NCIS: LA - Cancel Christmas

[NOTE: Sorry, Student Emily was drunk on happiness over finishing her last exam tonight (and of the following sassy photo of Josh Donaldson in a Santa hat AND a sweater bearing his own likeness) that she forgot to pay attention to the time and missed the beginning of NCIS:LA today.

Hopefully you can't blame me for being distracted by this. It's pretty great.

So she had to wait until it got uploaded online. As a result, she's now writing this after midnight, as Sleepy Emily, and is referring to herself in third person. This should make for an interestingly nonsensical recap.]

Christmas! Christmas is coming!! That little tiny toy train close-up at the beginning is kinda ominous though. So is the song slowing down and everything getting blurry. And then a dude gets hit by a truck. Yeouch.

NELLRICK ARE DANCING!!! Not in a romantic way - but with giant candy canes! SO CUTE!!! But Granger doesn't like it. Because he hates fun. And cute things. He might be allergic to them.

See?

But it's OK, Hetty delivers some shade. #HettyTheBest

Janvier (the one-armed psychopath that wants to kill Callen) sent Callen a Christmas card. It's the only one he got, other than Sam's. Sam takes offense to their proximity to one another. Is that a thing? You need to not put cards from murderers next to ones from your friends? 

Joelle makes an appearance! AND CALLEN GOT ONE OF THOSE CAR-RUDOLPH KITS!!! I LOVE RUDOLPH!!! 

Don't believe me? These are my socks.

And I own this shirt. His nose lights up. I'm a dork. 

Deeks and Kensi are having issues with their mothers who both want to cook Christmas dinner. Sam's grumpy, cos he doesn't want to have to work anymore - and he's mean to Eric. But Kensi thought he was adorable, and Kensi is right! Yaaaay Kensi! 

Dead dude was a North Korean spy. Deeks wants to go work on the case, but Callen declines. Also, I really love Deeks. 'Knuckleheadedness' is totally a word, Sam, even if my spellchecker doesn't think so. They find a dead guy who's not actually dead, he's just passed out. 

Deeks is talking to a Santa-bikini-wearing charity-gathering girl who saw the guy die at the beginning. Apparently 'tannenbaum' is the Christmas word for bingo! I will be using that this season. Deeks and Kensi are having their coupley discussions about lingerie in the middle of the street. As one does. 

WTF Granger, why are you in such a rage?! Because 'terrorism doesn't take holidays' apparently. What a grumpypants. Eric snuggled sugar cookies into Ops, because Eric is wonderful. I don't usually love shortbread, but they had some at my school cafeteria the other day and it made me SO HAPPY!! 

Kensi wants to raise a baby tiger and Kensi just said the word 'bitches' like what is happening here? But baby tigers are damn cute. 

Exhibit A (Hiiiii Joey Bats!) 

Someone turned the gas on in the dead guy's house, and Deeks and Kensi run out but it doesn't go KABOOM like I was expecting it to. Disappointing. 

Some girl fake-cries in front of Callen, then tries to attack him (why do bad guys always make grunting noises right before attacking someone?) and he takes her in for questioning because she poisoned the dead guy right before he died. (Was that Jeanette McCurdy?? It looked like Jeanette McCurdy) and the guy they found in the motel had just gotten out of prison so he asks to borrow some clothes, Granger says 'no' because Granger is a Grinch.

I see the resemblance. 

Also I'm calling him 'Grinchger' from now on. Got it? Good. Callen is nice and offers to help him. Good guy Callen. Eric is rambling on on the phone to Deeks, and he's having a sugar high it's kind of adorable. Deeks takes a fun hypothetical conversation and turns it into a confession about the IA investigation. Your timing is bad, Deeks, and you should feel bad. 

But somehow Kensi had figured it out?! Smartypants Kensi!!! Proud of that girl. It turns into a really cute conversation where he says he needs to kiss her and she says no cos they're working and waahhh why don't I have a boyfriend... 

The girl's mom shot Grinchger in the ass, apparently, and he carries around a photo of her for some reason. He offers her a warm beverage (because that's what you do when someone is sad) and says it has poison in it, because he too hates the holidays.

Callen dropped off the just-out-of-prison guy, is all nice to him, but then they find out that he actually knew the girl and took off from the house with their dog. Nell and Eric want puppies. I want to see Nell and Eric with puppies. The cuteness overload would be worth it. SMART DUDE he had the names of spies embedded in the chip in his dog, took it to a shelter, and got them to read the list. 

Callen tracks him down and puts him in a cage, has some more witty banter (I love you Callen) and they take him to set up a meet with the bad Korean buyers.  

OK I understand that going undercover and tackling the Korean spies was necessary, but did Deeks really have to dress as Santa?! He's gonna scar all those kids for life!! Sam shows up with his son, who was supposed to wait in the car, but didn't. Which might have been a good idea, because as Chuck taught us... 

