Astor George, Author at Zikoko!

Once upon a time, an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity trended on the internet. I did the dirty work of actually reading and recapping it. The article was so popular that I decided to make my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To “, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc.) and recap them for your pleasure.

Today, I’ll be recapping Merry Men 3: Nemesis.

The following tweet is my official intro for this article.

Let’s get into it.

The movie starts with a flashback to an unspecified point in time when the entire world was covered with the sepia filter Hollywood uses for films set in Mexico. We’re introduced to two characters, Dafe and Ayo, played by the worst child actors I’ve ever seen. Ayo is showing Dafe a magic trick involving a coin.

After a title card that serves PS1 realness, the movie returns to the present day and drops us smack in the middle of a police car filmed and edited like the director was trying his hardest to make the audience vomit. Also, am I bugging or is this Andrew Tate??

The robber gets away after blowing up the police cars and returns to the rest of his crew. They takes off their mask and is revealed to be Dafe — one of the kids from the opening scene — now played by Chidi Mokeme. Dafe asks to be released from the robbery gang as he has paid what he owes (what this is all about will be revealed later), and the gang leader says no.

TEN BANKS?!

So Dafe kills the rest of the crew with poison (the poison somehow takes hold of all of them at the same time), shoots the leader in the face, and returns to Nigeria.

In the next scene, Ayo (Ramsey Nouah) is getting married to his girlfriend, Dera. Dera was played by Damilola Adegbite in the last movie, but:

As Ayo and Dera are reading their vows, a recording of Dafe’s voice starts playing over the church’s PA system. While Ayo’s groomsmen, Amaju (AY) and Johnny (Williams Uchemba), try to figure out what’s happening, the wedding guests are LIVING for the drama. My favourites are these two:

Dafe makes them watch a live stream of their friend, Naz (played in the last movie by Jim Iyke but by a body double in this one), getting blown up with a car bomb on his way to Ayo’s wedding. All the main characters react to this death to the best of their actors’ abilities. But Naz’s girlfriend, Kemi (Rosaline Meurer), reacts by screaming directly into the camera for some reason, and it’s the most unintentionally hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.

Ajamu goes to warn fellow merry man Remi (played by Falz in the last movie) that there’s a new threat but finds him dead. All I can think about at this point is how many people declined to return to this franchise by saying, “Kill off our characters and use their deaths to kickstart this anyhow plot.”

While the merry men are grieving their losses, Dafe returns to his village to see his mother. He learns from his mother’s friend that his mother died months prior from an illness, and she couldn’t be treated due to a lack of health facilities in the village.

After he says this, Dafe comes to a conclusion.

Because he’s tired of them stealing the funds meant for things like health facilities. His first target is a politician named Chief Jimoh (Jide Kosoko). Jide Kosoko is in this movie for all of three minutes and spends 99% of that time doing this:

Dafe shoots Chief Jimoh in the face, anyway. He then kidnaps the priest and friend of the gang, Uduak Francis (played by Ejike Asiegbu in the last movie but now played by Sam Dede), and promises to let Uduak go if Ayo comes.

Ayo shows up, but to no one’s surprise, Dafe shoots them both. Uduak dies, but Ayo survives thanks to a bulletproof vest. Ajamu, Johnny, and Dera take Ayo to a hospital to be cared for by a Doctor Ejiro (played by famously 35-year-old actress and reality TV star Carolyna Hutchings).

The merry men find out they’re wanted by the police because Dafe has framed them for the murder of Chief Jimoh, so they return to their secret bunker to figure out what to do next. Amaju gets a call from prison. It’s Dame Maduka (Ireti Doyle), and she wants Amaju to visit her. Amaju is worried about being caught by the police, so he dons a disguise.

Y’all. Look at this disguise.

I haven’t seen a disguise this flimsy since Lupin. Jesus Christ.

I zone out for a bit, and something Dame Maduka says snaps me back to reality and makes me question the nature of the movie I’m watching.

Keep in mind that I didn’t alter the subtitles here. So I’m just sitting there like:

Dame Maduka says she has information on Dafe’s whereabouts and is willing to share, but only if the merry men break her out of prison. And they do, with the help of a character recruited by Dera named Zara (Ufuoma McDermott). Zara initially refuses to help because she’s worried about her son’s safety.

But Dera is like:

Zara robs a bank, intentionally gets caught, and is sent to the same prison Dame Maduka is in. I pause here to laugh at how easily this plan would’ve fallen apart if she’d been sent to another prison. Thank God for plot for convenience. After delivering Dame Maduka to the merry men bunker base of operations, Zara attempts to peace the fuck out…until Dafe sashays back into the movie’s plot to reveal that he’s kidnapped her son.

Zara freaks the fuck out.

She loses her entire shit and holds everyone at gunpoint for some reason.

Dame Maduka is just In the corner like:

Dame Maduka would be great at “So You Don’t Have To.”

Zara goes on a solo rescue mission and is promptly captured, beaten, and given the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego treatment. Except that in this case, she feels the fire and dies horrifically.

Dafe says he’ll release Zara’s son if the merry men kill the senate president. They agree. While they plan for this, Dame Maduka convinces Kemi (Naz’s grieving widow) to give her the code to the group’s vault in exchange for Dafe’s whereabouts so Kemi can get her revenge.

This is incredibly stupid because the merry men already know where Dafe is. This subplot only happens so Dame Maduka can clear the vault and run off with their money while they’re on their mission. But whatever, sha.

Ayo shoots the senate president on-camera…

…while Dafe watches with so much excitement, it looks like he’s creaming his jeans.

Dafe asks the merry men to meet him at Zara’s son’s favourite place. The merry men are confused because Zara, the only person who would know this, has been barbecued. Dera correctly guesses that it’s the Hakuna Matata theme park in Lekki because that’s where she met with Zara earlier in the movie.

And that’s when I clock what’s happening.

The movie’s climax is set up to happen at Hakuna Matata theme park due to a product placement deal between the park and the movie studio. I’m just like:

The merry men get there at the same time as the police. Dafe finds out that the merry men faked the senate president shooting video, so he angrily straps a bomb to Zara’s son’s chest. The merry men show up, and many fucking awful fight scenes happen concurrently. Dafe is defeated, and the merry men are free to go because their names have been cleared. It’s revealed that Ayo is the father of Zara’s son.

Meanwhile, Dame Maduka attempts to escape with the merry men’s money but is thwarted by the police.

