In light of my recent realization that Roswell will be airing a brand-new episode in its regular Tuesday time slot on New Year's goddamn Day while I'm on a plane watching Legally Blonde and trying to think about anything besides Roswell and crashing, I would like to offer the following gay Christmas tiding to the show, the stars, the "writers," the producers, the network, everyone who lives or works within a five-mile radius of the Paramount lot, the guy who invented the picture tube, the Chamber of Commerce of every over-hyped frontier town from Roswell to Tombstone to Orlando, any actual aliens, and God: I hate you and I've poisoned the fruitcake.
Hee. "Gay." Just like our apparel. Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Anyway, screw you, Roswell. Happy scabby-ass New Year to you, too. Here. Have some poisoned fruitcake.
Fade up on the no-place-like-this-scabby-ass-town-for-the-holidays town of Roswell, New Mexico, to find Max "See The Flaming Tool Before Us" Evans and Michael "That Shook When He Laughed Like A Bowlful Of Jelly" Guerin walking somberly down a festively decorated street. Max begins the conversation "So..." to indicate that we're in the middle of a deep and pre-established chat. Golly. I do hope we can catch up! "So, did you and Maria officially break up?" Michael doesn't know: "She wants space [pun-tastic reference to Michael's interstellar pedigree thankfully ignored], but she still wants me in her life. All I know is that I'm not getting any [pun-free reference to Michael's interstellar libido predictably and extraneously included]." Meanwhile, Track #3 of Gratingly Clichéd Christmas Sound Effects For Your Cash-Strapped Network Failure, Vol. 1 rants on, as the dialogue is all but drowned out by the screaming background din of a looped Santa-sounding character bellowing "Ho ho ho" and "Merry Christmas" and what have you. I guess they couldn't get the licensing to use Track #1 (Salvation Army Bell Ringing Excessively Outside Safeway) or Track #2 (Madonna Singing "Santa Baby"), so they had to settle for this old standard. But Max and Michael pay it no mind, Michael keeping to the topic at hand and noting, "Let's grab a burger." Max is a tut-tutter: "That's not exactly giving her space." But someone's stocked Michael's stocking with tart, barbed, Gal Friday-esque retorts, and he detonates one here, shooting back, "I'm not gonna starve because I have a weird girlfriend." Okay, country mouse, for the last time: there are two McDonalds in Roswell, two Burger Kings, a Wendy's, an Arby's, a Denny's, and fifty million other crappy diners. There's no Jack In The Box, but I mean, come on. Those burgers suck and are furry. So everyone buy a yellow pages and give each other a time-out sometimes. Please? Really. Please. Besides, Max remembers, "I'm not allowed in the Crashdown." Yuck. And look at what such malnutrition has done to his weight class. I take back the yellow pages thing. But Michael sends continuity on an extra long holiday break, ending Max's season-long ban from Liz's airspace with the simple missive, "Do it anyways. It'll make her hot." Again with the bawdy quips! Oh, Michael! You one-horse-open-sleigh me.
Cut to the Crashdown's festooned interior to find the usual crew -- Liz "No Place Like Drone For The Holidays" Parker, Maria "Santa's Little Yelper" DeLuca, Isabel "Grinch, Stealing" Evans and Jesse "When You Pine For The Sunshine Of A Friendly Gays" Ramirez -- sitting at a table a fair distance from the counter. The counter, you say? Why, at the counter sits a young boy staring into a small and ornately decorated tree, as the woman to him communicates a decisively "you-don't-have-to-like-him-if-you-want-you-know-he-also-drove-my-husband-away-and-destroyed-my-marriage-you-know-that-don't-you-don't-you-don't-you" body language before the lips even have a chance to say so. Meanwhile, back at the table, Isabel maniacally outlines a plan for the Christmas décor in her home, and Michael breezes past her and mumbles, "All hail the Christmas Nazi." And I do hope you all saw last year's Christmas abomination for a deeper understanding of that line. Because I'm not explaining it again. Maybe when I have more time. Maybe on a day when absolutely nothing is going on. New Year's Day, for example? No, no. There's something going on that day, after all. What on earth is it, again? Blah. During all of this, Max sits down across from Liz, and she gazes at him all adoringly and coos, "I love that you just walked in here." Yeah, my man really knows how to...enter a...diner...or something. Michael and Maria share an awkward exchange of "Hey" and then "Hey," and Maria begs out of plans with Michael because she needs space. Which is news to you all, I'm sure.
