The Librarians Episode 4: “And Santa’s Midnight Run”

MV5BNDI5NzMwMjAxNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTc2NDg1MzE@._V1_SX214_AL_Carrie: Welcome to Episode 4 of The Librarians:  “And Santa’s Midnight Run.”  We open with a guy trying  to steal the cash donations from a soup kitchen.  He is talked down by, wait for it…Bruce Campbell, who is playing, I shit you not, Santa.  Bruce talks to the guy about inner goodness while the fake Santa in the back eats chili, which I personally found hilarious. Then, oh no, Bruce Campbell is hit with a tranquilizing dart coated with mistletoe!  He falls, unconscious and…title.

We are back at the Annex, where the Scoobies (I guess I should call them the L.I.T.’s, since that’s what Flynn calls them, but I like Scoobies better) are decorating for Christmas.  Oh Cassie, honey, what are you wearing?  That outfit is twee.  Just twee.  Eve does not like Christmas, big surprise.  Jake loves his annual Christmas Eve bar brawl.  Ezekiel likes all the easy to identify valuables.  They get a call – Santa has disappeared!  Christmas is cancelled and soon the whole world will be cancelled!  Drama!

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Jenkins explains.  Santa is an avatar of goodwill.  He gathers goodwill all year and disperses it at midnight on Christmas Eve, “recharging our karmic battery.”  As Ezekiel points out, that;’s why people are so cranky during the holidays – we are low on goodwill.  Without Santa, every city in the world will be burning “by Groundhog Day.”

Cassie’s extreme delight and triumph at the news that not only is Santa real but so is Mrs. Claus is totally adorable.

The team quickly determines that Santa was grabbed by the Serpent Brotherhood.  They also find him quite quickly, because this episode does not fuck around.  Dulaque has Santa tied up and says he will kill him at midnight.  Lamia rather sensibly asks why they don’t kill him now and Dulaque, who apparently has never ever watched movies or TV, or read a book, says the closer to midnight they kill him the more power they get.  Lamia is obviously distressed that Santa is disappointed in her, and I am greatly amused that either of these people thinks they can kill anyone played by Bruce Campbell.

Lamia also flirts a bit with Jake.  I sense future plot complications.  Kane distracts Lamia and Dulaque by throwing art at them, while Cassie and Ezekiel escape with Santa up the chimney.

Eve takes Santa to where Santa parked his sleigh but it’s missing, which means we get to hear Bruce Campbell say, “Someone jacked Santa’s sleigh.”  I’ve never been so happy.  This is the best Christmas EVER.

Eve is stuck on a road trip with Santa, which is a problem because Eve hates Christmas.  On top of that, Santa was poisoned by that tranquilizer dart, so he keeps switching between different versions of Santa (there have been many over the centuries, and not all are jolly).  Meanwhile, in order to distract Dulaque, Ezekiel ran off wearing Santa’s hat which happens to have its own magic powers and which causes Ezekiel to run in circles with children singing Deck the Halls and begging Jake to kill him in between “Fa la las.”

Santa magics Eve’s truck as far as Canada before it runs out of gas.  Cassandra figures out that they don’t have to get all the way to the North Pole.  They just have to get to some ley lines in Alaska, which they can totally do because they are near an airport and can just walk there and catch a plane.  This should all be easy peasy except that since Ezekiel is possessed by the Christmas spirit he gives their pilot a ton of money and tells him to go spend Christmas Eve with his fiancee, and Santa transforms into his Odin incarnation in a bar (so Jake get’s his Christmas Eve Bar Brawl after all.)

 

Bar fighting Odin-Santa makes me happy.
Bar fighting Odin-Santa makes me happy.

Santa flies the cargo plane, because I have been good this year and therefore apparently I am getting all my heart’s desires.  Also, he’s the only one who knows how.  In a truly surreal yet fabulous scene, Lamia and Dulaque show up on the sleigh.  The break into the cargo plane which is in mid air.  Dulaque apparently watched some movies on the plane, because he knows all about evil monologuing and says the following:

“Now, hand over Santa, blah blah, and you won’t be harmed, blah, blah, a patently transparent lie, of course I’m going to kill you. Blah, blah … BLAH.”

There’s a big fight, Dulaque ends up with Santa’s hat on and tells Lamia to go away because it will make everyone happy (his face as he tries to fight the hat’s influence is priceless).  So Lamia leaves in the sleigh, the other Scoobies tell Dulaque that their Christmas wish is for him to let them go…aaaand for him to tell them all his plans for the Serpent Brotherhood, at which point he yanks the hat off. Dulaque returns to being evil but he basically jumps out of the plane, presumably to his death although I’m sure not a single person in the audience believes that for a second.  Then Santa barfs.  Oh dear.