Hopefully, for the last time, because I DO NOT want to see another Merry Men movie.
Hello.

Are you single due to no fault of your own (village people) or due to a fault of your own (madness, bad behaviour, selfishness, gaslighting, girl bossing, gatekeeping, inability to be someone’s peace, inability to piss one place make e foam — i.e. cheating) and will therefore spend this Valentine’s day alone snarling at couples in real life and online out of intense levels of jealousy unseen since Cain killed Abel?

If your answer to all that was yes, here are five ways to change your miserable fate.

Go to therapy.

The reason you’ve been unable to get anyone to love you could be because you have issues that can only be solved with the help of a mental health professional. Use the 14 days you have left between the time this article is being written and Valentine’s Day to find a therapist (or two, depending on the severity of your issues) and get to work. You don’t have time to ease into it, so you should be ready to vomit all your trauma onto that therapist’s floor during your first session.

If you’re lucky, someone will notice that you’ve changed and pick — you, choose you, love — you to do “my view, their view” with this year.

Try church.

Churches are full of people trying to better themselves, so you’ll fit right in. Just be sure not to drop the problems you showed up with and leave with someone else’s. For example, say you’re there to shake off the spiritual spouse you didn’t know tethered itself to you the time you gave your celebrity crush gluck-gluck sloppy-toppy 3000 in a dream. Don’t leave there with another demon that has no interest in you or your genitals and just wants to cause chaos.

It’s time to shine your spiritual eye.

Do juju.

Don’t make that face, ok? Deep down, you always knew it would come to this. You’re gonna find a way to get a lock of hair from your crush and take it to a Babalawo so they can jazz the person into liking you back. Contrary to popular belief, Babalawos are no longer hard to find. Hell, half the time, they’ll do the hard work by seeking you out.

Hijack someone’s proposal.

People have gotten engaged so much since November last year that I wondered if the rapture was coming and single people would be left behind. My point is that it shouldn’t be hard to find a proposal taking place. Find one, threaten one of them at gunpoint to leave and never return. Then take their place. Simple. Use the gun to get the other person to stay with you until Valentine’s Day.

Join a throuple.

If using violence or juju isn’t your thing, find a relationship that’s already in full gear and convince them to take you in by reciting Nicki Minaj’s second verse in the song Hey Mama. If it’s good enough for the white gays, it’s good enough for you.
It’s most likely because they’re all written, directed, and produced by him, but all Tyler Perry movies have the same vibe. To be clear, I’m not referring to his comedies starring his signature character, Madea. I’m talking about his dramas, like the upcoming one titled “Mea Culpa”, starring Kelly Rowland and Trevante Rhodes.

The lead character is always a likeable black actress.

Kelly Rowland in Mea Culpa, Taraji P Henson in Acrimony, and Jurnee Smollett-Bell in Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. My theory is that Tyler Perry casts these women to draw in black audiences and also to distract from the shitty storylines.

There’s always a black supporting actor whose character ain’t shit.

Trevantes Rhodes in this, Mechad Brooks in A Fall From Grace, and Robbie Jones in Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. This character always seems sweet at first but then ends up being a steaming hot piece of shit. His MO is sweet-talking and manipulation. This brings me to my next point.

The black lead female character always gets romantically or sexually entangled with the black supporting male character.

There’s always a strong reason she shouldn’t — Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Robbie Jones in Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, Crystal Fox and Mechad Brooks in A Fall From Grace — but she does it anyway, causing problems for herself. As you can see, Kelly Rowland’s character continues the tradition in Mea Culpa.

The black female lead character must suffer.

Usually because of her romantic association with the black supporting male character. It was the same with Acrimony when he turned Taraji’s character into a mad person so he could deliver the worst final act in all of film history. He does the same thing in Confessions of a Marriage Counselor when Jurnee’s character suffers domestic abuse and AIDS — the movie disgustingly frames it that way, I shit you not — at the hands of the man she’s left her husband for. Mea Culpa isn’t out yet, but you can already tell from the trailer that Kelly’s character will GO THROUGH IT for the same reason.

A poster with the most dramatic lighting you’ve ever seen.

Tyler Perry movie posters are always lit, like the characters are intensely serving face while hiding from a slasher movie villain in a closet, and the killer took the picture from outside the closet. I’m not even kidding. Check out the posters for A Fall From Grace and Acrimony.

There’s always a cunty ass tagline.

The tagline for Acrimony is “Hell hath no fury”, while the one for A Fall From Grace is “Every woman has a breaking point.” I love these because they sound like the kind of lines Mary Alice Young would use for the closing narration of every Desperate Housewives episode.

Wigs that look like they cost N750.

I’m sure that when the movie premieres, we’ll be gagged by the assortment of hair pieces in it. Tyler Perry never disappoints when it comes to this.
If you read the headline for this article and thought of Jessica Rabbit, you’re wrong. “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” — the movie Jessica is from — is kid-friendly because it’s a live-action movie featuring animated characters, but it isn’t a kids’ movie. I’m talking about female characters from cartoons that were made for kids. Characters like:

1) Miss Bellum (Powerpuff Girls)

There’s no reason why Miss Sara Bellum, the Mayor’s assistant, was this hot. I used to have a thing against skirt suits (I believed they were all ugly and shouldn’t be worn), but Miss Bellum singlehandedly changed my views on them. The added mystery of the show never really revealing her face made her even hotter.

2) Dexter’s Mom (Dexter’s Laboratory)

As far as I’m concerned, Dexter’s mom (who was never given a name) would sashay into every episode of that show in her signature outfit and apron, look into the camera and quietly whisper, “What waist?” I was obsessed.

3) Megara (Hercules)

I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe Meg’s energy when I first saw Hercules, but now I do. Meg was cunty as hell. Legend has it that Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” and the intro to Beyoncé’s “Pure Honey” were written about Meg. Legend also has it that I sometimes lie for comedic effect.

4) Elastigirl (The Incredibles)

Whoever came up with the phrase “Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal” was definitely talking about Elastigirl because GYATT DAMN.

5) Jasmine (Aladdin)

All I’ll say is that Aladdin using almost all of his wishes to impress Jasmine came as no surprise to me. I would’ve done the same thing.

6) Lola Bunny (Space Jam)

Yes, I know she’s a rabbit, but look at her! Why the hell was she so damn hot? Even Warner Bros knew they’d strayed far from God’s light designing her the way they did and putting her in the skimpiest of outfits that they had to tone it down the for the sequel.
The thing about games is that they’re supposed to be entertaining. But somewhere along the line, games became hard. Some became hard because they started reflecting reality too much, and others became hard because people like pain and suffering. These are five games that people keep claiming are fun but aren’t like at all.