The aforementioned tree-staring youth at the counter turns from the booth and begins to glare at Max. Max, a glee in his voice so great I fear that he might break into song, asks for confirmation: "Is that kid staring at me?" What kid? That kid. Hey, Max, are those three ships in your pocket, or are you just happy for the attention? Whatever. Don't answer that. Isabel and Michael share a brief spat that reminds us that Isabel is a bitch who micromanages Christmas, but Isabel wins when she reminds people that she found her calling in volunteering, "helping the elderly, children, the less fortunate find joy and happiness during the holidays." Maria thinks that sounds like a great idea (whereas I think kids have snotty noses and also I think old people mostly smell like Lipton's onion soup mix, so that's America for you), one that would get her mind off of "other situations." Liz agrees that she would like to help out as well, and Isabel informs her new lackeys to meet her "at the park after work." What a junior high directive. Me. You. The bridge. Three o'clock. This is so cool. I think Isabel is finally going to kick their asses.
Max makes googly eyes with UPN's PSA ("Kids, if an adult ever looks at you, well, exactly like this, please do yourself a favor and run away like your hair is on fire."), finally standing up and walking toward Max. The beleaguered mother stands up behind him, all, "Samuel? Where're you going?" But it's too late. Samuel is on the run. He walks up to Max, pausing for a moment before uttering the single word, "Daddy." Max leans in too close: "I think you've got the wrong guy." Beleaguered Mom asks if her son has said something to Max. "He called me 'Daddy,'" Max shudders. But Beleaguered Mom doesn't think so. "That's impossible. My son doesn't talk." Well then, what're you going around asking for? Max leans in with piercing eyes. Ew ew ew ew ew. Eyes on your own paper there, Jolly Old Saint Squick.
Opening credits: Dido nipping at my nerves.
"He called me 'Daddy,' it was crystal clear," Max opines (what? That's what he does here. He "opines") on the roof of the Lizbot. She attends to a finely decorated Christmas tree (on the tree: tinsel. Under the tree: the DVD director's cut of Bicentennial Man, because someone must love her very, very much). Liz, out of patience with such a garish display of opinery awfully early in this episode, doesn't bother looking back at Max when she snips, "I can't believe they actually let Robin Williams play me. Robin Williams doesn't even look anything like me!" Or maybe that's what she says in the director's commentary. The hour has grown late and I am easily distracted. What I believe she actually says is, "Yeah, I heard." Max wonders if maybe his son is trying to communicate with him, backstorying my last nine recaps (total approximate word count: 54,000) with the so-awkward-you-can-taste-it-and-it-tastes-kind-of-tangy-for-some-reason explanation, "You know my son is trying to send me signals!" Liz corrects him and the story arc, pointing out this show's plot holes with a giant laser pointer on a big chalkboard with Xs and Os written all over it with the too-true, "No, Max, he hasn't sent you a signal for over a month." But Max is resolute, retorting, "Well, maybe he hasn't been able to until now." What with the purchase of a bitchin' Camaro and watching his sister marrying a gay foreigner, ol' Sonny Boy Evans has watched his relevance slip significantly since the final days at the WB. But no more, as Max wonders, "What if there's something about this child -- something about the fact that he's different -- that allows my son to reach out to me through him?" The several lines are forever obscured by the deafening "beep beep beep" of the world's largest Mack truck backing up through the holes in that logic, and we return hours later to find Max and Liz talking about...exactly the same damn thing. Max outlines the dramatic tension of the episode: "Something made him talk to me. I have to find out what that is." The other day, the homeless guy who sleeps outside of my apartment building told me he was Jesus. Goddamn if this episode isn't making me wonder.
