Patman

Jack, being reminded of JJ's past football memories, goes to see the city championship after selling a box of radios to a college recruiter. Later, Jack tells Pete that he doesn't think JJ's coming home.

Henry learns that the lady he was interested in has moved on since he didn't further his advances towards her.

Henry takes this lesson and impresses upon Sam that if he cares for Melanie, he needs to communicate with her. Sam does so, and apologizes for keeping his family a far, and invites her to have Christmas dinner with his family. He does stand up for his relationship with Meg, so if she decided to give Sam a chance, Meg's part of the deal. Melanie does show up for Christmas dinner.

Chris drags Meg to make a statement on the war, and when she finds out it's about vandalizing a recruitment office, she takes a bus home. Chris, goaded by his "peaceful" buddies, throws a firebomb into the building and then they leave the scene. Pete confronts Meg about her whereabouts that night, and tells her that a janitor was caught in the fire. Meg lies, and also offers an alibi for Chris, telling Pete that they were all at Rox's apartment. Later, Meg confronts Chris about the fire, and backed into a corner, the little scumbag boyfriend tells her another lie, that he tries to stop his friend from burning the place down.

Luke doesn't quite break up with his west coast honey, Daniele, and she visits him for Christmas. Rox is besides herself, watching Luke's ineptitude in breaking up with Daniele. After much prodding, Luke does break up with Daniele, and Rox still gives him grief for the way he did it, and the timing of it. Luke is able to calm down Rox's fears of Luke breaking up with her.

We are treated to a very youthful Linda Ronstadt performance (played by Jojo, I believe). And Kelly Clarkson shows up as well, plus a band doing "Wild Thing".

Oh man, I found myself with moist eyes and the sniffles from Helen's "He's coming home." The homecoming brought tears to my eyes. Plus watching JJ not leave his new-found soldier cohort behind attests to his character under battle conditions. Helen is still apprehensive about JJ's state of mind after coming back from the war, but JJ will have to deal with the whole integrating back into society after going through the ordeal of war.

In a somewhat eyerolling bit of product placement (seeing as Ford was the main sponsor for this episode), Jack gives JJ a Ford Mustang (I guess it's a 1966), which pretty much blows JJ away. JJ and Beth reconnect.

And then afterwards, a more updated version of what we saw with JJ's return, a marine named Kyle returns home, years have passed, and his father returns from some errands in his Mustang (I guess it's a early 1970's model), and then the father surprises Kyle with a brand new Mustang, which blows Kyle away. Like I said, a little bit of eyerolling was in play for me with this parallel commercial storyline.

B.A.

They handled the home-coming almost perfectly. Damn good tearjerker - too bad we knew about it last week.

Two Great Moments:

When Helen met the family at Church after what I am assuming was Midnight Mass.

J.J. and Beth after he notices that she is wearing the ring.

I hope Pete beats the shit out of Chris.

And the prolonged Mustang commercial at the end was completely unnecessary.

dilligaf

again, one of the better shows on tv.

Easy

I thought it was done with class. I didn't mind the product placement either.
Jack's brother talked about a '66 Mustang.
There was a Mustang ad on the side of the bus.
Jack gave JJ the Mustang.
Mustang commercial at the end.
Did I miss any?
Personally, I saw it as preferable to regular commercials. You're going to have ads. Would you prefer bugs, popups, banners and other intrusive crap?

The show was great, as usual.

B.A.

That's why I didn't think it was necessary - they referenced the Mustang enough during the show, they didn't need a three-minute long commercial after the show. They could have just shown the uber-sweet McQueen commercial instead and been done w/ it after 30 seconds.

apeyard

Who cares if it was necessary or not? It was after the show. I, for one, would love to see more of this type of advertising. Watching one of my favorite shows without commercials was fantastic.

As for the episode, I loved how they brought JJ home (it had my wife crying).

This show just doesn't disappoint.

Jadzia

I didn't even notice there were no commercials until the end, I was so wrapped up in it. I remember checking the time at one point because I was sad thinking it was going to end soon, and I was so happy to see I was only at the 38 minute mark. Then when it finally ended at the 54 minute mark, I was really sad.

The funny thing is, I only felt lukewarm about this show in its first season. I am soooo glad I stuck with it, it is now one of favorite shows.

TruGator

The next new episode will be January 2, 2005.

Great episode overall. I'm interested to see how they deal with JJ being back home and recovering mentally from the war.

Meg needs to get rid of her boyfriend. I don't like the guy.

Melanie sucks too.

Sam and Meg anyone?

Patman

Since season 1, I had hopes that Meg and Sam would find their way to each other, but I don't think they dig each other in *that* way, but I'm more than happy to be proved wrong. They had a fun hobby together in their high school days, but I don't see passion within their friendship.

Red Dog

What a fantastic episode and commercial-free to boot! It is without a doubt, one of the top dramas on television.

I really don't want to see the Sam/Meg thing - at least for now. The show has enough politics of the times currently on its plate without delving into interracial romance.

Jadzia

I'm going to have to disagree with you guys. I am so on the Meg and Sam train. Racial politics aside, I have always thought she has had more chemistry with Sam than with any of the other guys she dated. I was a big Luke fan, but even I could see how wrong they were for each other. Really the only thing keeping Meg and Sam apart is race and the time period they are in. I think Meg has always liked Sam but the social norms prevent her from actually thinking he is an option. I think it will take Meg to get to know a mixed-race couple for her to actually acknowledge that it's possible. Meg has proven to be someone who likes to buck the norm, but she needs a push, someone who shows her it's "ok" first.