1) Chess

All my life, many people have tried to explain the rules of chess to me, and each time, I have been physically unable to listen. Why can some players move about at will, and others can only shuffle sideways like crabs? Why is the queen so cunty? I love my games involving mindless fun, and chess is the opposite of that.

2) Monopoly

The housing market is the worst it has ever been. Word on the street is that many people in this generation will never own a house of their own and will rent until the Grim Reaper cometh for them. Now, why would you want to play an endless game that reminds you of the real-life rent that is kicking your ass and property you’ll never be able to own? Is it fun when you have to mortgage all your properties to pay half of what you owe to the billionaire player who owns everything else?

3) Scrabble

Let me tell you something. If I wanted to spell things, I’d go compete in a spelling bee or just watch Lawrence Fishburne bully a 12-year-old Keke Palmer into learning how to spell “pulchritude”. Don’t stress me out, please.

4) Jenga

Pulling out blocks from an already unstable structure? Jenga is insanely nerve-wracking. Jenga is the shape I imagine my anxiety would take if it could leave my body and fashion a physical form for itself. Weirdly enough, the gameplay is also an accurate representation of my mental health. But that’s another story for another day.
Sure, we’ve all had different lives — that’s the human experience — but as Nigerians growing up in Nigeria, some experiences were damn near universal. Experiences that could be summed up in the following lines.

WARNING: The lines below could potentially give you flashbacks to the nerve-wracking days of your childhood, not unlike the time Xavier mentally transported Magneto back to his childhood as a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp because Magneto was kicking his ass.

In other words, strap in. It’s going to be a wild ride.

1) “Finish your food quick. Your lesson teacher is here.”

2) “We’re going to the hospital to take injection.”

3) “Go and bring your result. Let me see.”

4) “If your note is not complete, come outside.”

5) Your name on the list of noisemakers x38

6) “Rats will eat you alive if you don’t clean your room.”

7) “If I go and look for it and find it there, what should I do to you?”

8) “Eat the food I’ve made or go to sleep hungry.”

9) “Go and wear your slippers and meet me outside.”

10) “I’ll deal with you when I get home.”

11) “You’re resuming boarding school next week.”

12) “It’s time for our weekly movie viewing of Agbara Nla.”

13) “If you don’t go to church, you’ll be left behind when the rapture happens.”

14) Did I not ask you to take the meat out from the freezer?!”

15) “Bring the money. Let me keep it for you.”
The 2010s saw the rise of Nigerian versions of foreign reality shows like Nigerian Idol, The Voice, and that one season of X Factor that no one ever talks about. The 2020s have given way to more chaotic shows like Real Housewives of Lagos, but I suggest we take the madness up several notches by adapting the following shows for Nigeria.

1) Wife Swap

“In the program, two families, usually from different social classes and lifestyles, swap wives/mothers – or sometimes husbands – for two weeks.”

– The show’s premise

Can you imagine the hilarious chaos that would result from a Nigerian version of this? If you can’t, this meme will give you an idea.

2) MILF Manor

“In the show, eight single women between the ages of 40 and 60 live in a villa in Mexico to pursue romantic relationships with eight single men a few decades younger. In the first episode, the show reveals that the men are the women’s sons.”

– The show’s premise

A group of middle-aged single Nigerian women asked to romantically mingle with each other’s sons. I can see that timeline now. Online backlash from conservatives would be through the roof, but so would the ratings and audience numbers. This would also mean that hypocrisy would be at an all-time high.

3) For the Love of DILFs

“An explosive dating show where two groups of gay men (Daddies and Himbos) compete to find love and win a $10,000 investment into their relationship. Hosted by Stormy Daniels.”

– The show’s premise

2010’s unintentionally hilarious Nollywood gay classic, “Men in Love“, worked Nigerians up into a frothy lather, so I assure you that a Nigerian version of “For the Love of DILFs” would straightup cause people to have seizures. After recovering from said seizures, they’d watch it in secret because “everybody is a motherfucking hypocrite, oh.”

4) House of Villains

“Ten of reality television’s most iconic and infamous villains come together and must outsmart, out-manipulate and out-scheme each other through a series of challenges to win a cash prize and the title of America’s Ultimate Supervillain.”

– The show’s premise.

Most Nigerian reality shows don’t produce villains. This means that a Nigerian version of this would most likely be a “Big Brother Naija: Villain All Stars” because God knows enough evil and annoying ass people have been contestants on that show.

5) 90 Day Fiancé

“Four women travel to the US to live with their fiances for the first time using a unique 90-day fiancee visa. At the end of the 90-day trial, each couple must decide whether they want to marry them.”

– The show’s premise

The only thing that could be more unhinged than 90 Day Fiancé’s premise — which is basically just people getting mail-order brides on live televison — would be a Nigerian version of it. I’m still trying to figure out what would make any woman want to come spend time in Nigeria sha.
Once upon a time, an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity trended on the internet. I did the dirty work of actually reading and recapping it. The article was so popular that I decided to make my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To “, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc.) and recap them for your pleasure.

Today, I’ll be recapping “A Weekend to Forget.”

“The reunion of seven friends takes a deadly turn when old tensions resurface, leading to a murder. Trust is shattered, turning friends into enemies, and they must unravel the mystery behind the murder.”

– The movie’s synopsis on Prime Video

The movie starts with a man named Chief Ajasa (Akin Lewis) stepping out of an elevator and lighting a Cuban cigar right in front of a no-smoking sign. This is so you know he’s a villain who doesn’t give a shit about rules.

The movie then cuts to another guy named Asaolu (Francis Onwochei) in a hotel room having a genital meet & greet with an unnamed girl. He’s so engrossed in his genital bump session that he doesn’t notice two enormous men dressed in all black enter the room.

By the time he notices, it’s too late. The enormous men grab him by his boobs and toss him around.

Chief Ajasa has orchestrated this. He’s pissed because Asaolu was supposed to give him a business contract but gave it to someone else. So he’s decided to retaliate by doing this:

I haven’t been more gagged by the opening of anything since Game of Thrones‘ pilot episode hit viewers with the insane combo of incest and child murder.