The two wise men, Kyle "The Littlest Drummer Boy" Valenti and Jim "Porno" Valenti, hang out in the kitchen of The Den Of Porno. Porno's got his hand right down the middle of a tender and mild turkey ("Needs more myrrh!"), while Kyle walks around unhelpfully and launches into the following prying speech: "All this Christmas stuff is because it's been a rough year." All what Christmas stuff? The house isn't even that decorated? Does he mean the turkey? The whole damn Roswell lot is drowning in crappy Vons garland, but I guess nothing says Christmas to Kyle like watching his father fisting an oven-stuffer roaster on network TV during the family hour. Or I could just let them exposit on their own. Kyle continues, "The whole thing with Tess and you losing your job and everything...I know you wanted to make this a good Christmas for us. For me. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate that." Kyle's wrong. And horribly, horribly unloved. Porno unfists the turkey and turns to his son, trying to pretend he hasn't been standing at the kitchen counter giving that bird the ride of its life. Ew. Nasty. Fowl, indeed. Sorry. Sigh.
And here's what Porno has to say in response: "I, uh, actually invited someone to come over for Christmas breakfast this year. A lady friend." Kyle's instantly on the defensive, all, "Fantastic. So you just, uh, decided to invite her to Christmas breakfast, our Christmas breakfast. Did you even think to ask me?" Kyle simmers and sulks and boils and bastes, so intent on maintaining the dignity of a Valenti tradition that, until the words "Christmas breakfast" were spoken nine TV seconds ago, never existed in this house or on this show. And we're totally supposed to swallow it whole, aren't we? Just like the Christmas breakfast that the "writers" just painted into our memory and hoped we'd invest in. Did we invest? No, indeed, we did not. Kyle leaves in a huff, and Porno whispers in relief, "Now, Butterball. Now you and I can finally be alone." Porno? Rubber gloves where we can see them, man. That's right. Both of them.
Ding-dong! The doorbell rings at the Beleaguered Mom residence, and Beleaguered Mom opens the door to find the composite pencil sketch your kindergarten teacher tells you to avoid standing on the other side. Max stands at the door, licking his chops and telling Beleaguered Mom, "I just keep thinking about what happened this morning." Ugh. The man is literally one dingy bicycle shop with a back room away from just being booked on the spot. Max introduces himself, and in a town this small, Beleaguered Mom never once thinks to ask, "Aren't you the Max Evans who knocked over a liquor store in Utah and spent several days in prison?" As I as a parent might have done before the inevitable step of, "Here are some crayons, my kid's in the back." Beleaguered Mom asks what she can do for him, and Max turns it around: "I was wondering what I could do for your son." Or did he say "do to your son"? Please promise you won't tell me. Beleaguered Mom doesn't understand! She asks, "Why?" Good answer. The very one I'd be asking. Max doesn't know. "It just feels like the right thing to do." A close-up shot of Samuel drawing (almost as good of a name for this episode, if you ask me) cuts back to Beleaguered Mom attempting to discourage any contact between her son and hey-who-the-hell-is-this-guy, explaining, "Max, I know how people can get around the holidays. My son is autistic. If you want to work with children, you might want to start with someone a little less challenging." But Max has failed to explain that this entire "liking kids" ploy is entirely for his own selfish gains, and he finally gets around to making that clear, shooting back, "I don't want to work with children. I want to help your son." Thanks as always for the holier-than-everyone approach that always seems to peak for you during the holidays, Max. I think I just changed my mind again about who on earth Jesus is.
