Last week, I criticized Black-ish for failing to develop Zoey as a character, so it was nice to see her front and center for a silly and somewhat scattered Christmas episode about the need for creating lasting memories.
It’s Zoey’s last Christmas before school and Dre is prepared to go all out for his favorite child (Dre’s blatant favoritism was a great running gag in the episode). Normally, Zoey would be somewhat cool to her nerdy dad trying to spend time with her, but even she recognizes that this is a special Christmas and agrees to go along with Dre’s many pre-planned Christmas activities. He wants to record everything, as long as stupid Junior doesn’t walk into the shot.
As Dre looks back on the past, Rainbow is struggling with her future as a mother. As everyone who has watched the show knows, Bow is a great mother, but she starts feeling insecure when Tyra Banks’s Gigi shows up with adorably cute baby in tow. Gigi has every device needed to ensure her little one is snug and secure. Bow breezily tells her that she doesn’t need to do so much to be a good mother. When Gigi takes off and Bow is stuck with the baby, she realizes that she may be a great mother, but she hasn’t had to mother a small infant in a long time. Gigi may be going overboard with bath flowers and magical smiling bath beads, but at least she can make the kid stop crying.
While Dre and Bow are wrapped up in parenting struggles, it’s up to Junior to enforce Christmas discipline in the house and keep the twins on their best behavior. Jack and Diane are running amok and Junior is the only one who notices. It isn’t until Dre finds out that the twins have been eating his secret shame cake that he orders Junior to do something about it. Junior is feeling left out of the Christmas festivities and takes out his frustration on the twins. He creates the Bear in the Chair (more alliterative than American Housewife’s equally generic version, Elf on the Mantle) and actually puts a surveillance camera in the bear. It’s enough to scare Jack and Diane away from Dre’s sadness cookies.
In the final plot in the Johnson household, Johan, Ruby, and Pops argue about the best Christmas music. This plot felt like the writers realized they had three extra characters with nothing to do, but it did give us a conversation about whether or not Mariah Carey is a time-traveler, which really is the best kind of Christmas gift. Pops and Ruby swear that the earworm All I Want for Christmas was around when they were growing up. Johan just wants everyone to appreciate his The Pogues-heavy Christmas mix CD. Johan can be a hit-or-miss character for me, but as someone who has definitely added “Fairytale of New York” semi-ironically to Christmas playlists, this one hit home.
While the four plots are very separated from each other, aside from Junior and Ruby popping in to criticize Bow on her baby-watching skills, the family converges at the Christmas tree. It is here that Dre realizes that hot lights and very flammable ornaments might not be the best idea. He and Zoey had a great time decorating the tree, but both are more artists than planners. Because they did it without the rest of the family, they didn’t have anyone telling them to test the lights first, or that the Christmas tree was bone-dry. Dre is also not very happy when the family decides to give him all of these suggestions after the Christmas tree catches fire. Everyone is blaming him for ruining Christmas and Junior ruined his favorite chair with his brave heroics. Dre really considers himself to be the victim in this scenario.
It’s Zoey that helps him snap out of his back-up shame cake spiral. While last week’s emotional moment didn’t completely work, this one did. Zoey reminds Dre that just because she may be leaving, it doesn’t mean she won’t be back for family celebrations.
Bow and Gigi get their own moment of connection, and not just over Ruby’s derision for the both of them. Gigi admits that she lied about a work event to get the time to take a nap. Bow admits that she’s terrified of what will happen when the new baby arrives. The two women agree to help each other with motherhood.
In the end (after Johan misses his flight to wherever he’s going), the Johnsons make new memories instead of just dwelling on the past. We end the episode with a Johnson family photo hanging on a beautiful new tree. Well, actually we end the episode with marshmallows for breakfast s’mores, which sounds absolutely delicious!
Happy Holidays, everyone! Let me know what you think of tonight’s episode (and your favorite Christmas song) in the comments!