After a title card, we meet Chief Ajasa’s daughter, Lisa (Uche Montana), a popular vlogger (?), and her boyfriend, Bem (Neo Akpofure). Bem has come to pick Lisa up so they can go on a weekend trip with a few of their friends. Chief Ajasa is there to say goodbye to Lisa when he notices the car Bem arrived in and is like:

Chief Ajasa suggests they take his SUV since he doesn’t like the idea of his precious daughter riding in Bem’s rickety ass car. Bem and Lisa agree to this and immediately get in and drive off.

Next, we meet Tito (Stan Nze) and Nodal (Erica Nlewedim). Tito is the newest Nollywood star on the scene, and Ndali is his manager/girlfriend. When the movie introduces them, they’re at a product placement photoshoot for Lord’s dry gin, and Tito is showing more boob than a horny teenager in a low-budget slasher film.

Can my fellow Ayesha Erotica fans in the house MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

When the photoshoot is done, Tito and Ndali head out for the weekend trip.

Next we meet Shima (Daniel Etim Effiong) and Layo (Ini Dima-Okojie). They’re married, and their childlessness is an ever-present elephant in the room because Layo wants one, but Shima kinda doesn’t. In their first scene, Layo has just gotten off a phone call with her mother.

Lastly, we meet Ferdinand (Elozonam Ogbolu), Bem’s cousin and wealthy playboy who has planned this weekend trip. Ferdinand welcomes everyone to the house he’s rented for them to party in, dressed in a cunty ass bathrobe.

There’s some tension in the group when everyone finds out Bem is coming. Shima especially makes it clear that he hates Bem’s guts.

Ferdinand takes them on a tour of the house and describes it like it’s about to be Wolf of Wall Street/The Great Gatsby levels of partying up in there, but it’s just a regular Airbnb with a few bottles of alcohol on the centre table.

What follows is an almost three-minute sequence of the most boring partying I have ever seen. The way it’s filmed is even weirder, soundtracked by KCee’s Ojapiano and with enough slow motion to shock Zack Snyder. There is one excellent shot of Ferdinand drinking champagne underwater, so I’ll just post that.

Later that day, Lisa is in the kitchen getting a bottle of water when Shima walks in and asks her how she’s been. It’s revealed that Shima is a lying bastard who dated Lisa for eight months and then ghosted her…while still married to Layo. Shima tries to gaslight her by saying:

And Lisa responds by gagging him.

She then reveals that she’s pregnant by showing him a picture of a positive pregnancy test kit.

And she threatens to tell Layo.

In the next scene, Lisa notices a giant butterfly tramp stamp on Tito’s lower back. She immediately recognises him as Jay Rocker, a famous pornstar from Xvideos, and even says she has one of his videos saved on her phone. Tito denies this with all the energy of Michael Jackson denying the plastic surgery allegations and storms off. He informs Ndali that he’s about to be exposed, and she promises to handle it.

She threatens Lisa with a defamation suit, and their interaction goes like this.

Not long after this, this happens:

~~Sizwe Bansi~~ Lisa is dead. Layo, who is a doctor, checks the body and says it’s murder. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We’re in a classic whodunit.

Things get messy as hell from here.

Tito decides to leave because he can’t have his rising star extinguished by being involved in such a scandal. Bem locks the doors and screams that none of them can leave until they figure out who murdered Lisa because he will not be suffering the wrath of Chief Ajasa by himself.

Remember Chief Ajasa? It seemed like he would be a big part of this movie, huh?

Anyway, Tito tries to fight Bem for the keys but gives up when Bem retaliates by slashing Tito’s arm with a knife.

While Layo helps treat Tito’s wound, Ndali steals Lisa’s phone so she can delete Tito’s videos.

Let’s talk about this pornstar subplot for a bit.

If Lisa didn’t recognise Tito’s face when she met him for the first time and used the butterfly tattoo to clock him, that means Tito doesn’t show his face in any of the porn videos he made. This also means that Lisa’s death lets him off the hook because she was the only one who knew.

Another thing is Lisa stated she downloaded the video from XVideos, which means that all Titos videos are pretty much on every free porn site already.

So why is Ndali still trying to delete the video?

Shima is looking for bandages to help with Tito’s wound when he finds a positive pregnancy test kit in Layo’s box. He assumes it’s the one Lisa showed him a picture of and that Layo knows of his affair. So he goes to the living room and confesses to her in front of everyone. It turns out that Layo had no idea, and the pregnancy test is hers. She was going to surprise him with the news later. She’s pregnant, which is cool, but she also just found out her husband be cheating, so damn.

Bem sees this as a motive for Shima to have murdered Lisa, but Shima insists he was in his room with Layo, and she backs him up. Ferdinand asks Bem to relax, and Bem replies by throwing accusations Ferdinand’s way. Ferdinand asks what his motive is, and Bem says:

Ferdinand is like:

And he’s right. Bem throws his accusation as if Lisa knew about it and was going to expose Ferdinand. But we never know if she did because the movie never establishes this.

Shima, Tito, and Ferdinand are plotting to pin the murder on Bem when an alarm on Lisa’s phone goes off, and the phone is found in Tito’s pocket. Bem brandishes his knife at Tito, demanding to know why Tito has Lisa’s phone, so Tito confesses that he used to do porn before he became famous. There’s an unintentionally funny scene where Bem unlocks Lisa’s phone, and the first thing that pops up is the porn video. Bem somehow recognises Tito in the video — even though no one’s face is showing — and recoils in horror.

Because how does he know it’s Tito if he’s not a fan?

Knowing that he looks guilty as hell, Tito tries to pin the murder on Ndali. And boy, is she pissed when she finds out.

Layo and Ndali later find the murder weapon in Bem’s closet.

After a quick fight to subdue Bem, who kicks all of their asses, Ndali knocks Bem out with a vase. They all decide to pin the murder on him and toss him in the pool to die for some reason. Bem wakes up after landing in the pool, but all the guys hold him under until he drowns in the worst death scene since Talia Al Ghul’s in The Dark Knight Rises.

They place Bem and Lisa in the driver and passenger seats, respectively and roll the car into a ditch, making it look like they both died in an accident. They then clean the house and leave the following day, promising each other never to speak of the weekend’s events. Ndali also breaks up with Tito and drops him as her client.

When Shima and Layo get home, Shima finds a necklace with an L-shaped pendant in his car. He remembers giving it to Lisa while they were dating and suspects Layo is the killer. He confronts her when they’re both in the house, and she’s like:

Layo explains that she didn’t plan the murder but was driven to madness after confronting Lisa and finding out about the pregnancy. Shima can’t expose Layo because she’s now carrying his child. So the movie ends just like Gone Girl did.

