“I give you all of humanity’s good will, Ever Baird. Now you give back the gift of hope.”
- Santa
So quite appropriately, this week’s episode deals with Christmas and Santa Claus. It also means we are nearly halfway through our inaugural run of this show. I really hope we get a second season because I need more Dean Devlin/John Rogers goodness. And having Christian Kane back on my screen weekly is never a bad thing. I do have to hope that Baird chills out a bit and lets the Librarians do their thing more often. That’s about the only weakness right now. Oh and for those who care, this episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes (he directed one of my favorite season 2 Leverage episodes “The Bottle Job” among many others).
We start this week’s shenanigans in a London soup kitchen where a guy busts in with a rifle and demands money (yes from a soup kitchen….the idiot). The guy who has been doling out food talks him down until he gets shot in the neck with a tranq dart and we see he gets nabbed. Back at the Annex, the Librarians are decorating for the holidays. Baird is a Grinch about the whole thing naturally but the rest of the team enjoys Christmas. Their cheer dies down when Jenkins reports that Santa is gone. Jake and Cassie head to London to get some information and it was little weird to hear Christian speaking with a British accent. But they suss out that Santa was nabbed by the Serpent Brotherhood. Cassie points out that the guy who Zeke found on surveillance is the head of the whole thing and Jenkins reveals that the plan is to kill Santa so that no more good will can be spread throughout the world. Eep!
The Serpent Brotherhood plans to kill Santa at midnight and take all of his magical energy for themselves. They really need a new shtick honestly. But I guess they are our Big Bad for the season. With a bit of teamwork, the Librarians figure out exactly where Santa is being held. Baird and Jake go in the front and run into the head of the Brotherhood along with Lamia and another goon while Cassie and Zeke climb down the chimney in the library to rescue Santa. Jake uses a pretty risky stalling technique of tossing priceless art around to give the rest of the team time to escape. But it seems the Brotherhood’s leader is convinced Santa won’t be in such a helping good will-y mood. Also, dude needs to stop talking about himself in the third person. It’s just annoying.
Seems I’m not the only one annoyed by Santa’s bizarre speech patterns. Baird takes Santa while Jake, Zeke and Cassie lead the Brotherhood on a wild goose chase involving Santa’s hat. Unfortunately, the hate is kind of integral to him being this particular manifestation. According to Jenkins, various cultures manifested him differently and without the talisman (hat) he morphs into Nickolas, who is a prankster. He manages to get himself temporarily straightened out while they are hunting down his sleigh and steal a red truck instead. He even gets them to Canada in their bid to reach the North Pole. Apparently he needs to be there on Christmas Eve. He’s pestering Baird on the trip there about why she hates Christmas. She just says it’s all annoying. I wonder if maybe she’s not Christian. Anyway, it turns out that giving Zeke the hat was a very silly idea because it affects him and makes him all good will giving. It’s pretty hilarious. But giving him the hat did lead the Brotherhood away from Baird and Santa so there is that at least.
Things go from awkward to hilarious as Cassie figures out that they don’t need to get to the North Pole to release the magic since it is all to do with ley lines. While she is figuring out where they need to go, Zeke is baking and stuffing stockings and being simultaneously jolly and annoyed. It’s pretty funny. Jenkins dispatches Zeke and Cassie to secure a cargo plane to take them to the Aurora Borealis while Jake goes to meet Baird and Santa in a small town. Zeke gets a little overzealous with the Christmas cheer and lets the pilot go be with his fiancé. Meanwhile, Santa shifts personas again and turns into Odin and starts drinking and gets into a bar brawl. Jake seems happy about that. Sort of. When the ream is reunited at the cargo plane, they realize they may not be able to fly it but Santa insists he can fly anything big. And it looks like he’s doing it, too. He and Baird also had a little heart to heart on their way to town and she explains that she hates Christmas because at this time when everyone is supposed to be together, she was always far away in other places, where fighting was going on. So I guess he has a legit reason to dislike the holiday. As they near the Borealis, Cassie hears the bells on Santa’s actual sleigh and then the cargo door opens. It seems the Brotherhood snagged the sleigh and is going to hijack the plane.
Zeke is still the hat and ends up handing it over to the head of the Brotherhood when they figure out that Santa needs it to fight off the poison from some mistletoe and holly. It takes a few minutes to take effect and the gang manages to get Lamia and the sleigh out of the way but when Cassie asks him to reveal all the secrets of the Brotherhood he whips the hat off. Baird kicks him in the gut and then ends up letting him fly out the back of the plane. He’s so not dead. But now they need to land the plane. It turns out she and Jake are a good combination. They get to an old service station but Santa is losing it. Even with his hat back he can’t focus to release all the good will. Why do I get the feeling Cassie is going to be the one to help him out?
So I was wrong. Santa passes his power onto Baird temporarily so she can spread hope to the world because she’s the one most rooted in Christmas (born on the last stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve…hence her name). We see her pop up in a bunch of places and save lives and give people the hope they need to keep on living. And she’s much less humbug-y than before. But it seems everyone got their Christmas wish this year; Jake got his bar fight, Cassie got to believe in Santa and Zeke got to know what it was like to be the good guy, even for just a little bit. Oh and it seems Baird wanted people around for Christmas where there wasn’t fighting. Jenkins almost let slip that he’s immortal, too. Oopsie. Next week looks to be fun with Flynn’s return and dragons. I am glad we got a holiday episode on this show. It was fun.
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