He's instead super-interested in becoming an NCIS agent. Which Sam is not OK with - even if he's alright with him being in the Navy? 

Kensi wants Deeks to bring his Santa outfit, and they manage to solve their mother problem, inviting them instead to Sam's house. Hetty has a back-up gift for Callen for Joelle, because Hetty thinks of everything, and then NELL AND ERIC SHOW UP DRESSED LIKE TOY SOLDIERS!!! And Granger catches them and tells them to have fun. SO DAMN CUTE!!!! THEY'RE LIKE TEENY PRECIOUS ELVES!!! 

Except they're not elves they're soldier/nutcracker thingies, but who cares THEY'RE SO GOSHDARN CUTE!!!! 

Callen shows up at home, Joelle loves that he got her a gift, she set up a nice dinner for them - and then proceeds to tell him she is going to break up with him at New Years?! Because she worries about him too much?! Joelle you heartless fiend, who has that conversation on Christmas?!!!! 

Merry Christmas, friends!! I, for one, think we can be thankful this didn't end on a cliffhanger! See you in the new year!! 

NCIS: LA - Internal Affairs

So Deeks was arrested, and taken to jail, and some guy comes in and smacks/chokes him while a lady-detective from Internal Affairs was trying to interview him. Ugh.

Boyle (the dead cop) was the guy Deeks explained earlier had put a gun in his mouth, he ended up shot by a hooker he'd assaulted... Supposedly. And the guy attacking Deeks in the interview room was Boyle's old partner.

There's no caption, but you get the gist. 

So the team is gonna investigate, naturally. Deeks kept asking the woman interviewing him for some kind of coffee. So full of the sarcasm and wittiness, as per usual. And Callen may or may not be having relationship issues.

Some dirty cop guy named John Quinn escaped from prison. The police are tearing up Deeks' house and his mom is freaking out. The dead guy's partner, Steadman, was a degenerate gambler and had a female partner who then was killed during a drug bust, which is a little too convenient for Steadman...

Deeks' mom comes to visit him and mentions the fact that he'd had to shoot his father in order to protect her, which is really freaking sad, but didn't we already know that?  

Or is that just a really common character background story? I am confuse!

There was a girl named Julie, a.k.a. Tiffany, who Deeks' cover persona keeps sending money to - she was a hooker who used to be Deeks' informant. She was the one who had supposedly killed Boyle - but says she didn't, she was working with Quinn to bust Boyle, she says Quinn must have killed him - and Deeks helped her get back on her feet because he was the only cop she could trust.

Unless Deeks pleads guilty to the murder he didn't commit, he will be put in a county jail. And Kensi is pissed. She lectures Hetty and says she doesn't care how she does it, she has to get Deeks out. That was... kind of insane.

Kensi and Mrs. Deeks share a nice touching moment - but while Deeks was being interrogated, the lieutenant in charge of the IA department (he'd stopped Steadman from attacking him earlier) comes in and helps him escape. Well this is unexpected - and exciting!

I love a good plot twist!! 

Deeks goes to the house of Quinn's girlfriend, who Sam and Callen had talked to (reluctantly on her part) the day before - but Steadman beat him there and is attacking the girl, Monica - then Deeks is a smartypants and says the stash of whatever he was looking for is under the trap door in the floor of the interrogation room.

Then he brilliantly gets the door open and tells Monica to dive through it, he follows her and they get away! Steadman runs outside - right into the rest of the team. And Kensi points her gun right at him, all badass-like until the rest of the team calls her off - then she realizes where Deeks is and she runs and embraces him which is adorable. And then this happened:

Callen: How come you're never that happy to see me?
Sam: I carry my joy inside
Callen: What does that even mean?
Sam: Means you won't be getting a hug anytime soon.

Those two are the absolute best. I think Granger said it best

Oh, and it turns out Quinn hadn't escaped at all - Hetty had him relocated and faked his escape, and she got the 'stash' and had it planted in Steadman's garage.

But Deeks actually did kill Boyle. Wow. Didn't see that coming. Hetty basically tells him he should break up with Kensi if he can't tell her about the whole killing-a-guy-to-protect-a-hooker thing.

Big Bang Theory - The Platonic Permutation

Sheldon has an extra ticket to an aquarium dinner on Thanksgiving, because he bought one for Amy but then they broke up. Too bad everyone else already has plans!

So he has to take Amy instead - this is shaping up to be hella awkward.
Bernadette, Emily, Raj, and Howard show up to help at a soup kitchen, which is nice of them, and hey, now we've established how close Emily and Bernadette are!

Apparently Penny doesn't know Leonard's birthday! This is an embarrassing twist.. Penny's birthday is December 2nd, by the way, this is news. His is in May but she doesn't know when!