Chief Ajasa sashays back into the movie’s plot and has his men find the car containing Bem and Lisa’s bodies. Then we get this:
This one goes out to the people who won the genetic lottery with one or more physical features and have now refused to let us hear word because those features are now desirable and have been declared the standard of beauty by society.

1) Blue Eyes

People with blue eyes stare at you with the intensity of the sun as if they’re trying to burrow into your soul and extract your deepest, darkest secrets. They’ll keep doing this until you mention their eye colour; at this point, they’ll blink and break the hypnosis that began with the conversation.

2) Dimples

There’s nothing funnier than watching someone who has the faintest hint of a dimple take a picture while doing all they can to make sure the dimple shows, not unlike the guy in the picture above. I’m always concerned for them because it’s like if you squeeze your muscles any further, you’re gonna shit yourself.

3) Cheekbones

It’s nice that your cheekbones are sitting high and pretty, but do you have to mention them in the caption of every picture you post? Any small thing, “#Sunkissed #ModelFace #CheekBonesSharpAsHell #AngelineJolieHasNothingOnMe #IWasTheBluePrintForMichaelaCoelsCheekBoneSurgery”. Please rest.

4) Long legs

You have long legs. We get it. Also, do you know that taking your pictures from below to make your legs look even longer makes you look like the giant from Giant and the Beanstalk? You didn’t know? Well, now you do.
Anyone who attempts to start a discourse on any of these topics in 2023 will be doxxed, found, beaten, shamed in the town square on the busiest market day, and banished into the evil forest to find your remaining brain cells.

You’ve been warned.

I feel like this topic has been the subject of debate for so long I can imagine Neanderthals arguing about this around a fire in their caves. The fact that it’s still being discussed now is fucking insane. If it means that much to you, split the bill or pay for what you ordered.

“When did you know your friend actually hated you?” “When did you know you were being cheated on?” “What are the signs of a dying relationship?” “Tell me how you found out your partner was doing wash put for you.” What are you? A demon who feeds on people’s sadness??

“If you make N40k per month, your wife makes N60m per month, and y’alls rent is N1m, who should pay the rent?” “If both of you go to work at 6 am and get back at 7 pm, who should cook dinner?” If your wife makes more than you, would you tell her to take a pay cut or banish her to live under a bridge forever?” GET A FUCKING HOBBY!

This movie came out six years ago and had an 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It is not a good enough movie to still be debating stupid ass plot points after all this time. Who was wrong? Tyler Perry was wrong for making this shit.
Once upon a time, an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity trended on the internet. I did the dirty work of actually reading and recapping it. The article was so popular that I decided to make my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To “, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc.) and recap them for your pleasure.

“The reason one of the taglines for “Saltburn” is “We’re all about to lose our minds” is because that’s exactly what happened to me when I watched these sex scenes from the movie.”

– Me (2023)

If you haven’t seen “Saltburn”, you probably already know what it’s about. Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a student at Oxford on a scholarship, becomes obsessed with Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), a wealthy and charismatic classmate of his, and proceeds to infiltrate his life, a task that becomes easier for Oliver when Felix invites him to spend the summer at his family’s sprawling estate named Saltburn.

Oliver eventually succeeds by engaging in insane levels of lying and scheming. He also does some things that can only be described as fucking unhinged. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the things I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you’ve seen posts on social media about them. Those scenes are what we’ll be going over today.

The One With The Cum-Flavoured Bathwater

So we’re like forty minutes into the movie at this point, and out of pity, Felix has invited Oliver to spend the summer holiday with him and his family at their estate. Felix and Oliver are staying in adjoining rooms and share a bathroom. One night, Oliver peeps through the bathroom door on his end and finds Felix beating the shit out of his meat in the bathtub.

Oliver finds this hot as hell.

So after Felix sprays his man seed in the bathwater and leaves the bathroom, Oliver has an idea.

He climbs into the bathtub and rubs his face in Felix’s cum-flavoured bathwater.

Just when you think the scene is over, Oliver takes it up a notch by sticking his tongue down the bathtub drain and slurping up what’s left of the cum-flavoured bathwater.

The One With Period Blood

As soon as Oliver arrives at Felix’s family’s estate, Venetia (Alison Oliver), Felix’s sister, takes a weird liking to him. She parades the estate grounds in a see-through nightgown in view of Oliver’s room window, hoping to get his attention, and she does. He comes down to meet her, and after a sexually charged conversation, he says he wants to eat her hairy snail. Venetia isn’t against it but points out that she’s on her period. This doesn’t deter Oliver at all. He looks at her and says…

And proceeds to eat her out, looking like Beelzebub from “End of the Wicked” in the process.

Oliver also feeds her the period blood in what I assume is a kinky display of their power dynamic, but I won’t show you that because I hope to make heaven someday.

The One With The Non-Consensual Genital Meet & Greet

Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), Fexlix’s cousin and classmate at Oxford, is super suspicious of Oliver when Fexlis starts hanging out with him. Farleigh also lives at Felix’s family’s estate and hates that Oliver will be spending the summer there, so he keeps doing things to prove Oliver is a creep, including reporting Oliver to Felix for eating Venetia’s ponmo. Oliver doesn’t like this, so he sneaks into Farleigh’s room one night and straddles him.

Farleigh tries to move, but Oliver holds him with his thighs. He tells Farleigh he doesn’t like how Farleigh’s been acting, asking him to behave. Farleigh responds by saying no twice but says yes the third time. Then Oliver does this…

…and pleasures Farleigh either by handjob or anal sex. The scene is shot in a way that doesn’t make it clear.

The One With Graveyard Sex

This one has a kind of a long setup, but stay with me.

Throughout the movie, Oliver tells Felix (and the Catton family) details about his home life. He says both his parents are poor drug addicts and that his father recently died of an overdose. Felix’s pity for Oliver is why he invites Oliver to stay at his family’s estate over the summer. On Oliver’s birthday, Felix surprises Oliver by driving him to see his mom. What Felix meets is not what he expected: Oliver’s father is alive, his parents are not drug dealers, and they live in a respectable middle-class suburb. Felix is horrified by Oliver’s lies, telling him to fuck off. Felix is found dead the following day.

After Felix’s funeral, Oliver goes to Felix’s grave, lies on it, and cries. This goes on for a while, and you start to feel bad for him until he…

…and starts dry-humping the fresh soil on the grave!

All this happens in the rain, by the way.