Casa del Ramirez. Jesse stands by the mantel over the fireplace, hanging a dingy old stocking and listening to what sounds like the "Have A Jazzy Little Christmas" CD sold for $14.99 at Pottery Barn chains nationwide (when we join the action, it seems to be on Track #7, "Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Kenny G's Hair"). To endless comic effect, Isabel enters the house, shopping bags in hand, and asks Jesse, "What's that?" We discover that "that" is his "old stocking," which he made by himself in kindergarten. All together now: awwwww. But the statically depicted Christmas Nazi tries to make Jesse into her accomplice-like Christmas Eichmann, standardizing the aesthetic of the place when she takes out a boring old pair of socks and molecularly manipulating one into a nicely tailored red-and-white stocking which reads in green script "Jesse." She's buying his socks for him? She lies and says she made them, and then coerces him to hang the crappy stocking somewhere else. She hides it behind a bush, and this episode is exactly the same as last year now. Go watch that one. It's really, really bad.
Samuel, Standing. We're in Beleaguered Mom's house (and seeing how the title of this episode makes absolutely no sense at all, maybe we can just go ahead and decide that "Rising" is Samuel's last name), with Max sitting on the couch watching Samuel at a large bay window. He's opening and closing it slowly so that changing patterns of light fall across the floor. Oh, Monopoly. Fun you can have with your friends. Beleaguered Mom enters the room and explains that the light "comforts him." She then goes on to explain, "I'll understand if you change your mind about doing this." Seriously. Am I the only person in America asking, "Doing, like, what, exactly?" But no matter. Time for Beleaguered Mom to turn the Rising Residence into a house of lies: "What happens today has never happened before. I keep asking myself, 'Why did he walk up to you? Why you?'" Max looks guilty and guilty again. So Beleaguered Mom keeps on vamping: "We have an appointment with his psychologist this afternoon. Maybe if she works with you and Samuel together, he might talk again." Yes, yes. I'm sure this child's mental-health professional will very much cotton to that entirely clinical butterfly-wings-in-Mongolia train of thought she's cobbled together. Max says he'd very much like to go. Samuel spends nine uninterrupted minutes swinging the window. Did David Lynch direct this episode? When does this kid show us the creamed corn?
We're outside at ChristmasTown Village, Isabel keeping order as she, Jesse, and Glorified Extra audition would-be ChristmasTown Village Santas. They stand in Santa chorus formation and yell an I-hope-I-get-it-God-I-hope-I-get-it round of hopeful "Ho Ho Hos!" Isabel is unimpressed, and none of them gets the part. Which calls into question why any of them would just own Santa outfits if there were a possibility that they wouldn't get the part. Isabel explains to Glorified Extra that said Santas won't do, noting, "Santa's village is an institution. My institution. And the children of Roswell deserve a great Santa. Not a good Santa. A great Santa." Just then, Liz and Maria pop up behind Isabel and wave a buoyant hello. Isabel notes that they are "seven minutes late," and then hands them two felt-y holiday outfits and yells all cheerfully, "Snowflake and Candy Cane!" They're elves. Those are their costumes. That makes them mad. What would have been a better gig? I mean, besides Special Unit 2, of course. Isabel tells them to quit their yappin', snarking, "There are no small assignments. Only small volunteers." Pause. Pause. Pause. You ready for what's ? You ready? Here it comes: "You two are the smallest I could find for those elf costumes." She turns on her heels and leaves. Liz and Maria do "incredulous," while Jesse stands behind them doing, well, "incredulous and without a pre-nup." Why would anyone marry her?