Howard will do nothing but complain. He's a greedy bugger. Amy's steering wheel seems comically large, and Sheldon wants to know if she's had coitus with any other men.

Leonard knows everything there is to know about Penny, which is hella impressive - but he read her journal! Sneaky bastard! But within like 10 seconds there, there were two things that reminded me of How I Met Your Mother - hatred of the word 'moist', and the mention of a slutty orange vegetable.

Moist. Moist. Moist. 

The rest of the gang at the soup kitchen abandons Howard to go work 'up front', while he's stuck doing the dishes. That can't be fun. It's the worst job in the world and now he doesn't even have his friends to talk to.

I feel you Leonard, I often use the word 'GAAAHHH' when I'm excited. I will admit it sounds weird out loud, though. 

Elon Musk is randomly at the soup kitchen, because that's what famous people do (also I had no idea what Elon Musk looked like) and Howard starts sucking up to him because he's a big fan, and he lies about being there voluntarily. 

Ohhh Amy, the game is totally 'fuck marry kill' but I get it, you had to keep it PG for TV. And oh hey, Spongebob reference! 

Any Spongebob reference is a good one. 

OH MY LORD LEONARD IS WEARING THE ORANGE SLUTTY CARROT LINGERE!!!! MY EYES!!! 

Poor Amy, she was doing so well and now suddenly she's all confused in the feelings department and now she wants to be Sheldon's girlfriend again. And he rejects her and now she's sad and now I feel sad too. Poor Amy. 

But hold on, isn't Howard going to be exposed to Elon Musk as a big fat phony?? This is the problem with these damn 19-minute episodes, I always feel like one of the plots doesn't get wrapped up properly.

And would you look at that, now I'm all caught up! 

Big Bang Theory - The Mystery Date Observation

Here's the thing - I have a grievance with the fact that this show has been whittled down to 19 minutes of actual content because of stupid commercials, but then they used a whole minute for a recap that didn't need to be nearly that long (they included unnecessary punchlines when they could have just hit the major plot points. Chuck and Friends used to be so good at that.)

Sheldon decided he needs a new girlfriend so that he will focus on his work again. He asks Howard and Raj to find him one and they get distracted, because that's what they do.

Jon recognizes this trope

Amy is wearing a short dress - all the way to her knees! And she finally gives Penny and Bernadette a few details about her new beau, and OH MY GOD PENNY AND BERNADETTE ARE TOTALLY LIKE MY ROOMMATES WITH THE SQUEALING and now they're planning to spy on Amy on her date - I hope mine would never do that...

Raj and Howard plan out a bunch of puzzles that a woman needs to solve before she can get his contact information. Funny - but in the real world I'm sure something like that would sit around for months if not years before anyone took a crack at it.

Oh my god! Amy's date is Stephan Merchant!! That British dude who you may all remember as the spindly-legged fellow from this video who is not Joseph Gordon-Levitt:

(But you should definitely watch that video because yes, JGL is the best part of that video, as he is in all the things)

Bernadette would make an excellent spy. She's got the equipment, but hardly the subtlety. It still seems weird to think of Leonard and Penny as married.

And OF COURSE Amy's date has heard of Sheldon! And he's a fanboy. Just wants to know everything about him. And meet him. This is the second time in three episodes that Bernadette has taken off on someone she was supposed to drive home. But she backed into Dave's car, and they came out and saw them, and freaked out over Leonard because apparently he's famous too.

Sheldon really didn't want the girl who solved the puzzle to be Jennifer Lawrence. Because she's not too busy to be solving puzzles on the Internet. But hey, it's another girl with similar hair! Played by Analeigh Tipton! I did not know she cut her hair... But he shuts the door in her face because she missed the deadline by less than a minute (and found electronic spectroscopy boring). There is officially no hope for Sheldon.

... Or for Amy.

Big Bang Theory - The Spock Resonance

Wil Wheaton is back! And so is Leonard Nimoy's son - who is doing a documentary they want to interview Sheldon for.

Bernadette wants to redecorate the house, and Howard is resistant. Now he's guilt-tripping her because his dad left and his mom died and he doesn't want to change anything because everything reminds him of them.

Aww... Nimoy's son looks just like him! And Sheldon loved Spock because he lived in a logic-based world without irrational emotion. Did you know there was a wall safe behind the whiteboard behind the giant DNA model? And a floor safe? And a security camera in Aquaman?? (Cos Leonard didn't).

No, apparently Adam doesn't count as Nimoy DNA. Only the napkin does! I'm so glad they did a callback to that, that episode was one of my favourites ever. The dialogue about Sheldon having a Wil, (a miniature Wheaton) and an actual will, 'in which he wills his Wil back to Wil' was pretty great!

Look, it's little Wil! 

