Jaggle Bells - 72

[Chloe and Jordan Parkers introduction] Bud (B) and Harriet (Ht) were handing out mounds of Christmas gifts at children's hospital. B said he knew how lonely it could get from when he had a candy cane stuck up his nose. Harm (H) was acting department head while Chegwidden (C) went to Italy to see his daughter Francesca and let everyone secure early because of the blizzard. The airport was closed so C returned to an empty office and was upset. Chloe arrived at JAG saying she was "looking for her mother," M (M), and other lies. She proceeded to act rude, offensive and embarrass M by telling C that she "though he would have more hair and why didn't he ask M out?" She had said that her father Kyle Anderson had died on May 17th, 1987- the day she was born. Her mother had died four years ago with cancer and she told M that she had run away from her stepfather because he didn't want her and was abusive. M braced her up with "just because your life had been hard doesn't give you the right to lie or be rude." She asked, if they took her away from her stepfather, could she live with M. When M was calling child welfare to report the abuse, Chloe recanted and said that her bruise was from "his girlfriend" when "she lost it" over Chloe cutting and dying her hair when she was "passed out drunk." She ran into the elevator and hid above the trap door. B realized the date she gave as the date the USS Stark was attacked and found Chloe's father still alive on the USS Cayuga. They put through a $4,000 video call to her father to get her to come down. He hadn't known she was born and had just lost his wife and son in a car accident. Chloe went, temporarily, back to her stepfathers after a "girlfriend to marine" talk. M apologized to C for what Chloe had said and C told her that "there are two sides to duty- doing things we don't want to do- and, resisting the temptation to do things we want to do."

H couldn't find anyone to do anything with over the holidays so took the "next case up" which was Lt Cdr Jordan Parker, a psychiatrist who had skidded off the road and was arrested for DUI. She claimed she was ill with a cold and had only had one eggnog. H tried to get her to accept substance abuse counseling and she told him to analyze himself in a mirror. She deduced that he must have been named after a relative (or family pet), family history of naval service, live up to past expectations, having "baggage" from going to JAG from "gold wings," painfully "obvious" singleness, few and far between relationships from being "too busy or too picky" and that a relationship with a single mother would be "appealing to someone of your age who's afraid he's running out of time." H just left but returned, later, with Chinese food. He confessed that she had pretty much pegged him and said that he normally spends Xmas eve at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. He said that he had found his father, buried, in Russia. He now had closure, but found a void he didn't know he had. He discovered just how much of "who he was, had been formed by his search for his father." That he always before had a goal, but now "wasn't driving the bus anymore" and instead was "sitting in the back with no idea where it's going." Parker told him that "most people spend their whole life riding the bus instead of driving." H found alcohol in the cough syrup she took before the breathalyzer which would have thrown it off and got her released on her own recognizance.

B and Ht acted the doofus again dressing up in Santa costumes and having arguments over robot toys. C told B to find him a "ride to Milan tonight." C left a message on Francesca's answering machine that "this was the first time he was looking forward to Christmas in a long time." After playing with toys the whole episode, he "almost forgot" to tell C that he had found him a seat on a military transport plane."