Frasier Season 2 Finale Recap: Home for the Holidays — Plus, Grade It!
Frasier continued its tradition of memorable Christmas episodes this week with a surprisingly emotional Season 2 finale that could even warm a cold, withered heart like Alan’s.
As Thursday’s finale opens, Frasier is excited to serve a Nordic feast at his Christmas Eve dinner, and Eve is telling customers sob stories to get bonus holiday tips. Alan’s unmoved, though. “Bah, humbug,” he declares, before launching into a full-throated defense of Ebenezer Scrooge. He “was a frugal realist who wasn’t taken in by yuletide nonsense,” Alan insists, calling him “one of the most misunderstood heroes in all of English literature.” But he later confesses to Frasier that he’s grumpy because his daughter Nora is in town with her new baby, and she still refuses to speak to him. He has fond memories of building a gingerbread village with her at Christmas when she was a kid, and now he doesn’t want to be reminded of Christmas at all.
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Of course, Frasier sees this as an opportunity to meddle: He and Olivia will stake out the hotel where Nora is staying, and Freddy and Holly will keep Alan busy at the hotel bar to facilitate a reunion. He also assigns David, Eve and Roz to construct a gingerbread village in his apartment to reignite those old Christmas memories — and David takes it way too seriously. He scoffs when Roz and Eve show up with a store-bought gingerbread kit, unveiling his ambitious plans for a Victorian-style village with cobblestone streets. He stays up all night crafting it, complete with a period-appropriate cemetery, and snaps at Roz and Eve when they present their creations. (“Now you made me swear in front of the vicar!”)
At the hotel, Freddy tries to keep up drinking Scotch with Alan — and gets completely sloshed as a result. Frasier and Olivia hang out in the lobby, and when the front desk clerk calls them out for loitering, Frasier gives Olivia his credit card to get a room… which she uses to charge expensive spa treatments as a Christmas gift to herself, since she thinks Frasier just got her slippers. At the bar, Holly admits to Alan that she only told Frasier she had to work on Christmas Eve because she was freaked out by his dinner invite. She thinks they’re moving too fast. Alan says that’s just Frasier: “Nobody loves with a bigger heart than Frasier Crane. You just have to decide if that’s what you want.”
Frasier spots Alan’s daughter Nora (played by Rayne Bidder) in the hotel lobby and stops her, asking if she’d be willing to see her father. She’s disturbed that he would stalk her all the way to her hotel for this — and is even more disturbed when she sees how many accomplices he has with him. She feels like she’s being ambushed, and when Alan sees her, his face lights up… but she tells him to leave her alone: “I don’t want you in my life.” She storms off, and Alan storms off, too, admonishing Frasier: “You’ve done enough already.”
When he returns home, Frasier marvels at David’s incredible gingerbread village… and then has him tear it down, since it could stir up bad memories for Alan. (Oh no!) Frasier laments that he was just trying to give Alan the same second chance that he has with Freddy, and those words inspire Freddy to take off and find Nora. He opens up to her about his rocky relationship with his own father, and when she asks, “Did your dad abandon you and your mom to take a job when you were 8?” he responds: “Yeah, actually.” They trade stories about missed birthdays and terrible gifts, and Freddy admits he was mad at Frasier, but he realized his anger was only hurting himself. She’s not ready to forgive Alan yet, though, and he understands, wishing her a Merry Christmas as he leaves.
Frasier’s party is a somber affair, with him tinkling away on the piano and David mourning the destruction of his village. Olivia gives Frasier Sigmund Freud’s humidor as a present, and he gives her a three-night stay at a swanky hotel, along with the slippers. (Oops, now she’s regretting all those spa charges.) Roz’s daughter Alice is there, too, after Freddy invited her via drunken voicemail… and did we detect a note of jealousy as Eve watched them talking? Alan arrives, with Holly in tow, and she apologizes for lying about having to work. Then there’s another knock, and it’s Nora. Alan tries to offer her an apology, but he gets tongue-tied, and she introduces him to his baby granddaughter Jude. They all join the party, with Frasier crowing: “It’s a Christmas miracle!” He realizes that it was Freddy who convinced Nora to come, and he commends his son for meddling. “Learned from the master,” Freddy says with a smile.
Alright, Frasier fans, we’re listening: Give the Season 2 finale — and Season 2 as a whole — a grade in our polls, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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