Max sits on the hastily-built "psychologist's office waiting room" set, while the session goes on behind him featuring the psychologist, Mr. and Mrs. Rising, and little Samuel himself. The psychologist tells Mother Rising that they have to "figure out what it means" that Samuel spoke, attempting to temper her response that "it means he's finally starting to communicate with the world" with a dose of reality. Mr. Rising busts in all mad and snipes, "We've had moments like this before. Emergency meetings, breakthroughs, changes." Mother Rising bites back, "Don't try and take this away from me!" Wow. This is awkward. Kids tear all the good marriages apart, don't they? Max, meanwhile, sits outside and looks aimlessly forlorn. Mother Rising conjures his name, hopefully letting the others know, "Max. Is outside. In the waiting room. He was the young man Samuel spoke to at the diner." Mr. Mad freaks out, but the psychologist thinks that's a good idea. Max is called in for his close-up. He enters the room, and the psychologist introduces herself. Samuel's father is also introduced. He's mad at kids for messing up his life-in-a-nice-house-with-bay-windows existence, so he just kind of grunts a hello. The psychologist asks Max to tell her and them and us what happened, even though most of us were actually there to see it the first time, thanks. Well, no matter: "I was sitting with some friends having breakfast, and I noticed him looking at me. Kind of staring." Samuel rises (much as the title promised he would) and walks over to Max, silencing him when he hands him a drawing on construction paper of...a spaceship! Or, maybe, a dreidl.
House That Government Subsidy Built. Max sits and stares and stares and sits and sits and sits and sits and sits and...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. A knock on the door reveals Liz, who storms in all excited, announcing, "I'm so excited! I haven't gone ice skating in so long!" What? Where? Who cares? Max hands Liz the drawing, and her comic (ha!) timing (shya!) mechanism fails to engage as she makes a wacky (balf!) and well-placed (bork!) "joke" about how good Max's drawing is. As if Max did the drawing, people! Don't you see? DON'T YOU SEE? Sigh. Anyway. Max explains that Samuel drew it, then over-explains, "He has never drawn anything in his life but numbers. Not a picture of a person or a tree or a sun." Not a bright copper kettle or warm woolen mittens! Liz, proving that her composition of alloyed metals is cumulatively magnetic, channels the audience vibe like a damn electric shock by continuing not to care. But Max is undeterred: "It means my son is trying to communicate with me!" Once, someone at my job handed me a comic strip she found amusing. Does that mean Dilbert is trying to contact me? Max plays the psychologist card, telling Liz that even the doctor found this turn kind of unusual, and Liz frets, "You're getting really involved in his life." Lost for actual support, Max goes for the jugular with the Jewish Guilt Trip, reminding Liz, "Liz, you were the one who said you'd do anything to help me find my son." Liz makes the fatal error of unironically referring to Samuel as "special," but nevertheless nails the point, "I just don't want you to get what you're looking for and walk away." With frivolity, she suggests that they go ice-skating. But he's going to the Rising Residence, and has to cancel. Liz turns around and storms out, snarking, "We'll do it another time." Until the budding cartoonist child prodigy draws Max orbiting Mir and he has to cancel his wedding or something.
ChristmasTown Village. Liz and Maria, bedecked in elfish finery, try to amuse wholly unamused brats by singing "Jingle Bells." The kids boo and hiss. One yells, "Elves suck!" Jeez. The anti-elf lobby kicks in. Or is it that they just happen to, like many of us, hate only these elves? Liz tries to defend herself against this horrific barrage of clichéd child actors, explaining, "Without elves, Santa would be nowhere. We are very proud to be elves." The very same girl who once proclaimed the totality of elf suckage now zeroes in on her target, practically spitting at Liz when she yells out, "Loser!" Heh. That one's mine. They then begin a lusty cry of, "We want Santa! We want Santa!" People. This scenario you are watching has never, ever happened before. And neither has this one: a ratty-ass red car with a plastic reindeer strapped to the front pulls up, and everyone is really happy to see him. Michael, wearing a Santa outfit and sunglasses, hops out of the car. He was wrangled into it by Isabel. The kids are ecstatic. Maria is mad. Somewhere else, Christmas is fun.