Bonus Entry: The Finale

It’s not a sex scene but involves nudity, so I’m throwing it in here. By the movie’s end, Oliver is now the sole owner of Saltburn and the Catton family fortune. How did he do this? By all that lying and scheming I mentioned earlier. Let’s go over it.

He orchestrated the incident that led to him and Felix meeting and poisoned Felix’s drink to avoid being exposed for his lies to the rest of the Catton family. He set Farleigh up for theft, causing the Catton family to kick him out of the house. He orchestrates Venetia’s suicide by suggesting it to her while she’s in the bathtub and leaves razors nearby. Felix’s father, James (Richard E. Grant), dies of a broken heart not long after Venetia’s death, so Felix’s mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), who has taken a liking to Oliver, asks him to live with her permanently.

Elspeth becomes fatally ill a few months later. As she’s on her deathbed, after putting Oliver as the sole heir to the Catton fortune, he reveals to her his role in the series of unfortunate events that have happened to her family. He turns off her ventilator and watches her die. Then he proceeds to do cocaine and dance naked around the mansion — swinging his actual penis, not a prosthetic — to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor.”

THE END
You know what’s more insane than the fact that 2024 started on a Monday? The fact that many places of work demanded their employees to return to work the very next day. There has never been a stronger argument for the dismantling of capitalism and the destruction of society as we know it to return to the hunter/gatherer era.

Anyway, If you’ve returned to work after the holidays, re-energised with a fresh hatred for your job or the concept of having to work to not starve to death, these are the stages you have to go through before you find inner peace. That’s until January next year, when you have to do all this again.

1) Denial

You can’t believe the holidays are over. You’re not even entirely sure if they happened. All you remember is ending work for the year one day, and now you’re returning to work with an empty bank account because you blew through your December salary doing Detty December.

2) Intense despair

Despair has you by the neck because you know it’s time to your life’s regular programming, which is pretty much work, traffic, work, worry, work, the occasional malaria, work, looking for what to eat, work…

3) Anger

You will flip tables while asking out loud to no one in particular why humans have to work to survive, how you didn’t ask for any of this because you didn’t even ask to be life, and how you wish you were a house cat so all you would do is meow meow all day and not have to worry about paying bills.

4) Optimism

You stop to think that even though your job sucks donkey balls, there are still some bright sides. Like your coworkers that you like. Or that…I legit can’t think of anything else, so I’m just going to move to the next point.

5) Despair again.

Because truly, what and why the fuck?!

6) Acceptance

Capitalism always wins, and baby, there’s NOTHING you can do about it. Now get to work before your boss catches you reading this.
While it would be funny as hell to find out that a famous CEO has been living a double life and dropping it low in music videos as a side hustle, I don’t mean “video vixen” in that sense. I mean a CEO who, alongside their CEO-ey duties, LOVES to appear in videos. If the company makes a video, regardless of what it’s about, that CEO will somehow weasel their way into it.

Like our CEO, for example.

If you’ve been blessed or cursed with such a CEO, here’s how you handle them.

1) Create opportunities for them.

If you’re on the social media team, include videos starring employees on your content calendar so your CEO can be in them. They’re going to make you do it anyway if you don’t, so you might as well be proactive and have it be your idea. Speaking of having it be your idea…

2) “Convince” them to appear in videos.

The thing about video vixen CEOs is that even though their desire is clear to everyone, they still try to act reluctant when the opportunity for a video appearance comes along. So you have to indulge them by “convincing” them to be in. They’ll pretend to be busy or uninterested but will definitely be present the second the camera starts recording.

3) Hype them.

No matter how they do in the video, gag like it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen. Gag harder than African kings did when European slave traders showed them mirrors for the first time. Gag harder than the ancient Egyptian gays did when Queen Cleopatra debuted her sickening bob for the first time. Gag harder than that one okpa seller did when Jesus walked into the temple and whooped her ass for conducting business in the house of God.

4) Support

Watch. Like. Follow. Retweet. Subscribe. Show it to anyone you think would be interested in the video’s subject matter. When you’re done with that, show it to people you know won’t be interested because your CEO wants as many eyes as possible on this video. Their interests be damned.

5) Come to the realisation that you’ve created a fame monster because once you’ve given your video vixen CEO a taste of stardom, they will want more.

Damn.

Here’s the first episode of our CEO’s show, by the way.
Once upon a time, an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity trended on the internet. I did the dirty work of actually reading and recapping it. The article was so popular that I decided to make my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To “, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc.) and recap them for your pleasure.

“Timi, a gifted clergyman, turns into an old lonely curmudgeon when his family is tragically taken from him. Until Elijah, a humble man with big dreams of becoming a priest, comes into his life. Through Elijah, Timi learns to live again and realises the purpose for all his gifts and wealth.”

– The movie’s synopsis from Prime Video

The movie starts with a CGI scene set in the year 2060. We see an older man in a wheelchair and a woman behind him at a graveyard, staring at a group of holographic tombstones.

I’m excited because I think the movie is set in the future. My excitement disappears when the film takes us back to 1953 and begins a round of narration so fucking long it would give the Cinema Sins guy several heart attacks.

I’m not even kidding. I thought the narrator was there to set the scene and then leave, but he’s a major presence in the movie for at least ONE HOUR.

The narration covers a shit ton of back story for a man named Timi — who the narrator refers to as his father — so I’ll do my best to speed through it.

Timi (Ademola Adedoyin) is an exceptional young Nigerian who is smart and can fluently speak 16 languages. He also has what I can only describe as mutant lungs and can stay underwater without coming up for long periods. The longest amount of time he’s done this for is 57 minutes.

The fact that the American government doesn’t kidnap and run tests on him after this feat is further proof that this movie is taking place in a whole other timeline.

Timi becomes a reverend and marries a woman named Bridget (Eku Edewor).

If you can’t tell, I have an enormous crush on Eku Edewor.

Tragedy strikes when Timi and his daughter are at a carnival and witness a murder committed by a notorious thug hilariously named Baby Fire. Baby Fire is inexplicably wearing the worst-looking civil servant wig you’ve ever seen. Gaze upon it.

Timi agrees to snitch on Baby Fire in court, hoping they can finally put him in jail, but Baby Fire has some powerful white friends and is acquitted. Baby Fire, eager to show Timi that snitches get stitches and end up in ditches, gets back at Timi by kidnapping Timi’s wife and daughter and setting them on fire right in front of him.

