Tuesday, December 17, 2002

All Ye Faithful - 169

[This was one of the most superbly written episodes, a parody, of the entire JAG saga] The story all happened on the way to a Christmas eve party at the Roberts home. Turner assisted "Mary and Joseph" Tenny, who were evicted from their apartment in a misunderstanding over "drumming." Mary was imminently pregnant and Chegwidden loaned his office to them for comfort while they attempted to resolve the situation. Mary went into labor and C delivered her baby, Jason, in the office secondary to an ambulance failure.

There were three Kuwaiti lawyers on their way to JAG headquarters in a rented car for a site visit that the SECNAV had authorized. Through the show they became lost and finally called C who "talked them in" on phone. He told them "look for the radio tower beacon light" through the fog and they finally arrived, after Mary's baby was born, in full "wise men dress" and being overjoyed, gave gifts: a silver coin, incense and an apartment with a view, from one of their 16 apartment buildings.

Coates came to JAG and Tiner began "sparking" her. He had never been around an infant and brought a stuffed sheep and a swaddling blanket to the baby Jason who was sitting in the firelight in his mothers arms with his father and the Kuwaiti "wise men" standing by. H notified b that he might be late to the party as they were flying a Tomcat home. Co asked Mac "if there was a problem" and she said "only if there is no aspirin." M opened her gift from H which was a photograph of them in Afghanistan- and M said that her present to H was a picture frame of the identical size. Meredith told C that he encouraged pregnancy and labor. She cited: Harriet, Singer, and the lady today- "you're a facilitator" she said.

Bud & Harriet had not been paid in a month and were hurting financially, especially since they needed to buy food for their party that night. They went to see "Scoggins," a scrooge like disbursing officer, who was rude and unhelpful to them. Harriet cursed him with "I hope the ghost of Jacob Marley drags chains on your foot," as she was ill from what they supposed to be food poisoning from five day old Chinese food. B drove her to the ER where a pediatrician took sympathy on them and came, in a Santa costume, to their aid. He informed them that it wasn't food poisoning after all, rather pregnancy. After B & H left his office, the scrooge Scoggins" experienced eerie happenings at work and showed up at the Roberts house, just before guests were to arrive, with food, saving them from needing Big Bs credit card at a restaurant.

H and Boone were on a carrier heading back home, hopefully in time to make the Robert's party. Their ride home broke a tail hook and couldn't land. H found that there was a Tomcat which was supposed to be delivered to the states that evening but he had to bribe the pilots with an introduction to Jennifer Lopez in order to get them to switch with he and Boone. H confessed to Boone that he saw Jennifer Lopez two times a year for many years as his dental hygienist. But the ships CAG was hateful to H saying that the plane H had dumped into the ocean "was my ride" and was "ok when I flew it." Boone told harm "he doesn't like you." At the last minute an unexpected inspection kept all the ships pilots onboard so the CAG allowed them to fly the Tomcat to the states. When H tried to "make nice" with the CAG he told him "I won't allow you to undermine a perfectly valid level of resentment with me" and said he would "yank Hs wings" if he did "anything except go to the assigned destination." They were flying in a storm and were requested to divert in order to assist a "broken" C130 to land in the fog. They couldn't see the C130 through the fog so H wanted to get closer despite the regs. "How many people do you plan to piss off today," Boone asked him. "Everyone but you," H replied. H descended and hit a weather balloon throwing them nearly out of control. They finally met the C130, which they found to be on toys-for-tots run. They "led" the big plane down letting them follow their "red tail lights" to "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer music."

After landing H went to the Vietnam wall with Boone, who had flashbacks of Rabb Sr going down on Xmas eve. M called, worried, and they told her they would be there shortly. They met Lt. "Clarence," a graduate of flight school who had left in an emergency before his "winging" ceremonies in order to help a friend on suicide watch. Winging was normally done by an admiral so H had Admiral Boone do it using Hs wings. Boone asked Clarence was his goals were and was told "to be a Blue Angel" just as a bell rang on a wreath.

FINALLY, all were gathered at the Roberts. Meredith offered to play the piano for them to sing carols and C desperately tried to dissuade her. Everyone was completely surprised that it was a skill which she actually did have. At dinner, Bs toast (holding up his designer crutch) was: "God bless us, every one."