Save Santa! ...Or Else!

Big Bang Theory, S06E11

The guys played a holiday-themed Dungeons and Dragons quest, excluding the girls.  Raj joined the girls to the bar after he had been too quick to get himself killed in the game.

The best part of the guys playing their role playing game was Sheldon's seemingly hatred of Christmas, yet signs that he might be fighting the holiday spirit for some reason.  Being a know-it-all, it wasn't too surprising he could sing a song no one else knew (in its entirety), but him talking of the details of snowmen and drinking eggnog made me really wonder if he wasn't just bitter about something.  We found out as Sheldon took the quest to a grim end for Santa that as a child Sheldon had asked Santa in the mall to bring back his Pop-Pop, but of course, Santa never did.  You sort of wanted to console him, knowing that Christmas had been ruined for him ever since the only person who encouraged his scientific endeavors had died, but at the same time he was pretending that he was leaving Santa for dead in an ogre cave.  It invoked a little less sympathy because Sheldon is well old enough to realize that he's only playing a game and not really getting revenge on Santa Claus.  I wanted to concentrate on the fondness he had for his grandpa, but it was hard to think of it with his psychotic actions.  However, it made a pretty interesting end to the game, even if he ruined it for the others.

I didn't expect anything else to come out of that game, but Sheldon's dream provided a bonus conclusion.  I loved that Santa came not to just apologize, but get his own revenge for Sheldon leaving him for dead with the ogres!  Woah!  And he brought a canon, of all things, to take care of him--nice!  Sheldon has the weirdest dreams, but they are usually pretty good ones.  I hope that dream made an impact on the grudge he's kept on old Kris Kringle.

 

The second funny thing about their game was Raj's short participation.  Before he got killed by his rash actions, Stuart kept calling him out on the suggestively gay things he was saying.  The first time, he was simply excited to start killing some enemies:

Oh, man, the first monster I see, I’m gonna sneak up behind him, whip out my wand, and shoot my magic all over his ass.

I think someone could have let that go if he didn't make a similarly bad comment about a rod a few minutes later:

Wait, d-doesn’t anyone have a… a rod of resurrection?  Because if you’ve got one, I need it bad.  Get in here with your rod and give it to me.

Poor Raj.  He has a natural talent for saying things people could misunderstand.  But at least he has colorful language and is cute.  He's not like dirty or anything intentionally.

I felt bad that he had gotten killed so easily until Penny allowed him to go out with the girls.  I was even happier with this turn of events when the girls decided to help Raj get a girl.  Yay!  However, he got shot down pretty quickly by a girl who gave him a fake email.  I was pretty disappointed that the focus soon shifted from trying again to find a girl who could just chat with Raj to how Raj didn't find Amy attractive like he had Bernadette and Penny.  I wanted to yell, "Who cares--what about hooking Raj up??" but it did make me notice that Amy and Raj had some similarities.  Still, Raj has similarities with a lot of his intellectual friends--they've all had problems attracting the opposite sex easily.   Once Raj had started to like Amy, they left the bar and there was no more talk of trying to help him.  Dang.  They got my hopes up.  I know Raj probably isn't going to find the girl of his dreams in a bar, but he could have gotten somewhere at least.  Come on, already with this.  Raj needs some love.  He's getting weirder by the second.  Haha.

This was a pretty good story.  I liked the quest about Santa being kidnapped by ogres.  That was an original Christmas story for TV.  And it was made even better by Santa getting revenge on Sheldon with a canon in his dream. I liked some of Raj's jokes, but I wish that he had been able to have a successful night out with the ladies.  It's getting too sad to see him just hanging around Stuart all day.

Moms Doing What They Gotta Do

Once Upon A Time, S02E03

Charming asked Henry to stay out of the rescue for Emma and Snow, leading him to cut school to do his own investigation.  Emma and Snow were released from their prison and returned to Charming and Snow's old house to find the wardrobe Emma was sent away in.  In the past, King George continued to attack Charming by going after his loved ones.

Henry is definitely in the right family because he basically blows his nose at danger.  I can't believe how easy it was for him to fool Regina and get into her vault.  I actually felt a little bad for her because she probably really looked forward to that lunch that never happened.  I can see that she really is keeping to her word, so far because instead of going to stop Henry herself, she told Charming and he went to get Henry before his ass got bit by a bunch of snakes!  Like, is Henry crazy??  There could have been any kind of evil thing under the sun in one of her boxes and he thought it would be smart to just open one at random.  He knows that she was always up to no good, so I don't know why he thought he would find something good in her little secret lair.  What a moron (he's taking a lot after Emma who also in the episode is taking danger too lightly).  It was a little cute at the end when Charming decided he'd buy him some wooden swords to practice with (since Henry is jealous that his mother and grandmother get to go sword fighting in the other world--if only he knew he'd probably be dead in a minute with his current knowledge of that world).  I hope Charming can get Henry to settle down and stop trying to run off to do things (like his grandfather keeps doing when it's convenient for him).

Similarly, Emma was doing a shitty job of fitting into the other world and failing to listen to the experts, mainly her mother and Mulan.  I know Emma is used to handling things on her own, but I feel like that situation requires that you swallow your pride and learn from the "masters" instead of what she was doing.  I can't even believe that she was sort of bragging that she killed a dragon (which she didn't even do half as well as she thinks and should have learned that guns are useless) when warned about the ogres.  No surprise that she not only let the ogres know where they were, but almost got killed by one.  Seriously, Emma, it's time to shut up.  Hopefully by now she's learned her damn lesson and will stop acting like she knows what she's doing.

I have to also say that Aurora is so annoying.  Sure her love got killed and all, but damn.  Trying to get Snow by the throat with a knife?  I wish Snow had done more than she had before Mulan butted in.  I still think Snow needs to kick that girl's butt.  But Aurora seems to be willing to help Emma and Snow now.  I guess.  She might still be secretly bitter.

It was pretty sweet and sad when Snow and Emma were looking around the remains of her nursery.  I kind of forget that Snow had dreams of raising her daughter and had to give it up so that her daughter wouldn't be cursed.  I didn't think Emma would start to forgive Snow for abandoning her, so it was nice to see that they made some progress.  They don't have the best situation, but at least they do have each other, so they can continue to go from there.

Another mother who showed her sacrifice was Charming's mother.  I wasn't so sure why she was brought up again when she was just going to die until they had shown that King George had cursed Snow.  Then when Charming mentioned that lake that could cure anything, I knew that Snow would be the one to be saved, and Charming's mother would put herself aside.  I had wondered how the two got married and imagined it to be some big, grand thing, but it was sort of touching how simple it was with just the two of them, Lancelot, and Charming's mother looking on before she took her last breath.  Wow.  That was sort of beautiful.  She got to see her son married, Snow took the cure without knowing, and Charming's mother was able to die knowing that her son would have everything he wanted in life.  I just wonder if Snow ever needs to tell Charming what his mother did for her.  I suppose it doesn't really concern him since it was his mother's decision and there's nothing he can do about it now.

I really enjoyed this episode because it was nice to see all these different mothers in the show giving up things so their children could be happy.  But, there's no telling what Regina's crazy-ass mother is up to.  It'll be interesting to see what might happen if she's able to get to Storybrooke.  I just wonder who will be able to get to the non-magic world first: Emma and Snow or Regina's mother?  I'm little worried it's going to be the latter with her in possession of the ashes of the wardrobe.  Someone needs to stop that bitch before it's too late.