After grieving for nine straight days without moving from the spot where his wife and daughter were barbecued, Timi decides to take matters into his own hands since God won’t. He kills Baby Fire and sets Baby Fire’s house on fire to cover his tracks. He then abandons the clergy life, closes down the church, and tries to kill himself in many ways — including drinking a jumbo-sized tub of bleach.

None of the suicide attempts work because God doesn’t want him dead yet (?) Anyway, decades pass, and Timi has aged into a whole other actor.

For those who don’t know, “The Legend of Gatuso” is an unintentionally hilarious and terribly made Nollywood rip-off “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” How THEE Wale Ojo ended up in it will always be one of life’s greatest mysteries. Here’s the movie’s poster.

Look at him posing! Sjdjdhfsjkhfdjhs!

Let’s get back to “Breath of Life.”

Timi has become a grumpy, impatient recluse who’s looking to hire a house manager but can’t stop, won’t stop shooting at the applicants when they annoy him.

Elijah (Chimezie Imo), the movie’s narrator and fresh-eyed Jesus baby, sashays into the movie’s plot. Elijah is here to apply for the position of House Manager and wanders into the house without knocking. Timi asks who the hell Elijah is, triggering Elijah’s asthma.

After a Looney Tunes-style sequence where Timi hires Elijah on the spot and proceeds to make Elijah fry eggs a hundred times until he gets it the way Timi likes, Elijah decides to start a weekly bible study group at the old abandoned church. He knows Timi hates everything related to God and religion, so he holds the bible study during Timi’s siesta times. While sharing flyers at the local hospital to raise awareness for the bible study, he spots a volunteer nurse named Anna (Geneveva Umeh). You can guess what happens next.

Eager to get Anna’s attention but knowing he has no rizz, Elijah emotionally manipulates the hospital’s patients into getting Anna to attend bible study. It works, and Anna shows up at the church after one of the meetings to talk to him. When he tries to reply to her, this happens.

He has his inhaler with him, though, so all’s good. They bond as he walks her home, and they pretty much start dating. Months pass, and they’re at the point where they’re doing this during bible study meetings:

Things are going well until Timi finds out Elijah has been having bible studies behind his back.

Timi threatens to fire Elijah. Elijah begs, and Timi changes his mind. A lot of nothing happens. There’s a touching scene where Timi watches old home movies starring his now-dead wife and daughter. Things take a turn for the unintentionally hilarious when young Timi shows up in a frame of the home movie he’s watching, holding the camera that’s supposed to be recording the film.

At some point, Timi and Elijah bond over reading.

Meanwhile, Anna decides that she MUST meet Timi for some reason. Against Elijah’s wishes, Anna shows up at Timi’s house. Timi has no idea who she is and is like:

Anna refuses to take no for an answer and knocks again. This time, Timi comes out with a gun, causing her to fall like a horror movie final girl and cut her leg. He takes pity on her and brings her in to treat her wound. Elijah returns from a grocery run to see this and dramatically drops a crate of eggs. Anna begins coming to the house more, and Timi is first upset by it.

Then just doesn’t give a shit.

Anna invites Elijah to meet her RICH ASS parents. Her mother, Mrs Okonkwo (Ashionye Michelle-Raccah), is sweet and welcoming but becomes uncomfortable when she finds out that Elijah is the one running the town bible study. We soon find out why when Anna’s father, Mr Okonkwo (Sam Dede), comes in and turns out to be a guy who wants to buy the church to tear it down and build a hotel. Mr Okonkwo asks Elijah to get out of his house. Elijah discovers that to save the church, he has to come up with N49 million.

Yes, this movie has suddenly become a “we have to raise money to save the rec centre ” type of thing. Anna tries to get Mr Timi to pay the money in the most entitled way possible.

Timi comes up with a way for them to save the church. It has something to do with colonial land rights. I don’t know. You think the movie is about to end when Elijah has another asthma attack, just as he and Anna are about to bump genitals.

Elijah is taken to the hospital, and it’s revealed that what he thought was asthma was actually his lungs failing. To survive, he’ll need lung transplants. Timi and Anna sit over a plate of unseasoned eggs to cry.

Then Timi decides to legally adopt Elijah, also willing his fortune and donating his mutant lungs to him. He decides that this is the reason God didn’t let him die from his suicide attempts.

The lung transplant is successful, and this happens:

Elijah reopens the church and marries Anna. And the movie ends with him taking his new lungs for a spin.

THE END
Funke Akindele’s latest cinematic offering, “A Tribe Called Judah”, is smashing box office records across West Africa. The comedy-drama has grossed over N600 million in just two weeks, and predictions say it might get to N1 billion.

I’m not surprised because I saw the movie last night and had a hell of a time. The film lived up to its blended genre by making me laugh one second and reducing me to tears the next. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s worth the hype.

That being said, I have lingering questions about specific plot points. There will be spoilers, so beware.

1) How did the Judah children learn their languages?

Even though the Judah children are from different Nigerian tribes (a joke about it is made early on), they all know the languages of their fathers. They can also seemingly understand bits and pieces of each other’s languages. It’s a thing that’s never explicitly referenced, and I fucking love it because this is what real life should be. A Nigeria without tribalism? Sign me up!

2) When Jedidah confiscates the money that Ejiro and his hilariously named girlfriend, Testimony, get from pretending to be blind beggars, why didn’t she use it for the family?

From what I gathered, the Judah family was poor as shit, so why didn’t Jedidah use the money for the entire family’s upkeep instead of giving it away to her best friend?

3) Why was a costume party happening at a mall?

It’s clear that Funke Akindele’s movie production company had some agreement with the mall to let them shoot there in return for promotion, and that’s why the mall is used as the location for the movie’s most important sequence. But a costume party? At a mall? Why? I’m not complaining about the choice of the event because the costumes were funny as hell (Ejiro’s costume killed me), but the location snapped me back to reality.

4) Why did the other group of robbers have digital masks?

I know I asked the question, but I’m going to pull a split personality and answer it. They had digital masks because it was COOL AS HELL. Bitch! Did you see the establishing shot of the entire group entering the mall? Did you see the scene where one of them hears a suspicious noise close by, and their digital eyes dart from side to side?? It’s like I always say: You can’t rob a mall if you ain’t serving cunt.

5) What did they do with Emeka’s body?

I know they were on the run, but I want to know what they did with Emeka’s body because I don’t imagine they just tossed it wherever. I wish we had gotten an explanation, even if it was a throwaway line.

6) Why did they abandon Grandma like that?

