Recipe for a Perfect Christmas - Part Four

We're in the home stretch now. This will be over soo, and I can put on my tape of Eat Drink Man Woman to wash away the nasty taste of this Lifetime movie.

Christine is back at the agent's office. She sees an old friend there and learns the sad truth that show business hates old ladies. She and Old Friend go to a diner to share their woes. Christine loses her shit over not finding a job and Old Friend tells her to be straight with her daughter so Christine can mooch off of PMEL with a clear conscience.

Christine then looks for jobs on PMEL's laptop and crashes the computer. PMEL loses her OWN shit over the crashed laptop. Christine tries to tell her daughter what a hard time she's been having being broke and trying to find work but PMEL is not having any of it and tells her to get out of her face.

Christine runs to the shoulder of Alex where she admits she misses PMEL's father. So much for the hot May-December sex. She reminisces and gets more and more sad with each memory of her dead husband. Apparently he was a hig school history teacher whose students loved him. She asks Alex to take her home with him. Obviously to bawl about her life some more and not for hot May-December sex.

It's early in the morning and PMEL is still working on her column. She hears movement in the other room and finds her mother walking in. This leads to the BIG CONFRONTATION. While Christine just wants to sleep, PMEL decides this is the best time to tell her mother she's a big fat loser. PMEL goes on and on about what an attention whore her mother is and how she never cared about her daughter except as an adoring fan. Boo hoo. PMEL rips into her mother some more. This time she talks about Christine's vanity. Christine just wants this to end and so she says she'll crash at Alex's. This is when PMEL lets out the BIG SECRET. Alex only asked her out because PMEL put him up to it. In possibly the worst writing ever Christine leaves by saying "I have always loved you. You may not remember it but you used to love me too."" Ooooh. BURN!

Returning from commercials, PMEL is knocking on Alex's door at some ungodly hour looking for her mother. Christine isn't there, but Alex gives some smoking emotional support. They look everywhere, including driving to Long Island to PMEL's old family home. It's there she learns that Christine is stone cold broke. She thought the house was rented, but it was sold years ago to pay off debt. Damn, plastic surgery is expensive. PMEL gets all teary at her childhood Christmas tree. Like the Grinch, PMEL's heart grows three sizes.

PMEL and Alex share their stories of parental woe. PMEL because she didn't know her mother was broke and Alex because his father didn't want to open a restaurant until he had more moeny saved up. And in a completely inappropriate moment, Alex asks PMEL if she wants kids. Because Alex is not dead inside and he is all about family.

PMEL comes home to strummy girl music and a gazillion messages from her metrosexual editor saying she's missed her deadline. She roots through one of her mother's bags and sees all of the things her mother kept to reminder her of PMEL. Much sobbing ensures. In a last ditch effort to find her mom, PMEL goes to sleazy agent to see if he has any leads. He tells her to go to Old Friend. Old friend gives PMEL a reproving look and tells her that Christine is working a few shifts at the sleazy bar where old friend works.

In the meantime, Evil Blonde is gunning for the Food Critic Job and submits her own column. Metrosexual Editors are unimpressed but desperate. The best compliment they can give it, is that it's in English.

Segue to sleazy bar. The bar is actually a strip club and we can see Christine broken down by the sleaze. PMEL decides this is the time bring up her dead father and the fact she never saw her mother cry during his death. Some skeeze is asking for a scotch and soda. Good luck dude, there's a family crisis going on. It's a total Ya-Ya moment in the strip bar as Christine tells PMEL that she was distant to spare PMEL from all the pain of seeing her mother in mourning. All those years PMEL thought that Christine just didn't give a shit. Thy cry and hug and all the patrons are wondering if this will lead to some girl on girl action. This also leads to PMEL's admission that she's in love with Alex. Christine quits the bar and leaves.

PMEL and Chrstine are in PMEL's apartment doing that four-cereals-in-one-bowl thing. Here's where i have to admit I mix my cereals too. I love the Kashi Good Friends cereal with the interracial couple on the box, but I need a little sugar in the morning so I mix it with a little Honey Bunches of Oats. I should be a Lifetime tv movie heroine. The mixed cereal breakfast unblocks PMEL's writer's block.

She decides to write about comfort food in her column and the fact that her comfort food is the four-cereals-in-one-bowl. We hear the column read by voice-over. It's nearly at atrocious as Christine Baranski singing "Shadows of the Night." She clumsily ties it into her review of Alex's restaurant. Inexplicably, Metrosexual Editors declare it the best thing since MFK Fisher and decide to print the column and give PMEL her job back. Morgan's assy review gets thrown back in her face and she is left with her soulless single career girl life. Dead inside.

More voice-over of the column as Alex's furniture gets repossed by sleazy loan shark. When PMEL gets to the restaurant, it's too late and the furniture's been repossed. Alex is up shit creek. They lament the restaurant closing before the review comes out. Over an open fire. Just DO IT ALREADY. PMEL comes up with an idea to open the restaurant anyway. She tells Alex to start cooking and she'll handle the rest.

So Christine and PMEL are working to get the Who's Who of New York to come to the restaurant and Alex is cooking up a storm. She even gets the magazine's gossip columnist and her gossipy friends to come. And because PMEL now has a soul and is sexually liberated, we see her coming out of her bedroom in a "sexy" purple dress. Actually it looks more like one of RuPaul's gowns on her 1998 Christmas album. Christine on the other hand is wearing a tasteful little black dress that screams sexy but not whore.

Christmas comes early to Alex when the gays from the Middle Eastern restaurant come to Alex's, complete with tables and chairs (and very nice ones indeed). Oh those gays, what would a single career girl do without them? More and more New York glitterati come to Alex's with tables and chairs, including PMEL who looks like the real Eva Longoria complete with garish makeup and body-hugging dress.

Christine is doing her part by pretending to be an interested buyer of the restaurant to the swarthy loan shark. She brings him to the restaurant which has now become New York's newest IT place. The gossip columnist brings her buddies at the New Tork Times, New York magazine, and the Village Voice.

In an amazing bit of business sense, the restaurant keeps the people waiting for tables occupied by giving them shots of ouzo. And now is the happy ending to Christine's problem of being washed up and broke. Metrosexual Editor #1 spills a drink on her and they meet cute. So she doesn't gain any skills or becomes self-sufficient, she meets a man. End of story.

Alex and PMEL are cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and some food is prepared too. Bah dum dum. I'm here all night folks.

In the restaurant it's Zorba the Greek, as everyone is in a circle dancing. Metrosexual Editor #1 ask Christine if she wants to join in but Christine demurs, not wanting to be the center of attention. While this may indicate character growth, we know Christine is just waiting for some hot Metrosexual Editor love in the bathroom. We end with people dancing on the tables and PMEL and Alex hug. People who aren't dead inside have fun. THE END.

And the best Christmas gift ever? Deleting this drivel from my TiVo and never having to hear Christine Baranski sing "Shadows of the Night" again. Happy Holidays everyone!!!!!!! Everyone who isn't dead inside, that is.