Samuel Rising wears a Waldo sweater and lofts a basketball. It doesn't hit the basket, so much, but Max and Mrs. Rising look on proudly and give him another shot. CAN IT ALL MEAN THAT MICHAEL JORDAN IS KHIVAR? There. I think I'm getting with the logic of this episode, finally. Samuel gets it on the rebound, and this time he sinks it. Gleeful hooting ensues. Until, that is, the arrival of Mr. Rising. Awkward hellos all around. Hello. Hello. Mr. Rising hands something over to Samuel that had been in the back of his car. Is that a cape? But alas, these are petty concerns when confronted with what comes . Max claims, "I should go" (gee, you think?), but Mr. Rising plot-develops, "That's okay. I have to go to work today." What? WHAT? But today's the day all the disparate plot lines converge! Did you not see a copy of the call sheet? Mr. Rising is ambiguously sorry, but claims they can just go tomorrow. At which point a jury of television professionals walks on set to award Mrs. Rising the esteemed Golden Expository Dialogue Award for the following elegant words: "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! There's no way Samuel's going to sit on Santa's lap if there are those kinds of crowds." Mr. Rising wins Best Supporting Expository Dialogue with his reply: "He's not gonna sit on Santa's lap no matter what we do! He's never sat on Santa's lap! He doesn't let people touch him!" Ooooooooh. Mrs. Rising shoots back something about "pretending to be a family," but Mr. Rising is out of there with a Grinchly scowl and no cape. Max just stares. Mrs. Rising reminds us that Samuel has never sat on Santa's lap. Which increases the effect of the image triply when we cut to Samuel sitting on Santa's lap. Liz and Maria spot Max with his new MILF friend, and Mrs. Rising freaks out at Liz and tells her not to touch him or force Samuel to sit on Santa's lap. He sits on Santa's lap. Max smiles. Other kids learn all about cutting in line, and then they go back to school and do it to the weak and the short. Liz snaps a photo of Max, Mrs. Rising, and Samuel on MichaelSanta's lap. This episode is spreading much Christmas queer.
Mrs. Rising is ecstatic. We're back in town now, the three walking together and Mrs. Rising explaining that this joyous event calls for a celebration with ice cream. Mrs. Rising, who has known Max for nine minutes, puts Max and Samuel at an outdoor table and goes in to get "the ice cream" without asking what flavor Max wants. Just like when people on TV just order "a beer, please." Samuel stares at a Christmas ornament, but Max is soon to turn the talk back to all things him, talking out the dreidl picture and letting Samuel know, "I wanted to talk to you about something. About this." Samuel smiles. "This might sound a little crazy, but did something tell you to draw this?" Max is out of ideas. Time to get physical. Max lays a hand on Samuel's arm and, just as I would do in a similar situation, the kid freaks out. Mayhem, as he screams and tries to run away. Mrs. Rising comes out and tells Max to stay away. Now that right there is what I call mothering. Bad touch, Max. Always a very bad touch.
End. END! We're back at the House Of The Rising Risings, Mrs. Rising pulling her son out of a minivan as Mr. Rising trails behind and Max stands awkwardly in the background with no basketball-playing youth to stare creepily at. Mrs. Rising ushers Samuel into the house, leaving Mr. Rising sitting all pathetically on the stoop with no one to cry his problems to, except this weird guy who is mysteriously not hanging around because he wants to bang the mom. Mr. Rising is ready for a heart-to-heart. "I've been there. Many times. Max, I know what this must look like to you. Like I've abandoned my family or something. You've gotta understand. What you've been doing for two days, I did for seven years." Well, I have no fucking comment about that one. Shall we continue the straight and unbiased transcription? Very well, then: "He has spoken before. Rebecca, she probably didn't tell you that. When he was four, he said, 'Baskin Robbins.' You know, for the ice-cream store." Oh, man, that's a great line. I wish all TV was just that one line, repeated over and over again into infinity. He goes on that he knows what Max is trying to do for his son, but "whatever it is you're looking for. It isn't there." Totally. This guy didn't abandon anybody.
