The Hecks always have the craziest holidays and this Christmas is no exception.
It starts out fine, with food that Frankie (Patricia Heaton) might have even made for Christmas Eve dinner, actually looking normal but that feeling doesn't last. Frankie is determined to make it to church on time, only her watch fell in the toilet and all the clocks in the house say a different time. Frankie doesn't want to sit in the overflow room again so she decides to bag church. Mike (Neil Flynn) is thrilled. He doesn't need a present anymore because his back won't hurt from those church pews. Things don't go to plan, though. They never do in the Heck house. Sue (Eden Sher) takes a great family photo but when she goes to upload it to the computer, somehow, in a way that is never explained, all the pictures from the last seven years are gone, just like that, poof. Frankie has her rant about all the lost photos, like a trip down memory lane, two high school graduations, plenty of holidays including Thanksgiving with the marines, but things get worse when she can't find the pictures actually printed before the family went digital. She cries and cries and Mike just remains in front of the TV, not watching the service but football instead. He is sick of Frankie carrying on. Each of the kids take turns trying to pull Frankie out of her funk, but each fail, even random Christmas carollers don't help. Frankie merely slams the door in their face. In the end, Frankie drags the family to church, where they end up in the third overflow room, in the church's nursery.
At least everything looks better in the morning, when they are opening presents. Mike even stayed up late and found where Frankie put the old photos. She is thrilled as are Axl (Charlie McDermott) and Sue to see their old baby pictures while Brick (Atticus Shaffer) is forced to look at the pictures of the Ferguson baby, yet another reminder of how they took home the wrong baby from the hospital.
They is barely a subplot in this episode as everything is mainly central to the main plot but Brick and Axl do have their moments over the present for Frankie. For the past twelve years, they have bought her some cat purrfume and this years is no exception. Only Axl won't pay up and Brick isn't having it so they argue about money. It ends with Frankie saying that she is glad about getting something else, only to open the giant box and find the little perfume bottle. And the stuff smells awful. The glass breaks later when Sue is trying to force Mike to get off the couch and comfort Frankie. It reeks so bad that the door remains open the next morning.
This was another great episode, one that didn't require any guest stars and each of the family members got equal screen time and got to show off their skills. McDermott is a physical actor so he got to try to do a back flip and failed. Sue got to persuade the family to do something that plenty of families do and Brick got to read out loud, which he loves while Mike remained sitting in front of the television, which is what he loves.The actors are all specialists in their respective roles, as this is the seventh season of the show.
Now, this show won't be new for a whole four weeks, so this one will have to last me until then, and fortunately, it was one of the better episodes this season. Grade: A
Side Notes:
-The special potato of the month at Spudsys, nutmeg and chive. Brick believes it works while the public wasn't a fan.
-Frankie has no clean bras so she spreads them across her bed and sprays them with fabreeze to freshen them up.
-Frankie set the kitchen clock an hour ahead of time so she would never be late but Sue reset it because then they were always very early. Of course the microwave's time is barely legible as the numbers don't work.
-To persuade her uncooperative brothers to take the photo, Sue promises that she will drive Brick to the library sixty-eight times and do Axl's laundry, including using fabric softener on anything that touches his junk. Gross.
-Brick can't/isn't allowed to cut paper so he wraps Frankie's small bottle of perfume in a huge box to match the giant piece of wrapping paper he used.
-Frankie hasn't updated the computer in sixty-seven weeks, she just kept hitting remind me later.
-Mike just wants to hold the remote even though he won't change channels.
-I can't believe that church of TV would have commercials, because church doesn't have breaks like that.
-Doris gets a mention. Sue wants to grab her for the photo on the bed but Frankie says no. Doris will pee on anything that gives and she, herself, is not far behind.
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