- You would think that a possible rhinoceros rampage could get you out of having to go to work.
- Not in France, buddy.
- Berenger stumbles into his job. He’s late, but Daisy swings it so it looks like he’s on time on the sign-in sheet.
- She takes care of him that way. Nice girl, huh? No wonder he’s got a crush.
- Berenger’s co-workers are debating whether or not the rhinoceroses actually showed up.
- Daisy argues that she saw the rhinos with her own eyes, and Dudard says it’s in the papers, so it has to be true.
- Then there’s good old Botard. He’s like the resident conspiracy theorist. He likes to blame the “Man” and all that. He’d be best buds with Eddie Snowden if it were a few decades in the future.
- Basically, he’s unwilling to accept that there were actual rhinoceroses at all.
- After some debating about identity, intellectualism, and imagination (oh, the French), the boss Mr. Papillon tells everybody to get to work.
- Enter a freaked-out Mrs. Boeuf (yeah, that’s “beef” in English).
- Her husband, Mr. Boeuf, didn’t show up for work and Papillon wants to know why.
- Mrs. Boeuf says something about illness, but she’s more concerned by the fact that she was chased the entire way to the office by a rhinoceros.
- And not only that—said rhinoceros is downstairs right now!
- Even Botard starts coming around on the whole rhino thing when the beast rips apart the stairwell leading to the office. Hard to doubt it when it cuts off your escape route.
- Soon, Mrs. Boeuf realizes that the rhinoceros is her dear husband. Touching, right?
- Papillon and others feel like changing into a rhinoceros is legitimate grounds for divorce, but Mrs. Boeuf won’t hear it.
- She goes full-on action star and leaps out the window, landing on rhino-Boeuf and riding off on his back.
- Um, what?
- From here, it’s clear that more rhinoceroses are showing up. And the zinger? They seem to be former people.
- So, time for a vacay? Think again.
- Papillon decides that work must stop in the office (they’re missing the stairs, after all), but he refuses to treat this as any sort of break.
- He wants Daisy to come by his apartment to work, and he tells Berenger not to shirk his duties. In fairness, the workers don’t seem too concerned with their jobs at this point.
- Daisy calls the first brigade to help them get down from the stairless office, and eventually they all descend to the ground below.