Crashdown. Max sits at the end of his rope, as Liz sits close by, asking, "So, do you think the father is right? That what he said doesn't mean anything?" Thanks for the reminder of what we're talking about at the beginning of every single scene, y'all. Max opines (I know! Again!), "He drew this ship. It must mean something." But Liz indicates the wall behind Max, where there is a drawing of a spaceship on the wall. Max opines (well, now he's just treading water here), "He was just drawing the mural." Or, having spent the whole of his seven years living in a tourist trap with exactly one attraction, pretty much every wall of every tacky restaurant or museum or 7-Eleven in town. Seriously. That one was a no-brainer. Liz plays conscience again, reminding us about how we can't just ditch autistic interplanetary-channeling children as soon as they've served their purpose to us. Well, I know I've learned something this Christmas. Max tells her, "I don't know what to do. I've already hurt him once." Liz thinks that Max can still be of help, that Samuel's "trying to say something and he's looking for help to say it." Max looks hopeful. Does that involve more touching?
We can't just skip the whole Jesse/Isabel subplot? You sure? If I promise you an extra candy cane or something, can we just...oh, fine. FINE. Jesse is on the couch, screaming numerous permutations of the word "NO!" at the television screen. He's watching a football game, and boys fighting makes him bothered. Isabel walks in and asks how he's doing. He barely has time to respond before the game takes a wild turn that incites him to scream, "Turnover!" And I all but scream the words, "Well, I'll bet that's not the first time he's yelled THAT at another man!" before cramming them back from whence they'd come and wishing they'd never come up in the first place. Isabel sits down on the couch and impatiently tells him, "It's Christmas Eve morning. We have a million things to do." He picks up a bowl of popcorn and rationalizes, "I'm stringing." I, um...is that some street expression I don't know? Either way. She corrects his ability to "string," and Jesse becomes impatient: "Everything is too planned. I'm breaking out in hives here. I never break out!" That would be a really good cue for Swing Out Sister's "Breakout" to begin playing and diffuse some of this pesky tension. But, as too often happens on TV in these troubled times, it doesn't. Which is too bad, really. Because I'll bet you all the popcorn in that bowl that Jesse knows every single word to that song. Anyway, they fight.
Someone named Shelby is at the door of the Den Of Porno. Kyle announces that they haven't seen each other in a while, which indicates that they have known each other before in a social context. She asks after his father, and Kyle responds, "He's in the bedroom, getting ready to see his lady friend." Dawning moment. Cut to ChristmasTown Village, where Kyle rants to Isabel that he finds the fact that Porno is dating a much younger woman "humiliating." Isabel doesn't think so, because she too is dating an older woman. And then they run into said Porno and Shelby, and the four exchange the awkward hello. Isabel then agrees that it's "sick." Because, well, ha ha ha ha ha.
Many stories are to be told tonight at ChristmasTown Village. MichaelSanta is talking to a kid about hockey, and turns to MariaSnowflake and demands -- natch -- a Snapple. Maria gets all mad and grabs him, telling him that she has a Snapple in her "elf house." So that's what they're calling it nowada...sigh. They retreat inside the bowels of the Christmas village and fight about getting distance for one second before Michael takes down his beard and admits, "I miss you." And then, making like Marge and Homer in that mini-golf episode, they go at it right there. But hark! They are soon to be interrupted by another installment of Kids Interrupt The Darnedest Coitus, as he stands at the door and yells, "Santa and Snowflake are kissing!" Isabel storms into the room and screams, "You two should both go home and have a long talk with yourselves." She fires them both. Comic subplot, we hardly knew ye.
House Of The Rising Risings, cover of late, late darkness. Max slides undetected into Samuel's window, sees him wake up, and puts his index finger over his lip in a cruelly ironic use of the international symbol for "Don't talk." Max apologizes, and then he gets really deep: "There's someone I'm looking for. Kind of like your mom and dad are looking for you." Right. This speech couldn't win Oscars when the disease was also "ambiguous silence" and the set was called Awakenings. But a Christmas episode isn't a Christmas episode until Max sweats and shudders at the hot contact of a child's flesh, so Max tells the kid, "Tonight I am here for you. I want to help you say the things you need to say." He leans further onto the bed, putting his hands on Samuel's ears as a strummy, Tori-esque "Silent Night" begins to play. Max shakes and shudders. He asks, "Samuel?" Because no one adds "was it good for you too" anymore.