 

Cassie, if your outfit is so cutsie that it makes Santa sick, you overdid it.
Cassie, if your outfit is so cutsie that it makes Santa sick, you overdid it.

Eve lands the plane by making Jake Google “how to lower landing gear.” Previously I haven’t been entirely crazy about Eve but I feel that she has definitely won me over with that action. She lands the plane near shelter.  Yay they are saved!  But Santa is too weakened by poison to release the energy of all goodwill!  He has failed!  They are doomed!  Santa says that someone else must be him for the night, but that this person will probably not survive.  It has to be someone attuned to Christmas – namely Eve, who is so named because she was born on the last stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve,  When she receives the goodwill, she releases hope into the world.  Everything is awesome.

Back at The Annex Jenkins reveals that Dulaque can’t die as easily as falling out of a plane, and Santa is making a full recovery.  The Scoobies throw a birthday party for Eve.  It is very sweet.  Next week we have the return of Flynn and there are dragons!  Can’t wait. 

And now:  reviews!

Carrie:

I LOVED this episode.  It is hands down my favorite episode.  In every episode so far, I’ve found many things to enjoy, but the episodes as a whole have been a bit blah – a nice, easy, fun watch for a stressful time of year but nothing amazing.  But this episode was ALL fun.  I just adored it.  It was clever, it was truly suspenseful, and it was sweet without being too cutesy.  It’s also the first episode in which I had as much fun watching the Scoobies (consistently, not for a few minutes) as I did watching the guest star (I’m counting Flynn as a guest star although he’s more of a recurring character).  Bruce was, of course, wonderful but I felt that everyone really stepped up their game.  There was nice character work, and it was incredibly emotionally involving.  I know it’s a little cheesy, but I was really moved when Eve talked about why she didn’t like Christmas, and by the fact that she had to be the character that brought hope even though all the other reindeer Scoobies were volunteering.

 

Sarah: 

I made the following notes while watching, after explaining the series to my sister in law, who is visiting us. We had to explain the plot base about four times because it’s really hard to explain if you try to fit everything in: There’s a librarian but he’s off trying to find the library which has folded in on itself to protect the artifacts after an invasion, and there are three other librarians with special talents, plus this woman with perfect hair who kicks ass on their behalf, and the guy from Night Court has a lot of phones.

Makes perfect sense, right? Anyway, my notes: 

Cassie wears a crinoline. That shouldn’t happen again. Not only was it a crinoline but it was a RED TULLE crinoline beneath a red dress and that was way too much twee in one place. Also the fact that she has red hair and can wear red probably pissed off a LOT of gingers who were watching.

RHG: I can wear red.  😛  Generally don’t go for crinolines, though.

Sarah: I stand corrected. Anyway.

Santa is the Avatar. I’d have seen that Santa-avatar story if it were a movie, no question. I liked the idea that we were all grumpy and that Santa is the goodwill that replenishes at the holidays. However, I must have missed the explanation as to why we’re all so grumpy in the first place, and why that builds up like soap scum. Are we all just self feeding misery lemmings or something?

Of course they went down the chimney, and of course Cassie had soot on her face the rest of the day, and of course they could leave the building where the Serpent Bros hang out without having to, you know, run. I get all that. But hands down, the best character in this episode was Super Canada Pilot. Sorry, Santa. The pilot was so incredibly Canadian and adorable. He was my favorite.

 Which brings me to something that bugged me quite a lot. The bulk of the cast is white, with the exception of Ezekiel, who is played (marvelously) by an Australian Chinese (Chinese Australian? Is there a proper order? If I got it wrong, I’m sorry) actor. So in the end, when Eve has to go be the spirit of Santavatar or whatever, she beams around the world appearing behind or next to people in crisis (some of whom were terrible actors) and touching them to bring them back to doing the “right thing” or replacing all their misery with joy or maybe peace or whatever it was.

First there’s an Asian woman in an ambulance, then a white woman who was about to take a drink from a whiskey bottle, then a black man crying, then a (I think) Japanese woman about to jump off a building. Every time, the white magic Eve-Santavatar is the savior because she’s the spirit of Christmas. One touch and all is well! The use of that character in that plot made sense, but seeing this white woman show up and touch-heal all the people bugged the crap out of me.

Jenkins Phone Tally: A payphone on a rolling IV stand, PLUS the candlestick phone, which we’ve seen before.

Repetitive plot point: No mentions of being a world class thief, but we did get a rather emo Jake growl of, ‘We’re the librarians. We’ll take that risk.’

Odd impossibility: How was Jake going to Google ‘how to land a plane’ while they were so high up in the air? Does Santavatar come with a wireless signal? IS SANTAVATAR 4G?