Imagine grandma’s shock and confusion when she returns to the hospital from buying food and just finds her daughter gone. Grandma was their ride-or-die. They didn’t have to do her dirty like that.

“A Tribe Called Judah” is in cinemas. Go see it and thank us later.
On Christmas Eve, 2023, a group of armed bandits killed over a hundred people in Plateau State, Nigeria. The killings took place across five separate attacks in Ruku, Hurum, Darwat, Mai Yanga Sabo and NTV villages in Gashish and Ropp districts of Barkin Ladi of local government in Plateau State.

The bandits also set houses and property on fire while looting farm produce and slaughtering the citizens.

“As many as 113 persons have been confirmed killed as Saturday hostilities persisted to early hours of Monday. Military gangs, locally called “bandits”, launched “well-coordinated” attacks in “not fewer than 20 different communities. We found more than 300 wounded people” who were transferred to hospitals in Bokkos, Jos and Barkin Ladi.” Monday Kassah, head of the local government in Bokkos, Plateau State, told AFP.

The current death toll marks a sharp rise from the number initially reported by the Nigerian military on Sunday, the 24th of December, 2023.

Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang has condemned the violence as “barbaric, brutal, and unjustified.” He also said that measures will be taken by the government to protect citizens from attacks such as this.

Northwest and central Nigeria have been terrorised for years by masked armed bandits operating from bases deep in the forest, raiding villages to kill, loot, and kidnap residents for ransom.

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Let’s face it: the Christmas carols we’ve come to know and love as Nigerians don’t cover scenarios that apply to us. For example, here are the lyrics in the first of Jingle Bells, one of the most famous Christmas carols ever.

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bobtails ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight

What does all this mean? We don’t even have snow.

We need Christmas carols that cover relatable scenarios that pretty much every Nigerian can relate to. Scenarios like:

Happy holidays, folks!
I know you think the IJGBs have been around for about a month and that if you were going to snag one, you would’ve already, so time has run out.

Well, perish that thought. Time may be running out, but it hasn’t run out yet. You still have the chance to snag your very own IJGB. But only if you follow the instructions I’m about to lay out. Pay attention, people.

1) Dress the part.

Ladies and gents. Detty December is a viciously competitive period. Everyone and their mama is looking for an IJGB to rock the town with, so you must stand out by dressing for the part. Do a wardrobe overhaul and replace every item of clothing you own with the sluttiest clothes you can find on this side of Allen Avenue. It’s like they say: dress for the job you want.

2) Track them down.

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. I don’t understand why whoever came up with this said it like there was the possibility of the mountain going to meet a human, but that’s a story for another day. My point is that these IJGBs won’t come to you, so you have to do your best Joe Goldberg impersonation — complete with witty inner monologue — and track them down. You can find them at raves, house parties, concerts, overpriced restaurants, and traffic.

3) When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

To quote my homeboy, Kunle Ologunro: “You want to bam ba? You want to chill with the big boys? Okay nau. Just buy your running shoes ready because you will definitely run kiti kiti when the time comes.”

Sometimes, IJGBs will engage in certain activities that you may find…less than reputable. Like recreational drug use. Now that you’ve made your way into their circle, you can’t do anything to make them suspicious of you, like judging them with your eyes when they whip out crystal meth. Do what you will with this information.

4) Keep up.

IJGBs like to move around. Keep up. Enough said.

5) Do jazz.

As I mentioned earlier, the competition is fierce, and you need all the help you can get. Get into your old Nollywood bag and trap someone’s spirit in a groundnut bottle. You can release them when the holidays end, and you need to return to your everyday life.

Good luck. And may the odds be ever in your favour.
If you’re struggling to work up some holiday cheer because the stress of adulthood has you in a chokehold and not the sexy kind, binge-watching your favourite sitcom Christmas episodes can help save you from that not-so-loving embrace.

So I’m here today to suggest some for you. Because all I want for Christmas is for you to catch a fucking break and relax a little. You’ve earned it.

Friends (Season 6, Episode 10: The One With The Routine):

In this episode, Ross and Monica get invited to a taping of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. While there, they attempt to steal the show with a dance routine from their childhood. Joey spends the entire episode trying to get his new roommate, Janine, to suck face with him while Rachel, Phoebe, and Chandler snoop around the apartment to get a peek at the gifts Monica got for them.

Modern Family (Season 3, Episode 10: Express Christmas):

The Pritchett clan realises that their individual family plans won’t let them spend the holidays together for the first time, so Phil suggests they try something called Express Christmas, a way for them to celebrate Christmas together before the actual day comes.

Phil divides them into groups. Mitchell and Alex (along with Lily) are given the responsibility of finding the perfect Christmas tree, Claire and Haley are in charge of buying last-minute gifts, and Jay and Cameron are in charge of wrapping them. Meanwhile, Gloria and Luke go to find the angel ornament for the top of the tree.

As you can guess, chaos ensues, and the entire plan fails miserably.

How I Met Your Mother (Season 2, Episode 11: How Lily Stole Christmas):

Lily is hard at work making the apartment into a winter wonderland. While decorating, she finds an old answering machine containing messages Ted sent to Marshall while she and Marshall were broken up. In the messages, Ted calls her a litany of hilariously ungodly insults. Lily is so furious she rips the decorations down, ignores Ted’s apology and declares Christmas cancelled. It takes Marshall’s intervention to calm her down.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 2, Episode 11: The Bath Gift Item Hypothesis)

Sheldon challenges himself to get Penny the perfect Christmas gift and almost has a meltdown because his big brain can’t figure out what to get. His near nervous breakdown accounts for much of the episode’s laughs, and what finally calms him down is when Penny reveals the gift she’s gotten him: a signed napkin from Star Trek legend Leonard Nimoy. Sheldon is ecstatic. He exclaims that it’s the best gift he’s ever gotten and gives Penny a hug in a rare display of emotion.

The Office (Season 8, Episode 10: Christmas Wishes):

Dunder Mifflin’s new leader, Andy, is eager to please his new employees and sets out to fulfil their holiday wishes. Even though a lot of the employees’ wishes are downright dangerous, Andy gives in any way because he’d rather do sketchy shit than not be liked. Among some of the insane stuff he does is buy Dwight an acre of property on the moon and give Meredith permission to drink unholy levels of alcohol, even going as far as offering himself as her designated driver. This is also the show’s first Christmas episode without Michael Scott.

Merry Christmas and happy bingeing in advance, folks!