This week’s special Scorpion Christmas was extra special because it demanded of our nerdy heroes to use their math and physics skills to conjure a Christmas miracle. If you were expecting a sedate and laid back episode, you will be disappointed, but if you were looking for something more intense with perhaps inappropriate bursts of silly humor, then this was the entry for you.
Using a spin on the “boy in a well” trope, Scorpion delivered a frantic entry this week that had the gift of life, the love of family, and a little boy looking for hope, brought to him by a man who manages to stuff himself down a skinny and potentially unsafe tunnel.
Even before a tragedy at the beach springs the Scorpions into action, it was already a pretty blue Christmas for the geniuses. Despite Paige’s attempts to set a yule tide tone with some Christmas kitsch, Happy remembers always being returned to the group home before Christmas, and Toby recalls holiday gambling with his father and his wise words on how you never bet on ponies numbered 2 or 5 on Christmas Day. Walter, meanwhile, is at the beach with Megan trying to convince her to participate in a drug trial that will hopefully extend her life. But all these Christmas doldrums turn into Christmas panic when a young boy named Owen is trapped in a sinkhole and buried by a rock slide after an earthquake.
Without going into a blow by blow of all the various crises and conundrums that befell that boy in that buried sinkhole, the episode genuinely seemed obsessed with the idea of pushing the genius and capabilities of the team to the very limits, albeit with a very simple problem. It also utilized all the skills of the team members, from Happy MacGyvering a finely tuned jack to lift a rock off Owen’s leg without causing a cave in, to Paige offering motherly comfort via Skype as Owen’s parents race to the scene. Megan even helps out by getting Sylvester pumped up to face his myriad of fears.