Then the following conversation happened:

Sister in Law: “Oh, they landed?”

Me: “Yeah, guessing a landing sequence wasn’t in the budget.”

Best expletive: OH SHINY BALLS YES. I plan to use this phrase regularly for the rest of the year. Thankfully for everyone, that’ll be about a week.

 

RHG:

SANTA IS BRUCE CAMPBELL AND THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER HANDS DOWN.

I don’t think a crinoline would be my choice for skulking clothes, but I suppose time being of the essence there was no time for a costume change?  Miss Fisher would have, but she’d also be wearing fur.

 “Somebody jacked Santa’s ride.”  Um, so that’s the best line ever?  It’s the best line ever.  And then Santa jacks a cargo plane, so.

Jake’s look of annoyance at the sword cane is delightful.  Honestly, sword canes are a terrible bet- the balance is usually terrible, and the hilt is often hard to keep a grip on, so really, it’s not a hard weapon to defeat.  It’s still a blade though.

I could have done without the overly-schmaltzy ending Eve the Angel of Goodwill Thing, but, on the other hand, I appreciate a few things about it.  Let me enumerate them at some length (because I have to pack and I don’t want to and maybe if I stall long enough my suitcase will totally pack itself).

 First: That the idea of Christmas is tied to the Returning of the Light, in that giving hope and goodwill back to all people in the darkest time of year (for the the northern hemisphere) is the point, whatever form that point takes.  And that it was pointedly not limited to people who celebrate Christmas as such, but people everywhere.  I liked that.  Maybe hope doesn’t magically fix everything, but it makes things easier to bear and to go on and to fight the good fight.

Second: Christmas specials are supposed to be schmaltzy.  That is what they DO.  So in keeping with tradition, it was okay,  I GUESS.

Third: I always appreciate stories about Found Family.  Always, always.

Okay, maybe I liked it.  KIND OF.  (Suitcase has not packed itself.  Dammit.)

What about you? What did you think of Bruce Campbell, Santavatar? Are you watching the next one? 

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  1. Bruce Campbell! I love him! You are filling my media queue as soon as I get back to my real life.

  2. bogo_lode says:

    I loved this episode so much. Huge Bruce Campbell fan. Perfect casting for him.

    Just tons of little fun things and genuinely kind of happy and charming which an awful lot of shows that do christmas themed episodes fail at.

  3. DonnaMarie says:

    Odinsanta and Jake in a bar fight rocked. Lots of laughs, lots of schmaltz, Dulaque in an enchanted Santa hat, loved it all.

  4. Violet Bick says:

    One thing I liked about this episode was that the rescue of Santa happened fairly early. In so many shows, the whole episode would be dedicated to the search and finding, with the rescue happening at the very end. So it was nice to see something different.

  5. I loved this episode so hard!! Next to the Call the Midwife Christmas Special this is the most Christmasy stuff I have experienced all season long (and christmas started for us in September, thank you very much department stores) 🙂

    It was a little cheesy but just the right kind of cheesy I love and appreciate.

    Also, Eve is getting to be a little less wooden, I like that, 🙂 She plays the straight (wo)man pretty well. I love the scoobies, in all and I love they are bonding as well, though they won’t admit it.
    ^sigh^

    this made me happy 😀

    Next time, here be dragons 😀 *squee*

  6. Emily says:

    I love Bruce Campbell, and he was my favorite part of the episode. I also like Eve a lot. She is my favorite of the team.

    I felt like the whole episode could been more jolly and joyous. There was something off in the spirit for me.

    I didn’t mind Eve and the avatar thing, because I got the sense Santa could be any race (and happened to be white) and the gender flip was interesting. (Letting a woman be santa)

    What did bug the crap out of me was whole everyone celebrates Christmas and the people who don’t are cold. Some people are Jewish, and some people don’t just believe in anything. Or have bad memories or don’t want to be bothered. I was slightly uncomfortable with the fact that it didn’t seem as ok not to participate in Christmas.

    Cassie and her character are getting more annoying as the show goes on.

    I really enjoy seeing Matt Frewer, as an actor who I’ve always liked and hasn’t gotten the same level of attention as others on the show. I wish in some way he wasn’t playing the villain, but I enjoy having him around.

  7. Natalie says:

    I loved this episode so very much. Loved Bruce Campbell, loved Ezekiel while he had the hat on, loved the focus on hope that wasn’t a religious hope (so it didn’t depend on whether one celebrated Christmas). I love Eve more with every episode — she LEARNS! I feel like it’s so rare to have a female character who can reason with herself and learn and exhibit growth. But mostly, I love that every member of my family likes this show, so it’s something mu husband and I can share with the teenagers 🙂

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