Big Bad’s Assistant’s Girlfriend is a minor antagonist from the children’s show Brum. She is a thieving Big Town Baddie who has a romantic but criminal relationship with Big Bad’s first on-screen accomplice. Appearing in the episode “Bushes on the Run” she and her boyfriend try to rob a florist of her money as Brum brooms after them.
She is played by Justine Marriot.
Biography[]
Nothing is known about this thief’s life prior to her appearance on the show. From her utilitarian style of dressing she is likely a low to middle class Townswoman who has resorted to thievery to make money. At some point she met and started dating Big Bad's Assistant. Although the two have a stable enough relationship it is implied that she goes out with him because he is easy to control.
Bushes on the Run[]
She is first appears with her boyfriend hiding behind a florists’ stand, eyeing down her earnings stored in a silver container. The couple nod to each other and agree to steal it before she drags her partner’s head down as he continues to stare at the desired plunder. Holding each other’s arms, the pair step out from behind the stand and feign friendliness towards the florist and Brum before she shoves her boyfriend over to the other side of the stand near where the money is. She keeps the florist’s attention by piling her arms with flower pots before her boyfriend finally finds the money. However, when he waves it in the air he alerts Brum. Panicked he tosses it to her before they take off as Brum follows.
Tossing the money box between them as they run along, they soon stop outside the Big Town Nursery for a breath. Seeing that Brum is bearing down on them she points at the nursery and the two dash in while continuing to pass the money between them. As Brum searches through the cobbled pathways for them, the pair emerge from behind some concrete fountains. When Brum leaves the two break cover and move up a path flanked by bamboo plants. The pair then notice two bushes and simultaneously get the idea to conceal themselves within them. She commandeers the short round bush while her boyfriend takes the tall thin one. Initially their strategy succeeds as Brum fails to detect their presence as he inspects the immediate area.
After the supercar leaves, the two then stand up, their legs having comically replaced the stems of shrubs, and try to sneak out of the area. However, Brum doubles back and spots them, causing them to flee again with her taking the lead as usual. The two end up back outside the nursery’s entrance and squat down pretending to be bushes again. Once there are no witnesses, they flee to the nearby car park and try to catch a departing bus. Amusingly, the width of her bush prevents her from getting through the bus’ entrance before they are thrown off by the driver. Desperate, they try to bribe the driver with extra money and chase after it when the vehicle pulls away while Brum closes in.
The episode then cuts to the two having run across the town to the shopping centre where she runs into a couple of polls and is bounced back. She then runs and spins around in front of the automatic entrance while her boyfriend bumps into it before the sensor opens the doors. She then takes to the escalator as both wave goodbye to Brum. However, the supercar takes a nearby elevator and reaches the second level just as they do. Panicked, the thieves go back down the escalator and hightail it back to the nursery with her boyfriend wheeling her through the entrance in a wheelbarrow. With her leading the way, the two run through the gardened area of the nursery and bump their way past the attending gardener. Her visibility hindered by her bushy disguise, she clumsily runs into a tree and falls back onto her boyfriend while the gardener starts to pursue them. Before the couple come back around the looped path, Brum knocks down a wheelbarrow full of waste and compost which promptly bawls them over onto a nearby raised garden bed. Unable to get up, Brum then literally hoses them down as they haplessly kick in the air. Brum ceases the stream when gardener arrives, who unceremoniously hauls them out of their bush disguises, now saturated and plastered with mud. As this happens she loses her grip on the money before she and her partner are dragged off camera through the mud as they desperately try to reach for their ill-gotten gains.
She never reappears following this which leaves her with an inconclusive fate. However, she is presumably stuck in prison as the gardener and Brum likely would’ve handed them over to the police for their antics.
Appearance[]
She is a woman of average height with a medium build with fair skin and blonde hair who dresses in rugged clothes.
Personality[]
Much like Big Bad, her boyfriend’s first accomplice, she possesses a mostly phlegmatic temperament. She doesn’t express much emotion and appears to be relatively stern in her mannerisms. Despite her relatively cool temperament she does occasionally show worry or even desperation. The former is shown by her surprise at seeing Brum catching up with them and the latter is shown by her anxiously waving money in the air at a departing bus after she and her partner were refused entry. She is also impatient. After she and her boyfriend approach the flower seller and wave at Brum, she is quick to shove him to the other side so he can get the money. Additionally, when her boyfriend stands on top of some of the stone garden ornaments they were hiding behind, she irritably orders him to get down.
Although she appears to be a callous crook she does possess some redeeming traits. She appears to love and respect her boyfriend, even though she is the dominant one within the relationship. Despite her occasional impatience with him she never belittles or mistreats her boyfriend in any way, and largely treats him like an equal as shown by them tossing the money box between them. She also grins at him in unison when they agree to disguise themselves as bushes. Moreover, she never expresses any sadism towards anyone despite being a hardened criminal. Despite this, she remains a callous individual because of her lack of remorse and care for others.
Tactics and abilities[]
Big Bad’s Assistant’s Girlfriend is shown to be a reasonably savvy Big Town Baddie, at least when compared with her boyfriend. When trying to steal the flower seller’s money she acts as a distraction by posing an interested customer to keep the seller’s focus on one side of the stand while her boyfriend finds the money on the other. Here she demonstrates a degree of foresight. While it might make more sense for her to appear by herself and hold the seller’s attention on one half of the stall while her boyfriend acquired the money, this would fail for two reasons. Firstly, she likely wouldn’t be able to hold the seller’s attention long enough for her incompetent boyfriend to acquire the money. Secondly, Brum would’ve alerted the seller to this. Nonetheless, her tactics when on the run are relatively basic as she resorts to hiding behind pottery while Brum searches for them. The most effective trick she uses is to disguise herself as a bush which initially works until she prematurely breaks cover with her boyfriend.
However, she proves to not be on the same level as Big Bad’s 2nd Girlfriend in terms of quick-wittedness or Pickpocket Polly in terms of strategy due to the elementary mistakes she makes on the run. She never even tries to ditch her disguise when it becomes useless making her an obvious target to everyone. It even proves to be more of hindrance to her as it prevents her from fully boarding a bus and obscures her field of view causing her to run straight into a tree. She also uses tactics that would cost her and achieve nothing as demonstrated by her and her boyfriend trying to catch a bus while still wearing their bush disguises. Firstly, Brum would just follow the bus until they got off and secondly this would cost them money, the very thing they went to so much trouble to steal in the first place. Moreover, when she gets the idea to disguise herself and her boyfriend she takes several seconds to do so while other baddies like Big Bad’s 2nd Girlfriend do so within a split moment.
- Disguises: Like many Big Town Baddies, she possesses skill in the art of disguise. To escape Brum’s notice, she dresses herself up in a bush next to her boyfriend. This initially works out well as a getaway tactic until they prematurely break cover as Brum drives back around.
- Endurance: She is able to hold down a lengthy chase with Brum, even with large bush over herself while showing no real fatigue. However, in the early part of the chase she and her boyfriend stop outside the Big Town Nursery for a deep breath when they think they’ve outran the supercar. Although this can be attributed to fatigue, it can also be drawn down to relief.
- Leadership: She also proves to be a capable leader with almost complete control over her boyfriend who follows her instructions without much complaint.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Like all Big Town Baddies her defeat is highly symbolic. Her getting soaked and pulled out of her bush disguise shows how Brum has weeded her out.