Twas The Night Before The Night Before Christmas – With the Santa Crawl scheduled later that evening, Eve (Jess Salguiro) hones her sad single mom routine to increase her chances of getting tips. Upon hearing this, Doctor Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) ensures that she’s attending the Crane Christmas Eve dinner, which she confirms. While Alan Cornwall (Nicholas Lyndhurst) tells Frasier about his and Nora Cornwall’s estranged relationship (Rayne Bidder), Olivia Finch (Toks Olagundoye) finds a private moment to confer with Freddy Crane (Jack Cutmore-Scott) about Frasier’s gift.
By the time Freddy and Olivia casually return to the table, Holly (Patricia Heaton) has broken the news to Frasier about not being able to attend his dinner. Alan’s absence leads to Frasier telling the group about his estranged relationship with Nora. Although Freddy insists they stay out of his affairs, it’s only seconds later that Frasier has an entire caper planned. As luck would have it, Nora happens to be staying at the hotel where Holly works. With the effort she put into finding the perfect gift, Olivia isn’t happy when she finds a left-behind bag addressed to her, containing slippers.
Village Idiots – Things aren’t going much better for David Crane (Anders Keith) as he, Eve, and Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) can’t agree on a gingerbread house design for their part of Frasier’s plan. This brief encounter abruptly ends with Eve and Roz walking out on him.
Christmas Spirits – Frasier briefly meets with Holly before Freddy shows up for his part of Frasier’s plan. By the time Alan joins them, Fraser is in the lobby with Olivia where Olivia’s sarcastic remarks about her aching feet indicate she is still sour over her discovered gift. Despite her behavior, Frasier’s entire plan is nearly ruined when a pushy receptionist, Thomas (Alec Mapa), takes notes of their prolonged time in the lobby. Frasier ends up having to book a room to keep the plan alive.
Roz and Eve feel so guilty over abandoning David that they show up with their own individual gingerbread houses the following day. Little do they know, David was up all night, constructing what now looks like an entire gingerbread village.
By this time the story returns to the hotel bar, Freddy can hardly manage to string together two words of comprehension, whereas Alan is sober as a judge. When a lively group of Santas draws Freddy’s attention, Holly inadvertently reveals lying to Frasier about having to work. He apparently freaked her out a bit with his eagerness for commitment. Meanwhile, Frasier has grown tired of hanging around the lobby and attempts to get her room number from Thomas. Thomas is too much of a stickler to offer any help but as luck would have it, Nora arrives in the lobby seconds later.
Nora clearly feels ambushed from the moment Frasier introduces himself and those feelings only increase as each of Frasier’s accomplices trickle in. By the time Alan makes his unexpected appearance, she’s irritated enough to tell him flat-out that she doesn’t want him in her life. The encounter abruptly ends with Alan storming off. Frasier later joins him in his office to not only apologize but make sure he’s still attending the dinner. Although he doesn’t definitively agree to attend, it is practically implied.
David enjoys making Eve and Roz feel guilty over their lackluster creations when Frasier returns and demands destroying the houses in case Alan shows up for dinner. As they progress with the task, Freddy returns to Nora at the hotel bar where they proceed to swap bad dad stories. He ultimately tells her that he realized fighting so hard to keep Frasier out of his life was only hurting him. Nora admits to seeing his logic but doesn’t feel like she’s reached that point.
The mood at Frasier’s party is anything but festive, despite Alice Doyle (Greer Grammer) making an appearance. David doesn’t help matters but Olivia attempts to lighten the mood by trading presents with Frasier. As it turns out, he did get her slippers but they were for her three-night all-inclusive stay at the Plaza Hotel. It isn’t much longer after this that Alan makes an appearance with Holly. Shortly after, Nora makes an appearance with Jude.
The episode ends with Alan introducing everyone to Nora and Jude.
Frasier Finale Review
I’ll start by giving the episode a 5.7 out of 10. I always enjoy a good holiday special but unfortunately, I don’t feel that the episode was as good as 9 or 8. I did enjoy it and appreciated the throwback to Alan and Nora’s situation. It was also nice to see Freddy resolve the issue by bringing attention to his own issues with Frasier. The gingerbread side story with David, Roz, and Eve wasn’t so bad either.
Frasier’s antics were kept to an acceptable and respectable level, and I am certainly glad that Frasier and Olivia’s side confrontation didn’t overshadow anything important. All in all, I felt the review was rather well done and hate to see the season come to a close.
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