Has every scene of this episode begun with the transitional "so..."? Well, this one does, with Liz and Max gazing out the window of, I think, the Crashdown, Liz asking, "So what happened?" Max opines, "It didn't work. I couldn't heal him." Liz observes, "Maybe he didn't need to be healed. You heal people who are sick or hurt. But Samuel isn't sick or hurt. He's just different." Well, well. I hate that line. But I hate this one -- "Maybe I was trying to heal the wrong person" -- oh, so very much more.
Michael and Maria kiss, but she puts the brakes on and tells him that if they keep going, they'll wake up tomorrow and things will be exactly "how they were." Michael pulls the old "I don't want to be alone on Christmas" routine, which has also worked for Boxing Day, Purim, and Happy Emperor Sun Sun Light Day (Japan), and it always seems to work on her. She tells him that she'll make him some hot chocolate and they can sit outside and talk. Michael likes that. Because of how it often means sex.
An I've-touched-your-child-in-the-night-and-now-I'm-thumbing-through-your-photo-albums picture of Mr. and Mrs. Rising with their son appears in Max's hand and slides across a table to Isabel. She begins the speaking: "So..." Yeah. She says it. This is really sad. All of the dialogue sounds like it was written by someone who can only hear one side of every telephone conversation, so he's always like, "What's that? What? You say I should meet you at the zoo? What? You also say I should wear a red carnation in my lapel? What's that? What?" Anyway, here's what Isabel says: "So, you want me to bring the mother and father into the child's dream?" Yes. "I want Samuel's parents to know their son." And so Isabel submits, further manipulating a situation that was never a damn bit of Max's business. But no matter now. Isabel touches Samuel's face in the picture, and it's Christmas morning and we're inside Samuel's house. Well, hell! Samuel is going to be able to see this dream too, right? And now he knows what his parents have gotten him. Though I will admit that that looks like one kickin' train set right there. Samuel surveys his gifts and smiles. Really reedy music with the words "loo loo loo" plays unrelentingly. With another touch of the photo, his parents appear in the room. It's like a dream conference call! And my, my, Mrs. Rising, what a delightful bed frock we have on! Mr. and Mrs. Rising are still married in the dream because their "special" son hasn't fucked up their lives. God, I love episodes with a message, don't you? Samuel smiles: "I love you, Mommy. I love you, Daddy." Loo loo loo loo loo! Isabel is loo loo loo loo really proud of herself. Max asks if it worked, then asks what it's like "inside his mind." Isabel stares ahead: "It's beautiful." But you always have to hear that song. Nothing like Dream Muzak to ruin a lifetime's worth of silence.
A telephone rings in a dark room, and Mrs. Rising picks it up to hear Mr. Rising report, "I just had the weirdest dream!" So did she! He starts the sentence, "It was so..." She finishes it: "Real." He asks if he can come over. The kid can talk! They're in love again!
Porno. Kyle. Don't date younger women! We already broke up! Why'd you do it? Why are you asking? She's awful cute! Is she ever!
Jesse walks into the living room the following morning (where'd she sleep, then?) to find his stocking hanging proudly from the mantel. She's realized that Christmas is about family. "And you're my family now." This is how people learn and grow. In a montage. Max brings Samuel a present and leaves it outside. Max and Liz go ice-skating. Max and Liz talk about the nature of Christmas. Max and Liz make it snow, because that's what happens when evaporation meets the atmosphere and mixes with...love. Max and Liz skate off into the end of the year, insuring I won't have to deal with this mess until well into the year. Or at least until ten fucking minutes into it. Have a very pleasant Christmas, everyone.