Just watched the episode. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't one of my favorites either.
- Probably my biggest issue was that Nora's whole story seemed kind of OOC for her. I just can't buy her wanting to go off to New Mexico at Christmas instead of having it with her family. And her having the It's A Wonderful Life dream seemed equally silly. Why would Nora, of all people, randomly start thinking that her children would be better off without her? I wish there had been more buildup to that, like Nora's advice/meddling messing up the the kids' lives early in the episode, to justify her feeling that way. The way it was worked into the episode, it just seemed kind of random and pointless.
- I do have a soft spot for alternate universe episodes, so I liked parts of Nora's dream. I almost would have preferred if the whole episode had been an It's A Wonderful Life takeoff, where we could have seen more of the characters' alt lives, rather than just having it be an over the top dream where they're all trying to kill Nora. I did get a kick out of the joke about Tommy:
Nora: What happened to Tommy?
Carl: You really,
really don't want to know.
- Also, can Saul ever catch a break? It's not enough that he spent most of his life deeply closeted, he's HIV+, and he just got dumped a few weeks ago, now we find out that the guy who gave him HIV doesn't even remember sleeping with him? I really hope Saul gets some good luck soon.
- Despite all of those complaints, I did enjoy parts of the episode. I'm a sucker for Christmas episodes, so I liked all the Christmasy stuff with the decorations and Kitty's Peanuts-esque tree. And I enjoyed the Kitty/Kevin feud and Justin's concern with getting Christmas right for the girl he was bringing over. It was a cute enough episode, just not one that's likely to go down as one of my faves.