret insists he be referred to by his hip-hop name, the Rhymenocerous. Naturally, this sets up the first song of the episode (watch the video below), which is uproarious. "I'm the Hip-hopopotamus, my lyrics are bottomless," Jemaine boasts, as he in fact runs out of lyrics for the rest of his verse.

Naturally, as unsuccessful musicians, they're broke, and the muggers chase them down the street. Bret gets away, Jemaine doesn't (and spends two days in jail when he and one of his assailants are taken in by police), thus creating the dramatic arc of the episode.

There were some priceless moments this week. When one of the muggers pulls a knife, Jemaine offers a deadpan "Crocodile Dundee" homage and says, "That's not a knife." Then he corrects himself with some version of "Oh, yeah, that's a knife."

Some of the best gags are visual and never spoken of: Bret's applique-tiger sweatshirt, for example, or Jemaine playing Battleship with the new roommate Bret found during the two days Jemaine was in lock-up. Best of all, though, might have been the shirt with a picture of Jemaine behind bars that fan/stalker Mel is wearing when she encounters the lads outside their apartment and asks, with a mix of curiousity and arousal, whether Jemaine was molested in jail.