Fresh off the Boat - Where are the Giggles? - Review: Jingle all the Way

"Where are the Giggles?" will certainly be one of my all time favorite FotB episodes. How can it not be with all the Home Alone puns? I pretty much grew up on the Macaulay Culkin Home Alone movies and watch it at least one time every year.

Everything started with Evan getting left home alone while the others went out for a movie. Marvin persuades the Huangs to stay at the movies while he checks up on Evan, which creates a mini-rift between Evan and Jessica. Jessica can't take the rejection and promises to buy Evan a this year's Christmas toy.

Jessica: It is so special to give a gift that makes our kids happy by a price that makes me happy.

Jessica's attempt to get the toy turns into a hilarious journey involving her neighbor nemesis Deidre. Jessica took the opportunity to get a Tickle me Elmo from Deidre by posing as her favorite character and role model female boss Lou Pan Santa. Jessica accusing the kid of being sexist and racist was hilarious, like every other time she sticks with her beliefs.

Eventually, Deidre's husband Tom gave in and let Jessica take the Elmo home just to realize Evan wasn't into toys at all and that he only choose Elmo to send her on a toy hunt Jessica would have fun on. It was a truly heartwarming moment, cementing Evan as Jessica's favorite son.

Meanwhile, Jessica's other sons were playing some brotherly "jokes" on each other. Eddie's decision to celebrate Kwanza was encountered with a lot of skepticism on Emery's side who started to tease Eddie about his Kwanza related ignorance. I liked this light and sincere story that followed the two main stories. Eddie and Emery share great scenes together now that Emery grew up a bit and the bond they are forming between them is growing strong.

My favorite part of this episode were certainly all the scenes involving Marvin, played by Ray Wise. It's like the writers heard my plea from a couple of weeks ago when I asked for Marvin to be more involved in the show and I've got what I wished for. This Marvin centric story was quite entertaining, especially as they found a drug induced way to make Marvin interact with most of the other characters. Marvin suing the Huangs to take money from their insurance company after he fell in their house, this created bad blood between him and his best pal Louis which was a simple but entertaining plot for the show to process. Marvin worked through his guilt in his muscle relaxant induced dreams.

During his naps he encountered the Xmas spirts of Past (Emery), Present (Eddie) and Future (an English speaking Grandama Huang) and each encounter was more hilarious than the previous and also gave Ray a lot of space to shine as Marvin. Eventually, he realized the money wasn't worth this friendship with the Huangs and made peace with Louis.

Season 3 keeps surpassing the previous two seasons of Fresh off the Boat and I'm enjoying every episode to the fullest. We've got 15 more outings to go in season 3 and I look forward to each one of them. As always feel free to sound off in the comment on this episode and the ones before this, I can't wait to read your opinions.