OH MY GOD I FORGOT PENNY AND THE GUYS DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS GOING TO PROPOSE TO AMY!!!! They found the ring in his safe and he told them, all matter-of-factly, and Penny lost her shit, much like I did when it was revealed in the season 8 finale.

Instead of 'What would Jesus do?', Sheldon decided to model himself after 'What would Spock do?' - so maybe he isn't naturally devoid of emotions, it's a learned behaviour. And he gets upset when Penny points out that he has emotion, just like the half of Spock that was human. Bravo, Penny.

Not all houses have a space to crawl under them from the outside, some have foundations that are built into the ground... And Howard wants kids, but Bernadette doesn't, and he tells her father that WHILE they're under the house. Not a smart move.

Raj is hilarious. So is Bernadette's dad.

Sheldon decides he's off to propose to Amy, but then he sees her kiss some guy outside her building. So he turns around and leaves.

Big Bang Theory - The Helium Insufficiency

Apparently telling someone their face is 'pleasingly symmetrical' will soften the blow of bad news. Note to self.

There's a worldwide helium shortage - how the hell does that happen?! And Sheldon and Leonard need some or else a Swedish team will perform the same experiment before them. Oh dear. Also, Barry Kripke won't give them any of his because he's an ass, but we already knew that.

Stuart is using some kind of non-name-branded Tinder. Now Amy's using it. This is funny, everyone else is making her choices for her.

Oh my god, the sketchy guy they're buying helium off of is played by Michael Rapaport!! The blonde cop guy who Phoebe dated on Friends! The guy with the most Brooklyn-iest accent I've ever heard!

Weirdly enough, I remember the actor's name more often than the character's. (It was Gary)

And Sheldon gives him a vocabulary lesson - "All these years I've been using 'stalemate' when all along I meant 'impasse'. I feel foolish."

Also, because everything reminds me of The Princess Bride, this scene reminds me of The Princess Bride, because that's the movie that taught me the word 'impasse'.

"We are at an impasse"

Amy and her friends are sitting around making fun of all the guys who come up on her app - and for some reason they're all really unattractive. Are there no hot douchebags on this app?! Also Stuart - whose name appeared onscreen and reassured me that I am, in fact, spelling it right.

For some reason Sheldon and Leonard dressed the helium tank up as a person in order to sneak it into the lab... Because that's super convincing. Also they think it was stolen from the government, so Sheldon starts freaking out.

Turns out Amy already went on a date!! And they're right, Tinder would make a great drinking game!! Penny squealing over Amy's date sounded like my roommate when they found out I met a cute guy at a bar and got his number. (It was Halloween. He was dressed as a Power Ranger. Good times were had by all.)

Sheldon and Leonard decide to give the helium back to the guy, and he charges more money for it, but then Kripke wants to get partial credit on their paper if he gives them his helium, so they go back and get it again. And now they're buddies with him, because he's one of those adorably smart bad guys. That was a nice ending.

The Big Bang Theory - The Perspiration Implementation

I still can't believe they're on Season 9 of this show already. It seems like just last year Amy was being introduced (and that was Season 4).

I also can't believe how freaking far behind I am. Ugh. Might have to do one of those 'catching up' posts because I don't have the energy.

Howard is lazy, and attached his FitBit to a robot arm so that it would fool Bernadette into thinking he's exercising. Leonard has a Scrabble Dance.

I, too, am very fond of the word 'touche'.

As are these lovelies.

Stuart wants there to be more girls in the comic book store. Not likely to happen while your creepy regular customers are still there, buddy.

The guys decide to take up fencing, and Barry Kripke(!!) is their instructor. But it's serious business, apparently, not glamourous like in a movie. RAJ LOVES THE PRINCESS BRIDE!!!!!! I LOVE THE PRINCESS BRIDE!!!!!!

Best. Movie. Ever.

Congratulations, Raj, you are now my favourite.

Apparently Stuart himself is the problem with his store. Makes sense. And now Howard and Raj are both making Princess Bride references and I AM SO GIDDY! Sheldon wants to slap people across the face with his glove when they insult his honour - which, honestly, I think is a policy that should be resurrected.

Kripke is interested in Amy, and Sheldon gets mad and challenges him to a duel - but three years from then.

Poor Stuart, we all know he's a nice dude but he lacks the confidence to master social graces that wouldn't scare them away. And now Amy's trying to make him feel better but kinda accidentally made him think she was hitting on him. Sheldon randomly decides to pick up a woman at a bar, because literally he went 'oh there's a girl'.

Barry asked Amy out via text - AND sent her a dick pic. BAD Barry. BAD! But she said no. Good Amy. Making smart choices. Leonard and Bernadette are bad friends, abandoning Amy and Sheldon together in the hallway so that they have to talk.

That's just awkward...